Chicken or egg -- big gun, little gun

[GJM]

I have mainly been shooting my 2011 Open gun lately, and focusing on split speed, which is probably my greatest low hanging fruit.

Yesterday afternoon, I started shooting the same difficult target arrays with a Macro and G19 that I was shooting with my Open gun. My initial reaction was these arrays are hard, and little guns are hard to shoot. As I shot more, I realized that yes the small lightweight guns with heavier triggers are more demanding to shoot, but really they are more technique sensitive. What I mean is things you get away with a heavy gun with a short, light trigger you can't do with the small guns. To be specific, I need to grip harder with my support hand with the smaller guns, while gripping less hard with my strong hand, as I need less grip to move my trigger finger quickly and precisely.

I have come to believe the Open gun teaches you trigger speed and faster vision, which helps with the small guns, while at the same time the small guns teach you strong support hand grip and less strong hand tension which helps the larger gun, making both complementary.

[ASH556]

I have mainly been shooting my 2011 Open gun lately, and focusing on split speed, which is probably my greatest low hanging fruit.

Yesterday afternoon, I started shooting the same difficult target arrays with a Macro and G19 that I was shooting with my Open gun. My initial reaction was these arrays are hard, and little guns are hard to shoot. As I shot more, I realized that yes the small lightweight guns with heavier triggers are more demanding to shoot, but really they are more technique sensitive. What I mean is things you get away with a heavy gun with a short, light trigger you can't do with the small guns. To be specific, I need to grip harder with my support hand with the smaller guns, while gripping less hard with my strong hand, as I need less grip to move my trigger finger quickly and precisely.

I have come to believe the Open gun teaches you trigger speed and faster vision, which helps with the small guns, while at the same time the small guns teach you strong support hand grip and less strong hand tension which helps the larger gun, making both complementary.

Interesting observations, thanks for sharing. I would tend to agree with this based on my experience with the caveat that it takes some maturity and discipline to exercise the care required when picking up the small gun again. The sights may recover a little slower for instance.

On a separate note, curious what splits you're chasing. From what I can tell shooting with other high level shooters, my splits are pretty fast. My draw speed, and more specifically visual confirmation time are what I need to improve. Just curious what your targets are for splits.

[GJM]

Splits are an interesting conversation. It seems if you are shooting faster than .18 splits (this can vary by person and platform), you are likely shooting predictively, meaning you press the trigger and see the dot as the shot is breaking, but not before you initiate the trigger press.

For defensive shooting, there are more limited applications for predictive shooting, where in uspsa shooting, the goal is to increase the distance that you can shoot predictively, since you are always balancing points with speed. I have never been a fast splitter, and part of that is I have focused on a lot of other things. Right now, with my Open gun I own .15 /.16 splits doing double drills, and .14 and .13 splits occasionally appear. My problem is that I don't exactly know how to replicate .13 and .14, but since they are more common I feel like I am closing in on what I need to do. I am slower with my carry guns, with .18 something I expect to see fairly close in a doubles drill.

None of this means I expect to shoot a .13 split regularly in a match, but improving my wide open speed will translate into being able to shoot predictively at greater distances.

This is enough for this post, but maybe later I will discuss timing, and what I view is the significance of shooting in synch with your own speed. Also, rolling the trigger, which has increased speed and accuracy for my wife and me.

[JCN]

@GJM

1. Good job identifying and working on weaknesses to turn them into strengths.
2. You’ll find all kinds of learning and mechanics epiphanies as you get further into it.

As someone who has done a lot of experimenting, I think you’re on the right track. I’ll make some clarifying comments on where you might be blending a couple observations together that might be particular to your mechanics or your gun setups.

1. If you just talk about size and shape of guns, less muzzle weight and smaller grips mean that it’s less forgiving of lateral trigger press variance. This is what you’re probably noticing and compensating with by using more support hand.

Note that while it is trigger weight influenced, it’s not a direct influence on the split itself. It may be that you get a little “slappy” with the trigger when trying to grip a small gun harder and go faster with a heavier trigger.

With a balanced grip and neutral press at speed, the strong and weak hand ramp up together and the grip proportion between them doesn’t change. You can test this by max SHO splits.

2. Resonant frequency of guns: we’ve talked about this before and how hitting things on “first bounce” is a whole nuther ball of wax than double bouncing everything. Different guns have different inherent first bounce frequencies which are influenced by ammo, grip, recoil springs, muzzle weight and compensators. In general, a well tuned Open gun will split 12s on first bounce, a CO gun around 15 and a stock-ish plastic gun around 18 so you’re getting there!

The goal is to be able to micro correct at speed to get accuracy on target.









PF context:
How do I know what I know?

People are probably tired of me posting the videos, and I’m happy to if anyone isn’t familiar with them.
1. I can split a small, light gun like a P365 down to 0.12s but not with good vision correction.
2. I can split a compensated P365 comfortably at 0.15s (it’s not the gun size that affects the split, it’s the recoil control and compensators help with that). My grip isn’t distributed differently when doing so compared to 0.15 splits with a CO gun.
3. The shorter and more tactile the reset, the easier it is to “bounce” off the wall and do sub 15 splits. For this reason it’s easier for me to do with steel guns than mushy plastic striker ones.


I can only see and adjust down to 0.15s or so splits. At that speed I can track and micro correct the dot. Faster than that and I’m just along for the ride. But it takes practice to git er dun on the first bounce, which is what I try and force students to work on seeing faster. If they never push the splits they’ll never learn to hit the fastball (stuck in T-ball practice).

So with my wife in only a few sessions we got her there on 1-1.5 bounce.

[JCN]

@GJM

Here’s another “how do I know what I know.”

Tiny Walther 9 doing 0.16-0.18 splits to vision.

Look at how little the support hand does in this case. But the trigger press is straight even at speed so the right to left grip proportions don’t change.

[45dotACP]

@GJM

1. Good job identifying and working on weaknesses to turn them into strengths.
2. You’ll find all kinds of learning and mechanics epiphanies as you get further into it.

As someone who has done a lot of experimenting, I think you’re on the right track. I’ll make some clarifying comments on where you might be blending a couple observations together that might be particular to your mechanics or your gun setups.

1. If you just talk about size and shape of guns, less muzzle weight and smaller grips mean that it’s less forgiving of lateral trigger press variance. This is what you’re probably noticing and compensating with by using more support hand.

Note that while it is trigger weight influenced, it’s not a direct influence on the split itself. It may be that you get a little “slappy” with the trigger when trying to grip a small gun harder and go faster with a heavier trigger.

With a balanced grip and neutral press at speed, the strong and weak hand ramp up together and the grip proportion between them doesn’t change. You can test this by max SHO splits.

2. Resonant frequency of guns: we’ve talked about this before and how hitting things on “first bounce” is a whole nuther ball of wax than double bouncing everything. Different guns have different inherent first bounce frequencies which are influenced by ammo, grip, recoil springs, muzzle weight and compensators. In general, a well tuned Open gun will split 12s on first bounce, a CO gun around 15 and a stock-ish plastic gun around 18 so you’re getting there!

The goal is to be able to micro correct at speed to get accuracy on target.









PF context:
How do I know what I know?

People are probably tired of me posting the videos, and I’m happy to if anyone isn’t familiar with them.
1. I can split a small, light gun like a P365 down to 0.12s but not with good vision correction.
2. I can split a compensated P365 comfortably at 0.15s (it’s not the gun size that affects the split, it’s the recoil control and compensators help with that). My grip isn’t distributed differently when doing so compared to 0.15 splits with a CO gun.
3. The shorter and more tactile the reset, the easier it is to “bounce” off the wall and do sub 15 splits. For this reason it’s easier for me to do with steel guns than mushy plastic striker ones.


I can only see and adjust down to 0.15s or so splits. At that speed I can track and micro correct the dot. Faster than that and I’m just along for the ride. But it takes practice to git er dun on the first bounce, which is what I try and force students to work on seeing faster. If they never push the splits they’ll never learn to hit the fastball (stuck in T-ball practice).

So with my wife in only a few sessions we got her there on 1-1.5 bounce.

"JCN: What does he know? Does he know things? Let's find out!"

Okay sorry my bad Bojack Horseman joke aside...you talk about guns bouncing influenced by stuff like recoil springs etc...I know you're a bit of a revolver nerd as well and was wondering if the different recoil and trigger characteristics of revolvers changes how much you can track the sights at speed and therefore your ability to push splits.

I always found it strange how guys like Jerry Miculek were so damn fast with a DA revolver, putting up numbers that are incredible even for a guy running a semi auto.

Does it have to do with the sights basically not reciprocating and allowing you to track the front sight even if it's not well aligned?

Sent from my SM-A326U using Tapatalk

[JCN]

"JCN: What does he know? Does he know things? Let's find out!"

Okay sorry my bad Bojack Horseman joke aside...you talk about guns bouncing influenced by stuff like recoil springs etc...I know you're a bit of a revolver nerd as well and was wondering if the different recoil and trigger characteristics of revolvers changes how much you can track the sights at speed and therefore your ability to push splits.

I always found it strange how guys like Jerry Miculek were so damn fast with a DA revolver, putting up numbers that are incredible even for a guy running a semi auto.

Does it have to do with the sights basically not reciprocating and allowing you to track the front sight even if it's not well aligned?

Sent from my SM-A326U using Tapatalk

So a couple thoughts about that.

My maximum revolver split was around a 0.19. I’m just not strong enough to go any faster at speed. Some of the revolver guys can split 0.17s but they have more grip strength and can generate enough power to pull and release the trigger fast enough.

I checked just now and the fastest I can physically go today is around 0.22 because I haven’t been trigger strength training (shooting mainly PCC these days, I’ve let the strength atrophy).

Which means I’m limited to that as the maximum revolver split I can do at this point.

My recoil control is good enough that the gun is returned and I’m waiting on my trigger finger to finish resetting but my vision is already saying “go, you slowpoke, take the shot!”

My assumption that in order to even physically do sub-20 splits with a revolver, you have to be strong and fast. I’m not inherently at that level without training up for it.

What I am is coordinated so I can reset a short semi trigger without any extra over-travel and that’s the main key to fast splits mechanically in addition to the vision component.



Also, as an aside to @GJM when you were talking about modifying your grip to be more lateral on the side of the grip with the strong hand so you’re not as impacted by Glock hump… that comes at a price of lateral trigger pressing at speed.

The most stable and neutral press is one where the base of the strong thumb is straight inline with the trigger and you can just squeeze the trigger against the base of thumb without any side pressure or support pressure at all.

A press like this:



Which is why I would rather do a mini-humpectomy on a Glock and be able to split it down to 0.15s, even with 40SW.

I want the press to be inline and supported directly from the rear without any lateral requirement.

[JCN]

So people know that I like to deconstruct and reconstruct things in order to isolate variables for learning and experimentation.

I’ve occasionally seen PCC splits down to 0.09, but my on demand split is a 0.13.

Off a dynamic transition, I can get into the 0.11-0.12 with some regularity.



@45dotACP this is kind of the semi-auto test of the trigger physics I discussed with the revolver case above.

For a revolver, my trigger finger strength and speed are the limiting factor over my recoil control and vision.

PCC max splits are similarly a test of max trigger finger coordination of “timing the trigger finger rebound” with minimum reset and maximum speed. It takes pistol size and caliber out of the equation (because of extra recoil control ability with a long gun).

If on a PCC the max finger coordination speed is a 0.15, then on a pistol it will be some additional time over that depending on recoil control and trigger characteristics.

Basically if someone is split limited with a handgun, it could be vision, recoil management or trigger finger strength / speed limitation. And testing where the weak link is, helps figure out where one needs to work to get “faster” with good accuracy.

Ideally, speed and accuracy develop together so they’re both comfortable around 0.15s on demand. But that’s obviously gun and caliber dependent and anything under 0.18 is very, very good.

[EVP]

A press like this:



Which is why I would rather do a mini-humpectomy on a Glock and be able to split it down to 0.15s, even with 40SW.

I want the press to be inline and supported directly from the rear without any lateral requirement.

JCN I assume you strive for the same things with a DA/SA trigger with the first long first pull and building your grip around the trigger fingers neutral press? Wanna play with this concept it in dryfire.

[JCN]

JCN I assume you strive for the same things with a DA/SA trigger with the first long first pull and building your grip around the trigger fingers neutral press? Wanna play with this concept it in dryfire.

Yes! Revolvers too. My grip balance doesn’t change with different size / shape / weight / caliber / manual of arms. There are minor ergo shifts but no difference in the weak to strong balance or hand tension.

I have a coaching thread in the site supporter area that would love to have you come and work through stuff. I posted some extra videos there.