How hard are you gripping your pistol for 25 yard slow fire?

[HopetonBrown]

If your grip is a "10" for Bill Drills, how would you rate your grip strength for slow fire, 25 yard work?

[GJM]

Depends on what gun you are shooting, your trigger press, and your individual trigger characteristics. With a Glock, for example, I grip the crap out of it, especially with a stock trigger. With the CZ Shadow, which weighs much more and has a shorter, lighter trigger, I grip less, slow fire.

[Trooper224]

I crush it just short of the point where I start to tremble, regardless of the gun type.

[45dotACP]

At the 25 (and at most ranges) I find that anything less than "really fucking hard" can make me squeeze my other fingers during the trigger press and mess up my shot....I'm not gonna shoot .13 splits with my 1911 in .45 at the 25 yard line (or meters for you weirdos) just based on how deliberate I'll have to be with my shots, so I accept the possibility of trigger freeze and bear down with both hands at 10/10 strength (assuming I'm not trembling) and focus on an uninterrupted trigger press and good sight picture.

Though sometimes I'll shoot freehand with no time limit just to evaluate a gun and see how well I shoot it it the 25 yard line. At that point, I focus more on a trigger press and grip it at probably 5/10 strength. When shooting a match though, there's always a time limit and recoil control standpoint to be appreciated...I won't take five seconds between shots on a 25 yard metric target but when shooting for groups at distance I may.

[ASH556]

Which hand are we talking about? My grip on my support hand is at 100% regardless of what I'm shooting. I induce more strong hand grip if I'm shooting at speed (read, slapping the trigger) but when shooting for groups at 25yds I use probably 30% less strong hand grip so I can focus on a cleaner trigger press and also no added influence on the pistol. I've spoken about this before, but I also believe that the grip setup matters quite a bit for longer range precision. The grip needs to be neutral so that more or less pressure is not exerting forces on the gun.

In an attempt to further describe the grip variance between speed shooting and precision shooting (and bear in mind, this is a sliding scale based on the degree of precision required, not one or the other) I'll say that when I shoot the test at 10 yds, I am barely able to perceive my front sight moving; whereas shooting a B8 repair center at 25 yds for precision, my front sight lifts to somewhere between the top of the black and the edge of the paper when using a center x-ring hold.

I'd still say the focus should be on your support hand doing most of the recoil control job so that your strong hand can cleanly work the trigger. The strong hand's grip strength gets added when we need to push for speed and the tradeoff of potentially milking a little has relatively low consequences (and is mitigated by the fact that our grip is relatively neutral to begin with).

[Luke]

Grip is the same. Recoil management is not. Grip pressure stays the same but I stay loose for accuracy slow fire.


Trigger control >>> sight alignment > grip > stance > search and asses.

Changing speed may change those around, but for slow fire that is my order of importance.