Post by mainedawg on Jan 7, 2012 23:45:13 GMT -5
This is the best way to help anyone who has a problem with their trigger pull.
timneytriggers.com/
Timney has the best I've seen.
Tom Givens said it well. I still have trouble with the finger tip and only that part in contact with the trigger. People will say they have down pat. But the moment you need to pull the trigger, everything goes out the window. The best way to help that is shooting more and doing while walking or any movement where you are not just standing in front of your target. Gun rests while shooting is the worst thing to do. Mobius has a nice target set up. Ask him and maybe he'll tell you how to make one.
Dawg
In a message dated 1/7/2012 11:09:31 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, mobius@mainestream.us writes:
Learning Trigger Control
by Tom Givens
As an aspiring handgun shooter, you will soon
learn that one of the hardest things to learn for
new shooters, yet one of the most important
skills, is trigger control. The shooter must learn
to keep the sights on the target while smoothly
moving the trigger to the rear until the gun
discharges. Even in high speed defensive
shooting, this process occurs, although the
time it takes to complete the process is compressed.
With a handgun, yanking and cranking
on the trigger is the root cause of almost
all misses, if the gun was even roughly aligned
on the target when the decision to fire was
made.
Larry Vickers, retired Special Operations soldier,
former Delta operator, and world class
firearms instructor once said, “Why is the rifle
so much easier to shoot than a pistol? Easy.
The rifle weighs more than its trigger pull,
while the handgun weighs less than the weight
of the trigger pull.” That is a truly brilliant
summation of the whole problem. If you have
an eight pound rifle with a two pound trigger,
it’s easy to shoot it well. Unfortunately, we often
have a two pound pistol with an eight
pound trigger pull, hence the difficulty. Thus,
proper trigger technique becomes vital.
First let’s look at the different phases of trigger
operation. Manipulation of the semiautomatic
pistol’s trigger actually consists of four separate
and distinct phases, and each impacts our
accuracy. These phases, in sequence, are:
CONTACT: The “pad”, or fingerprint, of the
shooter’s index finger should contact the center
of the face of the trigger. The trigger finger
should not touch the frame of the gun. Ideally,
the only place the trigger finger should contact
the pistol is on the face of the trigger.
SLACK: Semi-auto pistols have “slack” or “preengagement
travel” built into the action. This is
a bit of rearward movement in the trigger,
prior to the actual trigger pull. The shooter can
feel a distinct difference in the amount of finger
pressure needed to take up the slack as
opposed to that pressure needed to fire the
piece. Some designs have significantly more
slack than do others. As the gun is brought to
bear on the target, the slack is taken up, so
that the trigger finger feels the resistance of
the trigger pull. As the gun goes on target, the
trigger finger contacts the trigger and removes
the “slack”.
PRESS: Beware of semantics. The words you
use form images in your subconscious, and this
drives your actions. For instance, if you tell
your student to “squeeze” the trigger, he will
likely squeeze his entire hand while moving the
trigger. We call this “milking the trigger”. This
results in low misses. As the lower fingers
tighten their grip, the barrel is pulled downward
as the gun fires. Instead, we want to
“press” the trigger, with steady rearward pressure.
We hold the gun with our hand; we fire
the gun with our trigger finger. The student
must learn to use the trigger finger independently,
while maintaining a constant, consistent,
unchanging grip on the pistol with the rest of
the hand. When enough pressure to the trigger
is applied to disengage the sear, the gun fires.
It may help to describe the trigger as the pistol’s
“gas pedal”. Using the analogy of a car,
which all shooters are familiar with, the magazine
is the gas tank, the front sight is the green
light, and the trigger is the accelerator. When
you see the green light, you apply steady, increasing
pressure to the accelerator until the
bullet takes off smoothly. If you stomp the gas
pedal, the car takes off jerkily and under less
control. Same with the bullet.
RE-SET: Once the gun fires, the shooter must
maintain contact with the trigger. Many newbies
will have the tendency to take their finger
completely off the trigger the instant the gun
fires, and this must be corrected. As soon as
the shooter sees the front sight begin to lift,
(Continued on page 5)
VOLUME 15, ISSUE 10 TACTICAL TALK PAGE 5
that bullet has exited the barrel and is in
flight. The shooter can no longer do anything
to affect that shot, so he should forget it and
start concentrating on the next shot! The
first step is to relax the trigger finger’s pressure
just enough to let the trigger return forward
to its re-set point. That is normally a
really short distance, and there is usually an
audible and tactile “click” when the trigger
re-sets. There is no need to let the trigger go
any further forward than that. Once the trigger
is re-set, the shooter can begin working
on the delivery of the next shot.
Double-action revolver triggers do not have
slack in them, otherwise the process is the
same. It is important with the revolver to
move the trigger all the way to the rear to
fire the gun, then let it roll back all the way
out before starting on the next trigger pull.
The revolver trigger must go all the forward
or you can skip a chamber or even lock up
the action, a process called “short stroking”.
The double-action trigger should be pressed
all the way through in one smooth motion.
All one needs to do to play a concerto on a
piano is to hit the right keys, in the right order,
at the right time. It’s a simple process,
but it takes practice. All one needs to do to
hit anything with a pistol is to keep the
sights aligned on the intended point of impact
while you work the trigger smoothly to
the rear. Again, a simple concept, but it
takes practice.