Locked Wrist Enigma, advice requested

[arcfide]

Crush with support hand, firmly grip and lock your shooting hand (NOT crush, as this will impede the trigger finger) - and this is exactly what Stoeger advocates.

Your post was excellent and helpful, thank you. I wanted to highlight something here. The claim is that a crush support hand will automatically lock, but I think it should be reiterated that, at least for me, this only occurs in the case when I have my support hand wrist rotated down as with the thumbs forward grip. In other positions, the wrist will not lock just because of a crush grip. If we were still using a weaver style grip, this crushing would simply not work for me. It's a combination of increasing grip pressure and the rotation of the wrist that helps to encourage that lock. While I can confirm this with myself, I just thought I would point this out in case there are people who might interpolate this advice beyond its range.

And I'd also like to ask a follow-up question. For the longest time, I've had trouble with a crushing grip of the support hand literally causing that support hand to "squeeze itself off" the gun. In such cases, with large or small grips, I would either have such a crush grip that my fingers of the support hand would slip off, or, if they got enough grip, they could peel the fingers of my shooting hand off the grip.

I know this sounds silly, but I've not found any of the solutions people recommend to work very well, and I'd appreciate some advice. The advice I have right now that seems to be making the biggest difference is Langdon's advice to add a touch of push-pull into the situation. This helps, but I still find that I can't really grip the gun that hard without introducing potential slippage. How is everyone gripping their pistol with such strength and still keeping their fingers on the gun?

[arcfide]

I concur with others, you’re over thinking this. If you shoot irons, I suggest getting a dot.

Switching to a dot taught me more in 2 months than the past couple years about what works for me.

It’s easier to call shots and see exactly what’s happening in recoil.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I might be getting a dot. I've shot with a few before, but I wasn't doing much diagnostics with them at the time.

[arcfide]

"If I don't let the gun move in my hand and I am reasonably relaxed, then I can get very consistent tracking and movement of the gun, but there is waay too much recoil and muzzle rise/gun movement vertically at way too slow a speed to get fast follow-up shots. It is consistent, but not fast."

How much muzzle climb and what kind of split times are we talking about here?

I think IIRC (it was a while ago when I timed this) it was something like .5 or .6 at the fastest and more likely .6 - .7 or maybe even .8. It wasn't a terribly consistent time, since there's a big mental component that can easily get in the way, obviously.

[arcfide]

OP, how exactly do you define success as it relates to your grip and how to you measure it?

Please be extremely brief and concise.

Horizontal and vertical variance of the front sight path.

Repeatability of the front sight's final resting place after the shot.

The degree of active correction needed (usually in the form of pulling the gun back up or straight) to avoid dropping shots low or anticipation.

The amount of total effort, tension, and mental concentration required to achieve the above. IOW, how sustainable is the technique in the presence of reduced cognitive or physical faculties or other considerations. (E.G. -- if the technique requires that my entire body be stiff as a board and that I practically give myself a stroke to achieve the result, then it's not desirable.)

[arcfide]

If you're getting "a ton of diagnostic" from watching the front sight move, why is improvement not coming?

Does not compute.

I never said improvement wasn't coming. I just said that it was slow, laborious, and fraught with significant failures due to lots of failure to be precise.

In this case, the whole reason I was discussing this topic in the first place was because I saw a massive improvement in the stability and trackability of my sights, as well as the "flatness" (return of the sights to original position with minimal conscious external input) of shooting (absent any specific timings) and consistency of that flatness by focusing on a locked wrist(s) instead of focusing on grip strength. Previous to this, I was working on various other variations and attempts to improve my results, but all with a strong emphasis on grip strength and other aspects, since most people seemed to gloss over wrist locking or not talk about it as much. It was only after I figured out that wrist locking was actually a fundamentally separate "variable" from the strength of the grip that I was able to make any progress on this.

This has led me to wonder other things that I'm totally missing because the advice I find everyone, including in books, is so imprecise that it makes it very difficult to use. I could just "shoot more" and maybe get better. But other people are much better shooters than I am, and I would prefer to avoid needing to go through decades and longer of trial and error to arrive at some conclusions that they could have simply given to me early that would help me to improve. I would prefer to utilize available maps when I can, even if I have to make my own annotations over them as I make my way through the path. I understand that there isn't a shortcut here, but there's a big difference between a map showing you a reasonable way through the desert, and wandering in circles for 40 years. I mean, that's why most people tend to stick pretty close to an isosceles style stance (with variation) at this point, no? There could be some huge leap in biomechanical efficiency to be gained through some other means, but prior experience indicates that most of us should start with isosceles and work from there, rather than trying to figure out how to grip the gun from scratch.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with consulting the map every so often to see where I am, even if the result is that I need to just "keep on going on." Better to verify and know that than to miss a big turn in the trail.

[arcfide]

we are locking the wrist of our shooting hand to manage muzzle flip

Can we talk about this a little bit? I think I've read some threads on the topic before, but there was a lot of assumptions in those threads. Here, we have an opinion that we should be "managing" muzzle flip, and another that we should just "let the gun recoil." Both common ways of talking about handling recoil. Both appear to get people to what appears to be very similar results. What is really the goal here?

My interpretation here is that we want to arrange our passive structures and static forces on the gun in such a way that enables ourselves to return the gun to the correct firing position pointing in the right direction with the minimum of active, conscious, or reactive tension and the minimum total time to do so. The time requirement implies that we should minimize the motion of the gun, but the other factor implies that we are trying to achieve minimal motion through passive rather than active means, to avoid the tendencies to incorrectly compensate for recoil (which leads to the left, low, pre-ignition push, and so forth).

This to me says that both "let the gun recoil" and "manage muzzle flip" are two sides of the same coin. Is this a correct or flawed interpretation of the situation?

[gomerpyle]

Can we talk about this a little bit? I think I've read some threads on the topic before, but there was a lot of assumptions in those threads. Here, we have an opinion that we should be "managing" muzzle flip, and another that we should just "let the gun recoil." Both common ways of talking about handling recoil. Both appear to get people to what appears to be very similar results. What is really the goal here?

My interpretation here is that we want to arrange our passive structures and static forces on the gun in such a way that enables ourselves to return the gun to the correct firing position pointing in the right direction with the minimum of active, conscious, or reactive tension and the minimum total time to do so. The time requirement implies that we should minimize the motion of the gun, but the other factor implies that we are trying to achieve minimal motion through passive rather than active means, to avoid the tendencies to incorrectly compensate for recoil (which leads to the left, low, pre-ignition push, and so forth).

This to me says that both "let the gun recoil" and "manage muzzle flip" are two sides of the same coin. Is this a correct or flawed interpretation of the situation?

I'd phrase it as follows: to do what is necessary and no more. If you do more than needed, your following shot could go left, low left, low, etc. I worry about the phrase "minimize the motion of the gun"- this might imply trying to eliminate motion, which we cannot and should not aspire to do. the gun will recoil - our goal should be to manage it in such a way that the sights returns to its initial point prior to the shot

.

[gomerpyle]

I'd phrase it as follows: to do what is necessary and no more. If you do more than needed, your following shot could go left, low left, low, etc. I worry about the phrase "minimize the motion of the gun"- this might imply trying to eliminate motion, which we cannot and should not aspire to do. the gun will recoil - our goal should be to manage it in such a way that the sights returns to its initial point prior to the shot.

Relevant quotes from Enos:

"If the recoil you experience is consistent, it really does not matter how high the muzzle actually lifts."

"The most important goal of a good grip is that it gives consistent muzzle control so that the sight is always coming up and down in exactly the same pattern. It's that consistency that offers the possibility of high-speed shooting. You want the gun to recoil as if it were in a machine, and, as I mentioned earlier, I've proven it to myself that it doesn't really matter how high the sight tracks in recoil as long as it returns to the exact same place and that it travels on the exact same path to get there. Watch how the sight tracks in recoil and make sure it's moving consistently, regardless of the shooting situation."

And I definitely recommend Stoeger's Breakthrough Marksmanship - it's a classic in the making. And sign up on PSTG - you can always cancel at any time - Hwansik's video on grip alone is worth it. Ypu can hoble things together from youtube to get the same result but Hwansik's video really ties it all together.

if it's any consolation, I too have had grip and sight tracking issues. And occasionally still do. But things improved

[gomerpyle]

Relevant quotes from Enos:

"If the recoil you experience is consistent, it really does not matter how high the muzzle actually lifts."

"The most important goal of a good grip is that it gives consistent muzzle control so that the sight is always coming up and down in exactly the same pattern. It's that consistency that offers the possibility of high-speed shooting. You want the gun to recoil as if it were in a machine, and, as I mentioned earlier, I've proven it to myself that it doesn't really matter how high the sight tracks in recoil as long as it returns to the exact same place and that it travels on the exact same path to get there. Watch how the sight tracks in recoil and make sure it's moving consistently, regardless of the shooting situation."

And I definitely recommend Stoeger's Breakthrough Marksmanship - it's a classic in the making. And sign up on PSTG - you can always cancel at any time - Hwansik's video on grip alone is worth it. You can hobble things together from youtube to get the same result but Hwansik's video really ties it all together.

if it's any consolation, I too have had grip and sight tracking issues. And still do. But things are now finally improving

here's another great quote from Enos quoting Avery!

"OK guys,

I got this in an email from Ron A. I follow him, I can leave every muscle in my arm and hand relaxed and still not let my wrist bend back when cranking back on my thumb with my other hand. However, I don't think he is saying that you don't have to grip the pistol with your fingers, just that your grip tension (with your fingers) and the "set" of your wrists do not necessarily depend on each other. I think I "control this 'set'" by "willing" the gun to return to the target as quickly as possible. I do this by placing my attention in the gun, or in the sites. But I am sensitive to feelings in my hands as I shoot, so I'll experiment with the way he is saying what he is saying.

be

When people think about controlling/managing the recoil they are typically taught to "lock" the shooting wrist. This locks it into a static position. In reality, we "set" the tension or "preload" the tension to resist upward movement of the slide in recoil. This tension allows the slide to return to the same point that it started its travel. In theory, it should return the sights to the same bullet hole if you had no other movement or tension introduced into the mix.

Now, where people tend to have trouble is that they squeeze the fingers instead of setting the wrist. Squeezing only partially sets the wrist, whereas setting the wrists is a specific motor action.

Try this, have someone take your hand in a handshake grip and try to bend your thumb side back against your forearm. You resist this action by setting the wrist/forearm tension. Now, do the same thing while wiggling the fingers as they try to bend it. What this means is this: If you can learn to isolate tension precisely, you can set the wrists with moderate tension and not have to grip the pistol so hard, especially with the strong hand. This allows better precision and isolation of the trigger finger which will allow more precise hits at greater speeds.

Now set both wrists with moderate tension and experiment with setting the support one a bit more while relaxing tension a bit in the strong side wrist. This will allow the total net effort to be the same while allowing some relaxation/precision of the action of the trigger finger.

Ron Avery"

Quote

[gomerpyle]

Your post was excellent and helpful, thank you. I wanted to highlight something here. The claim is that a crush support hand will automatically lock, but I think it should be reiterated that, at least for me, this only occurs in the case when I have my support hand wrist rotated down as with the thumbs forward grip. In other positions, the wrist will not lock just because of a crush grip. If we were still using a weaver style grip, this crushing would simply not work for me. It's a combination of increasing grip pressure and the rotation of the wrist that helps to encourage that lock. While I can confirm this with myself, I just thought I would point this out in case there are people who might interpolate this advice beyond its range.

And I'd also like to ask a follow-up question. For the longest time, I've had trouble with a crushing grip of the support hand literally causing that support hand to "squeeze itself off" the gun. In such cases, with large or small grips, I would either have such a crush grip that my fingers of the support hand would slip off, or, if they got enough grip, they could peel the fingers of my shooting hand off the grip.

I know this sounds silly, but I've not found any of the solutions people recommend to work very well, and I'd appreciate some advice. The advice I have right now that seems to be making the biggest difference is Langdon's advice to add a touch of push-pull into the situation. This helps, but I still find that I can't really grip the gun that hard without introducing potential slippage. How is everyone gripping their pistol with such strength and still keeping their fingers on the gun?

Crushing might be the wrong word for you then. Another approach is to think of it as keeping the hands on the gun, avoiding slippage, etc. Stoeger calls the issue of "squeeze itself off" grip or hand separation. His suggestion is to crush of course Ron Avery and TPC think of it is a sticky issue too - i.e. pliable hands. Sometimes, the harder you grip your support hand, oddly enough the less sticky your support hand is to the gun. Avery and Hwansik following Avery think of your support hand becoming a slippery/smooth hard surface when gripping too hard. The solution oddly enough is to dial back on the crush to soften that muscle so that your hand becomes "sticky".

And as you are trying to achieve sticky hands, also aspire for the quarter panel, right @GJM?

And if that fails try Pro Grip Enhancer - it's the duct tape of the gun world - solves all problems