Building a perfect, repeatable, index.

I wish I had learned the importance of micro tuning my grip early on.

As my speed increased I began to discover that an inconsistent master grip just made me slow, and very small adjustments in gear placement, grip technique and hand positioning prior to my draw stroke, made huge differences in index. A rock solid index means that your sights will appear aligned and on target, ready for proper shot placement, without having to hunt for a proper sight picture and burning precious .10ths. As you progress, you will also find that poor hand placement during reloads will result in your post reload shot being slow as a result of poorly indexed sights.

The moral of the story here is to simply pay attention to your sights as you come up or back onto the target. If they are misaligned, that is something you can and should fix, especially if you want to maximize your speed. You will find that minor changes in the way you let your hand “rest” at your sides (or above your head) make a big difference in the way your gun indexes when you acquire your master grip. Minor changes in your holster placement will also help with your ability to get a great grip/index on the gun. Don’t be afraid to play with things and don’t adhere dogmatically to any method or gear, play with it and do what gives you the most consistent index. One word of caution, stop messing with stuff a week or two prior to a major match, you need your technique to be consistent for matches, so the time to tinker with stuff is during longer breaks or during the off season.

This being pistol forum, it’s probably important to note that I’m not talking about an index draw vs a press out. While I primarily practice the classic index draw, I also do press outs at times, and properly aligned sights help speed up both methods of draw stroke. I’m sure this will cause some comments, but I’ve found it to be true. If you are pressing out improperly aligned sights due to a master grip issue, you’ll be slower than you need to be, just like if your sights are misaligned on an index draw.

My last point is never stop paying attention. As your speed increases, you need to be constantly reassessing and making changes to keep up with your level of skill. The gear/technique that got you to a 2.5 second Bill Drill will likely not be what is required to get a consistent 1.8 second Bill Drill.

I still have so much more to learn, but I wish someone had mentioned this too me early on. It would have saved me a bunch of time trying to figure it out on my own.:)

Very good stuff! I have started to learn some of what you are speaking on. Also finding paying attention to little details while actually shooting opens up another door to improvement as well. Totally agree on the example of the bill drill, not that I'm shooting 1.8 bd's yet.

And a dot is like a personal coach for some index work.

Been thinking and working a lot with grip and index lately, though a sub 3 Bill is still in my future. We’re all on a journey.

Good post! I had a similar realization tonight. Namely, when I don't grip hard enough with my support hand my sights are misaligned at the end of the draw. When I grip harder, the sights are magically aligned. .

Provided your technique is good, consistency is king.

Many suffer from inconsistency when time compresses to the first shot or shot strings increase in numbers. Find yourself altering your draw stroke to go faster, or find that you have increased grip pressure under time constraints or higher number of rounds in a string of fire? If this is a problem, then poor results will continue to occur.