Originally Posted by scw2
I'd love to do another one of these for PF members - let's make it happen!
I'd love to do another one of these for PF members - let's make it happen!
Yes! Sometime next year though! And somewhere in the south east lol
Yes please!
Yeah!
But seriously: I went so far in the AAR to look up where PSC is located. Turns out we spent a night on our RV trip this summer in Cranberry Twp, PA, not a million miles away.
If this happens in 2016 again, I would seriously consider routing our 2016 RV travel destinations to be able to be a part of this. We're currently in Memphis for Mr. Givens' Tac Con 2016 in March.
Heck, even if not, I would probably swing by PSC and pay to get some diagnostic 1:1 advice by appointment.
Last edited by RJ; 11-03-2015 at 08:03 AM.
Jay, thanks for all the advice. You had made a comment about how you can't provide truly diagnostic advice since it's all text, without even any pictures or video, which is fair enough. However, I think you might be short changing your ability to communicate and teach since I was able to see great improvement in dry fire yesterday based on your comments.
I have come to this conclusion in the past few weeks, and realized my live and dry fire have been all wrong. I think you alluded to this in a prior post with front sight tracking back onto target being the 'go' signal to start shooting again. When I was firing with a cadence counting off in my head at a speed I could see the front sight well and press the trigger cleanly and smoothly straight back, I got really amazing grouping in a string of 4 shots. When I tried that in slow fire, single shots at the same distance, the grouping increased 2-3x.
Also, this reminds me of the quote from Jerry Miculek when asked about how he got so fast, and his response was that he used to flinch and then one day decided if he could out-shoot the flinching. Didn't make sense before, starting to understand what he meant...
That'd be great fun to just meet up with people, to say nothing of the quality of instruction that people clearly received last year. I personally have no idea driving up to your stomping grounds and would happily road trip with some of the members here from NOVA! I'd be willing to help out how I can, too, but really don't know too much about organizing classes and such.
Also, this reminds me of the quote from Jerry Miculek when asked about how he got so fast, and his response was that he used to flinch and then one day decided if he could out-shoot the flinching. Didn't make sense before, starting to understand what he meant...
I think there's something to this. I usually refer to it as "agony" or "agonizing over the shot". Bypass that agony with a decisive trigger press!
Once a female new shooter was flinching and a couple close range mag dumps for fun (and they were painless) seemed to dissolve the anxiety that seemed to cause the flinch.
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
Jay has given a lot of great advice in this thread. I just wanted to add a few comments and points of discussion.
Could not agree more!!!!! I think this is the single most important point (among many important points) raised in this recent exchange.
I don't know if the calluses on my ring and pinkie fingers mean I disagree with you....but I have calluses on those fingers that make me think I might be applying significant grip pressure with them. Or maybe the calluses are a function of something other than that?
An interesting point of view has been expressed by D.R. Middlebrooks on this. He has a video somewhere, sorry I don't remember which one, where he demonstrates the direction the gun moves in recoil and asserts that the fingers at the bottom of the grip are pretty key.
I don't have a strong opinion on it, and I don't at all discount yours and JHC's views those fingers don't do much. I'm not sure they do, but this discussion made me wonder a bit. I do kind of think of the middle, ring, and pinkie fingers as a unit though, and I feel like that unit is weaker without all its members. Things do work differently for different people, but I think when I milk/anticipate/convulse fingers and mess up a shot, it is more with my middle finger than the smaller ones. I'll try to notice this more next time it happens.
---
I think the things people do to increase pressure on the gun - rolling the elbows up and out, engaging the pectoral and core muscles, grinding the ball of the support hand into the frame as high as possible, radical support wrist cant, etc. - are all good, but on the individual level those measures may be tempered because raw grip pressure on the gun is not the only consideration. I like having maximum skin-to-gun contact. I don't radically cant and position my support hand as high on the gun as it could possibly go because it messes up the interlock between my strong and support hand fingers and then despite the greater pressure I might be putting on the gun, the grip structure is compromised and then hands come apart under recoil. I feel like I am better off with a small compromise in raw pressure in order to get the skin-to-gun contact and grip structure that confines the gun to pretty much straight up and down movement in recoil and keeps my hands from separating. I roll my elbows up and out, but not as much as I could be doing it, because I start getting tension and feeling like I am muscling the gun and making it move funny. I think there is a narrow range of really good technique, but a range nonetheless.
Resetting the trigger: scw2, I used to do exactly what you were talking about - try to reset and press while holding the gun on target and minimize gun movement including during the reset. I agree with Jay there and don't think it's productive. The reason is that when shooting in live fire and running the trigger at speed, the trigger reset should happen while the gun is recoiling and already in a greater degree of motion than I think the reset gives it. It's basically a freebie motion in live fire so I don't think you need to attend minimizing reset movement in dry fire. I don't think it's bad to include reset as part of target transitions or multiple shot drills in dry fire, I just wouldn't be concerned about minimizing that small movement, especially not while holding the gun on target at the same time.
Locking wrists: I also dislike this term, because I don't think the wrist joint 'locks' like elbows and knees. Maybe that's just me and how I think of the words. I like to think of it as 'stiffly holding the gun in space' because of all the tensions involved, and it connotes that I am not consciously trying to move the gun in any particular direction. Just stiffly hold it there while my eyes, mind, and finger run the sights and trigger.
The discipline to apply an honest, live-fire quality grip in dry fire is hugely important. Shooting is a tension-filled activity. Dry fire also needs to be if it is going to be very relevant.
Technical excellence supports tactical preparedness
Lord of the Food Court
http://www.gabewhitetraining.com
The jury's still out on this as far as I'm concerned, and I may very well change my opinion on it. I've experimented with my grip and I can see how those pinkie and ring fingers can feel integral... Ultimately it goes back to me trying to give a tool to shooters who don't have a tool, and I think most are better served not worrying about the ring and pinkie fingers. But I'm going to keep this part in my thoughts for the future.
I agree completely that one size does not fit all. WE have the benefit of YOU being an extremely talented shooter and sharing your insights with us. You (and other high performance shooters like you) reach deep into the technique and are able to touch on nuances which are often completely lost on Tactical Timmy in his third Tactical Pistol class. I say this once again as a term of endearment - I *am* Tactical Timmy!
I want to give shooters a better starting point.
Yeah, we're tracking.
^^^ 100% THIS ^^^
Yeah, I was very inconsistent with this earlier and I think it showed in less than ideal groups when going to live fire. Can't fool yourself on the range when the results speak for themselves. One thing I noticed this morning was in the past you had always said to move my hands faster when doing pressouts or draws. I always struggled to find the right blend of speed and being able to find my front sight consistently. I noticed this morning that even when I sped up, having a good grip and thinking of pressing my hands inwards during extension actually resulted in much more consistent positioning of the front sight. Would you guys agree that’s a benefit of a good solid grip, or was I just BS’ing myself this morning?
When I asked about the pinky and ring fingers, it was more something I was thinking about more on a theoretical level. Prior to Gabe sharing his thoughts, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any high level shooter call out those two fingers as being a potentially a critical part of a good shooting grip. I figured the further you are away from the fulcrum on a lever, the more torque (force times radius) there would be to counteract the opposing muzzle rise forces. Maybe it could be helpful but secondary to other things like a high grip and engaging the wrist tendons.
Just FWIW, there have been a number of abstracts written about the involvement of the ulnar digits (ring and pinkie finger) and how much they contribute to overall grip strength. I'd have to dig for a reference link but results typically showed a HUGE decrease in force (like up to 60%) taking those two digits out of the grip equation. Studies were typically done using a dynamometer with a variety of protocols for limiting the use of the digits in question; usually some form of splinting, etc....
Regardless, me thinks they play a much bigger role in grip and specifically in controlling the pistol than is being suggested.
Good thread.
t
Reply With Quote
