Learning Trigger Control

[mainedawg]

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, [e-mail] 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.