Grip... and Accuracy?

[benos]

For the front sight to return perfectly back into the rear notch, every time, your grip must be perfectly nuetral. And the firmer or stronger your grip is - as long as it remains totally nuetral - will be an aid to that.

be

[GlockerJeff]

A guy who trains armed security guards told me to try to put some pressure against the frame with my strong hand thumb. I shoot a Glock 17 and was shooting low left. When I applied some pressure to the frame with my thumb my shots straightened out and accuracy improved. When I got my 4th gen G34 I had to change the slide release to a flat G17 slide release in order to place my thumb in that area. Works good for me, may not work for you.

[Esther]

Hey Bo -

I haven't read the rest of the replies, but today I had an experience that makes me think you're onto something. I'd been having a lot of problems with recoil control - specifically, my support hand would tend to slide forward in between shots - and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. At Rob's and several others' suggestion, I clamped down really hard on my pistol. I noticed immediately that my grip stopped sliding between shots (or rather, I could fire more shots before it started slipping), but also that I was getting away with a lot less precise trigger pulls than I usually do and still getting A hits.

[Hdbicker]

We typically talk about these two things being unrelated; proper sight alignment and a trigger pull that doesn't disrupt it will result in precision. (Provided the gun, sights and ammo are all up to snuff.)

But something's been bugging me lately... And I wanted some other opinions.

Regardless of the cause, disrupted sights during the firing cycle will lead to bad hits. But does a stronger hold on the pistol (or perhaps I should say a more stable pistol in general) negate or at least minimize some of those twitches?

We're not talking about death grip here-- your normal, optimal, balanced grip. But if it were more firm, could you get away with more in terms of trigger control?

For what its worth, I taught firearms in the Chicago Police Academy and found while teaching, using your weak hand as your strong hand is best and using strong hand merely to pull trigger will result in less disturb accuracy.

Theory for strong hand: don't kill the bird by squeezing it so tightly that you kill it, just tight enough so that it doesn't fly away, Exception being 454, 460, 480, 500, etc...

Just my personal teacher opinion!

Spiro

[shane8168]

I'm a complete rookie here and I am not very good at the game yet, but I can tell you that Tuesday night I missed a couple of 15-yard targets (as usual) and made it known that I hate those long-range targets. A "much more experienced" shooter there pulled me aside and talked to me about my grip he said he watched my gun "dip" on trigger pull. He talked to me about my grip pressure... said I need more.

I went tonight to a more organized shoot and my hit factors are all at least one point higher than they were a week ago. I think these stages were harder this week than last week...

My main focus was grip strength. MORE of it. I can tell you that I didn't "see the front" sight at all during any of those runs. I would say grip pressure is the only reason my scores were better tonight.

[Steve Anderson]

Historically, I've been kind of a lazy or natural gripper, just not really giving it much thought. (Going between production and open won't reveal the NEED for more grip as acutely as Major ammo/ No comp)

But our team has been working out with free weights a lot, and yesterday I noticed that my grip was getting firmer on its own. Hands are becoming stronger.

I like this better than having to give conscious thought to more grip...