What does 'Milking the Grip' mean?

[condoor]

I've seen this phrased used in several threads in relation to people shooting Glocks to the left, but I'm not clear what it means.

thx-c

[BritinUSA]

Applying additional pressure to the grip as you press the trigger.

[Stuck in C]

Those of you who have milked a cow or a goat by hand (I have) will immediately get the reference...

[condoor]

Applying additional pressure to the grip as you press the trigger.

How do you prevent it?

[SA Friday]

Applying additional pressure to the grip as you press the trigger.

How do you prevent it?

by relaxing the stong hand and gripping tighter with the weak hand; 70/30 per se, and practice.

[MichiganShootist]

Massad Ayoob on his instructional tape indicates that you need to squeeze the shooting grip tighter. It will hyper-flex the non-trigger fingers and they will not move or flex when the trigger finger "goes to work"

Try it in dry fiare. The weaker the strong hand grip the more you will notice that the other fingers are moving or flexing when the trigger is pulled.

[Bigbadaboom]

It's like this; http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=65...h&plindex=4

Edited November 2, 2007 by Bigbadaboom

[DougCarden]

Take a look at the gun when you grip it in your gun hand only. You are only gripping the gun with your thumb, and three lower fingers (your trigger finger is only for the trigger).

After you fire a few rounds your grip loosens up, and the two fingers below the trigger finger come up and off the grip. I call them the "F-U fingers." If they come loose when you pull the trigger those fingers reflexively pull back as well. This imparts movement on the whole gun, instead of being "one-Piece" with the gun...ie. only the trigger finger is moving, everything else is locked down tight on the gun. That is why I advocate grip tape on the grip strap at the very least on production type guns....Glock, M&P, XDs, etc....

Just put your hand up in front of your face, and make like you are gripping the gun with a loose grip, then pull the trigger a couple of times...see the "F-U" fingers reflexively moving with the trigger finger.....That is milking right there.

Grip the snot out of the gun, and when the gun gets loose in your hand after firing a few shots, just regrip and the "F-U fingers"will not rule the day......

Hope that makes sense and helps somebody out there........

See ya,

DougC

[MemphisMechanic]

Hold an imaginary gun in your empty hand. Trigger finger extended. See how the other 3 fingers move slightly when you pull an imaginary trigger rapidly? That heels your shots off to the side.

Also, pull your trigger finger out of the guard until you're using the tip or pad of the trigger, if your hand isn't large. Ensure that you can (1)Pull the trigger staright back and (2)Keep ALL of the trigger finger and the first-knuckle where it meets the rest of your hand completely clear of the frame of the gun.

[SoCalGlocker]

Agreed. I'm still trying not to "milk" the grip, but I can tell when I've done it as the round ends up low/left. I've tried relaxing my strong hand, gripping harder with my weak hand, but honestly that doesn't work for me.

I finally got to a 80% grip on both hands and that works great for me. I was told to think of it as a "FIRM" handshake.

[JThompson]

Agreed. I'm still trying not to "milk" the grip, but I can tell when I've done it as the round ends up low/left. I've tried relaxing my strong hand, gripping harder with my weak hand, but honestly that doesn't work for me.

I finally got to a 80% grip on both hands and that works great for me. I was told to think of it as a "FIRM" handshake.

"Whatsa matter, never had your hand on a teet before?"

To help fix the problem I would suggest two things. First practice triggering the air and isolate your other fingers from moving. Watch them and start slow keeping the movement out of your other fingers. Second is dry fire... Take all safety precautions and then point the gun at something and really look at the front sight as you pull the trigger. When it's steady slowly increase the speed at which you break the shot. When you get up to where you are breaking the shot as fast as before, with little or no movement, your home. WATCH THE FRONT SIGHT

Edited November 8, 2007 by JThompson

[socman777]

I've had this problem and have read the three or four threads on this subject. The usual advice typically includes varying solutions like:

1. use a death grip, isolate the trigger finger (Ayoob)

2. go to a 70/30, more pressure on the support hand

3. watch your sights

4. dry-fire and watch your sights

5. concentrate on pulling straight back - toward the BASE of your thumb

6. use some dummy rounds

7. shoot with the other hand

(ad nauseum)

I think these all shoot around the issue (and, at least to my way of thinking, before or after the fact).

The issue is you are milking. The solution is to become aware of it - not AFTER the fact, not BEFORE the fact. You must identify it while it is happening - present tense - and become one with how it feels and what you are doing.

Then just stop doing it!

For me, I had to become aware of the milking as it was happening. Once I knew what milking felt like - while it was happening - I simply... stopped it! Let me explain (btw, this advice was given to me by a old timer at Glock). What he said was this: "You are milking and it has nothing to do with your grip, hard or soft. Next time you go to the range, take aim and as you pull the trigger, simply focus on your fingers - of both hands - and simply notice what is happening. It can be either hand. Then stop it!"

In my case, when I pulled the trigger with my focus on my fingers I immediately became aware of my right (dominant) fingers tightening in a classic milking movement. It was so obvious, yet up until then something of which I was completely unaware. In all my dry-firing and sight watching I was simply oblivious of my fingers.

Having learned that I focused on those fingers, and I just stopped myself from doing it. As soon as I'd feel my right fingers tightening, I'd relax all of them except the trigger finger. I practiced pulling the trigger with relaxed fingers, and did not allow them to tighten. The result: no more (in my case, right-handed) low and left! Gone.

I was shocked.

Bottom line:

I personally believe that this is problem you can't practice around. It is essential to attack the milking directly. To identify it - and stop it - while it is happening. In my case, milking was natural and unconscious. Let me be a little zen about it...

You can't stop milking by changing the cow, lol...

Edited August 11, 2009 by socman777

[G-ManBart]

If the sights are properly aligned when the shot breaks, the bullet will go where you wanted it to. If you're calling your shots "milking" won't be an issue. Why? Because you're not going to break the shot when the sights are pointed low and left so it becomes a self-correcting problem.

You won't even have to think about it...your body can figure out what to stop doing to make the sights stay where they need to be. That requires that you shoot slowly enough to let your brain figure it out...which it can't do if you're trying to rip off .15 splits just because you can get two bullets to go in the same general direction at that speed. There's a reason people generally don't have a problem milking the grip on a single shot...it's when they shoot multiple shots that the problem surfaces. People think "I need to put two shots into this target" when they should be approaching it as putting one shot into the target two times.

Slow down, call your shots and before long (with some practice) you'll be able to hammer those multiple shots into a target very quickly without pushing, pulling, milking etc.

Edited August 11, 2009 by G-ManBart

[lugnut]

If the sights are properly aligned when the shot breaks, the bullet will go where you wanted it to. If you're calling your shots "milking" won't be an issue. Why? Because you're not going to break the shot when the sights are pointed low and left so it becomes a self-correcting problem.

I think I would disagree with this. If you get a good sight aligmenment, you are still likely to milk the gun. You certainly may be able to call the shot but just calling the shot won't in itself fix this problem... but instead may help identify the problem.

I personally know that I can milk the gun on occasion... but it's not visibly noticable... and not a significant problem except to long difficult shots where a tiny misaligment will cause a problem.

I think the key is to isolate the trigger pull from the grip of the gun.... I think socman's suggestions 1, 2 and/or 5 make the most sense to PREVENT milking.

Edited August 11, 2009 by lugnut

[G-ManBart]

If the sights are properly aligned when the shot breaks, the bullet will go where you wanted it to. If you're calling your shots "milking" won't be an issue. Why? Because you're not going to break the shot when the sights are pointed low and left so it becomes a self-correcting problem.

I think I would disagree with this. If you get a good sight aligmenment, you are still likely to mild the gun. You certainly may be able to call the shot but just calling the shot won't in itself fix this problem... but instead may help identify the problem.

I personally know that I can milk the gun on occasion... but it's not visibly noticable... and not a significant problem except to long difficult shots where a tiny misaligment will cause a problem.

I think the key is to isolate the trigger pull from the grip of the gun.... I think socman's suggestions 1, 2 and/or 5 make the most sense to PREVENT milking.

You're certainly free to disagree , but if the sights are aligned when the shot breaks it doesn't matter what your hands are doing, what position your body is in, whether you're moving, leaning, twisting or doing a backflip....the bullet will go where you want it to. The problem is when people milk the grip before and while the shot is breaking so that when it does break, the sights are no longer pointed where they were when they started to press the trigger. It's a pre-ignition problem and they're not really calling their shots or they'd see the gun was no longer pointed where they wanted it to be when it goes off.

Obviously if someone milks the grip bad enough to cause a miss, calls the shot and makes it up it's not nearly as much a problem, but that's pretty uncommon. To really be calling your shots you can't be anticipating anything other than watching the front sight lift and if you're doing that the chances of a pre-ignition problem are very unlikely. I'm sure someone out there is the exception to that, but it would surprise the heck out of me....and I get to see a LOT of shooters with pre-ignition problems.

If you're (not you personally) milking the grip and it sometimes causes problems on long, difficult shots where you miss and don't know it then you're not calling your shots. If you were, you'd see the sight alignment change when the shot broke and know that you'd just missed. I see this happen to people on long, hard shots on steel all the time. They press the trigger and are surprised when the steel doesn't fall.....they had no idea until nothing happened.....they're not calling their shots. It's harder to spot on paper because they press the trigger twice, move on and are surprised when the RO calls a mike on that target.

I have actually seen absolute proof of the above many times. We've got a setup where there is a sensor on the gun's trigger that is hooked to a computer. The exact movement of the trigger, broken down into fractions of a second, is graphed for an entire trigger press. If you take five seconds to press the trigger, all five seconds will be on the graph showing the increase in pressure, when the shot breaks, how far out you let the trigger go after the shot and when you start to take up the slack again....it's very, very slick. They combine that with glasses that have cameras in them and the view of the sights and target are displayed on the computer above the trigger graph. Top it off with cameras positioned to the side of the shooter to show their eyes and sometimes one on the side to show the grip/gun from the side (which you can see from the back from the glasses camera). People will get a good sight alignment, a good sight picture, start pressing the trigger and then (classic example here), pause the trigger press while trying to get the sight picture perfect and when it looks good, they rapidly accelerate the trigger press (usually from a dead stop), their hand tension changes, the gun moves low and left (for a righty) and the sights are pointed low and left when the shot breaks. Those people will SWEAR the sights were perfectly aligned when they pressed the trigger....and they were when they started pressing the trigger, just not when the shot broke. They're not calling their shot...they don't know that terminology, but that's what's happening. We'll show them the video (super slo-mo) and they can see exactly what they're doing and why they're missing. After seeing that and working on a few other drills they'll usually get really excited when they see the front sight lift for the first time as the shot breaks. Once we get them to that point they're usually going to do just fine from then on and the mystery misses go away R,

Edited August 11, 2009 by G-ManBart

[lugnut]

GMan- I think we are really not "aligned". LOL I agree that calling your shots will/can tell you you are milking the grip... but just calling the shots won't fix the problem as it was the milking that caused the muzzle to drop upon pulling the trigger. You may "know" that the shot dropped if you called it... but it can't in itself eliminate milking. Milking is not caused by not calling your shots. It's caused by you doing something to the gun just before the shot breaks.... again- whether or not you called it or not.

You specifically said what causes the actual milking :

"their hand tension changes, the gun moves low and left (for a righty) and the sights are pointed low and left when the shot breaks."

I think we are essentially in complete agreement.

Edited August 11, 2009 by lugnut

[G-ManBart]

GMan- I think we are really not "aligned". LOL I agree that calling your shots will/can tell you you are milking the grip... but just calling the shots won't fix the problem as it was the milking that caused the muzzle to drop upon pulling the trigger. You may "know" that the shot dropped if you called it... but it can't in itself eliminate milking. Milking is not caused by not calling your shots. It's caused by you doing something to the gun just before the shot breaks.... again- whether or not you called it or not.

You specifically said what causes the actual milking :

"their hand tension changes, the gun moves low and left (for a righty) and the sights are pointed low and left when the shot breaks."

I think we are essentially in complete agreement.

I guess my main point was that showing people what's happening when they're not consistent with their grip....let them actually see the results as the sights move, is all that it normally takes to stop the problem. They see it for themselves and the lightbulb comes on. It normally doesn't take any additional skills work to stop the problem. They seem to figure out a way to stop the gun movement that's causing the problem. It's probably as simple as the concept that they know when the sights are moving when the shot breaks they know they're messing with their grip and stop it for the next shot. Eventually it becomes natural to do whatever they have to do to keep the sights where they should be until the shot breaks. If they don't see the problem (call the shot) they won't ever fix it and bandaids like telling them to use consistent grip pressure will fail over time....that'll get them through a qualification but they'll show up with the same problem at the next qual date because it never was really fixed at the root.

Now if I could just convince them to start people with an air pistol or 22lr, then a .38Spl wadcutter and finally a full .40 to prevent those problems from ever developing in the first place....that would really be something!

[Duane Thomas]

I am a big believer in the power of the subconscious mind to analyze and fix problems at the base level. The kicker is, though, that in order to solve the problem you need to give the subconscious mind enough input to know what's wrong so it can figure out what to do differently. That means watching the sights, calling the shot. If it has that input, the subconscious mind really can figure out what the body is doing wrong and correct that, with no conscious effort at all. It just happens. Without that input, on the other hand, the subconscious cannot figure out how to rectify what is wrong, because it has no input informing it of the nature of the problem.

The more I shoot, the more I come to realize that "Clear your mind, watch the sights, trust the subconscious mind" really is the answer to most of our problems. Sounds simple, right?

[lugnut]

Gman- I am in agreement. This is extremely interesting to me as I think this happens occasionaly to me. My challenge is that I'm not clear on what exactly is causing the milking (or maybe jerky trigger movement). I know that it only takes the front site to dip a fraction for a shot to drop at 20 yds. Sometimes I get consistent groups where I want and sometimes I get outliers that are low. And I'll be honest- sometimes I don't notice the sights dropping either. Damn- how can simple things be so damn difficult! LOL

[GrumpyOne]

I agree with Gman. If the sights are aligned, and they continue to stay aligned, through the entire process of trigger pull, then the bullet will go where aimed. I don't think it really matters what your fingers are doing (could be doing a tap dance all along the grip! ) as long as the sight picture does not change. It's like watching a new shooter try and anticipate the recoil. Let the gun suprise you when it fires, you just focus on the sights.

[gng4life]

Absolutely! No matter what position you are in, where the sights are when the bullet is exiting the barrel, is where it's going to go. There's no "bending the bullet" like in the movies but I do see what you are trying to say. It is a problem for all of us at one time or another. Another term for "milking" is also "fisting". Thanks for the post!

[socman777]

Let me try this again (see my previous post above). I listed a number of items - seemingly endless - of typical interventions to stop "milking". From grip tighter, to watch your sights, and many more. And now we can add "calling your shots" (actually a pretty advanced technique, especially for the new shooter).

They all fall into the category "...if you do A, or B, or C or....Z, then you will overcome milking".

But none of them - none - really make you aware of the act itself. This is Job One - to understand and become aware of milking - AS IT HAPPENS. I believe the first task is to keep milking - and focus on it - until you understand exactly what it is, and exactly what it feels like.

Mind you I had tried every trick, every focus in the book, slow careful dry-fire, over and over. And to be honest still was not aware of my milking. Some improvement, yes, but still more low and left than I wanted.

In my low and left case, I went to the range and put my focus entirely - entirely - on the fingers of both hands (but especially the right) as I pulled the trigger. I forgot about the target, sight picture and sights completely. Lo and behold I was amazed to discover - and feel - my right fingers moving in a classic milking movement, each and every time I pulled the trigger, no matter how smoothly or slowly.

Now - for the first time - I really understood and BECAME COMPLETELY AWARE of the milking and EXACTLY how it felt. And then I simply stopped it! Capish? I'd then align my sights, and pull with awareness of my other fingers - if I felt them tightening I'd stop and repull. I focused on relaxing my right hand - except for the trigger finger alone.

I immediately noted the sights then held better. By focusing, learning and becoming fully aware of the milking it was easy to stop by simply - stopping it. I'll leave it at this - I do not believe that one can effectively work around the problem - or attempt to smother it - by focusing on other issues - sight, grip, calling the shot, etc.

YMMV...

You can't stop milking by changing the cow...

Edited August 13, 2009 by socman777

[G-ManBart]

Let me try this again (see my previous post above). I listed a number of items - seemingly endless - of typical interventions to stop "milking". From grip tighter, to watch your sights, and many more. And now we can add "calling your shots" (actually a pretty advanced technique, especially for the new shooter).

They all fall into the category "...if you do A, or B, or C or....Z, then you will overcome milking".

But none of them - none - really make you aware of the act itself. This is Job One - to understand and become aware of milking - AS IT HAPPENS. I believe the first task is to keep milking - and focus on it - until you understand exactly what it is, and exactly what it feels like.

Mind you I had tried every trick, every focus in the book, slow careful dry-fire, over and over. And to be honest still was not aware of my milking. Some improvement, yes, but still more low and left than I wanted.

In my low and left case, I went to the range and put my focus entirely - entirely - on the fingers of both hands (but especially the right) as I pulled the trigger. I forgot about the target, sight picture and sights completely. Lo and behold I was amazed to discover - and feel - my right fingers moving in a classic milking movement, each and every time I pulled the trigger, no matter how smoothly or slowly.

Now - for the first time - I really understood and BECAME COMPLETELY AWARE of the milking and EXACTLY how it felt. And then I simply stopped it! Capish? I'd then align my sights, and pull with awareness of my other fingers - if I felt them tightening I'd stop and repull. I focused on relaxing my right hand - except for the trigger finger alone.

I immediately noted the sights then held better. By focusing, learning and becoming fully aware of the milking it was easy to stop by simply - stopping it. I'll leave it at this - I do not believe that one can effectively work around the problem - or attempt to smother it - by focusing on other issues - sight, grip, calling the shot, etc.

YMMV...

You can't stop milking by changing the cow...

That's honestly a backwards solution. It may have worked for you, and I'm glad that it did, but I'd be more than willing to bet it's going to fail you at some point in the future. To try and learn, disect and focus on what you don't want to do is a negative view. Learn and focus on what you DO want to do and work from there. You want to keep the sights on the target until the shot breaks. That's the goal, not to "not milk the grip while pressing the trigger".

Nothing matters but having the sights be where you want them when the shot breaks and even the concept of holding the sights "steady" or having a perfect sight picture is a false impression. I have seen absolute proof that the front sight can be buried (visually) against the side of the rear sight notch when you shoot and the impact will still stay on the target at 25yds (probably varies a bit with guns of different sighting radius). Nobody believes it until they try it.

The idea that a perfect trigger press is necessary is false as well. I've seen TGO's trigger graph results and it's a spike straight up and down....smash on, smash off. You'd never teach anybody to press the trigger that way but as long as the sights are in the right place when the shot breaks, it really doesn't matter.

In probably 99% of the cases you can take the "grip milker", hand them a 22lr pistol and they won't hit low and left after about five seconds. Why? They're no longer anticipating and it's the anticipating that's the problem, not something that anticipating is causing (hand tension issues).

If you're trying to shoot a match and thinking about whether you're milking the grip or not....well, you're going to be very limited in ultimate potential from the get go. On the flip side, if you're thinking about what the front sight is doing, which will stop milking and pretty much all the other bad habits out there, you might get really, really good! The problem is that it's not easy to just start watching your front sight and calling your shots and people want to go faster than what they're capable of seeing so they try alternative solutions that are usually a longer road to the same place. R,

[ima45dv8]

I've been following this for a couple of days, and something doesn't seem....right...about some pointers offered.

First was the quote attributed to Ayoob -- "1. use a death grip, isolate the trigger finger'

And now, "...grip tighter'.

I'm pretty sure that/those are going to take you in the wrong direction. As grip pressure with your strong/primary shooting hand increases, it doesn't isolate momement of the trigger finger from others, it ties them more closely together. Relaxing the grip pressure (or, at least reducing excessive grip pressure) with the primary hand may give you the proper trigger momement and control you desire.

A demo I sometimes do with people is to have them curl their hand like it was holding a pistol (bird, ring and little fingers curved/hooked, index finger straight). Have a buddy do the same. Stand in front of one another and hook your curved fingers together. Each of you place the pad of your index fingers on the base of your buddy's thumb (try it and you'll see what I mean). Each of you take a grip on the others curved fingers with your own, using about the same force as you would when swinging a hammer. Press your trigger finger back and forth smoothly against your buddy's thumb. Concentrate on s-m-o-o-t-h. Pretty easy, actually.

Now increase your grip, to the point of the "death grip" previously advised. Repeat the exercise and notice how it's now virtually impossible to move your trigger finger smoothly. The hyper-increased muscle tension is imparted to the entire muscle group in that hand. It does not isolate the movement of the trigger finger. In fact, the reverse is true.

With hyper-grip, when you press the trigger you're almost certain to milk the grip as all the muscles are moving, and tightening, together.

Here's a very practical and enlightening exercise to try:

Matt Burkette's Timing Drills

I hope this helps (and made sense)...

[Sam]

Ever notice how we wait to question how/why we do something until we think we aren't doing it right?

Seems like a less enlightened way of learning.