Locked Wrist Enigma, advice requested

[jeep45238]

Thanks for this. I don't recall whether these are the same standards that I used the last time that I tried the drill or one like it.

I can say that I have a hard time getting to a range that I can get split times on (even though I do have the equipment and do manage to do so from time to time). While I can't, won't, and don't argue with split times and other timer based drills being important, the reality is that much of my training has to occur without a timer.

I'm assuming that you state most of your work has to occur without a timer due to other shooters. Look into the ShotMaxx2 shot timer - it's worn like a wrist watch and has the option for an accelerometer to be used instead of a microphone for the timer, making other shooters irrelevant, while also having a microphone sensitivity that can pickup airsoft (great for dry fire).

I think a major confusion that you have with shooting fast based off your post is the attempt of using muscle to keep the gun from moving under recoil. Who cares about that - let's care more about getting the point of aim back to where it needs to be as quickly as it can as consistently as possible. You won't get a natural point of aim without either a lot of practice and muscle with precise focus for consistency, or you can apply the skeletal structure which always functions the same to the same forces, and then use muscles to refine as needed. Your call.

As Ron Avery put it - strength helps, but more from a reserve of strength standpoint (so you aren't having to go at 100% all the time). There are also a LOT of champion shooters who are not as strong as other champion shooters, so technique is king.



This video is not to highlight skill - it was one of my worst sessions in the past few weeks, cold, and using a cover garment with this pistol that normally doesn't have a cover garment, and the hoodie didn't exactly stay out of the way. Mental frustrations and cold took hold really quick - but if you're struggling on the A zone at .5 second splits (which you may be slower or faster, as you said you don't use a timer, so let's discount all of that discussion), you'll get far more help attending any pistol class beyond basic NRA to look into the fundamentals of what you're doing than just slinging lead and sticking to the same mindset.

The bill drill was stupid slow - 3.85 seconds. I'm usually in the 2.5 or so second range, which I still consider slow for this gun/distance/etc.

[Alpha Sierra]

Another slant on the use of doubles to train and diagnose the grip.

Rossen Hristov makes no mention of a goal for splits, but there's no reason one can't add that. I'll def download those targets and add them to my training.

[miller_man]

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

This could be some of the problem with your long splits. A 5-7yd A zone shot shouldn't require any "resting place" during shooting (don't know if your talking about during shooting or after, if after your done shooting - worry about other things right now). The front sight should just be returning somewhere or even moving around in the a zone after 1st shot and you just send the next.



One of the bigger break through moments I had was shooting bill drills. I was 3.3-3.5 range to call good shots. I just started shooting them faster to see what I could get away with - I quickly found that I could get away with WAY LESS than I had thought in terms of sight picture and still have good hits. I was down around 2.5 or so in one live fire session (not all A;s at first). Now I am pushing more into sub 2, without concealment.



On dry fire practice. My usual dry practice is about 25-35 minutes and ya the forearms get tight. But that is going pretty hard, non stop for the whole time.

I did just spend about an hour and a half in dry fire practice this morning but after my normal 25 minute routine, I was doing match mode runs with real slide lock reloads + multiple shooting positions/arrays. I would do probably 1-2 minutes of memorization + visualization and then 1 on demand run, calling every shot (shooting iron sights tomorrow at a match for first time in a while). That was a pretty great way to spend an extended session.

[GJM]

Something TPC and Ron Avery have said for years, is the key is not to shoot faster — the key is to shoot earlier. If you wait until the sights return, and then start the trigger press, you will have a very different result than if you start the trigger press when the sights are still in motion.

[randyflycaster]

Great, great thread folks. I thank you all.

Randy

[GJM]

Arcfide, I lost track as this thread progressed, but have you posted any video of you shooting splits?

[arcfide]

Your doing something vary wrong. It does not take a good grip to shoot 100% As on a USPSA target at 7 yards at .5 splits. You need to get with somebody to figure what your doing. My only internet suggestion would be to ditch the target, get a timer, and shoot as fast as you can into a berm while watching your sights and figure out what you need to do to get below .3 splits. Below .2 is better, but .3 is a good starting goal.

Just to be clear, the intent of this thread was to focus on a specific aspect of the whole shooting equation, but the last time I did this testing, there were a lot of things that I wasn't really doing right if I wanted to go faster, beyond just grip. Among those that I've been working on independently from just grip are things like finding an efficient trigger manipulation, getting the right sight picture without over-acquiring the sights, avoiding too much hesitation between shots because of psychological tension, dealing with pre-ignition push and after ignition over compensation in various ways that led to issues with trigger control, an over-emphasis on precise groups, and so forth.

It's not like the only thing I need to work on are grip, and I'm pretty sure that if I did those tests again today that I would do better, since I've been improving in various elements of my shooting progressively since I was last able to use a timer on the range. I don't want to make it seem like I think my only issue is grip, or that I need to just "think harder." I was just trying to avoid this thread becoming an untargeted mess of shooting advice absent a specific physical target for improvement.

[arcfide]

Fit might also be an issue. What pistol are you shooting?

I used to shoot the VP9 exclusively. GREAT pistol. but sight kept going up to 1oclock. couldn't get a consistent grip, etc. Ergo grips arent neceassarily the best grip for you.

Moved back to Glock (as we all do!). Sights 6 to 12 to 6. There's something to flat side panels......

I've played around a lot with fitment and I feel pretty comfortable on that grounds in terms of testing a lot of different handguns with different grip styles to see how the sights are moving and how my grip might be affecting and interfacing with the whole equation.

The vast majority of my shooting is with an APX full size. I have relatively small hands in terms of grips, and I've already sort of addressed that to an adequate degree that I don't feel hardware fit is an issue at this point (if it is, I have other more pressing software issues to address before I can make more progress on hardware fit).

I tried the "flat side" concept with a few different pistols including some of the various Glocks in 9mm, but while I can shoot a Glock with reasonable tracking with two hands, it's the absolute worst for me shooting with only a single hand. They are uncomfortable to shoot one handed for me and require *significantly* more effort mentally to get them to behave correctly compared to other options. That could change later on down the road, but managing the grips on a Glock (Gen5 was the last I tried) with my hands is a frustrating exercise. I just end up getting significantly less "surface contact" in single handed shooting for little significant benefits in two handed shooting versus other options.

In my personal testing, recoil was most trackable and consistent with the Rhino, APX, Px4, P320, and VP9, in that order, with the VP9 and P320 switching places in one handed shooting. The PPQ, M&P, Glock, 686, 1911, and others were much less consistent in tracking and handling, for me.

[arcfide]

If you are remembering those times correctly and were shooting inside of ten yards you have much bigger issues than wrist tension or grip technique, especially since you said that was with a grip that was weak but let the sights track consistently. Shooting a .5 cadence, even with a horrible grip and a ton of sight movement, is enough time for the gun to stop moving and let you make adjustments before the next shot. The gun simply cannot move far enough to require up to .8 to break the next shot if the sights are tracking back to the target. In other words, if a grip allows the sights to recover back to the target, the next shot is ready to break the moment the sights are there. Needing .8 would mean that the sight is climbing and recovering for .8, and that's impossible.

As I mentioned above, the issues I had when I took those readings (I can't say I'm remembering them accurately) went way beyond grip. When I did end up shooting something close to .8 (I think) it was because I was *really* letting the gun recoil with very little innate resistance. I don't know if it was before or after this, but I also discovered an issue that I was having a while back that has since been fixed, but I was essentially increasing recoil on myself because I was "going with" the recoil in such a way that I would allow momentum and the like to continue lifting the gun up during the shot: I was essentially recoiling the gun myself without the gun doing the recoiling. Things greatly improved when I figured this out (I was "going with" the gun enough to induce some limp wristing type behaviors in guns not known for that issue).

A big part of this was also psychological in terms of how I was approaching each shot. I simply didn't have an attitude of what rate of speed I would want to get back onto target. If you're not putting any effort into putting the gun back onto target, then you are just slowing down the decent of the gun and you can easily get 0.8 splits.

So, I'm not claiming those times were solely down to grip. I was just focusing on questions of grip here in this thread.

[arcfide]

I'm assuming that you state most of your work has to occur without a timer due to other shooters. Look into the ShotMaxx2 shot timer - it's worn like a wrist watch and has the option for an accelerometer to be used instead of a microphone for the timer, making other shooters irrelevant, while also having a microphone sensitivity that can pickup airsoft (great for dry fire).

If that works it could be extremely useful to me, as I am often shooting in places where a normal shot timer cannot be used, or where I am prohibited from training drills such as the doubles drill.