Week 95: Press Six Hundred

[luckyman]

Done. Came at a good time, since I have a gout flare up and can't do much else. Did this seated, with my one Glock that has a completely stock trigger. After 630 presses the extra ~1lb really added up. My experience was basically a duplicate of Clusterfrack's.

[Range1]

Just completed using a Glock 34. No new observations. Felt much more in control of trigger on completion. Really drives home the importance of regular dry fire practice.

[40Green]

I did this using an HKP2000. Done two and one handed on alternating days for the last two weeks.

Worked on not clamping down so hard with my support hand and not riding the slide with my thumbs. This was causing me to force the sights to the right and then trying to muscle them back left with my strong hand. I knew I was doing it in live fire just not how much it was affecting my sights, this drill has really brought it to my attention. I also ride the slide release because of this on occasion with my thumbs. Combining it with the Master grip drills has helped me develop a more even and consistent grip pressure. During live fire last week it also meant I had consistent slide lock reloads, it was a novel experience. I also worked on a continuous trigger press. It has helped me to not disturb the sights and not squeeze the grip with the rest of my fingers at the same time. The one inch square was brutal, but it has gotten much easier over the last few days.

Strong hand only worked on the smooth continuous trigger pull. I have gotten much steadier holding on target and not drifting all over the place. It tightened up my 25 yard SHO targets for sure, they weren’t great to begin with but now are much better. Group size has shrunk down at least, still drift one or two off the B8 on the 8x11 but not by much.

Weak hand only has been aggravating. I press the trigger with all my fingers. Had to force myself to only press the trigger with my index finger. Staying on the one inch square and the two inch circle where a challenge. Going to keep working on this one.

[martinmj]

Ouch! The amount of concentration and focus that this drill requires to make sure you're not just going through the motions is demanding...not to mention the forearm burn.

[EricM]

Finished this drill up this morning. Gen 4 G17, OEM - connector. My thoughts overall are pretty similar to those of Clusterfrack and Mr_White in posts #8 and #9.

Freestyle, even on the 1" square, I can pull the trigger pretty much as fast as possible without disturbing the sights IF the slack has been taken out first. I did a lot of extra reps experimenting at this stage before doing the 50 fast-but-smooth-enough presses. With a solid grip, I feel it really didn't matter much even when I intentionally pulled left or pushed right, or placed my finger higher or lower than usual...I had to really exaggerate things and induce movement somewhere other than my trigger finger to throw a shot. I did have to back off a bit when I started pulling as fast as possible from the point of initial contact with the trigger. My approach is normally to only prep for distant or very precise shots, but I've only been shooting Glocks for a few months and haven't taken the time (until now) to really fine tune my pull and to understand exactly how much impact different methods have. So this drill came at a really good time for me.

I tried to zero in on a speed that for me provided constantly increasing pressure from initial contact without throwing off the shot, not taking up the slack in advance, and did all the reps that way from that point on. I have a decent amount of time on traditional double action guns, so while I've by no means mastered it I am comfortable pulling straight through a long and heavy but smooth pull. So in a way I tried to send my trigger finger muscles the same instructions while doing my best to ignore the feedback my nerves were giving me when going through the wall. Hardly a new concept around here, but the first time I'd put in the work to really feel the nuances of it. I'm curious, for a difficult shot, whether it is better (faster/more efficient/more consistent/safer) to (A) consciously take out the slack then pull quickly vs. (B) use a more even pull from initial trigger contact even though (for me at least, right now) the constant "speed" (how rapidly force is applied...not sure about total time) of the total motion would be slower than in the latter portion of the pull after the slack is taken out with option A. I'm guessing today I'd perform better with option A, but option B is what I want to work on, as I think it has the highest performance ceiling over the long term (and I'm not a fan of aggressively taking up the slack at the risk of breaking a shot early under stress).

On another note I have woefully neglected SHO and WHO shooting in the past. I'm kind of amazed how much more confident I feel about both even after such a relatively small amount of dedicated work on it. My weak hand started to fatigue relatively early on in the second set of WHO reps, and I was feeling a weird pull near the base of my trigger finger. I was about to cut short those reps and come back to it later when I realized that my weak hand grip was not a perfect mirror of my strong hand grip. After fixing that I finished the WHO reps with no discomfort and much better results...though each time I regripped the gun I had to consciously make the adjustment. I have several weak side holsters -- being a lefty, it's much easier to acquire right-handed holsters on the secondary market to try different designs! -- and I think some dryfire and live fire WHO holster work will be beneficial in "teaching" my weak hand what a proper grip feels like.

[Corey]

I broke up this drill over 4 days. Using my M&P I was really feeling it in my arms from gripping the gun hard for much longer than I am used to. Been recovering from an elbow injury so I had to be careful with the freestyle and SHO drills but I made up for it with extra WHO reps. I noticed my trigger control at speed drops off sharply from fatigue, need to work on bulding up my grip strength.