I need help with my shooting grip

[Duane Thomas]

It looks to me like your hands are quite large, and your fingers long, for the size of the HK's grip. Your master hand when wrapped around doesn't really expose a lot of area on the left side of the grip. Have to tried installing the largest backstrap to rectify that?

[danny]

I don't know what you use the weapon for. Is it plinking, self defense, or shooting in competition. But the compact weapon dose not give your support hand any room on the grip, and the finger grooves take what is there away. Try the grip powder etc. add some grip tape in the right spots unless rules don't allow it. I don't like to tell people to shot with the finger on the front of the trigger gaurd but you might try it.

[Duane Thomas]

But the compact weapon dose not give your support hand any room on the grip, and the finger grooves take what is there away.

How do you figure? It's not like the finger grooves make the grip shorter.

[Duane Thomas]

I don't like to tell people to shot with the finger on the front of the trigger gaurd but you might try it.

No. Bad idea. If you're already having trouble holding onto the gun, weakening the grip by spliting the index finger away from the rest of the hand is not the way to go.

[Flexmoney]

I shoot thumbs forward. Always have. My problem is with my supporting hand.

I am a right handed shooter. My left, support hand comes loose, and messes up my hold every three to four shots,

no matter how hard I grip the gun. It's driving me nuts.

Quit gripping the gun hard with the right hand. Clearly, that is not the issue.

Mentally, you want more control. You may feel that your right hand is your connection to the gun. So, you try harder with the right hand.

You are doing most (sounds like all) of the gripping from the strong hand. It should be the opposite, really.

[Flexmoney]

I use this exact grip.

Well, at some point the "grip" merges in and becomes the stance.

Lets look at the arms...

First (you probably can't tell from the pic), Brian's shoulders are squared up to the target. How about your's?. If you are right eye dominant and locking your elbows, then you probably have that right shoulder cocked around in some way. I'll be you have some good tension there too !???

So, Brian has squared shoulders. His elbows have a slight bend in them. You will see that his left arm is more straight than his right arm, which also can make the left shoulder higher.

[ck1]

I had a similar problem getting my grip to fit with that exact same gun... those P30s don't give you much real estate on the sides of them to really get a proper thumbs forward grip on them IMO, their slides come all the way down the sides and don't leave you much space (look at one side by side next to a Glock or a 1911 and you'll see what I mean), I'd end up with my support-hand thumb pretty much resting on the light rail and not really supporting the gun right and the slide release pushes your support hand away from the frame in the space that you do have.

Edited February 19, 2010 by ck1

[dbxdm9]

You mentioned your weak hand coming loose from the grip after 3-4 shots. I had the same problem - fixed it today at the range. I was also shooting low and left.

Changed my grip - I found I was squeezing my left palm into the grip to achieve a 60/40 pressure (weak/strong hand). Instead, I concentrated more on increasing weak hand pressure by squeezing my left fingers into my right fingers. No additional weak hand palm pressure.

Poof - Shot a string of 50 this way - all shots now into first target ring, and my weak hand no longer loosens up after 3-4 shots. Recoil also seems to be less. I needed additional weak hand pressure as I was crushing the gun with my strong hand when I pulled the trigger (rather than only squeezing the trigger).

[jkatz44]

Here is a video of Bob Vogel doing some instruction. He has some really great points in it.

[benos]

You will see that his left arm is more straight than his right arm...

One factor there - my left hand is farther forward than my right hand.

be

[Duane Thomas]

An interesting point. Which brings up something I've never understood: the people who talk about the "problem" of being cross dominant, that you have to "move the gun over in front of your left eye," like that's somehow going to compromise the stance. But you think about it, with my left hand further forward on the gun, and my shoulders square with the target, the gun's going to naturally come to left of center because my left arm is, de facto, shorter than my right. Yes? Actually, in my opinion, being right hand/left eye dominant is the perfect setup for firing a handgun fast and well because I can naturally bring the gun is front of my master eye with my shoulders squared to the target.

[Jake Di Vita]

the gun's going to naturally come to left of center because my left arm is, de facto, shorter than my right. Yes?

That would only be the case if both arms were extended fully. Since we often have our support arm extended more to accommodate the support hand being further forward on the gun, I don't think it much matters at all. Although I definitely do agree that being cross dominant is a non issue for people willing to put a little work in.

[Tom in Ohio]

I used to have the same problem. No matter how hard I gripped the pistol, my support hand would still shift while shooting. I had an epiphany one day, though. I was sighting in a pistol over a bench. I noticed that with my upper body pressed against the bench and my arms resting firmly on top of the bench, the perceived recoil was much greater and the pistol really was breaking my grip.

I realized that all that energy had to go somewhere and in the chain of body parts connecting the pistol to the ground (hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders, back, and legs) my hands, no matter how strong, were still the weakest link. The more rigid I made the rest of my body, the more my hands received the blow. I now think of it in terms of catching a heavy object thrown to you. Do you catch it as rigidly as possible? No, you relax and absorb it, slowing it down slowly. I found that by relaxing my elbows and shoulders, my pistol no longer twisted from my grip.

Years later, I now teach students at the Police Academy and have them try a simple experiment. I have them start by firing a few rounds holding the pistol as tightly as possible, elbows locked out. I then have them relax different parts of their stance and grip and note what effect it has. I think this helps them find their "sweet spot" regarding their grip and stance.

[Duane Thomas]

That would only be the case if both arms were extended fully.

Or if you have the same amount of bend to both arms. I find I actually bend my left arm slightly more than the right, and have always wondered if the cross dominance played into that.

[Flexmoney]

I used to have the same problem. No matter how hard I gripped the pistol, my support hand would still shift while shooting. I had an epiphany one day, though. I was sighting in a pistol over a bench. I noticed that with my upper body pressed against the bench and my arms resting firmly on top of the bench, the perceived recoil was much greater and the pistol really was breaking my grip.

I realized that all that energy had to go somewhere and in the chain of body parts connecting the pistol to the ground (hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders, back, and legs) my hands, no matter how strong, were still the weakest link. The more rigid I made the rest of my body, the more my hands received the blow. I now think of it in terms of catching a heavy object thrown to you. Do you catch it as rigidly as possible? No, you relax and absorb it, slowing it down slowly. I found that by relaxing my elbows and shoulders, my pistol no longer twisted from my grip.

Years later, I now teach students at the Police Academy and have them try a simple experiment. I have them start by firing a few rounds holding the pistol as tightly as possible, elbows locked out. I then have them relax different parts of their stance and grip and note what effect it has. I think this helps them find their "sweet spot" regarding their grip and stance.

Good stuff.

I actually use a medicine ball to simulate that to shooters. (It's like a 10lb basketball looking thing that I grabbed at Wal-mart.)

[Classic_jon]

I am in the process of transitioning to a True High thumbs grip and this thread really helped point out some of the things I need to do to complete that transition.

Thank you

[Duane Thomas]

Yer welcome.

[K37]

I love this thread. I've been having the same problems with my XDm slipping up out of my support hand. I tried skate tape, then a grittier skate tape and only rubbed my left palm until it was bleeding. After reading this thread, I believe I'm too stiff from my wrists through my shoulders because I'm trying to muscle the pistol. My shot group is all over the place because (I believe after loading some dummy rounds) that I'm anticipating the recoil by tensing up everything in my upper body. Hopefully this helps at the range.

[jkatz44]

I have a question on my grip. I try to have my wrist really locked forward to help control recoil. In doing this, my left arm is arched up to accommodate my wrist being so far pointed downward. Is there any problem with this?

[Aloha Robert]

I have a question on my grip. I try to have my wrist really locked forward to help control recoil. In doing this, my left arm is arched up to accommodate my wrist being so far pointed downward. Is there any problem with this?

This is one of those questions, you will get a zillion differant answers and opinions, so take mine with agrain of salt. My opinion as Sports Medical Physican is that the "cam forward" medically refered to as ulnar deviation is totally incorrect way controlling recoil. True it is gospel to most shooters however for the majority of shooters it is simply physiologically very ineffiecient requiring forearm like blacksmith to execute that particular technique and tons of practice. The reason is when you cam your wrist forward,(ulnar deviation), you loose about 70% of your grip strength. Yes most pistol instructors will tell you to do this, but after 30 years of sports medicine experience and 15 years of USPSA shooting, I believe there are far better ways.

[Atcgolfn]

Aloha Robert,

Could you elaborate on some of the better ways to grip the gun with the support hand vs. camming the hand forward?

[K37]

I have the same problem (my support hand stays, the gun recoils and my supporting hand grip consequently breaks). I've tried several techniques in this topic to to correct this. I originally tried friction tape, then skate tape (which only leaves a nice seeping wound on my upper support hand palm). I've tried to loosen my overall grip to release tension in my wrists hoping that my support hand would follow the recoil (as at this point I'm not concerned with reducing recoil, just keeping my grip together and allowing the sights to come back to the same spot). This seemed to help some, but after about 3-4 rounds, my support hand had shifted out of the grip again. I don't know if this is due to me tightening my grip on subsequent shots or not, but I am trying to take slow controlled shots and not muscle the grip with my strong hand. I've also tried really bearing down on my support hand grip, which also seems to help for a couple shots, but seems to create more tension in the rest of my upper body. I've gone through about 800 rounds trying to correct this problem and only this problem to no avail.

I'm definitely dedicated to the grip that BE describes in his book. It's worked well to improve my accuracy and sight picture. It was a little foreign to me in the beginning and felt awkward; however, for those who golf, if you change your grip and it feels comfortable, then you haven't really changed your grip.

[Jake Di Vita]

I'm finding the same thing myself. Although I think support elbow up and out still has merit...but I need to test it further.

[Supermoto]

My grip has my weak arm elbow higher than my strong, If my strong elbow drops to low, it causing the dot to track up to the right. I have been working on keeping my strong elbow slightly higher. This seems to lock the meat of my thumbs together resulting in a dot that tracks straighter.

The pic shows the difference in my elbow height when I drop my strong elbow and my poor follow through on this shot

Edited July 6, 2010 by Supermoto

[10ring]

As I was learning how to make the neutral grip/stance work for me, I too had trouble with the strong hand slipping out of the support hand grip. What seemed to fix my problem was realizing, after watching Ron Avery's first video, that the strong side wrist needs to be "set" or "locked".

So, in my case, my strong side hand/wrist would rotate up during recoil whereas my support side hand wanted to move more straight back. I worked on training myself what it felt like to "set" the strong side wrist so it wouldn't rotate as much. This would then channel the recoil energy straight back into the arms and shoulders. It's amazing when it all comes together.

Edited July 7, 2010 by 10ring