Hello fron California! Long time listener, first time caller

[ricardommmm]

Hey! Thank you all for having an awesome forum for new shooters and people looking to learn about competition shooting sports!

My Background:

I've only been involved in shooting firearms for a few years, and dont have any military/LE firearms training. i have played sports competitively growing up and played semi professional paintball for a few years.

I recognize the fact that for shooting sports, you cant just go out and shoot; you need to focus your "practice" time, and you need to pro-actively analyze your "game", in order to further progression. one thing i really like about this forum, is everyone here is doing it- analyzing their game/technique and helping others!

i noticed something a few weeks ago, that i'd like to share and hopefully get some feedback.

on my weekly trip to the range, i tried something that i've been thinking about for a while. i tried shooting my gun with my weak hand, only using my strong hand to engage the grip safety and pull the trigger ( i shoot a full size 1911). i had my left hand's fingers wrapped all the way around to the right side grip panels, with the index just under the trigger guard, thumb pointing forward ( just like it would act as the support hand). i found that my weak hand ( left hand/arm/wrist) had a significant amount of tension (muscle flex?), my wrist was canted significantly more/stiffer, than normal, and i was able to "control" the gun easier...the muzzle didnt flip as high, my sights were able to level off/return quicker, and my shot to shot was alot more consistant. again, this was basically the left hand doing all the work, with the right hand (my strong hand) doing minimal work.

now, i know this was just an experiment, but i dont know how to translate that to my normal grip (normal grip, being the competition standard). when i'm gripping ( and i have really small hands) i'm not able to get a solid purchase, when i wrap my left hand over my right hand. pressure wise, i'm maybe 70/30...sometimes i just gorilla grip with the left hand and the right hand is gripping enough to engage the grip saftey. i dont feel the tension/flex/stiffness in my left arm and my left hand actually tends to slip off when i'm shooting.

is this as easy as getting some Pro Grip???

(theres another thread entitled "Support Hand Woes" by AZDave...if this needs to be merged with that, please do so =)

thank you again, everyone for your wealth of knowledge, and more importantly, your openess to share.

richard

[JohnGaultsGun]

Grip is kind of a funky thing. It's always evolving and changing especially as you are progressing through the beginning learning process of shooting. I highly recommend you get Matt Burketts beginning DVD set that covers the basics here. There is more than just grip like sight picture, sight alignment, body position that will affect your hits. You can get the DVD here on the Enos site: http://www.brianenos.com/pages/videosmatt.html#dvd1-3

As far as grip pressure goes, there is a 60/40 or 70/30 guide line with the high number being applied to the support (non-trigger finger) hand. The point to this is to give you an idea as to how much support is to be applied by the support hand versus the shooting hand. The strong hands role is to really just squeeze the trigger. Muzzle flip can be controlled better by "clam shelling" the pistol and NOT by chocking it. Clam shelling can be controlled by extending (but not locking) the arms as the palms of your hands apply pressure to the grips. The more the arms are extended, the more pressure occurs on the gun. This is one reason most competitive shooters use an isosceles stance (instead of weaver/modified weaver) because there is symmetrical pressure on the gun ... which gives more consistent recoil control. And consistent recoil control allows you to more easily call your shots.

Hope this helps!!

[Duane Thomas]

Yes, like a serious golfer's grip, the serious "combat" pistol shooter's grip is a constantly evolving thing. I don't grip the gun the same way I did a few weeks ago, much less a few years ago. This is good, it's a constant process of modification and evolution and, ideally, improvement.