Help: How do I stop slapping the trigger when I shoot faster

[Heyman2]

At 10 yards and in, I can hit center A zone hits with about .40-.45 splits. Yes, I know it's slow. When I speed it up to .25ish splits, my grouping shifts left and a little low and fall mostly into the C zone. I'm obviously pressing the trigger harder instead of faster. What drills can I do to press the trigger faster, but not harder? TIA!

Edited January 2, 2017 by Heyman2

[theWacoKid]

Dry fire more.  Do the white wall drill a whole lot.

[Hi-Power Jack]

A better grip might help.   If you hold the gun more securely, your "slap" won't affect

where the bullets go as much as if you don't hold on tight.   

The Bill Drill might help a bit, and I like The Dot Torture Drill.

[theWacoKid]

I agree.  Slapping isn't necessarily the issue.  It's fine to slap or hammer the trigger if you don't move the sights.  

For live fire Bill Drill is good.  I also like the hard double tap drill where you aim at the target then when comfortable pull the trigger twice as fast as you can.  Continue to do this and learn the feel of how much weak hand grip it takes to get good hits and stabilize the gun to keep it from dipping and keep it returning on target.

[Heyman2]

8 minutes ago, theWacoKid said:

Dry fire more.  Do the white wall drill a whole lot.

Here's the thing though. When I dry fire, I can press the trigger without the sights moving at all. But this is when I prep the trigger. I think when I was doing the Bill Drill yesterday, b/c I was trying to shoot faster, I wasn't prepping the trigger and just pressed it as soon as I had a good enough sight picture. So when I got home last night, I did more DF without prepping the trigger, and sure enough, my muzzle would move to the left.

8 minutes ago, Hi-Power Jack said:

A better grip might help.   If you hold the gun more securely, your "slap" won't affect

where the bullets go as much as if you don't hold on tight.   

The Bill Drill might help a bit, and I like The Dot Torture Drill.

I was doing the Bill Drill and that's what made me notice my terrible accuracy when trying to push my speed. I'll concentrate on a better grip my next time out. I definitely did notice I wasn't getting consistent grips each and every time out of the holster. I shoot a M&P in Production, and the damn bevertail keeps jamming into my palm when I try to get a high grip from the holster. I definitely need to practice that more.

3 minutes ago, theWacoKid said:

I agree.  Slapping isn't necessarily the issue.  It's fine to slap or hammer the trigger if you don't move the sights.  

For live fire Bill Drill is good.  I also like the hard double tap drill where you aim at the target then when comfortable pull the trigger twice as fast as you can.  Continue to do this and learn the feel of how much weak hand grip it takes to get good hits and stabilize the gun to keep it from dipping and keep it returning on target.

I actually did this with the last mag I had yesterday, concentrating on gripping harder with my support hand. I did notice I was getting my second shot off faster and closer to where the first shot landed. Now, doing this at a match without having to think about it is my next goal.

Thanks for the suggestions so far gents.

[jkrispies]

Pick a tv series you want to watch again and buy all the seasons.  Sit in front of the tv and watch it.  While watching, practice pulling the trigger.  This means, pull the trigger, keep the trigger depressed, cycle the slide, reset, pull, repeat. For hours.  And hours.  Don't aim, just pull the trigger and watch your show.  (FYI, if you're married, do it alone unless you want to risk a divorce.)

[theWacoKid]

The double tap drill is to help train your muscles and trigger finger and to attempt to speed up your vision.   This is NOT how you should shoot at the match, unless you've done it so much that you are to the point that you can visually confirm everything at that pace.

And like you learned, hammer the trigger in dryfire just like you are trying to squirt bullets out of the gun at your brisk live fire pace.

[Heyman2]

4 minutes ago, theWacoKid said:

The double tap drill is to help train your muscles and trigger finger and to attempt to speed up your vision.   This is NOT how you should shoot at the match, unless you've done it so much that you are to the point that you can visually confirm everything at that pace.

And like you learned, hammer the trigger in dryfire just like you are trying to squirt bullets out of the gun at your brisk live fire pace.

Yep, I think this is what I need help with the most since it's something I've never done before. Issues is I have shorter fingers and it's hard to hammer it without moving the sights. When I prep, I can press the trigger all day long without moving the sighs, but this is a different story and something I'll have to work on. However, it doesn't explain why my second, third, etc shots are also grouping left, unless I'm releasing the trigger past the point of it's reset, which is what I'm probably doing. Man, just when you think you're good, this website shows you how much work you have to do to actually be a good competitive shooter. On a static range, when there is no time constraints, I am more accurate than the majority of people. But add speed to it, like you need in games like USPSA, my accuracy suffers greatly.

[Heyman2]

7 minutes ago, jkrispies said:

Pick a tv series you want to watch again and buy all the seasons.  Sit in front of the tv and watch it.  While watching, practice pulling the trigger.  This means, pull the trigger, keep the trigger depressed, cycle the slide, reset, pull, repeat. For hours.  And hours.  Don't aim, just pull the trigger and watch your show.  (FYI, if you're married, do it alone unless you want to risk a divorce.)

My wife actually doesn't mind, but the issue is, my kids bedroom is in direct line of sight from where I would be pointing.

[jkrispies]

7 minutes ago, Heyman2 said:

My wife actually doesn't mind, but the issue is, my kids bedroom is in direct line of sight from where I would be pointing.

Send 'em to visit their crazy aunt.  

[theWacoKid]

I also was taught a technique for uspsa that ranks target difficulty and then applies the appropriate sight picture and trigger press depending on their ranking. So basically I practice 3 different trigger presses and 3 different acceptable sight pictures for targets gauged at 4 levels of difficulty. This really helps me give targets enough attention to pick up points and avoid penalties but not so much I waste time. 

My point is that squeezing the trigger like a bullseye shooter has nearly nothing in common with shooting normal presentation uspsa targets at speed. I rarely use my prep/squeeze trigger press in a uspsa match and as you get better you will almost never need to use it. Maybe save it for a 50 yard partial!

 

 

Edited January 2, 2017 by theWacoKid

[theWacoKid]

1 hour ago, Heyman2 said:

.......I have shorter fingers and it's hard to hammer it without moving the sights. 

Nope.  This has nothing to do with the size of your hands so forget about that excuse immediately.  Every hand size has trouble doing this until they learn it.  Some of the best shooters in the world have smaller hands and shorter fingers and some have large hands, it's just not relevant so don't trick yourself into thinking it is.  You're just simply not good at it... yet.

Tons of people pick up a guitar and say "my fingers are too fat, I can't hold the strings".  That's an initial excuse because those same people become shredders after they forget about making up excuses and get better by practicing.

Edited January 2, 2017 by theWacoKid

[Heyman2]

55 minutes ago, theWacoKid said:

Nope.  This has nothing to do with the size of your hands so forget about that excuse immediately.  Every hand size has trouble doing this until they learn it.  Some of the best shooters in the world have smaller hands and shorter fingers and some have large hands, it's just not relevant so don't trick yourself into thinking it is.  You're just simply not good at it... yet.

Tons of people pick up a guitar and say "my fingers are too fat, I can't hold the strings".  That's an initial excuse because those same people become shredders after they forget about making up excuses and get better by practicing.

Thank you for this post!!!! I shall practice my ass off til I can master this type of press as I've "mastered" the taking up the slack press.

[Heyman2]

I spent 15 mins DFing last night, trying to perfect pressing the trigger without stopping at the wall. Damn, talk about frustrating. I was able to perform a few presses without moving the sights, but the majority of the time, the sights were all over the place. Left, up, down, up and right. The few that I was able to do correctly, was after I altered my grip a little. I released some pressure from my support hand fingers, and increased pressure on my support hand wrist while also putting more pressure on my support hand palm. I have a long ways to go. It's just so frustrating because I'm used to DFing without moving the sights when I go to the wall, stop, and press. Pressing all the way through the wall is certainly a different skill. But I'm wondering how much I really need to do it like this if I release the trigger only to the reset on subsequent shots.

[MemphisMechanic]

For USPSA you want to do the majority of your trigger presses in dryfire as fast an ugly as possible - learning to do that and still come straight back.

Hold the gun out extended. finger in contact but not pressuring trigger. at the buzzer, drop the hammer before the "beep" stops. Makes you pull it fast.

Begin to learn to clamp down on the gun ruthlessly with the weak hand with every dryfire rep you do. More pressure with it than with strong hand isn't natural. That'll take lots of practice

[RangerTrace]

TGO said it all.........

[Heyman2]

On January 13, 2017 at 7:18 AM, MemphisMechanic said:

For USPSA you want to do the majority of your trigger presses in dryfire as fast an ugly as possible - learning to do that and still come straight back.

Hold the gun out extended. finger in contact but not pressuring trigger. at the buzzer, drop the hammer before the "beep" stops. Makes you pull it fast.

Begin to learn to clamp down on the gun ruthlessly with the weak hand with every dryfire rep you do. More pressure with it than with strong hand isn't natural. That'll take lots of practice

I experimented with different grips a couple of nights this past week. Like you suggested, I'm putting more pressure on the gun with my support hand. I'm using a grip so high that my support thumb and the part of the Palm by the thumb are both on the slide itself. I'm also torquing my support hand so that the bottom part of my palm, the part by the pinky, is barely touching the grip while the part of the palm by the thumb is really putting a lot of side pressure on the slide and frame. I'm also torquing in with my right hand in pretty much the same fashion. I found my sights settled faster and I felt like I had more control of the recoil. I had way more runs with all alphas and some really nice fist sized groups as well at ten yards. My splits were slow at 30 splits, and best run at ten yards with all alphas was 2.89. But I feel like I've finally made some progress forward today. 

I have to be more consistent with this grip drawing out of a holster, as sometimes I find myself relaxing the grip. One problem I did run into was the slide not locking back on the last round. Did some troubleshooting with help from a friend and realized my grip is so high and tight now, that it's putting pressure on the slide stop and preventing it from locking the slide back.

One other question. Do you guys track your sights through the complete recoil, or do you keep yours eyes on where you want to shoot and then pull the trigger when the sights come to that spot? I feel like I did better when I looked at the spot I wanted to shoot and waited for the sight to come to it, as opposed to tracking the sight the whole time. 

Edited January 15, 2017 by Heyman2

[Jeff Phillips]

One thing that helped me early on is Was to define the what the trigger pull cycle looked like. Here is what I mean: usually when people talk about pulling the trigger the cycle goes prep, break, then reset. What I found works better is to think of it as break, reset, prep. By making the prep the last step in the cycle, I was able to train my self to minimize the chances of skipping the prep step. As you get faster the swell between prep and break goes almost to zero, but the simple mindset of a ending with the prep the. Allows you to put more attention on the brake which is what has the most influence on your accuracy.

seems goofy, but it works.

[taxil343]

23 hours ago, Jeff Phillips said:

One thing that helped me early on is Was to define the what the trigger pull cycle looked like. Here is what I mean: usually when people talk about pulling the trigger the cycle goes prep, break, then reset. What I found works better is to think of it as break, reset, prep. By making the prep the last step in the cycle, I was able to train my self to minimize the chances of skipping the prep step. As you get faster the swell between prep and break goes almost to zero, but the simple mindset of a ending with the prep the. Allows you to put more attention on the brake which is what has the most influence on your accuracy.

seems goofy, but it works.

100% agree with this. So much so that I make sure to "feel" this process while air gunning a plate rack during a walk through. 

[Expflier]

Now that's a no bullshit instructional video!

[Heyman2]

On January 13, 2017 at 7:18 AM, MemphisMechanic said:

For USPSA you want to do the majority of your trigger presses in dryfire as fast an ugly as possible - learning to do that and still come straight back.

Hold the gun out extended. finger in contact but not pressuring trigger. at the buzzer, drop the hammer before the "beep" stops. Makes you pull it fast.

Begin to learn to clamp down on the gun ruthlessly with the weak hand with every dryfire rep you do. More pressure with it than with strong hand isn't natural. That'll take lots of practice

Just wanted to say thanks to you and others for your advice. You guys were right. It was all about my grip. While I haven't used the timer yet I've Ben doing do every couple of nights and working on pulling the trigger through the wall as fast I can while keeping the sights straight. The better grip I have on the gun, the faster I can pull with minimal to no movement in the sights. I previously thought I had issues with pulling straight through the break b/c I have smaller hands, but someone pointed out that had nothing to do with it and that I needed a better grip. Whoever said that, thank you and you were right. Can't wait to see how this translates in live fire.

[IDescribe]

Right.  It's always grip.  

 

Forgive me for not reading the whole thread closely and risking saying something that's already been said, but if you aren't already, when you are gripping the gun and holding it out in front of you, make sure to rotate your elbows outward, as that clamps your hands down on the pistol.  That may be what your describing when you talk about torquing your support hand, but it might be easier to think about it in terms of rotating out your elbows, and it should be with both hands to maintain a neutral grip.   Your shoulder girdle is strong.  Use it be turning out the elbows.  It's an easy way to increase grip pressure without much effort.

I'd also be careful about getting fingers on the slide.  Its unnecessary and can cause problems.

[Heyman2]

Got to the range yesterday and saw some issues, but also saw saw some improvement. At first, I was torquing the pistol in a way that it was causing the bottom of my palm to lose contact with the grip. I thought this wouldn't matter since the top of my palm of both hands was on the frame very snuggly. But I soon found out, leaving the bottom part of the grip exposed will cause me to milk the grip, which defeats the purpose of a good grip. So I had to readjust, and had better success. But this is still something I'll need to work on.

 

I shot a clean Bill Drill at 7 yards, hands in surrender at 2.61 which is a best for me. (I'm shooting a Production gun) The fasted overall was 2.48, but it was five A's, and one C that barely missed the perforated line.

 

I also did 1 shot reload 1 shot drills, and ran into several issues. I shoot a M&P9 Pro. In the past, I could always send the slide home when inserting the mag. However, lately it has become inconsistent and definitely costs me time I can't afford to lose since I'm slow to begin with. This also coincides with the slide not locking back sometimes which I attribute to my grip. (I did test it firing with one hand and it always locked back) So I'm obviously putting downward pressure on the slide stop. How can I avoid this while still maintaining a high, tight grip?

 

Also, I'd love some critique of my reloads. My fastest one for the day was this one at 2.99, I forget what the actual reload time was, but considering my first shot time is around 1.3, that would put the reload at 1.69. The first thing I notice while watching this video is that it seems my hand is getting to the new mag too slowly. Anyway I can speed this up? Any other issues you guys see? I'm all ears.

 

 

[B585]

10 hours ago, IDescribe said:

Right.  It's always grip.  

 

Forgive me for not reading the whole thread closely and risking saying something that's already been said, but if you aren't already, when you are gripping the gun and holding it out in front of you, make sure to rotate your elbows outward, as that clamps your hands down on the pistol.  That may be what your describing when you talk about torquing your support hand, but it might be easier to think about it in terms of rotating out your elbows, and it should be with both hands to maintain a neutral grip.   Your shoulder girdle is strong.  Use it be turning out the elbows.  It's an easy way to increase grip pressure without much effort.

I'd also be careful about getting fingers on the slide.  Its unnecessary and can cause problems.

 

Thank you for the tip on keeping the elbows out.  I recently switched from a 9 to .40 and my support hand kept slipping after a few shots no matter how hard I gripped with support hand.   I later figured out my strong hand grip wasn't enough.  The other problem I was having was losing my index during transitions.  I tried  putting my elbows out slightly and my transitions have improved draumatically....I don't lose my index. I haven't made it to the range yet to verify this will also fix my slipping problem, but the gun feels so much more secure with the elbows out.

[IDescribe]

Glad you can feel the difference.  It should help in the long run.