Weak left hand

[jnr88]

My left hand has suffered serious trama. My idex finger will not flex and the remaining fingers have reduced strength. Today I shot steel in 15 degree weather with a glove on my left hand. Remarkably this helped firm up my grip. Has any else faced a similar problem or does anyone else wear a glove on one hand?

[toothguy]

You might try some latex exam gloves. They provide some protection from the cold and increase grip. I would avoid the non latex ones because they get slippery. I see a lot of shooters at Bianchi use gloves on the barricades, they cut the fingers out of golf gloves ect. If you have something that handicaps you, do what ever you need to do to make it work.

[jnr88]

Thanks Tim. I'll try that and post anything I find useful. It may help someone else.

[LilBunniFuFu]

Some of the gents I know who have their grip strength going down started wearing golf gloves for this problem. Just need to find the right fit.

[bigstick0000]

Do you do exercises to increase your grip strength? I have my grandson doing them because he has small hands and they have helped him tremendously.

[prairiefire]

I have arthritis at the base of my left thumb (C-MC joint) This makes non dominant hand shooting difficult - no amount of hand grip exercises help that issue. So I rarely shoot single non dominant hand - which is OK, because my two hand grip works just fine - although I usually wear shooting gloves even then.

[DoubleL]

I've seen a few revolver guys wearing these, the fit is very close to the hand no slack at the fingertips. I noticed the gloves because my work offers these and I use them exclusively when on the job. They have tremendous grip like latex but breathe fairly well through the back side. Seriously the grip is crazy on these gloves, they damn near stick to everything.

A quick google....

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?itemId=360747767185

[prairiefire]

I'm sure that these are not a new idea to board members here, but is use the mechanix tactical gloves:

http://www.mechanix.com/tactical?gclid=CMryxODk_LwCFcZZ7Aod3yIAJg

[Ultimo-Hombre]

Would the grippy chalk stuff (pro grip) help?

On the occasions I use it, the grip "sticks" to my hand more securely.

Good luck!

[joakim]

Maybe you should try putting skateboard/non-slip tape on the grip.

[Jshuberg]

I'd suggest using a different technique to help compensate for a weak left hand.

There are 3 motions that the gun makes during recoil that must be managed:

1) The gun moves in the hands

2) The muzzle flips up

3) The gun (and your hands) move up in space

A lot of people use a death grip on the gun, rather than figuring out how to control these motions with the least amount of effort and muscle tension possible. It takes remarkably little strength to control the pistol through recoil. The goal should not be to eliminate recoil, but to control it and return the front sight to exactly the same point in space it came from without having to move any muscles.

The first thing to do is to learn to let the recoil happen. Don't brace against it, keep your arms straight and let the recoil pulse travel through your arms into your body core. It can take a little time and experimentation to figure this out, but by letting the recoil pulse hit you and travel through your body, significantly less energy stays at the gun which results in muzzle flip and position movement. If you brace your wrists and elbows, all of the recoil energy stays at the gun, and there is much more movement to control.

Your hands only need to be strong enough to stay on the pistol. That's it. You don't need hand strength to control the weapon, although if you have weak hand muscles a textured grip or gloves will help. How you apply enough pressure to the pistol to keep from slipping and to manage muzzle flip is with your shoulder and forearm muscles.

Try this - stretch your arms out in front of you a foot or so apart with your thumbs up in the air like Fonzie. Now rotate your thumbs inward so they point at each other. There are two ways that you can do this - with your shoulders muscles, or with your forearm/wrist muscles. Try doing this with both. If your elbows stay pointed down, you're using your forearm muscles. If you're elbows rotate out as your thumbs rotate in, you're using your shoulder muscles. Ideally, you should only use your forearm muscles enough to keep your wrists straight and use your shoulder muscles to rotate your thumbs inward, but this can put stress on the elbows. If a person has had tennis/golf elbow, or are susceptible to these kinds of problems, he may have to rotate his thumbs inward mainly with forearm muscles to remove the stress from the elbow. Some kind of combination of shoulder and forearm rotation will likely work for most people. The idea is that the shoulder muscles are larger than the forearm, and the forearm are larger than the hand. By slightly rotating your thumbs inward you are able to apply enough pressure to the gun to both keep it from slipping, and to manage muzzle flip. The larger the muscle, the easier it is to apply consistent pressure, and the less it will fatigue over time.

Rotating the hands inward does several things. It applies more force to the gun than the hand muscles would be able to do for an extended period of time. It also focuses the pressure high up on the tang of the grip where it is most useful for controlling recoil. This inward pressure also acts as a "spring", that will return the front sight back to where it came from without having to move any muscles. You simply squeeze the trigger, the round fires, the muzzle flips up slightly, and then snaps back down to where it came from. You will likely find that by taking up the slack, or pretensioning the muscles under your forearm will help with this. If the gun comes back to level after the flip, but it moves up in space, imagine that you are pulling on a rope that doesn't move. You'll notice that you're engaging your muscles on your sides under your arms when you do this. These muscles will keep your arms and gun from moving in space. When you shoot your gun, pull on your rope and your gun will stay put.

So once again, let the recoil travel through your body and *don't* brace against it, rotate your hands inward with a combination of shoulder/forearm muscles, take the slack out of your muscles under your forearm, and pull on the rope. It will take some practice if you're not used to this technique, but the effect will be that the front sight will automatically return to where it came from after every shot without having to move any muscles. And, specifically for you, it requires extremely little hand strength to perform. Really all the hand strength you need is to keep the gun in your hands, and to keep your hands from peeling off the bottom of the grip.

One other cool thing is that you can fine tune exactly where the front sight will return to after the recoil by slightly changing the amount of inward rotation on one or both arms. If the sight is coming back too high, rotate both arms inward just a little bit more. If it comes back too low let up on the rotation, or re-position your support hand with a slightly more forward angle. If its coming back too far to the left or right, try rotating one hand more or less than the other. You'll discover that once you get the technique down, that the only adjustments you need to make moving between pistols is to fine tune the amount of inward rotation applied to each hand to dial in control.

Anyways, the idea is that rather than having to rely on equipment to compensate for a physical limitation, change your technique to something that lends itself to your situation. Hope this helps.

Edited March 7, 2014 by Jshuberg

[jnr88]

Thanks to everyone. All good options. I've been rereading BE again and I'm trying to let the gun float. This takes very little strength as many have noted and I can try to just shoot the sights. This seems to be the best approach. Reading over and over about gripping until your skin falls off wasn't the best advice for me and maybe for anyone else. Thanks again.