Brian's Book and Grip Pressure

[saibot]

I've been reading Brian's book again (always a gem!) and trying to figure out my grip and the right amount of pressure. Brian is an advocate of a very relaxed grip and letting the gun do it's thing as long as it comes back to where it started. I've noticed that with a 2011 doing the ole' 70/30 grip pressure works just great. But, the 2011 is out of commission and I went back to my Glock and oh boy, having some issues.

Trying to figure things out yesterday I put about 200 rounds into the berm, just watching the sights, and here's what I noticed.

I have to crush it with my support hand, and give barely any pressure with my strong hand to have it cycle and return to the precise place it started. It flips pretty dramatically and the slide doesn't lock back on an empty magazine. I have to get the pressure just right for this to work, and will take some practice to nail it without thought.

To get the sight back to where they started with lots of pressure, I have to crush the bejesus out of the grip with both hands. The sights don't move much at all, but if not crushed from both hands, it falters, too.

So my question here is which is right? Or use both depending on the need? I really like being relaxed, but not sure I could hose as quickly with the relaxed 70/30.

I'm also wondering if Brian's advice is mainly applicable to the 1911/2011 platform, and plastic/Glocks have to be shot differently. Seeklander/Vogal/Shannon who all shoot plastic advocate crushing the heck out of the grip.

Have any of you experimented with this? Any advice?

[CHA-LEE]

How much grip pressure "Feeling" your need is totally dependent upon how many actual pounds of grip force your hands can produce. Here are two examples. Shooter "A" has a maximum grip strength of 200lbs per hand. When they grip the gun firmly this probably produces 150lbs of grip force. Shooter "B" has a maximum grip strength of 100lbs per hand. Then they grip the gun firmly this probably produces 75lbs of grip force.

Shooter "A" and "B" both perceive the "Feeling" of gripping the gun firmly, but Shooter A is actually gripping the gun with 75lbs more grip force.

There is no getting around the basic physics of gripping a gun harder will produce less muzzle flip and more consistent tracking of the sights. Gripping the gun with more pounds of grip force is better than doing it with less force from a gun displacement and sight tracking perspective. The trick is to increase your base grip strength so that you can comfortably grip the gun with a lot of pounds of force without "feeling" like you are death gripping it.

You can test this theory by asking pretty much any Limited GM to shake your hand "Firmly". More often than not you will be greeted with a crushingly strong grip that they can produce without much effort needed.

[jkrispies]

I recently switched from a Glock to a Single Stack. Coincidentally I noticed this weekend that I'm At a a 70/30 type grip when running the gun correctly, whereas before it was more like a 60/40. Might be related to needing more pressure to make the polymer gun run correctly and now I'm getting more into the groove of shooting a steel framed gun. Or maybe it's just better practice, lol.

[V2plus25]

I've been reading Brian's book again (always a gem!) and trying to figure out my grip and the right amount of pressure. Brian is an advocate of a very relaxed grip and letting the gun do it's thing as long as it comes back to where it started. I've noticed that with a 2011 doing the ole' 70/30 grip pressure works just great. But, the 2011 is out of commission and I went back to my Glock and oh boy, having some issues.

Trying to figure things out yesterday I put about 200 rounds into the berm, just watching the sights, and here's what I noticed.

I have to crush it with my support hand, and give barely any pressure with my strong hand to have it cycle and return to the precise place it started. It flips pretty dramatically and the slide doesn't lock back on an empty magazine. I have to get the pressure just right for this to work, and will take some practice to nail it without thought.

To get the sight back to where they started with lots of pressure, I have to crush the bejesus out of the grip with both hands. The sights don't move much at all, but if not crushed from both hands, it falters, too.

So my question here is which is right? Or use both depending on the need? I really like being relaxed, but not sure I could hose as quickly with the relaxed 70/30.

I'm also wondering if Brian's advice is mainly applicable to the 1911/2011 platform, and plastic/Glocks have to be shot differently. Seeklander/Vogal/Shannon who all shoot plastic advocate crushing the heck out of the grip.

Have any of you experimented with this? Any advice?

The slide not locking back is probably your support hand being just high enough to hold the slide lock level down, especially when attempting to crush the grip with the support hand. For me as well I have to crush the grip mostly with my support hand in order to get the sights to return consistently to the same place with my Glocks. Ratio-wise I would say it is more like a 70/30 for me, because doing so leaves my trigger finger free to press the trigger straight back without any sympathetic movement induced by a crushing grip from my dominant hand.

No ideas on the 1911/2011 platform differences, but according to Stoeger who shoots a Tanfo Stock II, he also crushes his grip on the gun especially with his support hand in order to keep the sights returning consistently during recoil.

[benos]

By "relaxed," I meant "not tense." I'd grip the pistol as hard as I could - with equal pressure from both hands - without introducing any tremor or "vibration."

[saibot]

By "relaxed," I meant "not tense." I'd grip the pistol as hard as I could - with equal pressure from both hands - without introducing any tremor or "vibration."

Well there you have it.

Thanks all for the great advice. Now off to test...

[Sac Law Man]

Ive got to be honest,, I wish I understood this grip pressure thing years ago, the way I do now.. For years, everything you read was dont grip the gun too hard, like your hammering a nail etc. No one ever said grip it as hard as you can! Then comes along the likes of Vogel, Stoeger and even Leatham and they are saying grip it hard. When I grip the pistol these days, I grip it hard, and without any attempt to have one hand gripping harder than the other. The biggest difference for me is accuracy at harder and further targets. I see my sights lift and return much better and the gun doesnt seem to recoil. The hardest part is doing this every time on these type of shots..

[pcs352]

Awesome and very insightful post. Thank you!

[ktm300]

The hardest part for me is to dry fire with the same grip I shoot with. It is so easy to slip back into a grip that is not hard enough when I know the gun is not going to go bang. After a few thousand reps it is starting to become second nature to grip the crap out of the gun in live and dry fire.

I do grip the gun harder with my support hand than my strong hand. My fingertips turn white on my support hand, they don't on my strong hand. I see video of my .40 shooting 172pf loads and it hardly moves.

Leatham has a video of a drill where you shoot a static plate in the same spot over and over trying to increase split speed until you can't get it to come back to the same spot. That helped a lot. To get the splits into the low teens you have to hang on to the gun pretty hard.

[pcs352]

Awesome and very insightful post. Thank you!

[phoenixsomd]

I shoot several pistols and at the extremes are a CZ Tactical Sport and a Glock 34. The TS weighs a lot and can be shot easily with moderate grip pressure; more emphasis on my weak hand. The Glock is very light and for me to shoot it well requires a lot more grip pressure and an effort to "lock" my elbows.

[jkrispies]

I shoot several pistols and at the extremes are a CZ Tactical Sport and a Glock 34. The TS weighs a lot and can be shot easily with moderate grip pressure; more emphasis on my weak hand. The Glock is very light and for me to shoot it well requires a lot more grip pressure and an effort to "lock" my elbows.

This is an interesting point on weight that I hadn't considered. I was thinking that the polymer guns needed more pressure to cycle due to increased flex in the frame transferring energy elsewhere. I guess there could be several reasons for these observations.