Need grip / trigger control help badly!

[Spray_N_Prey]

Ok something I have noticed more and more is when a target starts getting 15 yards plus everything seems to be low right. Something that didn't use to happen now is standard in my shooting.

A little about myself, I've been shooting USPSA for 2 years. I am an A class in Limited, B in production. and have the speed, just not the accuracy. It's something I use to work on because I started with trying to achieve speed, instead of accuracy, which was the biggest mistake I could have ever made.

I can line up my sights very fast for the first shot and the follow up shot, and I thought that I was watching the sights lift, but I guess not. I have concluded that when the trigger breaks, i'm either flinching or anticipating the recoil and trying to compensate for it, therefor pulling the trigger and / or pulling the trigger too fast back and causing me to jerk the trigger. I have done the snap cap thing and sure enough I dip the gun when the trigger breaks. This happens even in slow fire. It seems that EVERYTHING is going to the right, It's just not as bad on close targets, but the farther the target, the more noticable it is.

My grip seems to be "neutral" with about the same pressure on both hands and instead of using the tip of my finger i'm using about the first joint.

Somebody please help, i'm going nuts here.

Shawn

[Franklin D Wolverton]

Usually this is caused by having to much finger in the trigger. Only use the tip of your finger, and pull straight to the rear. Get that finger out of there. Try it without the gun, and you'll see that the part of the finger you're using can't move straight to the rear. It's gonna move the gun away from your strong hand.

Also... try a trigger squeeze instead of a trigger pull. Practice a slow and steady squeeze straight to the rear. Watch your sights, and if they move, adjust what you're doing. You want it to be a slight surprise when the round goes off. If you know the exact 1/1000th of a second that the round fires... your gonna anticipate it.

Try this one dry firing. Slow, steady squeeze... and watch those sights. When you get them to where they don't move, keep the steady squeeze, but pick up the pace a little. Keep going until you get that good quick squeeze you want, but the sights don't move.

Then hit the range and try it.

Frank

Edited July 14, 2009 by Franklin D Wolverton

[Spray_N_Prey]

the problem is in dry fire practice, I DO squeeze good and the sights don't move. sights stay perfectly on target in DRY FIRE. but when the guns hot, that's a completely different story. I just go back to the same thing in live fire.

[Franklin D Wolverton]

Yeah... I know... it's easy to do. You just gotta make it a learned behavior.

You gotta do it every day, to get the muscle memory thing going. Make it automatic.

And... get that finger out of there...

Frank

[CJDOUBLETAP]

Try Max's Triple Six drill. It's a bill drill at 7, 15, and 25 yards. Take the raw time for each, add them, then add; .2 for a C/B hit, .5 for a D hit, and 1 second for a mike.

The 25 yarder really helps the trigger control...

[BSeevers]

You need to shoot groups. Live fire.

Learn, absorb and be aware

[GmanCdp]

i'm a lefty also..when this happens try straightening out your right thumb a little more,level with your forearm, creating a little tighter grip on the rh hand...got a gap on your left index finger when firing??...then what Seevers said..setting ,standing, sandbagging...just group at 20/25 yrds..if you got 50 that would better...take a couple 100 rnds and group,group,then group some more...

[VegasOPM]

I have to agree that it sounds like you are anticipating recoil and pushing the gun down to counteract it. Does it happen when you are shooting groups slowly? One trick that I have used is to count to 3 while taking up slack on the trigger. 1/3 of the slack with every count. In truth it is just a trick to give the brain something else to think of, rather than anticipating the recoil. This trick doesn't really help when you are running at match speed, but it helps break the habit during practice.

Option "B" is to drop your trigger pull weight to 12 oz or so, with a sloppy break. Guaranteed surprise break.

[Duane Thomas]

The classic answer to your problem is that you're doing what's called "crushing the gun," i.e. when your index finger curls to pull the trigger the other fingers curl, as well. Basically you're making a fist every time you pull the trigger. This of course, for a right handed shooter, pushes all shots to the left, usually low left, and for a left handed shooter things go low right.

What you have here is a failure to disassociate your trigger finger from the rest of your hand. When the trigger finger moves, no other part of the master hand should move. Just the trigger finger, back and forth. Lots of dry fire can help. It also helps, with nothing in your hand, just to put your hand out, fingers curled as if you were holding a gun butt. Move your index finger back and forth as if pulling a trigger. Watch the other fingers. I'll bet you see them moving. Just keep doing that, over the weeks and months, until you can do it without the other fingers moving at all.

Also what will help is LOTS of dry fire practice. You may say, "'That doesn't happen when I dry fire, it only happens when I live fire." That just means you haven't dry fired enough. It's not enough to do the normal, slow "squeeeeeze the trigger" drill, you need to begin pulling the trigger at the speed you would when shooting fast. Turn your eyesight up, watch what the front sight does. If you're pulling low right in live fire, when you turn up the speed in dry fire, and turn up your eyesight, you'll probably see the sight moving low right as well.

I'd recommend laying off the live fire for awhile. If you do have an anticipation of recoil issue, live fire practice at this point is only going to make it worse. You need to reprogram your mind to NOT anticipate recoil. The only thing that's going to do that is lots of dry fire, where you get it in your mind that, when you pull the trigger, the gun is not going to move in your hands, it's not going to make that big horrible nose, it's just going to sit there and go "click!" You do that, tens of thousands of times - which for a serious dry firer is not as many days as you might think - then when you go out to the range with live ammo, you don't flinch or anticipate recoil.

[MemphisMechanic]

Shoot groups at 25 yards until it stops.

I was suffering through the exact same thing (G34 shooter, lefty) middle of last year. Appeared right after a really hard push for my IDPA M-card, where speed was the goal. There's an indoor range 5 minutes from work, and I've got an unlimited membership. I went every day for 3 weeks on my lunch break, doing nothing but 25y group shooting - only fifty rounds a day, so I was done well before any kind of fatigue set in.

You wouldn't believe how much it helped my speed. Yes, you read that right. I should really do it again, now that I mention it...

Edited July 15, 2009 by MemphisMechanic

[CocoBolo]

You are already beyond me but I will repeat what a GM told me yesterday, lock your wrists, this is basic form the wrists are locked. This is the advice he gave me when I was whinning about the lose of my dot in my open gun when traveling round poking into ports.

Early on I had one gun that did dip when the trigger was pulled during dry fire. I changed out the 22 lb firing pin spring for a 15 lb and put a competition hammer on it, then it didn't dip anymore when the hammer fell. The trigger of course was a lot lighter. A stiff wrist would have cured it.

My good friend an old bench rest rifle shooter, one of those camp perry kind of guys, sights in my pistols, he believes in the ultimate rest and 3 shot groups at 25 yards, once he has it hitting perfectly you know that when there is a bad shot it was the shooter and not the sights. From the sounds of things you don't know for sure where the sights are at 25 yards, maybe you need to have that established. Having confidence in your equipment makes a major difference.

I did read all the other posts and they were all good, just thought that if none of that had worked and new approach was in order.

[benos]

For MANY years, I began and ended each practice session with standing, slowfire, 5 shot groups (on a paper plate) at 25 yards. The goal being so shoot the smallest group possible. Keep your smallest group, and replace it as you beat it.

I know, for a guy with a member name of Spray_N_Prey, that may not sound like a lotta fun - but I guarantee you it will improve your shooting overall.

And as MemphisMechanic said, it will improve your speed, because you will become much better at reading the sights/knowing where each bullet went, before it hits the target.

be

[Spray_N_Prey]

Thanks to all for chiming in, Brian that is exactly what i've been doing the last few days. I get a great sight picture, slowly squeeze the trigger and it looks good when it breaks (obviously not).

Something else I have noticed is I attempted to change my grip (normally a "neutral" grip, same pressure both hands) and tried to put more grip in my weak hand (right hand) and the pull to the right was alot worse. then I went to just trying to get the tip of my finger on the trigger and what I found out there was I can't grip the gun to be inline with my arm when doing this. I will try to explain:

When I normally grip the gun, I hold it so that my arm and the gun are pretty much lined up in a straight line - stronghand elbow locked, But I can't just get my tip of my finger in there very well when trying to do this, therefor to be able to just use the tip of my finger, I have to hold the gun differently to where my arm and gun aren't lined up, my arm comes in at an angle. I know this is hard to explain but maybe this might ring a bell with someone here.

[38supPat]

Work some groups off the bench, it's amazing what you can learn when you begin to isolate out everything but the basics of grip, sights and trigger pull

[Duane Thomas]

When I normally grip the gun, I hold it so that my arm and the gun are pretty much lined up in a straight line

What about the other arm?

[Spray_N_Prey]

slightly bent elbow pointing down. should my elbows be slightly bent or locked ???

Edited July 16, 2009 by Spray_N_Prey

[Duane Thomas]

There are numerous theories on that one. I do know that that having the offside arm bent and the other arm straight tends to cause shots to go in the direction of the offside arm. In your case that would be right. Try straightening out both arms, or alternately if you have a bend to the left arm, try the same amount of bend, wtih the arms at the same height with each other, with your right arm and see what happens to your POI/POA. The problem with the assymetric strong arm straight/offside arm bent with elbow down technique is that, in recoil, the gun tends to track to the offside, even before the bullet has exited the barrel, and your shots go to that side. Switch over to a symmetrical technique and I think you'll see that stop happening.

[Spray_N_Prey]

Ok Duane, how do you shoot? what is the best way to "absorb" recoil? arms locked or bent?

THanks for taking the time to keep answering all these noob questions.

[38supPat]

How much your arms bend is not too important as long as they are not locked or hyper extended. Ideally I don't like any tension in my elbow or bicep, only the effort needed to hold the gun up. Imagine you are pushing against a wall with both arms, not trying to push it over, but just enough to keep yourself from falling against it. If you hyper extend your arm or lock it fully out, all the recoil energy will be transmitted to your shoulders. Bent will reduce the amount of energy transfered, but you don't want the biceps and triceps fighting each other. You are trying to hold the gun out and control the recoil from coming back, thats all.

[pjb45]

Two things really moved my percentage of As per stage into the 93%+ range were: 1) a 4 inch plate rack, 2) nothing but head shots on regular targets during practice. Most everything is at 20+ yards.

[Duane Thomas]

As Pat mentioned, straight arms has its disadvantages. While it can work great for single shots, with the cumulative recoil of fast multiple shots, the recoil travels straight down the arms and into the shoulders, and the gun can actually push you back off balance. Bill Drills are great for figuring out how recoil resistent is your stance.

As to how much bend you should place in the arms, well, I have my theory on that. There is an aikido technique called "the unbendable" arm. The idea is that there is one specific amount of flex to your arm where the muscles and bones align themselves to the point that the arm literally cannot be moved. Clue: it's probably not as much bend as you think. Experiment with different amounts of bend to your arm, try pushing and pulling on it, see if you can get it to collapse or extend. You'll find there's one particular amount of bend where suddenly you'll find you can't make the arm move at all. Do this for the left and right arms. You may well find it's a different amount of flex for each arm. Then try firing the gun with exactly that amount of bend to each arm, and see what happens.

[kaiserb]

For MANY years, I began and ended each practice session with standing, slowfire, 5 shot groups (on a paper plate) at 25 yards. The goal being so shoot the smallest group possible. Keep your smallest group, and replace it as you beat it.

I know, for a guy with a member name of Spray_N_Prey, that may not sound like a lotta fun - but I guarantee you it will improve your shooting overall.

And as MemphisMechanic said, it will improve your speed, because you will become much better at reading the sights/knowing where each bullet went, before it hits the target.

be

I will have to agree with this--the interview with you (Brian Enos) on the Burkett DVD talks about the steps to shooting a smaller and smaller group. I found it very informative and have added some shooting at long range to my practice sessions. The slow fire practice has pointed out a few weaknesses in my trigger control, which I would not have identified just shooting fast.

[fistol]

Ok this may sound weird but it helped me cure my flinch, or at least reduce it. Just like you, during dry fire practice, I was doing ok. But everytime I go to the range and do some live fire, my flinch would always come back and my shots would go low left. Then, I've realized that I was anticipating the loud bang everytime I pull the trigger. I was simply not used to the sound of gunfire. So what I did was record the sound of my live fire practice, and play the same everytime I dry fire. I would also wear my earmuffs and protective eyewear to simulate my live fire practice.

I guess the best way to cure it would be to do a lot of live fire applying all the principles of trigger control as mentioned by the other posters. But if you're like me with limited funds and time, the second best way is to simulate as much as possible the conditions of live fire during your dry fire practice while applying the principles of trigger control.

Edited July 21, 2009 by fistol

[Duane Thomas]

Interesting. Definite points for thinking outside the box!

[Silver_Surfer]

Did something else change? New Gun? Parts?, Old/New injuries? Glasses? Load(Powder, Bullets)? Just tring to cover what was not mentioned above.

Edited July 22, 2009 by Silver_Surfer