Week 174: Grip 300

[Mr_White]

Another one we should do again.

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Week 174: Grip 300

Results may be posted until August 22nd, 2016.

Designed by: Gabe White

For this drill, all you need is your holstered pistol – no ammo, target, or safe direction is required (for purposes of the drill, the pistol will remain holstered.)

When working for a faster draw, one of the areas where many people have an opportunity for gains is in more efficiently acquiring a master grip on the pistol. This is a very simple drill for use in working to acquire that master grip reliably and at the full speed you can move.

The drill is simply to acquire master grip on your holstered pistol, 300 times. Vary your hand start positions – hands at sides, hands at high torso, fence position, hands at surrender, hands straight in the air, hands straight out to the sides, hands on your head, hands touching a wall, hands in pockets, hands holding an object that must be dropped or thrown – there are endless possibilities. Trying several start positions is recommended.

It's not important that you do it exactly 300 times. Do more or do less as you prefer.

What is important: Explode into motion. Get moving as abruptly as you can and drive your hand to the gun at the full speed you can move. Acquire a clean and correct master grip. When you make a mistake, try to notice what you did wrong and pay attention to correcting it. If your holster has any retention devices, disengage them as part of acquiring master grip.

Please report the gun, holster, and concealment used (if any, concealment is optional), start positions you worked, and anything you noticed during the drill.

Using a timer is optional. If you have a timer and wish to use it so that you are reacting to an audible signal, go ahead. This part is optional because some people don't have timers and using a timer will also make the drill take much longer.

Training with firearms is an inherently dangerous activity. Be sure to follow all safety protocols when using firearms or practicing these drills. These drills are provided for information purposes only. Use at your own risk.

[BehindBlueI's]

Using my duty set up (P226, Red Nichols Avenger style OWB either open carry or concealed under suit jacket).

I worked on this drill while seat belted in my car, going up the stairs to my office, seated at my desk, and while standing.

Seat belted in is a bitch, but I knew that. Stairs actually were kind of fun. For some reason my subconscious decided there must be a reason we're quickly going for the gun so my heart rate increased and I ended up going up the stairs at a greater clip than normal until I realized what I was doing.

Noticed the lining in this jacket is a bit too loose, I occasionally got a bit of lining right at the end of the grip under the pinky. I need to get the lining tacked down.

[Sadmin]

Gear - G1719 (17c) whatever its called...Tulster AIWB / polo shirt

Really enjoyed this. I was actually sweating mid-way through. I noticed that I am giving up something with this drill, and I dont know if its lack of skill / bad habit or something others do. I use a wedge to press the holster and grip a tad closer to my body. Because of this, I am indexing my thumb on the back of the slide / top of rear sight. I didnt think I had a big gut? I just find it takes a more time when I purposefully drive my thumb behind the grip. Once I merge my left hand onto the frame it presses it into the correct position. Sucks...more hand on the gun is always better. I tried leaning back more and sucking in, but ultimately I deviate back to thumb on rear sight. This DoTW proved it to be a bad habit to break and I could see a imperfect shooting position like thumb-pec index really being compromised. I adjusted the holster to ride higher and was able to get my thumb back there.

Re: starting hand positions: wrists above shoulders was efficient since that is what I normally practice. Thumb hook to clear cover caused a few issues with success as I dont swipe up high enough.

I needed this - thanks for posting.
TIL - With a 32" waist apparently i'm fat-ish, need moar practice

[scw2]

Gear - CZ-75 SP-01, AIWB, polo shirt.

BBI motivated me to do some work with draws from the car. I normally put the seatbelt over the belt, and untuck my shirt to cover the gun. Pro is that it's easy to remove the seatbelt, and any forces are still going to go more into the hips versus my stomach. Also easier to get out without showing my gun. Figured if there was ever a carjacking I may not want someone else to know it's there, and being able to easily unbuckle and exit without getting into a fight would be a plus. Downside is over time the seatbelt seemed to slip up, and slightly slows the grip down due to less space between the beltline and the gun. Not sure if this is the better way versus putting the belt behind the gun.

Draws from surrender. Before I just sorta put my hands up. I think it feels faster if I get into a precise position by starting with my hands on gun in the holster, and offhand clearing shirt, then naturally lifting my hands from there. Seems to find the closest position as possible that's still natural and comfortable. Will need to test this more on timer.

More of a gaming start position and not technically a draw from the holster, but did some seated starts with gun on table. I used to always angle the muzzle to the right (as right handed shooter), but seated I seemed to be faster and get a better grip with the muzzle straight forward or to the left. Not sure if others feel the same way, or if I'm wrong since I didn't time it (only based it on ability to hit a good grip consistently). Should see if that angle position changes at all if I'm going to start from a standing position. Should have also tested mag position while at it.

[RJ]

7/25/16: Grip 300 Drill

I'm a lefty. I wore all my normal EDC items; knife, light, wallet, watch, keys, iPhone. My clothes were what I wear pretty much every day; T shirt over cargo shorts.

Did first 150 as follows. Walther PPS M2, JM CK IWB 8:30. Because this is my concealment rig, I did my Grip, then drew to low ready. As a result, this took a bit longer, but I did get 150 reholsters in as an additional benefit of the first part of the drill.

Repetitions

Below are the reps including any notes.

25 hands at sides.

*Moved holster to 9:00. Felt more natural.

25 from high surrender.

25 from on bed, seated.

25 seated at dining room table, as at a food court.

*Support hand does this sawtooth movement, grabbing cloth underneath, before heading up to expose pistol. Interesting.

25 standing, various.

25 on timer, Par set to 2.0s.

*Made most of these.

Switched to my VP9 in Blade-Tech OWB. This is my USPSA game gun. On these, I did grip only, no draws.

25 standing. 25 from surrender.

*Added ear and eye pro, hat. I felt since that was what I wore on the range, I should wear it on the drill.

25 from touching brim of hat.

*Need to avoid tendency to pitch trunk of body forward on grip. This is a wasted movement.

25, various.

*Rhetorical question: Can I put skate tape on my holster as an index point?

25 more, hands at sides.

25 draws, trying to put everything together.

Overall

This was a great drill, thanks Gabe for putting this in the drill of the week. I felt I benefited from 1) actually drawing from my carry rig 2) reholstering my carry rig and 3) changing my carry holster location from 8:30 to 9:00 since this felt more natural.

[JCS]

I did this today. Kind of. I'll be honest I stopped counting at around 50. I couldn't do 300 straight so I would do sets of 25 doing different things and then do a few full draws then resume. After reading some other posts I should've tried some sitting down. I did all mine standing. I worked on turning and acquiring grip and used this as an opportunity to work on footwork.

Very good drill. I noted two major things:

I'm slow to acquire the grip.

I'm inconsistent when getting the grip. I struggle to balance speed with precision. Every so often I would have a rep that would give me an ah-ha moment. Then I would fumble a draw later. I had a few where I didn't clear my shirt or my shirt got caught in my dominant hand.

I will try and do a variation seated next.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Cecil Burch]

Very good drill. I did this last night.

Gun - P2000sk 9mm LEM
holster - Keepers standard, DSG clip-on, Crossbreed Belly Band
From concealment under a Hawaiian shirt

I like small chunks because it helps my focus so I broke it down into sets of 10. I did them standing, seated in a car, seated at the dining room table, sitting on the ground with my back leaning on the wall (in the garage), and a couple of sets lying down (some on my back, some on my side). I used the timer on most of them because I know I need a go signal to make sure I don't get lazy and I keep the urgency of the acquiring the grip all the way through. I also did some draws standing and as if I was entangled with someone. Since I had to keep the fiction of controlling the other person while doing so, that necessitates a one handed garment clear and grip, so that was a very useful part of the drill for me. Between each set of 10, I gave myself a 30 second mental break, and between every 10 sets I took a 3 minute break. Mostly because it was still 103 last night at 8PM and really humid, so I needed the time to wipe my head and hands down from the dripping sweat!

Overall, a very good drill. I think I will put this into my rotation of dry fire work. Probably going to look at it maybe once per month.

[Mr_White]

I noticed that I am giving up something with this drill, and I dont know if its lack of skill / bad habit or something others do. I use a wedge to press the holster and grip a tad closer to my body. Because of this, I am indexing my thumb on the back of the slide / top of rear sight. I didnt think I had a big gut? I just find it takes a more time when I purposefully drive my thumb behind the grip. Once I merge my left hand onto the frame it presses it into the correct position. Sucks...more hand on the gun is always better. I tried leaning back more and sucking in, but ultimately I deviate back to thumb on rear sight. This DoTW proved it to be a bad habit to break and I could see a imperfect shooting position like thumb-pec index really being compromised. I adjusted the holster to ride higher and was able to get my thumb back there.

That's a thing for me too. My thumb initially goes on the back of the slide when acquiring master grip. However, it starts sliding over to the support side of the gun just as soon as the gun starts being lifted and space is created on that side of the gun. By the time the gun has cleared the holster, my thumb is fully in place on that side of the gun. There is no effect on firing from the two (thumb-pec index.) I do think it would make the grip less secure if one were trying to fire the gun as soon as their finger could physically enter the trigger guard (gun not out of holster yet, muzzle still down.) I hope no one is trying to fire their gun at that point.

You can see pretty clearly what I mean in this video, first draw is just a few seconds in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rc7s-z7RBw

[Range1]

Have been working on this over several days using Gen 3 Glock 17 and a CompTac holster sometimes with a concealment garment, shirt or vest, usually no concealment. Have found if I try and go really fast (for me) I do not get a consistent grip. Sometimes the shirt gets caught up in the grip, sometimes I just don't get a good grip. Sometimes I feel like my strong hand is hammering the grip which would result in a slower draw not a quicker one. Working on finding that sweet spot for a good secure grip still in the holster without being super slow or hammering the grip.

[scw2]

CZ 75 SP-01 in a CCC Gestalt AIWB holster, closed front garment.

Been working draws in dryfire consistently, but this time I paid more attention to the grip acquisition portion of it. I felt relatively comfortable in dry fire drawing with hands from my side. Not too many issues with grip or clearing the garment. Really run into issues when drawing from when hands are higher up (simulated wall, surrender, facing uprange from surrender, etc). I think instead of coming from the bottom and scooping my fingers around the grip, I've been trying to sort of swing my hands so they attack the grip from the front of my body, and then clamp. That seems to require more refinement since if I'm off I just hit the belt or grip with my fingers, so will be testing purposely going past the gun and pulling up similar to my regular draw. I think it may be slightly slower but way more consistent. The other issue with that method is I often do not get my fingers far enough around the gun, so end up with uneven pressure and the front sight drifts left. So sorta a double whammy.

I do think I've been better with moving both hands faster and more at the same time from this position though, which was not the case a few weeks ago. More work to do on draws, and not just acquiring the grip.