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Thread: Glock shooting -- rolling the trigger

  1. #11
    Alaska! So cold the next time I shot, the following day, I was having some reload trouble due to cold hands.

    Wayne, let's hear how you pull the Glock trigger.

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by GJM View Post
    Alaska! So cold the next time I shot, the following day, I was having some reload trouble due to cold hands.

    Wayne, let's hear how you pull the Glock trigger.
    OK, I copy on that glorious weather! Funny how most of the time, we gripe about whatever weather we have!

    As for the Glock trigger control methods I use, I have to give credit to lots of DA revolver shooting that I started with well over 30 years ago. I'm convinced (along with some very good trainers) that the ability to shoot a DA revolver well will build a good foundation for everything else. I shoot revolver at least once a month and find that it gives me great results with regard to learning a rolling, surprise break of the trigger. Next, I've found that establishment of a strong, centered, high and neutral grip on the pistol is critical to success with regard to trigger management and resultant hits. Many folks will not make the changes they need to make to their grip TTPs to move up significantly in their pistol skill levels. The Modern Iso, thumbs forward grip is what I've seen work the best in that regard because properly executed, it will mitigate lots of minor trigger control errors, along with the advantages it gives of indexing the gun on target and managing recoil and muzzle flip in a very consistent manner.

    Regarding the actual press (NOT pull) of the trigger, I spend considerable time and effort on ensuring that the slack portion of the trigger press distance is always removed during presentation to the target from whatever position or location is the beginning point for the pistol. I find that many folks do some really horrible shooting because they don't pay attention to this. I'm convinced that many shooters never grasp that concept and consequently fire most, if not all, of their shots with lots of slack in the trigger. This results in different speeds and levels of pressure being exerted on the trigger and causes lots of gun movement relative to the target. It also results in the shooter actually moving the trigger a lot more distance than is necessary to fire the shot, which costs time. Slack removal is critical to successful trigger management and can't be passed over. The shooter must know what it is and where it stops at the beginning of the actual sear/striker engagement point of the trigger press.

    Once the trigger is at the beginning of the sear/striker/hammer/whatever engagement point, it must simply be pressed STRAIGHT to the rear with steadily increasing pressure until the shot breaks. There are all kinds of discussions and terminologies about this point and a good instructor knows several different ways to explain, describe and demonstrate how this most important task is done. I discuss it, demonstrate it and then go interactive with myself and a student on the pistol at the same time in several different drills to impart what excellent trigger control feels like and what it doesn't feel like. I want folks to understand that sights and their alignment on a typical pistol problem target are not nearly as important as is pressing the trigger smoothly and steadily straight back. If I have a really serious student, I want them to learn to press a trigger very well one handed, strong and support hand only. That takes away the safety net of the encompass grip that we teach and makes trigger control and its learning and skill a very pure, stand alone exercise. As an integral part of this process, the shooter must learn to isolate the trigger finger's effort from that of the grip effort and to maintain grip effort without pressure change throughout the shot process. Many of the shots we see going low to the shooter's support side are not bad trigger control alone, but are in fact grip pressure spikes as the shot is being delivered.

    So what we need is a good grip, rapid and consistent slack removal and a straight back press using an independent trigger finger applying evenly increasing pressure while the grip effort remains constant. Wow, that's a lot to remember and it is! There's more, because we rarely just fire one shot in a confrontation and this is where even more folks drive into the ditch. Now we need to follow through and reset the trigger and that is also an important part of the whole process of shooting well.

    With regard to trigger reset training, there are two basic methods: the trigger "pin" method and reset in recoil method. As most of you know, with the pin method, we keep the trigger pinned against the frame after the shot and then ease to the reset point, which may or may not be audible/tactile. Next, we have to remove any slack that exists at that point and in some platforms there is a lot of slack here. I'm referring to Berettas, Sigs, Rugers and other traditional DA/SA brands. Lots of shooters will simply reset the trigger and then whack the snot out of it on the shot and miss badly. They shot with the slack unremoved and it hurts their performance. Most of those same shooters don't even have the aptitude to realize that problem. If we have a Glock, M&P or the like, at the reset point there is no slack so it's an easier issue to simply press straight back again. The problem arises when shooters of those striker fired guns go way past the reset point and induce slack back into the process, don't remove it and do the same slap through that causes the miss. I prefer to quickly teach the reset using the pin method, do some dry fire and live fire and then graduate the student out of kindergarten and show them how to reset in recoil by simply relaxing the trigger finger forward to reset, removing any slack and having a slacked out trigger when the sights return. I saw it expressed the other day as "having the trigger waiting on the sights" instead of the opposite that the pin method produces. It produces better results.

    My training regimen includes a heavy emphasis on trigger control because it's the most important factor in getting hits with a pistol. I do perfect presses of the trigger in dry practice both with and without a target to keep the neural pathway "warmed up" in that regard. During live fire training I usually shoot 15-25 shots on what Larry Vickers calls command fire. The drill is run at five to seven yards on the X ring of a B-8 bull or a similar sized (~1.5 inches) target. The shot timer is set to .25-.30 second on delay, the sights are aligned and the trigger slacked out. On the beep, I fire a shot inside the time limit using perfect (and rapid) trigger control and the shot must be well inside the target zone. If I miss, I stop and do five to 10 remedial dry presses and start over. It's mentally tough and requires solid focus and attention to all the details. It is a method to solidly ingrain the skills needed to manage the trigger well.

    All of this may or may not be helpful, but I've learned over many years of shooting and training shooters that if you really learn trigger control well, everything else falls into place without much effort. It is truly the hardest thing to teach, the hardest thing to learn and the first fundamental to decay without constant work. And, you can't learn it by reading about it or hearing about it. You need a competent trainer who knows the skill well and who can communicate it.
    Last edited by Wayne Dobbs; 08-05-2012 at 03:03 PM.
    Regional Government Sales Manager for Aimpoint, Inc. USA
    Co-owner Hardwired Tactical Shooting (HiTS)

  3. #13
    Member Al T.'s Avatar
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    AWESOME post Wayne. Awesome.

  4. #14
    Wayne, I am glad you asked about the weather, and glad I asked you about "pulling" the trigger, as this is a "sticky" level response!

    A few follow-up questions:

    1) When you say, "it (the trigger) must simply be pressed STRAIGHT to the rear with steadily increasing pressure until the shot breaks," I assume you mean a continuous press as opposed to any staging after the initial take-up is removed?

    2) I notice when pressing the Glock trigger straight back, that I am contacting the trigger around the first crease, and my trigger finger appears to make a hook as the trigger moves back -- is this what you do?

    3) Do you manipulate the Glock trigger different than, for example, the M&P?

    4) In light of some recent comments about shooting the Glock, and to what extent that is a joyous experience, do you find the Glock trigger a positive, negative or neutral in terms of shooting your best?

    5) Do you press the Glock trigger using the same technique as you describe when shooting a precision group?

    Since I have been shooting all my shots (fast high probability to slow fire groups) with the Glock using a method I refer to as rolling the trigger, and I believe you are describing above, I have been enjoying the Glock trigger (stock except for a minus connector) a lot more.

  5. #15
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    Wayne, I am glad you asked about the weather, and glad I asked you about "pulling" the trigger, as this is a "sticky" level response!

    A few follow-up questions:

    1) When you say, "it (the trigger) must simply be pressed STRAIGHT to the rear with steadily increasing pressure until the shot breaks," I assume you mean a continuous press as opposed to any staging after the initial take-up is removed?

    I do use a continuous press after slack removal.

    2) I notice when pressing the Glock trigger straight back, that I am contacting the trigger around the first crease, and my trigger finger appears to make a hook as the trigger moves back -- is this what you do?

    Trigger finger placement is dependent on hand size to some extent. My goal in teaching this is to have the shooter’s finger fall naturally on the face of the trigger after proper grip is established. For some, that will cause the finger to curl, while others will have the first pad flat on the trigger face. It is very important that the trigger finger not be in contact with the frame and that the proximal segment of the trigger finger be parallel to the frame so that you set it up for a press that doesn't have a lateral bias to it. The trigger finger must pivot at the medial knuckle. Some bad shooters will overgrip and be pivoting their trigger finger at the proximal knuckle and awful results follow. Another thing: make sure the trigger finger is relaxed as lots of shooters will set up the grip with lots of tension in their trigger fingers and will be pushing the gun very hard with the trigger finger. It's a significant multitasking issue to learn this of having a strong grip, but a relaxed trigger finger.

    3) Do you manipulate the Glock trigger different than, for example, the M&P?

    No, the drill is to grip well, slack out, press straight back and reset during the recoil with any trigger. I find that while brand’s triggers are somewhat different, the striker guns have mechanics that are more the same than different.

    4) In light of some recent comments about shooting the Glock, and to what extent that is a joyous experience, do you find the Glock trigger a positive, negative or neutral in terms of shooting your best?

    It’s a neutral to me. We all know that a nice 1911 trigger is a joy to shoot and that a Glock isn’t a 1911. I’ve also found the single action trigger mode on lots of Sigs to be very easily managed. There are also worse triggers than the Glock out there. Unless a platform’s trigger is really horrible, you can usually adapt to it. And, as a trainer, you need to be able to adapt to and manage different triggers so you can teach them to a student who may have no choice in what they are using and will have to move forward and conduct business with that gun. As long as they learn how to adapt to and manage a certain platform’s trigger properly they will be good to go.

    5) Do you press the Glock trigger using the same technique as you describe when shooting a precision group?

    Yes, except that when shooting groups I spend some time refining my grip and making sure that I’m set up with a natural point of aim so that there is no lateral bias on the gun. I also will work harder on perfect sight alignment with a hard focus on the front sight’s top edge. I definitely press the trigger at a slower pace for precision work than when I’m shooting drills. The follow through actions remain the same for me.
    Last edited by Wayne Dobbs; 08-06-2012 at 09:32 AM.
    Regional Government Sales Manager for Aimpoint, Inc. USA
    Co-owner Hardwired Tactical Shooting (HiTS)

  6. #16
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    Had a question regarding the NY1/- trigger combo on a gen 3 Glock... Since this "most" replicates the Double Action trigger on a revolver, do most people let the trigger totally reset on subsequent shots in order to get the same "double action" trigger pull every time, or only let it out enough to reset the sear as if shooting a stock trigger? Stupid question I know, but I'm just feeling out this NY1/- combo... for efficiency sake, it would make sense to me to only let it out enough to reset the sear, yet this defeats the double action rolling trigger goal of that particular trigger combo... Would be interested in people's thoughts/opinions...

    Thanks

  7. #17
    Member JHC's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MadMax17 View Post
    Had a question regarding the NY1/- trigger combo on a gen 3 Glock... Since this "most" replicates the Double Action trigger on a revolver, do most people let the trigger totally reset on subsequent shots in order to get the same "double action" trigger pull every time, or only let it out enough to reset the sear as if shooting a stock trigger? Stupid question I know, but I'm just feeling out this NY1/- combo... for efficiency sake, it would make sense to me to only let it out enough to reset the sear, yet this defeats the double action rolling trigger goal of that particular trigger combo... Would be interested in people's thoughts/opinions...

    Thanks
    Damn, still stuck in Lawton?

    I have only briefly experimented with this setup and hated it. Thought I'd like it from being raised with DA K-frame shooting. But it's nothing like any DA revolver I ever cared to shoot. But I digress. One of the big pluses for this setup it's advocates highlight is the near violent reset (slight exaggeration) which makes it easier to shoot from reset - so goes the argument. So I don't think "flipping" all the way out is the preferred method with this trigger combo.
    “Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais

  8. #18
    Eddy702
    Member
    What is rolling the trigger? I couldn't find anything on youtube or google.

  9. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Wayne Dobbs View Post

    My training regimen includes a heavy emphasis on trigger control because it's the most important factor in getting hits with a pistol. I do perfect presses of the trigger in dry practice both with and without a target to keep the neural pathway "warmed up" in that regard. During live fire training I usually shoot 15-25 shots on what Larry Vickers calls command fire. The drill is run at five to seven yards on the X ring of a B-8 bull or a similar sized (~1.5 inches) target. The shot timer is set to .25-.30 second on delay, the sights are aligned and the trigger slacked out. On the beep, I fire a shot inside the time limit using perfect (and rapid) trigger control and the shot must be well inside the target zone. If I miss, I stop and do five to 10 remedial dry presses and start over. It's mentally tough and requires solid focus and attention to all the details. It is a method to solidly ingrain the skills needed to manage the trigger well.
    Did this drill for the first time today on the two inch dots of the PF target-- very valuable! Started at 7 yards freestyle, then at 10 yards, repeated at 7 yards strong and support hand only. It is interesting how doing it one hand shows up any imperfections masked by the support hand. Finished it up at 40 yards, freestyle, on an 8 inch steel.

  10. #20
    Member JHC's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GJM View Post
    Did this drill for the first time today on the two inch dots of the PF target-- very valuable! Started at 7 yards freestyle, then at 10 yards, repeated at 7 yards strong and support hand only. It is interesting how doing it one hand shows up any imperfections masked by the support hand. Finished it up at 40 yards, freestyle, on an 8 inch steel.
    I'm glad you highlighted that drill. I'd missed it before.
    “Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais

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