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Thread: Support hand (L hand) placement

  1. #1
    Member
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    Oct 2014
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    NE Ohio

    Support hand (L hand) placement

    I often have nice groups up and down but at 30’ there is a noticeable L drift especially at 30 feet. At 21 feet my groups are not that bad.. I have drifted my rear sight to the right. I am L eye dominant. I am R handed. I use the 2 thumbs forward grip. I have big hands and have difficulty getting more than a small portion of my support hand on the grip when I initially grasp the grip with my R hand. I currently have no option to get a G17. I’m stuck with my 19.3

    While experimenting at the range I fully grasped my G19 with my L hand and placed my RH fingers over my LH fingers. All of the video’s I’ve seen show the opposite. LH fingers over top of RH fingers.

    When gripping primarily with my L hand and placing my RH fingers over my L hand, I shot really well for myself. I also felt like I had better control during recoil using this method. Is this an acceptable way to grip a pistol? Any downsides to doing things that way?

  2. #2
    I just tried it and certainly it feels very weird. One thing i noticed is that you end up w/ a lot of hand swapping. I naturally grabbed the gun w/ my right hand, and then had to 90% let go of it to get my left hand in position first. Another option, although it is doesn't seem to be in favor, would be to put your left fore finger on the front of the trigger guard. That moves your left hand up the grip so your pinky will have something to grab.

  3. #3
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    Jan 2012
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    Georgia
    The problem I see with your suggested grip is that though it might work okay for you when shooting at the range, what about when you have to remove your support hand from the pistol grip to perform some action such as reloading or any number of other things? To pull your support hand away, now you must loosen the grip of your firing hand slightly and it could easily compromise your shooting grip for a moment. Again, no big deal at the range but probably not optimal in a defensive situation.

    I would recommend staying with a standard thumbs forward grip with support hand fingers over shooting hand fingers. There are lots of reasons you might need to remove your support hand from the pistol even if just briefly. Keeping a secure and proper grip with the shooting hand seems essential to me.

  4. #4
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    Oct 2014
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    NE Ohio
    Thanks. I have access to a private outdoor range where I can try out these issues. They have smallish silhouette metal plates that I can hit all day at 21’ but when I put a target up at 30’, I certainly see the drift. I’m not in law enforcement and fully expect to have some explaining to do if I ever shoot in self defense outside of 20-25 feet. During my lurking here, I see people talking about groups at 25 yards and that got me interested in expanding my range. Maybe I’d be better off staying in my lane and being happy hitting plates at distances I’m most likely to encounter. OTOH, we have the “weaver” stance, the “isosceles” stance, and perhaps in 10 years everyone will be doing the “rangerover”. Haha
    Last edited by rangerover; 11-06-2017 at 03:42 PM.

  5. #5
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    Feb 2014
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    Midwest
    There are too many drawbacks or problems with the grip you are proposing to make it a viable alternative, particularly if you intend on using the weapon as a defensive tool. First, the arrangement of your hands will require an overly complicated series of steps just to draw the pistol from the holster and could easily lead to a juggling act at speed.

    Second, as was alluded to above, basic manipulation of the pistol becomes needlessly complicated. Reloading and clearing stoppages require more movements, the weapon is less secure (due to having to remove grip from both hands) and everything will take more time than with a conventional grip.

    I would also point out that if this were an advantageous technique it would probably already be in use by top level shooters in the competition and military worlds. I would instead invest time/money in learning proper (conventional) technique and building from there rather than resorting to unconventional practice that is not practical in common usage.
    Last edited by PD Sgt.; 11-06-2017 at 08:08 PM.
    Polite Professional

  6. #6
    Site Supporter P.E. Kelley's Avatar
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    Dry-side of Washington State
    I am confident that if you work to use the grip in this video (not a unique one, just another explanation of the most used one) you
    will be well served.

    Guns are just machines and without you they can do no harm, nor any good

  7. #7
    Site Supporter
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    Jan 2012
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    Georgia
    Yep, practice the grip shown in that video.

  8. #8
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    Oct 2014
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    NE Ohio
    Thanks for the video. I have XL hands and have very little space on my G19 left over after my RH takes it’s position. I can literally cover 95% of the grip with my RH only. I was taught by an NRA instructor that I had to try and squeeze the “meat” of my LH into whatever little space that was left. That tends to force me to twist my left hand. I have seen other videos that seem to reinforce that as well. This video makes it look like he just rests his LH over his RH fingers without forcing his LH into the remaining free space. Am I seeing that correctly? I guess the question is how do I get enough support hand involved with big hands and a smallish grip? What does everyone do when the fire a G43 or similar small pistol? Thanks.

  9. #9
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    Yeah it's not always possible to get much of the flesh on your support hand in contact with the side of the grip frame because that's where the fingers of your shooting hand are too. But keep in mind your support hand thumb and the big pad at the base of the thumb will also be in contact with the frame and that provides a lot of the stability. The grip technique shown in Mr. Kelley's video will work for pretty much any pistol regardless of its size.

  10. #10
    I am no where near as skilled or experienced as most on this forum. But my take on this is I use my right hand to squeeze front to back while my left hand squeezes left to right. My hands are sized so that I can get some of the heel of my left hand into contact w/ the grip. But not a lot of it. Most of my left hand is actually squeezing the fingers of my right hand. As I have been trying to be able to get hits at a faster rate, I have found that it helps a lot to squeeze w/ my left really hard. I am still at the stage where I don't always remember that. I see a 3-5 shot group that is kind of wide and remember, left hand squeeze dummy. One of those 'how many times do I have to tell myself this' moments. So, for you, stay as close to the video recommendation as you can, but grip the gun however it works best for you

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