grip and arm position

[sincityshooter]

I'm sure this has been covered hundreds of times, but I feel I need to share something. After shooting Open class for many years, I took a 5 year layoff. Now I'm back into IPSC shooting shooting an Xdm 9mm. Upon my return, I was wondering why the sights were moving so much and why the tracking was erratic, this was even noticeable with my open gun. After getting back to basics, I discovered something.

My strong hand grip needed to be rotated into the body (to the left)so the back of the mainspring housing was directly in line with the web of my hand. This rotation was not much, moved my thumb about 1/8 of an inch closer to the mag release. The next thing that I changed was keeping my right (strong arm) elbow in a little more almost pointed straight down. These two changes although small, decreased the muzzle flip and keeps the gun tracking straight up and down.

The difference is amazing. With a good stance, solid grip, and new arm position I can get a good sight picture on a 10 yard target, close my eyes and shoot 6 rounds all in the A zone. The gun is returning and staying where I want it.

Anyone else have similiar results or techniques? Now the bad part is getting all of this right when the buzzer goes off, I've shoot hundreds of thousands of rounds with the old method, just getting my hand correctly on the gun during the draw is a struggle.

[Dis-1-Shooter]

My grip and arm position is about the same. The way it was explained to me is to fully extend your arms out until your elbows lock then barely unlock your elbows. There is no mentioning of the left hand in the OP's post. My left hand tries to duplicate the position of the right/strong hand but tilted forward and thumb on the frame. Interesting thing is that I just came from Limited and now shooting Open. In Open I find my arms are bent more than I like, but in Limited it is the way I just described it....I need to work on it.

[M-Bear]

How does everyone hold their elbows? I have started doing a lot of dry firing and I find pushing them out to the sides a little really squares up my stance and tightens my grip.

[Erik S.]

I do what sincityshooter and dis-1-shooter said. Lock elbows then barely unlock them. I make sure the gun is aligned with my forearm, which ends up putting the mainspring housing right in the web (as mentioned). My left (weak) hand is gripped perceptively harder than my right, sights seem to track pretty straight.