Fighting Milking

[dubious]

Hey, not all of us can afford a trigger job at the moment. My SA Loaded has a pretty stiff trigger, and all that pressure makes me milk my grip (Low Left SHots). I've noticed that if I grip hard with my SH Middle Finger and keep everything else pretty relaxed, it helps me to not milk. Is this a decent way to overcome milking a tougher trigger?

Edited April 2, 2009 by dubious

[MichiganShootist]

YEP.........I have a training tape in which Massad Ayoob suggests that a firmer grip will dis-articulate the index finger so that the other fingers won't be sympathetic to the movement of the index finger.

Try that practicing strong hand only and see if it helps.

Then get a trigger job on that Springer

Edited April 2, 2009 by MichiganShootist

[steel1212]

Didn't read post just skimmed....gotta stop doing that!

Edited April 2, 2009 by steel1212

[Jake Di Vita]

Pull the trigger straight to the rear of the gun without moving the sights. If you see yourself start to milk the gun, stop applying pressure to the trigger until the sights are re-aligned on target.

Let your vision control the trigger.

[dubious]

Pull the trigger straight to the rear of the gun without moving the sights.

I always wonder exactly what people mean about that. If I've got my strong hand up as high on the gun as I can go, it's not like my trigger finger is going to be perfectly in line with the barrel. My trigger finger is, in fact, pointing a few degrees down. As a sidenote from my 1911, you should see how far down I have to reach on my Redhawk! What is Jerry Miculek talking about when he says Square Trigger Finger pulled Straight Back?

So how can I "pull it straight to the rear"? Maybe I'm being nitpicky here, but hey, grips and trigger control are just nitpicky sons o' guns.

And back to the original topic, is it bad to exert strong grip with my SH Middle Finger?

[Jake Di Vita]

Basically what that means is pull the trigger without any side to side pressure. Also, just because the finger is at an angle on the trigger, doesn't mean it's being pulled at an angle. Basically - pull the trigger without moving the sights and you'll be fine.

I wouldn't stay away from exerting a strong grip with only your middle finger. There are some great shooters who prefer a strong support hand grip and a relaxed strong hand grip. Equal pressure in both is also popular. I personally death grip the shit out of mine, but I wouldn't recommend that to most people. Experiment on your own to figure it out, but I would urge you to not think in terms of pressure of each finger, but pressure of your grip as a whole.

[kevin c]

A GM I respect once told me to think of pulling the trigger like you're pulling the FS through the rear sight straight back to your aiming eye.

Works for me (when I remember to do it ).

[shred]

Ignore those goofy "what am I doing wrong?" targets. They're for one-handed bullseye shooters in slow-fire.

Low left in IPSC is yanking, not 'milking' or 'too much trigger finger' or 'too little trigger finger' or what all is written in the pie piece.

[benos]

No matter how heavy your trigger pull is, that should not have anything to do with you - pulling the trigger straight through without disturbing the sight alignment.

[AlamoShooter]

one thing I do with a revolver is pull the trigger toward the base of my thumb not the tip of my thumb.

I try to keep the end of my thumb relaxed and the thumb nail pointed up not cammed down.

( that works to teach the trigger finger what direction to pull and not to chase the thumb tip.

[Ron Ankeny]

I am not very familiar with the Ayoob "crush" grip but I thought his technique was primarily for a SHTF self defense shooting scenario? I don't use a very strong grip (in comparison to some) and I have shot a lot of revolvers and double action semi autos that had some pretty crappy triggers. I am with Jake on thinking in terms of the entire grip vs. individual fingers. I would think any effort to consciously exert more pressure with an individual finger would fly in the face of the entire concept of a neutral grip. Besides, I have too much going on to do something that would require me to redirect my attention to my grip let alone have to actually think.

[MichiganShootist]

I am not very familiar with the Ayoob "crush" grip but I thought his technique was primarily for a SHTF self defense shooting scenario?

That's correct Ron.. but I've found even a little more "pressure" helps in competitive shooting. At least if does for me.. I think I get to lazy with my grip sometimes.

[pskys2]

I heard the same thing back in the late '80's. About the time everyone stopped using the off hand index finger on the trigger guard.

I'm sure it was something being taught by on of the Master IPSC Trainer Guys, might have been Plaxico.

[Terrell Force Training]

One drill I used to help me stop milking was hanging a sheet of notebook paper at 7yds. After I was getting consistent 10 for 10 hits, I folded the paper in half. I continued this until I was folding the paper in half 4 times. That left my target approximately 1/4". It worked and was cheap.