Trigger Speed

[lee blackman]

Video games.... seriously... Get an xbox 360, buy battlefield 4 and a year subscription to xbox live. Get online and play. Always have your guns set in semi-auto mode in the game, not full auto or burst. Put in an hour a day, which is easy to do.

Its sounds really stupid. But it will seriously improve your splits, and your eye to front sight recovery after shot time. Your trigger finger will get a workout with a light mushy, no break trigger, with thousands of repetitions a day. And it will stimulate your frontal lobe. You will get regular hand to eye response as you recognize, sight, squeeze repeatedly. Watch, in a month, if you do it every day, you will seriously notice a difference.

[Dkrad1935]

This seems like a distraction. In my line of work there are a million things I can do to improve my business but my resources are finite. I have to prioritize the most valuable things.

With shooting, chasing splits seems like the smallest increment and possibly detrimental to other fundamentals.

For example is a 20 shot stage improving from .2 to .15 splits would bet you 1 second in overall time. There are bigger fish to fry for most of us

[Ssanders224]

This seems like a distraction. In my line of work there are a million things I can do to improve my business but my resources are finite. I have to prioritize the most valuable things.

With shooting, chasing splits seems like the smallest increment and possibly detrimental to other fundamentals.

For example is a 20 shot stage improving from .2 to .15 splits would bet you 1 second in overall time. There are bigger fish to fry for most of us

I'm not necessarily saying that chasing faster splits is what the OP should be doing, BUT.....

Do you realize what 1 second on a stage can mean? At the M/GM level, an extra second on a stage can be like an eternity.

[Dkrad1935]

True. But for the larger percentage of shooters there are more lucrative things to work on

[Dkrad1935]

And sorry. I was responding to the thread more than your post

[RammerJammer]

The question was whether or not a changer in trigger length might translate to a change in split times. Not if I can just get my split times down I will get my M card. It is a legitimate question. This board is full of interesting questions and awesome answers. It would not be very interesting if it was just a page that said: Its the Indian not the arrow, just buy a Dillon, and splits don't matter.

[Sarge]

The question was whether or not a changer in trigger length might translate to a change in split times. Not if I can just get my split times down I will get my M card. It is a legitimate question. This board is full of interesting questions and awesome answers. It would not be very interesting if it was just a page that said: Its the Indian not the arrow, just buy a Dillon, and splits don't matter.

Exactly. I have been here long enough to know better but sometimes I just feel like asking for help instead of always just giving it. Problem is most people can't give an opinion and stay on task. i.e. Will a longer trigger help with my trigger speed? You should not be chasing splits, this is a distraction, etc... I'm not chasing splits. I will never make M or GM. I have no idea what my splits are and frankly don't care. I just know I can't seem to keep my trigger finger moving very fast. Maybe the damn thing is suffering from a past injury. Again I don't know.

[CHA-LEE]

Sarge> I have always found that the depth of the trigger should be set to allow the pad of your trigger finger to lay on the trigger in a natural relaxed finger position. One way you can "Tune" or "verify" the trigger depth is set correctly is to shoot a 10 - 15 yard target aggressively with multiple rounds. If the shots are getting pulled to the right, then the trigger is too far forward. If the shots get pulled to the left, the trigger is too far back. This is for a right handed shooter, it would be opposite for a left handed shooter. You can also do this in dry fire while observing the movement of the front sight/dot. Basically the test is to intentionally mash the trigger aggressively and with excessive pressure and observe the sights or on target hits to see if you are pulling the gun left or right while mashing the trigger.

If the trigger depth is set too far forward or rearward it can screw with your ability to crank out super fast splits with a "Trigger Freeze" type of failure mode where you fail to reset the trigger, or pull the trigger back far enough post shot. Usually this issue shows up when the trigger is too far forward and you fail to row your finger back far enough to reset the trigger.

This is where having an increased trigger return spring tension can minimize the trigger freeze issue. But an increased trigger return spring tension should only be done once you have determined the proper depth of the trigger within the trigger guard.

I have done a boat load of trigger tweaking and tuning creating 1lb pulls all the way up to 4lb pulls. For me, a trigger pull weight of 2.0 - 2.5lbs is right in my sweet spot. Its heavy enough to push my finger back post shot to reset the trigger properly but still light enough to break high precision shots without displacing the sights. A lot of the sight displacement reduction comes from a properly set trigger depth and not so much the trigger pull weight. Everyone has different hands and fingers so a trigger setup that works for one guy may not work so well for another guy.

[mgardner]

I shoot my Para 1911 fastest of all my 1911's and it has Greider short match trigger. It kinda makes sense because anything I want to do faster, easier and with more control, I start with the muscles short which makes them stronger and faster instead of fully extended. Try to do squats sitting on your heels then try them with your legs nearly extended. You have much more strength and control with the shorter muscles than having the muscles fully extended. Having my finger bent more seems to make it easier to shoot the gun fast. I think the muscles that pull the finger straight also tend to have more spring in them too which may help with reset.

[CHA-LEE]

For setting the trigger return spring tension to push your finger back post shot, its best to do it in dry fire. With an unloaded gun, cock the hammer back and build your normal 2 handed thumbs forward grip. Pull the trigger aggressively to drop the hammer and hold the trigger back. Remove your weak hand and rack the slide to reset the trigger/cock the hammer all the while keeping constant pressure on the trigger. Then rebuild your normal 2 handed thumbs forward grip and grip the gun with your normal shooting firm grip pressure. THEN simply relax your trigger finger. If the trigger has enough trigger return spring tension the trigger should push your finger back to the reset point without your finger ever leaving the trigger. You simply keep increasing trigger return spring tension until the trigger can push your finger back to the reset point. The most important part of this process is to use your normal live fire shooting firm grip pressure when you rebuild your grip after racking the slide. If you grip the gun in an artificially light grip pressure it will produce a lighter than needed reset spring tension needed to push your finger back.

[Dkrad1935]

Try pushing the start/stop button on a stop watch and see how fast you can do it

[Dkrad1935]

I just played with it for a few minutes and I can consistently do it in about .13 seconds. This is likely a limit for how fast my splits could ever be?

[Sarge]

Might not be as slow as I thought. Shot a couple of 6 shot strings today. .17-.19 throughout.

[yoshidaex]

That's plenty fast.

[chuck s]

I always find it interesting when a person asks for legitimate advice and is immediately told " that is not your problem" or " you should work on other more important things". It seems to me that it is all important, and if you can shoot .15 splits regularly, then you should want to shoot .14 splits, and so on. Cha-Lee seems to get it and I will give that a try.

[tigerkf]

Sub .20 splits are easily achieved with a trigger reset spring tension which allows the trigger to push your finger back when you relax your trigger finger after the initial trigger press. Doing this allows you to shoot from a more relaxed state because you know that if you simply relax your finger after pulling the trigger the trigger will push your finger back to reset. If you have to row your finger forward post shot that usually creates more tension and results in overall slower trigger finger speed.

I have used the "Press, then relax" trigger press/reset method many times to allow myself to crank out .10 - .15 splits. But as others have already said, fast splits are useless without aggressive and efficient target to target transitions. If you have solid transition skills you rarely have to shoot an on target split below a .25 and still produce a GM level performance.

Come on, one problem at a time. Yeah, my transitions suck too.

But, But, the transitions are more important for shooting fast. As said above you can shoot .20-.25 splits with clean transitions and still kick tail. Work on that and forget the pop, pop, hesitation, pop, pop. Sounds fast, reads slow (on timer)!!!