Help diagnose an accuracy issue?

[Chris17404]

I was going some dry fire in my basement earlier this evening, and I noticed something interesting. I was comparing the way my support-hand grip my affects the gun's sight alignment. I tried an experiment with two guns: a single-stack Walther PPS M1 and a Glock 17. I held each pistol somewhat lightly with the firing hand, up an eye level. I then applied my support hand and squeezed with the normal amount of pressure I would when firing. With the Walther PPS, the sights stayed aligned where I was aiming. With the Glock 17, I noticed a definite slight drift of the front sight to the left as I squeezed my fingers. Very interesting. With the PPS, it felt like my support hand could apply pressure directly from the sides (perpendicular to the barrel), I assume due to the grip's slim profile. But with the Glock 17, I noticed that the fingers on my support hand tended to not apply pressure directly to the sides of the pistol, but rather at a slight angle maybe 30 degrees off of perpendicular if that makes sense. Perhaps this is due to the grip's thickness or geometry and my hand's inability to completely wrap around the grip. I do have normal size hands, by the way. (Medium-large golf glove.) This off-angle pressure tended to push the front sight left a bit and I needed to intentionally bring the front sight back into alignment. Does any of this make sense or has anyone noticed or experienced this before? Ideas on how to address it? Thanks.

[ASH556]

I was going some dry fire in my basement earlier this evening, and I noticed something interesting. I was comparing the way my support-hand grip my affects the gun's sight alignment. I tried an experiment with two guns: a single-stack Walther PPS M1 and a Glock 17. I held each pistol somewhat lightly with the firing hand, up an eye level. I then applied my support hand and squeezed with the normal amount of pressure I would when firing. With the Walther PPS, the sights stayed aligned where I was aiming. With the Glock 17, I noticed a definite slight drift of the front sight to the left as I squeezed my fingers. Very interesting. With the PPS, it felt like my support hand could apply pressure directly from the sides (perpendicular to the barrel), I assume due to the grip's slim profile. But with the Glock 17, I noticed that the fingers on my support hand tended to not apply pressure directly to the sides of the pistol, but rather at a slight angle maybe 30 degrees off of perpendicular if that makes sense. Perhaps this is due to the grip's thickness or geometry and my hand's inability to completely wrap around the grip. I do have normal size hands, by the way. (Medium-large golf glove.) This off-angle pressure tended to push the front sight left a bit and I needed to intentionally bring the front sight back into alignment. Does any of this make sense or has anyone noticed or experienced this before? Ideas on how to address it? Thanks.

In my experience the issue with support hand pressure on a Glock causing lateral bias is due to the support hand pointer finger catching the big blocky trigger guard and pulling it. Try rolling your support hand back inward and a little more vertical.

[Chris17404]

In my experience the issue with support hand pressure on a Glock causing lateral bias is due to the support hand pointer finger catching the big blocky trigger guard and pulling it. Try rolling your support hand back inward and a little more vertical.

Thank you for the suggestion. Can you please explain in more detail what you mean by "rolling your support hand back inward and a little more vertical"? Thanks a lot.

[Redhat]

I'm going to suggest you try setting your "complete" and "final" firing grip tension before you extend fully towards the target...see if that helps.

[ASH556]

Thank you for the suggestion. Can you please explain in more detail what you mean by "rolling your support hand back inward and a little more vertical"? Thanks a lot.

More like this:


Less like this:

[Chris17404]

More like this:

Less like this:

Got it. OK, thank you.

[spinmove_]

More like this:


Less like this:

That's....interesting, because that seems to go against most of the "conventional wisdom" that I see regarding the support hand grip.

Taking what was described earlier and applying the additional pressure while fully presented, I also noticed slight deviations to the left while gripping harder. Looking at how I was interfacing with the gun, I noticed that while building my grip I am indexing my support hand index finger on the trigger guard using my middle index finger knuckle. If I use the base knuckle instead to index and then build my grip and then grip harder after presentation, I don't see the same deviation. Subsequently I seem to be able to grip harder with more surface contact with less effort. I might have to test this with live fire.


Sent from mah smertfone using tapathingy

[ASH556]

That's....interesting, because that seems to go against most of the "conventional wisdom" that I see regarding the support hand grip.

Taking what was described earlier and applying the additional pressure while fully presented, I also noticed slight deviations to the left while gripping harder. Looking at how I was interfacing with the gun, I noticed that while building my grip I am indexing my support hand index finger on the trigger guard using my middle index finger knuckle. If I use the base knuckle instead to index and then build my grip and then grip harder after presentation, I don't see the same deviation. Subsequently I seem to be able to grip harder with more surface contact with less effort. I might have to test this with live fire.


Sent from mah smertfone using tapathingy

The more forward grip works well for controlling recoil but can also induce other less desirable movements if there's inconsistent grip pressure.