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How to properly lock the strong hand wrist


BryceA

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My M&P9 2.0 in 5" is the softest recoiling pistol I have but I have a much harder time getting it to bounce back on target than a Glock of a CZ P10 platform. While doing some dry fire practice I started comparing presentations, and it may be the difference in grip angle causing me to fail to properly lock my strong hand wrist (hard to be sure since it was dry fire, but this is my working hypothesis until the wind dies down and I can get some live fire practice in). When I point a Glock (or CZ, we'll just say Glock from now on) I get a very natural presentation that includes a well locked strong hand wrist, not hyper-extended, but just at the point of discomfort. This is not the case with my M&P: if I present with a well locked wrist I'm naturally pointing low. Historically I've been relaxing the strong hand wrist a bit to get my presentation on target. While this works great for transitional shots, follows ups are often squirrely and I frequently find myself slinging the second round of a double-tap low, consistent with me fully locking the wrist on the second shot while attempting to manage the recoil of the first, pushing it to 6 o-clock.

 

Now how to fix this. What should give? Is it better to bend the elbows a bit to maintain the wrist lock and sacrifice a bit of rigidity in the middle arm (what I've been told before) or is it better to let the strong hand wrist relax a bit and keep the elbows bent outward slightly, and spend more effort using the weak hand for managing recoil? Or perhaps something altogether?

 

And sorry if this has been covered before, I didn't find anything with a search but that is hardly conclusive.

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Grip. Harder.

With both hands.

 

No no. Harder that that.


Okay. Now you’ve got the strong hand down. CRUSH the gun into tiny little pieces with your weak hand. Your weak thumb moves solidly with the frame of the gun during recoil. Most people don’t accomplish this. Film them in slow mo and you’ll see that only the strong wrist is really taking the recoil.

 

(I’m not specifically addressing your wrist locking query, I’m focusing on the motivation behind it. The desire for better recoil control and a gun that snaps back to center alpha.)

 

;) 

 

Edited by MemphisMechanic
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My M&P9 2.0 in 5" is the softest recoiling pistol I have but I have a much harder time getting it to bounce back on target than a Glock of a CZ P10 platform. While doing some dry fire practice I started comparing presentations, and it may be the difference in grip angle causing me to fail to properly lock my strong hand wrist (hard to be sure since it was dry fire, but this is my working hypothesis until the wind dies down and I can get some live fire practice in). When I point a Glock (or CZ, we'll just say Glock from now on) I get a very natural presentation that includes a well locked strong hand wrist, not hyper-extended, but just at the point of discomfort. This is not the case with my M&P: if I present with a well locked wrist I'm naturally pointing low. Historically I've been relaxing the strong hand wrist a bit to get my presentation on target. While this works great for transitional shots, follows ups are often squirrely and I frequently find myself slinging the second round of a double-tap low, consistent with me fully locking the wrist on the second shot while attempting to manage the recoil of the first, pushing it to 6 o-clock.
 
Now how to fix this. What should give? Is it better to bend the elbows a bit to maintain the wrist lock and sacrifice a bit of rigidity in the middle arm (what I've been told before) or is it better to let the strong hand wrist relax a bit and keep the elbows bent outward slightly, and spend more effort using the weak hand for managing recoil? Or perhaps something altogether?
 
And sorry if this has been covered before, I didn't find anything with a search but that is hardly conclusive.
lock your strong side wrist like you'd shake someone's hand. locked wrist with relaxed fingers. your fingers should have very little squeezing force only enough to hold the gun and manipulate the trigger fast

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1 hour ago, MemphisMechanic said:

Grip. Harder.

With both hands.

 

No no. Harder that that.


Okay. Now you’ve got the strong hand down. CRUSH the gun into tiny little pieces with your weak hand. Your weak thumb moves solidly with the frame of the gun during recoil. Most people don’t accomplish this. Film them in slow mo and you’ll see that only the strong wrist is really taking the recoil.

 

(I’m not specifically addressing your wrist locking query, I’m focusing on the motivation behind it. The desire for better recoil control and a gun that snaps back to center alpha.)

 

;) 

 

 

Yes, this is completely correct. 

 

49 minutes ago, Rnlinebacker said:

lock your strong side wrist like you'd shake someone's hand. locked wrist with relaxed fingers. your fingers should have very little squeezing force only enough to hold the gun and manipulate the trigger fast

 

No, this is completely incorrect. 

 

Grip strength is a shooter's greatest friend. You want to be crushing the gun as much as you can. 

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In my less than expert opinion, I believe the wrist lock is more important than elbow bend.  We are built a little different so YMMV, but after shooting multiple platforms I get the most consistency and best tracking by locking my wrist.  The doubles drill really works well for helping you figure out what grip/wrist/elbow position will work best the platform you are shooting.

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No, this is completely incorrect. 

 

Grip strength is a shooter's greatest friend. You want to be crushing the gun as much as you can. 

BS. Strong hands job is just hold enough, wrists locked and fingers relaxed to manipulate trigger. Do you pin the trigger back too?? Support hand crushes the gun. Please don't insert "slow is smooth and smooth is fast" [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

 

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Lets not get to far into the weeds with how much to grip the gun unless someone is suggesting that locking the wrist doesn't matter. Presumably I'm gripping my Glock and M&P platforms roughly the same, so I'd like to focus on how to properly position my hands/wrists/elbows/shoulders to get my technique corrected with the M&P platforms.

 

1 hour ago, B585 said:

We are built a little different so YMMV, but after shooting multiple platforms I get the most consistency and best tracking by locking my wrist.

What do you do to get your sights back up on target when wrist locking: keep your elbows a bit more bent? Or perhaps in your case the Glock platforms track high with properly locked wrists?

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1 hour ago, Rnlinebacker said:

BS. Strong hands job is just hold enough, wrists locked and fingers relaxed to manipulate trigger. Do you pin the trigger back too?? Support hand crushes the gun. Please don't insert "slow is smooth and smooth is fast" emoji23.pngemoji23.pngemoji23.png

 

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What is “enough”? 

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4 minutes ago, Rnlinebacker said:

this is not a screw around thread. the individual asked a simple question. purchase a PSTG membership or book

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I’m not screwing around (but I will if a good opportunity arises). 

 

You called “BS” on someone else’s post, then left us with a vague “enough”.  I’m asking for elaboration.

 

Thanks for the membership tip, but I’m confident in my grip at this time. 

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this is not a screw around thread. the individual asked a simple question. purchase a PSTG membership or book

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OP. This.^^^^^

Spend 30 bucks on 1 month of access to PTSG. Watch the video series on recoil management by Hwansik Kim. Excellent series. Worth the 30 bucks alone. There is tons of other of material on there too.

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2 minutes ago, anonymouscuban said:

OP. This.^^^^^

Spend 30 bucks on 1 month of access to PTSG. Watch the video series on recoil management by Hwansik Kim. Excellent series. Worth the 30 bucks alone. There is tons of other of material on there too.

Sent from my SM-G930U using Tapatalk
 

Does any of the PTSG content the address the concern of locking the wrists? I have a number of Stoegers books and he goes into detail about how hard to grip but I don't recall discussion about locking wrists. Perhaps the whole hypothesis is a red herring?

 

Regardless, I'll look into PTSG.

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Does any of the PTSG content the address the concern of locking the wrists? I have a number of Stoegers books and he goes into detail about how hard to grip but I don't recall discussion about locking wrists. Perhaps the whole hypothesis is a red herring?

 

Regardless, I'll look into PTSG.

It does. It takes a very extensive look at all aspects of grip. Discusses grip, joints, etc. It demonstrates examples of bad recoil control from different root causes. Shows how you can diagnose the root cause and then shows how to fix them with drills to confirm and train each solution.

 

If I recall, it's a 4 part video. Quite interesting and enlightening. Nice technical look at the aspects of recoil control but easy to understand and put into practice.

 

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Does any of the PTSG content the address the concern of locking the wrists? I have a number of Stoegers books and he goes into detail about how hard to grip but I don't recall discussion about locking wrists. Perhaps the whole hypothesis is a red herring?
 
Regardless, I'll look into PTSG.
the most in depth explanation of how and why to do things a certain way. changed my performance output tremendously

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In Hwansik's recoil management video, there's a training technique to help isolate locking the strong hand wrist while keeping the fingers relaxed for trigger manipulation. I'll try to explain it as best as possible but it's better if you watch it.

 

Hold your strong hand out like you're going to shake someone's hand. With your weak hand, try to rock the strong hand up and down while holding it at the wrist. If your wrist is locked correctly, you won't be able to rock the strong hand. To check that your fingers are relaxed, you can just feel the muscles in the strong hand. They should be soft and not hard.

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I found that for me I concentrate on taking the off hand and Pointing the thumb At the target as part of the grip helps lock it out. for the Main hand(strong hand) I recommend gripping it comfortably tight (a firm hand shake ). The gun Is Supposed to Move. You are just trying to return it back to where it came. I am just starting to get this down myself, I tend to over grip with the main hand.  One of these days ill check out the PTSG website, but for now Books and dryfire are your and my Friend.

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9 hours ago, Rnlinebacker said:

this is not a screw around thread. the individual asked a simple question. purchase a PSTG membership or book

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk
 


I liked the part where you told a Limited GM who often finishes in the top 20 at Nationals to go buy a membership to a website which  can teach him how to shoot.

 

Edited by MemphisMechanic
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23 hours ago, BryceA said:

Lets not get to far into the weeds with how much to grip the gun unless someone is suggesting that locking the wrist doesn't matter. Presumably I'm gripping my Glock and M&P platforms roughly the same, so I'd like to focus on how to properly position my hands/wrists/elbows/shoulders to get my technique corrected with the M&P platforms.

 

What do you do to get your sights back up on target when wrist locking: keep your elbows a bit more bent? Or perhaps in your case the Glock platforms track high with properly locked wrists?

 

It really depends on the specific platform.  When I start shooting a new platform, I start experimenting on what is going to work for it. For the most part I have found that my elbows are slightly bent out.  The larger the frame (what I prefer), the less out (lateral) my elbows go out.  I am shooting a Tanfo right now.  When I shoot a CZ I have elbow flared out pretty far.  When I shot an M&P, I was somewhere in the middle.  I do not actively push the gun down or up, it just returns on its own.   For me, I play around with the grip by adding grip tape or silicone carbide and it amazes me how a little here or there makes a difference.  I have 2 indentical Tanfos but they have ever so slightly different grips (I made them myself and tried to make them the same but they didn’t come out that way) and just that very little difference causes one to shoot perfect on fast splits and the other tends to track slightly low.  Again we are built different so that may not be the case for you, but it definitely works for me.  

Edited by B585
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TL;DR: I need to practice more to get the muscle memory built up with the M&P, but it looks more promising after taking a few hours to examine what's happening in live fire.

 

I went out to the range this morning and played around with some of the suggestions here and made a comparison with my P10F. With some careful attention, I can lock both of my wrists with just a slight increase in elbow bend as compared to the P10F platform. Both consistently return to center alpha when paying careful attention to form and grip pressure. The M&P may even be a bit better at returning, probably due to an ever so slightly softer recoil impulse. However, the M&P doesn't feel as natural and it's easy for me to 'relax' out of a properly locked grip.

 

As far as grip force is concerned, making sure I used a 'pinching' grip (see the 'Bob Vogel on grip' video) with my strong hand that is firm but not so much as to compromise dexterity while then using my support hand to crush down as hard as possible without shaking was the best, which is roughly the consensus of this thread. A bit more strength would help even more, but I suppose we can all say that.

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On 10/10/2019 at 7:28 AM, MemphisMechanic said:


I liked the part where you told a Limited GM who often finishes in the top 20 at Nationals to go buy a membership to a website which  can teach him how to shoot.

 

😂😂

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I liked the part where you told a Limited GM who often finishes in the top 20 at Nationals to go buy a membership to a website which  can teach him how to shoot.
 
didn't mean to get his gf involved. my bad [emoji51][emoji51]

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