Need Suggestions To Improve Grip On Beretta 92

[10ring]

I've been helping out a friend with his grip and stance lately. He seems to be more comfortable with a Beretta 92 type of pistol instead of a 1911 type so we're working with the Beretta. He's a tall, very slender, guy with long slender fingers. We were trying to work out the best position for his support hand and I was offering suggestions based on my 1911 experiences. This caused some other problems when getting the support hand on the rear grip of the gun would cause his strong hand thumb to be higher, thereby preventing the slide lock from doing its job. If he had his strong hand thumb down along the grip/frame, then his weak hand thumb seemed to be too low or just hanging out with the strong hand thumb.

Can any of you suggest what might be the most appropriate way to grip a Beretta 92 with long fingered hands and end up with a neutral grip?

[MoNsTeR]

I came to the conclusion that the 1911 style grip was the best to use on the Beretta. The trick is not to keep your right thumb close to the gun as you would riding a 1911 thumb safety, but rather to move it well onto the back of your left thumb. I still end up riding the slide lock sometimes, but that's because I haven't practiced enough. But even if I rode the slide lock every time, I'd still use that grip because the improvement in control is so dramatic.

[bountyhunter]

He's a tall, very slender, guy with long slender fingers.  We were trying to work out the best position for his support hand and I was offering suggestions based on my 1911 experiences.

I also have long thin fingers. Most people don't realize the problem that it causes: the right hand fingers wrap far enough around the grip that it covers the area on the LHS of the grip that you want to press the meaty part of the thumb/palm on the left hand into as the "base" for the LH. Another problem with long fingers as it is difficult to get a comfortable grip with the trigger on the correct point of the trigger finger.

I can not securely grip a single stack 1911, it just feels loose in my hand no matter what I do. My Ber 92 is better, but I find the double stack 1911 to be the best fit.

One thing he may want to try is what I call an "interlock grip". wrap the two middle fingers of the right hand around the grip, leave the fourth up enough to allow the BOTTOM two fingers of the left hand to wrap tight around the grip. The top two fingers of the LH wrap around the front of the two middle fingers of the right hand, the bottom finger of the RH wraps around the front over the lower LH fingers. You end up with four fingers tightly holding the grip (two from each hand), three fingers in front wrap support (two LH, one RH) which I have found to be much more solid. I frequently use this grip for slow fire or bullseye because it gives me the most stable grip platform. In speed shooting where the left hand must be used for mag changes, interlocking is a disadvantage (so I use a conventional grip).

[Duane Thomas]

Many people, when trying the straight thumbs "IPSC grip," perceive having both thumbs pointed at the target as being the really important part of the technique. They don't understand the importance of hyper-extending the support hand wrist forward. Therefore they wind up with an execution (mis-execution) of the technique that has both wrists straight with the thumbs pointed ahead. This winds up banging the support hand thumb off the slide stop, and resulting in either failures of the action to lock open on an empty magazine, or locking open prematurely when there's still ammo in the gun. If you hyper-extend the wrist forward, by contrast, not only will it springload the wrist into the down position and IMMENSELY cut down on muzzle flip, it gets the fat part of the thumb ahead of the slide stop and the part just rides in this little "pocket" between the first and second joints, air all around it. No problem.