Grip: how to keep from loosening?

[ProGunGuy]

even after 10's of thousands of rounds, I still have the tendancy to looosen my grip when shooting. When I conciously keep a frim grip, it works well.

So are there any tips or hints to help me keep a firm grip?

thanks

[AlexOsensei]

practice...practice ....and...mmmm.... practice.

[Flexmoney]

even after 10's of thousands of rounds, I still have the tendancy to looosen my grip when shooting. When I conciously keep a frim grip, it works well.

So are there any tips or hints to help me keep a firm grip?

thanks

Which hand?

[tackdr1ver]

I would like to piggy back on this thread, as I have noticed the same problem with my shooting. Hopefully we can kill two birds with one stone.

In my case it's my left hand(weak) I find my sights are not tracking straight up & down and have wobble more like a circular motion. Also, I find myself having to readjust my grip often. It's really frustrating... It's slowing down my splits and really hard to track the sights

[DrawandDuck]

Has USPSA banned Stickum yet?? It did seem to work for Lester....just kidding. On a serious side how is your handshake (weak, med or strong)?

Edited October 26, 2012 by DrawandDuck

[tackdr1ver]

Can't speak for the OP but my grip for a handshake is med-strong.

I'll also add that I too have tens of thousands of rounds downrange and have always struggled with this. Sometimes it is a non issue other times it is a huge issue. I also have naturally sweaty hands, use progrip and that helps to a degree so needless to say it has been a challenge.

[ProGunGuy]

even after 10's of thousands of rounds, I still have the tendancy to looosen my grip when shooting. When I conciously keep a frim grip, it works well.

So are there any tips or hints to help me keep a firm grip?

thanks

Which hand?

Both hands. I just tend to relax my hand, especially after doing a reload. I know its practice, but it seem to be something in my head

[Psynapse]

I'm not an expert by any means... just my 2 cents... I don't think more rounds alone will fix it.

I used to have and still have to a lesser extent the same problem. But my problem was more of a loosening grip no matter how much I tried.

The first thing I did was fix the grip on my gun. The STI Edge has a hard plastic grip and that thing would just slip and slide under my hand no matter what I did. So now I have skate-board tape on it. It's a night and day improvement. I'm not sure what you are shooting but you may want to look at rubberized grips, textured, etc.

The second thing is grip strength. It really hit me when I read stuff like use 90% of your grip strength. 90% of mine is a lot more than my wifes. My wife can't control my gun. I don't have to try as hard where she can't control it no matter how hard she tries. She just doesn't have the hand and arm strength for it right now.

And this is why I bought grip strength trainers. I want to be able to be more relaxed but putting out, 140lbs of grip pressure where as right now it takes all my concentration to do that.

Those ideas aside... I'd dry fire the heck out of your gun... practice reloads... and more dry fire... while consciously working on gripping hard. Do it slow and deliberate at first. This is the way the conscious becomes the sub-conscious.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Psynapse

[CHA-LEE]

If your grip fails after the reload then you are probably not rebuilding your grip properly after the reload. The most common loss of grip I see is when shooters use their strong hand thumb to excessively push down on their weak hand. When your thumb pushes down on the weak hand it will quickly displace the weak hand after each shot. If you are using the proper grip you shouldnt have much if any tension in your thumbs. The strong hand thumb should simply lay on top of the weak hand.

[kylehb]

this happens to me from time to time, I think I get so used to shooting and the recoil that I start to loosen my grip and get too relaxed. Whenever that happens I just go back to muscle memory basics, I found a week or two of conscious squeezing and the problem is gone for a while. Generally, I just make the focus of any training be on consciously squeezing as I go through drills or even just hold the gun with the sole purpose being to squeeze with both hands for about 15 seconds. Then it seems to be like a switch goes back on or something and muscle memory resumes the proper grip.