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Grip presure


Sac Law Man

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When gripping a pistol, we have all heard 60-40 strong/weak hand pressure,, or grip as hard as you can with the weak or support hand.  I have also seen others say apply pressure into the grip as if you were crushing walnuts with your palms. Last, I recently read apply pressure front to back with the strong hand and into the side of grip with the support hand. My question is do any of you guys consciously apply pressure inward towards the grip?  What works for you?

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Yes, I press the side of the grip with my support hand, but after many ,many years of shooting both tactically in the military and training LEOs, along with competitive shooting I have come to realize it depends on the actual gun you are shooting; when shooting my all-steel 2011 I noticed that I could run a less firm grip on fast short to mid-range targets but still had to have a solid grip for long shots; now when I shot IDPA with my M&P Pro in 9mm, I really have to bear down with my left/support hand for all mid to long shots and have a consistently strong but even grip for short range targets also; here is the reason why- you can talk about all these different grip techniques until you are blue in the face, but reality is, depending on what your side your strong hand is (mine if my right hand) when shooting a gun with a plastic frame, (unless you have meat hooks for hands) you must bear down with your support hand, because.... you are naturally going to grip stronger with your strong hand, its the way we are as human beings, are strong hands are called just that for a reason!!!

So under stress you will naturally grip stronger with the strong hand, and you have to compensate that by gripping what I call 85/15 grip; I put as much pressure with my support hand as I can which is about 85%, and as little pressure as I can without losing control with my strong hand, that tends to allow my hits to be center mass a majority of the time and trust me, I have tested his numerous times, when I grip evenly with my M&P, my long shots are ALWAYS to the left side of the target, when I use my 85/15 method, the shots are almost always (97%, sometimes you just pull a shot now and then, which I can usually call, but that's another conversation) center mass in the zero down circle or A zone, depending on which targets I'm using. Now, the key here is I have to consciously tell myself during my walk-thru were I will be gripping STRONG and were I will be gripping more evenly, THIS IS KEY. You can program yourself to do this, its done all the time at high levels of shooting.

Off-hand or support hand shooting is a different game entirely, so you will have to practice your grip for that differently, I can tell you I grip my guns in single hand shooting as solid as I can without pushing the gun off target and I use a good index set-up on the targets. You will also need to practice transitioning because its different when shooting off-hand, I always transition toward the center of my body (if possible based on stage design) because that is stronger then transitioning away from center, i.e. if shooting with right hand, my transition from target to target is right to left, and its opposite if shooting with my left hand. Hope this helps, let me know how it works our for you, and you will need to practice it! and don't let the people who say this has already been answered bother you; if that was true, then we wouldn't need all of the instructors out there teaching this stuff over and over again.

BTW, here are my creds: plank holder with the Small Arms Readiness Group, the USAR version of the US Army AMU; former US-ARNG State Combat Rifle Champion; former USAR Service Rifle Developmental Team member; classified Expert in NRA Service Rifle; Classified Master in IDPA and classified A class in USPSA/IPSC. Member of the US National IPSC Team/Senior Std. Team for 2011 World Shoot; Once I shoot for my steel classification, I'll probably make Master there but my time has been slim this year as I am also still serving in the USAR as a Command Sergeant Major, 38 years and counting, and I have two grandsons that take up a lot of my time. see you on the range!!

Edited by MQW
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my right (dominant) hand is smearing along the right half of the gun and the heel of my hand and fingers are squeezing front/back or fore/aft as hard as it can and still work the trigger. My left hand is using my fleshy part of the thumb "drumstick" to fill the gap between tips of right hand fingers and thumb wrapping around the grip. Thumbs forward in tandem. Left fingers and squeezing transversely, side to side, as hard as absolutely hard as I can without having conscious thought about it while shooting.

All I care about is holding the gun in such a way it is a stable platform for the sights when I pull the trigger and that it goes right back to where I started after each shot. My hands are red, calloused and have marks from the gun and grips on them after each and every run.

When I shot a Glock I used a pretty Vogel-esque grip with everything I was doing crushing the gun into a singularity at the center of it. Support hand out forward on the trigger guard, elbows super high, ect.

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On 11/02/2016 at 4:25 PM, rowdyb said:

my right (dominant) hand is smearing along the right half of the gun and the heel of my hand and fingers are squeezing front/back or fore/aft as hard as it can and still work the trigger. My left hand is using my fleshy part of the thumb "drumstick" to fill the gap between tips of right hand fingers and thumb wrapping around the grip. Thumbs forward in tandem. Left fingers and squeezing transversely, side to side, as hard as absolutely hard as I can without having conscious thought about it while shooting.

All I care about is holding the gun in such a way it is a stable platform for the sights when I pull the trigger and that it goes right back to where I started after each shot. My hands are red, calloused and have marks from the gun and grips on them after each and every run.

When I shot a Glock I used a pretty Vogel-esque grip with everything I was doing crushing the gun into a singularity at the center of it. Support hand out forward on the trigger guard, elbows super high, ect.

Dang! Can you use less grip strength and crush some coal into diamonds for me??

 

I need to grip harder. 

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Grip it hard.  Lessen your strong hand grip only enough that your trigger finger in unaffected.  This tends to mean that your weak hand is gripping harder.  You should be able to break shots without disturbing the sights even with a good hard grip.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I use other parts of my aging creaky body, other than just the hands, more and more.

Incorporating chest, upper arms, shoulders and forearms in the mix has really helped without over stressing already painful hands and wrists.

The technique doesn't seem to get mentioned much, though.

But there are youtube videos explaining it.

 

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2 minutes ago, lancejoshlin said:

my grip is about like holding a hammer. I've tried crushing the pistol, and gripping like holding a hammer when you hammer and videoed the results both ways, and I shoot just as flat with less energy expended and less tremors from overgripping.

I'd like to see that comparison video. Were you using a fast enough camera to actually see the recoil in action? It sounds like you're trying to say that you don't think grip pressure has any impact on recoil management. I think you're going to have a hard time finding good shooters that agree with you.

Conserving energy is not something I am trying to do while shooting a stage. As far as tremors from gripping too hard, improving grip strength will help substantially with that since you won't have to squeeze with the same intensity to produce the force you're looking for.

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I use a pretty high, pretty forward grip, and have decent sized hands. I'm sure that mechanical advantage has something to do with it. Also, regardless of how much muzzle lift I get, the most important part is whether or not your sights drop back down where you want them to, and if you are able to get them back where they need to be quickly.

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4 minutes ago, lancejoshlin said:

I use a pretty high, pretty forward grip, and have decent sized hands. I'm sure that mechanical advantage has something to do with it. Also, regardless of how much muzzle lift I get, the most important part is whether or not your sights drop back down where you want them to, and if you are able to get them back where they need to be quickly.

Mechanical advantage definitely has something to do with it. The entire purpose of your grip and stance is to give you as much of a mechanical advantage as possible. That being said, I could set up a 10 year old in a perfect grip and stance and watch him not be able to manage recoil at all. Strength alone is useless and technique alone is useless. When you combine them though you get productive application of force. I agree that the most important thing is getting the sights back on target quickly...the difference is I think more properly applied pressure aids this.

5 minutes ago, lancejoshlin said:

I'm not saying it doesn't have impact on recoil management. I'm saying that for me in particular I don't have to crush the gun to get the same results.

I'm not sure I believe that there is no difference between you squeezing hard and light. What I'd like to see is a high frame rate video slowed down to 1/10th speed or so of bill drills with a hammer grip and then a very firm grip. Anything short of that and I don't think there is really enough information to tell. It'd be good to see how the group of 6 looks with each level of grip pressure as well. Also, If you did the test shooting minor you may experience different results with major.

16 minutes ago, lancejoshlin said:

The more relaxed your shooting platform is the better, for the most part. Am I wrong?

Yes I believe being relaxed is less than ideal. I'll stay short of calling it wrong because there are certainly people that find some success with it, but there's nothing that says they wouldn't perform better if they were less relaxed. The relaxed thing is certainly well spread in the shooting community but in my experience having my body relaxed is the last thing in the world I want when I'm doing anything athletic.

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I don't grip as hard as Jake.  I do the "hammer" grip most of the time.  That being said, I shoot minor and I'm not as good of a shooter as Jake who shoots major....sooooo there's that.  I'm working on getting a better weak hand grip, but am currently leaving my strong hand as is.  The disparity is pretty large, so I feel like just evening it out will be a big help.

I think that a lot of people can up their shooting game with a lot of stuff before they get to the place where the only thing holding them back is the ability to grip the gun hard enough to shoot faster.  If you want to be a top level shooter though, it seems that a very strong grip is going to need to be developed along the way.

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6 minutes ago, lancejoshlin said:

I dont mean relaxed as in limp, just not over tense and stiff. I haven't called anything you're doing wrong, just have stated what works for me, but you seem awfully aggressive toward me for some reason. Also, I shoot major, have shot major and minor since 05ish

Aggressive? I don't know where you get that from. I'm telling you what I think, I'm not invested in any way with what you do. I'm saying the same thing to you as I would to anyone else that made a similar claim. It's not like I'm mad at you, I don't think you're stupid. I just don't agree with you and I'm telling you why so we can have a discussion.

What is "over tense and stiff" to you? To me that means squeezing so hard you can't stop trembling. If that's what you mean then yes I agree, I want to be just short of that in how hard I squeeze.

Edited by Jake Di Vita
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