thumb position

[Barry G]

I notice in the ISSF videos many of the air, free & rapid fire shooters use a thumb down hold or it appears they do. Is there some advantage to this method? As a bullseye shooter I was always taught thumb up or at least away from the frame. Do they modify the anatomical grips to achieve this? I shoot a Benelli .22 & Pardini .32 & thumb down is decidedly uncomfortable with those grips.

[Gerard]

Modifying the grip of am AP so as to allow it to slope downwards would be a rule violation. I've seen this phenomenon lately as well, and especially at Munich the video was clear enough to show that the shooter's thumbs were in fact arched over the ridge of the thumbs rests and in a few cases very firmly so.

[David Levene]

Modifying the grip of am AP so as to allow it to slope downwards would be a rule violation.

No it wouldn't, it's perfectly allowable.

Which rule do you think it would be breaking.

[Tycho]

No rule violation I can think of. IME thumb position very much depends on the individual hand and the grip angle in general - the more upright the grip, the higher usually the thumb. There was an old school of thought in Italy in the late 80s that put the thumb far out to the left and upwards on normal (around 124 degree) grips, but that has pretty much died out.

[Gerard]

My apologies. Seems my memory failed on this one, mis-remembering rule 8.12 a):

Any upward
curvature of the heel and/or thumb rest and/or a downward curvature of the side opposite the thumb is prohibited. The thumb rest must allow free upward movement of the thumb. The grip must not encircle the hand. Curved surfaces on the grips or frame, including the heel and/or thumb rest, in the longitudinal direction of the pistol are permitted.

On re-reading it seems obvious that the thumb cannot be enclosed/encircled, but that the rule does not prohibit a downwards-curving area for the thumb. In fact that bit about longitudinal curves seems to make it plain that one could do just that. I'm sorry for the misleading comment earlier. My only excuse is that I was thumb-typing on my phone, not on my PC where the rule book is handy.

[alb]

The USAMTU Advanced Pistol Marksmanship Manual says to keep the thumb higher than the trigger finger.

Those of us who shoot Bullseye and are left-handed have a bit of a problem with this -- a high thumb position places the thumb directly in front of the ejection port on the m1911.

[RobStubbs]

The thumb should pretty much be in a rested, neutral position, so it's really whats comfortable, and how the thumb sits on the grip - unless of course you modify it to suit. There's no benefit in a high, or low thumb that I'm aware of.

Rob.