Weak hand

[PeterPan]

Hi guys,

I need your help.

I am killing myself on those stages where weak hand shooting is require.

I loose lots of points.

What is your advice to improve weak hand shooting?

Do you close your right eye shooting with left hand?

Thanks

[DogmaDog]

My right eye (strong side eye) has better vision than my left (the difference is 20/20 vs. 20/50 or so...it's pretty weird). So I don't shoot weak-eyed when I shoot weak handed. I use the same eye to align the sights as with freestyle.

I think the difficulty for me lies mostly with trigger control...I'm simply not as good at it with the left hand as with the right.

Probably the best solution is just to practice, especially in dry fire...play with the grip and trigger control until you can watch the sights and see that they don't move when the trigger breaks.

It's OK to cant the gun slightly inboard as you shoot, and this might help get the sights behind your strong eye.

DD

[Flatland Shooter]

My right eye (strong side eye) has better vision than my left (the difference is 20/20 vs. 20/50 or so...it's pretty weird). So I don't shoot weak-eyed when I shoot weak handed. I use the same eye to align the sights as with freestyle.

I think the difficulty for me lies mostly with trigger control...I'm simply not as good at it with the left hand as with the right.

Probably the best solution is just to practice, especially in dry fire...play with the grip and trigger control until you can watch the sights and see that they don't move when the trigger breaks.

It's OK to cant the gun slightly inboard as you shoot, and this might help get the sights behind your strong eye.

DD

DD is giving you good advice.

Most not used to shooting weak hand tend to push the gun as they pull the trigger. Shooting with your left hand and the muzzle tends to get pushed to the right. Its just a case of making your weak hand trigger finger independent from the rest of the hand. Your strong hand can do it automatically, you just need to train your weak hand to do the same.

The heavier the trigger pull, the worse it seems to be.

The best solution, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, and then a little more PRACTICE.

Bill

[Matt Griffin]

.22 conversions are great for this. As for technique, grip HARD with your pink and ring finger, and LIGHT with your middle.

H.

[CHA-LEE]

Other than the obvious of practice, practice, practice the things that really helped improve my one handed only shooting are listed below.

(1) Always bring your non-shooting hand up against your chest. I like to bring my non-shooting hand up in a fist and press my thumb into the center of my chest as I shoot. This keeps your non-shooting hand from swinging around as you shoot.

(2) Bias the shoulder of the hand you are shooting from slightly forward. You shouldn't have to change your stance to achieve this. You don't want to go too extreme with the bias as that will hinder your ability to move from target to target or physically move from one shooting position to another.

(3) Do not shoot the pistol with the sights straight up and down. Cant the sights at a 45 deg angle toward the center of your body. This amazingly helps a LOT with controlling the recoil and keeps the gun recoiling in an up and down motion instead of an up and to the side motion.

(4) Always use your thumb as a primary point of gripping force. For example, with a 1911 type of pistol, your thumb should be up on the safety and pushing down and in with quite a bit of force. Then your fingers should be gripping only front to back. Just make sure that you don't have a "Snow Cone" type of grip on the gun with your thumb pointing down. If your thumb isn't high up on the gun and pushing down it will be a lot harder to control the recoil.

(5) Most guns like to recoil Up and Right when shooting one handed. Use that motion to your advantage when shooting strings of targets. Whenever I have to shoot weak handed I try to engage the targets from left to right as the guns natural recoil will promote the movement over to the next target. Strong handed it does not seem to make much of a difference if I got left to right or right to left. But I can feel an advantage in going left to right when shooting weak handed. The shooting seems to flow better that direction without having to fight the gun.

(6) Do not lock out your elbow. You lose a lot of recoil management and target transition control when your elbow is locked out. Plus when your elbow is bent it serves as a shock absorber soaking up the recoil as your shoot.

Other than that, all you can do is incorporate a good amount of one handed shooting into your practice schedule and before you know it you will look forward to leveraging one handed shooting to tackle a stage better or faster than everyone else. You will see that it is rare that a shooter transitions from a free style grip to a one handed grip during a stage, but when it does happen its usually rewarded with a bunch of time saved. I know that I have been able to save seconds on a stage by engaging targets one handed because it puts my body in an optimal position to get in and out of a shooting position. Where as other shooters get all pretzeled up trying to squeeze into a shooting position and engage the target with a two handed grip.

[Chris iliff]

All good advice. For me it started to click when I started to dryfire. Just learning to manipulate the gun from holster to weak hand and after a reload to weak hand helped my confidence tremendously. Of course you need to fire live rounds weak hand, and a lot of them. Incorporate the manipulations above into that. 1 round reload, 2 rounds weak hand. Draw and transfer to weak hand 2 rounds. Spread some target apart and work on the transitions and different distances. Dryfire, dryfire, dryfire.

[HoMiE]

I have better results shooting weakhand if I keep the gun straight up-down if not slightly outward. I don't like the way the gun tracks shooting it gangsta style tilted inward. Another tip, turn your head slighlty to the weakhand side so your dominate eye can pick up the sights/dot better.

[PeterPan]

Thanks guys for your help

I went to my range and try different things and have answer few questions.

First of all, closing right eye to shoot with left hand, doesn't work for me, there is

very little difference against left eye close.

What I notice is a compensation I need to apply while shooting left and right hand.

For left at 15m I needed about 7-8", for right hand maybe 3", and groups where all or

most of in Alpha zone.

Thanks again

[Jake Di Vita]

Pull the trigger straight to the rear of the gun without moving the sights.

If the sights are on target when the bullet leaves the barrel, it is impossible to miss.

[boz1911]

Thanks guys for your help

I went to my range and try different things and have answer few questions.

First of all, closing right eye to shoot with left hand, doesn't work for me, there is

very little difference against left eye close.

What I notice is a compensation I need to apply while shooting left and right hand.

For left at 15m I needed about 7-8", for right hand maybe 3", and groups where all or

most of in Alpha zone.

Thanks again

That compensation is not needed, see Jake's post below.

Pull the trigger straight to the rear of the gun without moving the sights.

If the sights are on target when the bullet leaves the barrel, it is impossible to miss.

[Flexmoney]

Pull the trigger straight to the rear of the gun without moving the sights.

If the sights are on target when the bullet leaves the barrel, it is impossible to miss.

+

That's the stuff. Plain. Solid. Truth.

[Sam]

you keep calling it your "weak hand" and it will continue to be your weak hand.

[JasonC]

I've been using one of those V-shaped grip strengtheners purchased from the local sporting goods store. The increase in grip and forearm strength has noticably improved my one handed shooting.

[RegRob]

I've been using one of those V-shaped grip strengtheners purchased from the local sporting goods store. The increase in grip and forearm strength has noticably improved my one handed shooting.

This is probably a good thing. Just a word of caution: I earned myself a bad tendinitis in both my forearms and wrists using a set of these. It was all my fault, of course. I went right ahead and worked too hard with them (while I was watching TV, bad idea), and stepped over the line. It didn't take long, either. Just a few minutes of static workout.

Later, I have been using Gripmaster Pro instead, as they give a more even and dynamic load on my fingers.

I know a lot about chronic tendinitis now, as a result of one evening of thoughtless training. Don't want you to have the same. Take care.

Edited March 3, 2009 by RegRob

[Silver_Surfer]

you keep calling it your "weak hand" and it will continue to be your weak hand.

Aint that the truth! I practiced that so much I now shoot better with my weak hand than my strong hand

[Chris iliff]

I would hold the gun out aiming at the target and strengthing my "other hand" I didn't do this till exhaustion, just a couple times a practice session until I would start to feel the burn a little. I thought this helped me overcome the wobble in my "other hand" pretty quick. Couple weeks, 3 or 4 times a week.

[Paladin]

as jake said... do this for your left and right hand..

[JKB AZ]

I learned by shooting two handed with the weak hand and once I got comfortable making hits I went to one hand. For me it was easier to learn that way. All that practice did pay off once though cause I forgot my holster like and idiot and being left handed no one had one I could use. So I used a RH holster and shot that way. Didn't do too bad either only dropped a few places. But then again I am one of those odd people that is left handed at writing shooting and eating but right handed at sports.

[Xfactor]

I went to my range and try different things...What I notice is a compensation I need to apply while shooting left and right hand.

For left at 15m I needed about 7-8", for right hand maybe 3", and groups where all or most of in Alpha zone

Whoa! You don't want to resign yourself to compensating several inches to accommodate a pull/push in your trigger press technique! This 7-8" amount for weak hand and 3" for strong hand can and will change under various circumstances, and your shots will be all over the map.

Jake D said it best: "Pull the trigger straight to the rear of the gun without moving the sights." If you do that, you'll hit where you're aimed - simple as that.

My advice would be to read up on how to dry fire practice properly, and work on it freestyle, strong, and weak handed until you can consistently break the "shot" without disturbing your sight alignment.

[Woody Allen]

I went to my range and try different things...What I notice is a compensation I need to apply while shooting left and right hand.

For left at 15m I needed about 7-8", for right hand maybe 3", and groups where all or most of in Alpha zone

Whoa! You don't want to resign yourself to compensating several inches to accommodate a pull/push in your trigger press technique! This 7-8" amount for weak hand and 3" for strong hand can and will change under various circumstances, and your shots will be all over the map.

Jake D said it best: "Pull the trigger straight to the rear of the gun without moving the sights." If you do that, you'll hit where you're aimed - simple as that.

My advice would be to read up on how to dry fire practice properly, and work on it freestyle, strong, and weak handed until you can consistently break the "shot" without disturbing your sight alignment.

"Jake D said it best: "Pull the trigger straight to the rear of the gun without moving the sights." If you do that, you'll hit where you're aimed - simple as that."

No it is not that simple. Other factors may come into play with weak hand shooting. The most significant factor can be the gun is recoiling-barrel flipping up before the bullet leaves the barrel due the shooter's ability to grip the gun, the strength of the grip etc. Especially with the polymer frame lightweight guns. Example would be a shooter with a full size 1911 weak hand, slight cant, bullet hits point of aim. Same shooter with lightweight polymer frame gun and now 7 to 8 inches high right. More strength is needed to control the gun so the barrel doesn't move before the bullet leaves the barrel-changes in grip, strength of the grip, leaning into the gun, bending the elbow slightly etc.

Easy to check. Have the shooter aim weakhanded. You pull the trigger and the shots go high and right (assuming a slight cant). Now have the shooter adjust as indicated above. You pull the trigger and you will see a difference as to where the shot hits. Adjust till you hit point of aim-take the trigger pull out of the equation by pulling the trigger for the shooter.

Edited March 4, 2009 by Woody Allen

[Jake Di Vita]

"Jake D said it best: "Pull the trigger straight to the rear of the gun without moving the sights." If you do that, you'll hit where you're aimed - simple as that."

No it is not that simple.

Yes...it is that simple. The biggest problem with most shooters is they try and overcomplicate what is a very simple action. Bullet hits where the sights were the instant the bullet exited the barrel. Any argument against that is unsubstantiable.

[Ramas]

I aim and shoot "weak hand" with left eye with closed right eye (this technique I applied from Eric Grauffel). I visualise that my front sight comes straight into rear notch and I must feel triger reset point when shooting weak hand.

[el pres]

Whats everybody's take on a one handed shooting stance ?? I find that taking an agressive shooting

side and foot forward stance greatly helps with control ??

[SKR]

Just got 3gm2, this topic was demonstrated by all 3 shooters. All 3 agree strait up and down, line up the sights and press the trigger strait to the rear. Max and Saul turn a little while Angus maintains his regular shooting stance. Oddly enough angus aims off on his first shot because he shoots a double action first shot, edge of the a zone.

[Jake Di Vita]

I find that taking an agressive shooting

side and foot forward stance greatly helps with control ??

I've found the same thing for me. I lean very heavily into the gun and quarter off to the point where my extended shooting arm goes straight through the centerline of my body.