controlled pairs

[biglog]

hi folks, so i took a vid of my paper target to better track where my second shot on my pairs are going.  every single one was about 3 inches lower than the first shot. besides working the trigger a hair faster, is there something else i can do to keep gun from "dipping" when the slide slams back home? a hand pressure ? A finger pressure ?  (right handed)

             i shoot glock

 thanks guys... tim

[Flea]

Could be many things but tensing your firing hand and/or pushing the gun down to "fight" recoil are typical causes.

[Sarge]

What type gun/ caliber etc? Aside from really bad gun handling like mentioned above, my bet is the recoil spring is too heavy. A slide slamming forward too hard will drive a gun down too much. 
 

[Braxton1]

A "3 inches lower" second shot is not that bad of an issue, unless we're shooting from contact distance and the results would only get worse with a little more range.

 

Both of the above replies are correct, but something else in the OP's post needs to be addressed....

 

A controlled pair, as defined by Jeff Cooper, is "one shot, followed by a re-acquisition of sight picture, refinement of said sight picture, then delivery of a second shot".  In other words, two distinctive shots that just happen to follow one another.  Most trained shooters can perform all of these steps in a 0.25 second or so interval.

 

"Working the trigger a hair faster" is the antithesis of what needs to happen here.  Doing that would probably make the issue worse rather than helping.  In a controlled pair, one needs to have the visual patience to wait until the refinement of the sight picture is complete before pressing the trigger for the second shot.  If that is not done, we have actually executed a "dedicated pair", which may or may not be appropriate for the distance or the accuracy requirements for that scenario.

[crg]

This is something I've been struggling with also. I shoot a shadow 2 with all stock springs and factory ammo (145-150 pf). I have been trying to combat muzzle dip with my grip. It seems to me that there's only two points of contact that could serve to reduce dip: my weak hand index finger against the trigger guard, and the heel of my strong hand against the back strap.

 

Adjusting my weak hand has not been very helpful, I think for two reasons  The first is the mechanical advantage at the trigger guard is poor. The second and probably more important one is that to some extent I think my weak hand actually contributes to dip rather than fights it. Obviously there is some amount of elasticity in our skin, and when the gun recoils in my hands that elasticity produces a moment opposite the recoil. This works against recoil, but adds with the moment generated by the slide returning forward as the gun comes back down. This is a long winded way of saying my support hand helps mitigate recoil well but not muzzle dip. 

 

This leaves me thinking the answer must be in my strong hand. I then tried pushing the heel hard into the back strap and found that this helps a lot. So much so that it (unsurprisingly) produced the opposite problem: the gun didn't come back down to its initial position at all. I now suspect the solution is finding the right amount of pressure to apply to the back strap with my strong hand to eliminate dip, and without producing extra tension in my hand that would hinder trigger pull.

 

I apologize for the long post but does that sound right?

 

 

 

 

[Flea]

My goal when shooting doubles is to have a perfect grip which would then allow the gun to recoil and return to the exact position it was when I broke the first shot. I'm not actively trying to bring the gun back down. It should just return to the same position if my grip is proper and I'm not pushing the gun down.

[Johnny_Chimpo]

6 hours ago, Flea said:

My goal when shooting doubles is to have a perfect grip which would then allow the gun to recoil and return to the exact position it was when I broke the first shot. I'm not actively trying to bring the gun back down. It should just return to the same position if my grip is proper and I'm not pushing the gun down.

 

This is the way

[B585]

I have fought the same issue.   For me it all had to do with the right wrist.  It is hard to explain, but if I kept strong hand wrist more straight, the problem goes away.  I am still trying to get it down subconscious.  I do disagree with the person above.  It is a terrible problem to have (almost every penalty i get is from pulling the second shot low) because most NS and hard cover is beneath the target so unless you were shooting doubles beyond 15 yards, it is worth taking the time to fix.  My theory is that in my attempt to reduce right hand tension, I was moving my right wrist tension (and position) with my trigger finger.  When i release the trigger, i unlock the wrist and the gun goes up and when I start to pull the trigger again I relook the wrist and gun goes down.  My reasoning is I noticed that when I pull the second shot low, the gun recoils more so it’s not me actually trying to push the gun down.

 

i have experienced this on multiple platforms and different types of ammo

Edited November 12, 2022 by B585

[biglog]

CRG : yes, these are the thoughts i was looking for....i'll try them monday. 

[biglog]

yes B585 :   i'll take a look at that..thx guys.

 

[mSNACKS]

In my experience you are probably putting input on the gun driving it more down than needed. As mentioned already, with a proper grip the gun should recover to about the same spot unless we’re talking far distances 20+ yards. What distance did you do the drill at?