"Sensive" Trigger Blades for Air Pistol?

[Gwhite]

A skinny trigger will be a step in the same direction, but would put all the pressure in a vertical line on your finger tip. The checkering I'm using is based on the commercial triggers, and spreads things out a bit more. Unless I always get exactly the same trigger position, I'm hoping the multitude of points won't damage any more nerves in my finger tip by spreading the force around both vertically & horizontally.

You can certainly experiment with it. You could temporarily added a vertical ridge to your trigger blade. If it's metal, hot melt glue might work.

[Gwhite]

Here's another update:

I now have "Sensiv" triggers on my MatchGun MG2, my Anschutz LP@ air pistol (rebranded Steyr LP-10), and my Morini CM84E free pistol. I ended up using the 3-across by 6-high version shown earlier on both the MG2 and the LP@. They are no miracle cure, but I think they help:

With the free pistol, the trigger pull is so light that there is very little feeling, no matter what I do. I doubled my trigger pull from 50 grams to 100 grams, and went with a coarser pattern:

It's hard to see, but there is a hole in the lower left so the optical safety works.

I think it helps a tiny bit, and it certainly doesn't make things worse.

[GaryN]

Few thoughts.

1 - Why bother with feel of the trigger. Once you start the pull, keep going.
I CONCENTRATE on the front sight and the sight picture, and start pulling the trigger, still CONCENTRATING on the sight.
If I'm doing it right, I don't know when the gun will fire.
This produced the "surprise release" that I read about for so many years.

I found that if I think about the trigger, I've lost my concentration on holding the sight picture.
CONCENTRATING on the sight and sight picture is easier said than done. At least it was for me. Too many years of shooting rifle with a scope.
One thing that helped ME, was a new pair of glasses. I had a pair made just for AP shooting. With my regular glasses, I was forcing my eyes to focus on the front sight, and that was tiring. And the effort to focus on the front sight was taking away from my concentration on the sight picture. the Rx change made it a LOT easier to naturally FOCUS on the front sight. I used Warren Potters advice from the Ten-P files, and validated that Rx adjustment with my eye doc. I took my AP into her office, and we set up a target at 10m.


2 - As for the trigger and dry firing.
1st I concentrated just on the trigger. I close my eyes and pull the trigger. That way I eliminated any visual confusion, and could concentrate on training my muscles to make a nice steady smooth pull. And not think about how the trigger felt. And I learned to pull fast, rather than jerking the trigger.
This is to develop muscle memory. Someone said it is like learning to drive a stick shift car.

2nd I dry fired at a BLANK paper. This was to teach myself to HOLD the sight picture and forget about what my trigger finger was doing.
If I did step 1 properly, my muscles developed muscle memory, so I did not have to think about pulling the trigger.
For me, this was REALLY HARD. I had to unlearn habits from YEARS of shooting.

3rd I dry fired at a target.
With a target, I discovered that I was pushing my pistol to the left with my trigger finger. DANG!
Back to step 1, to learn to pull STRAIGHT BACK, and repeat the process again.

Part of my dry firing was to learn to fire in less than 6 seconds from settling on the target, or my wobble kicks in, and I have to abort.
So like you, I had to learn to speed up my shot process.
But even HARDER was learning to abort the shot.
I do not have a shooting partner at home, so I did not have anyone to time me on how well or consistent I did against this 6 second limit.
So I had to use myself and negative timing. If my wobble kicked in, I had gone past 6 seconds.


3 - Try shooting at different times of the day more often, to really figure out when is the best time for YOU to shoot.
I am NOT a morning person, but I found my best scores were shot in the morning. That still puzzles me.
In the evening after work, when I used to have more time to shoot, I was just too tired from work and could not concentrate on the sights.
Now retired, I have not shot for a while, so my "best time to shoot" may have changed. But I am still NOT a morning person.

Gud Luk

[Gwhite]

How do you know you are actually pulling the trigger? As I indicated at the beginning, 70 years of wear & tear have left my nerves less sensitive than they used to be. The point of the "sensiv" trigger is to give additional feedback that is not provided accurately by my current feel of pulling the trigger.

I used to be able to wait until things settled down to squeeze off my shots. Now, they never settle down, and my finger freezes up ("chicken finger"). The sensation that you are increasing the pressure on the trigger (flexor muscles & tendons) can be a lie if the extensor muscles & tendons are fighting with them. When it's really bad, I think I'm increasing pressure on the trigger, but the extensor system is winning, and my finger is actually moving forward. In extreme cases, I have discovered I am actually no longer even touching the trigger! I can't feel that, because the nerves in my finger tip are toast. The sensiv trigger blades help to avoid that false information by re-establishing the sense of pressure to my finger tip.

If your nerves are all still working well, consider yourself lucky...

[GaryN]

I don't actually know that I am pulling the trigger.
BUT, I don't have your conflicting muscle problem, so when I start to pull, my finger keeps pulling.

I think a faster pull will help, but from your post, you are doing that now.
You pull the trigger quickly (not jerking), and don't give your finger time to build up the muscle conflict.

Well, I am having trigger finger problems.
Maybe from too many hours taking pictures at school.
I had to move my trackball to my left hand, to reduced the work my trigger finger does.

[lwy.todd.lu]

Here's another update:

I now have "Sensiv" triggers on my MatchGun MG2, my Anschutz LP@ air pistol (rebranded Steyr LP-10), and my Morini CM84E free pistol. I ended up using the 3-across by 6-high version shown earlier on both the MG2 and the LP@. They are no miracle cure, but I think they help:

MatchGun MG2 'Sensiv' Trigger.JPG

Steyr LP10 'Sensiv' Trigger.JPG

With the free pistol, the trigger pull is so light that there is very little feeling, no matter what I do. I doubled my trigger pull from 50 grams to 100 grams, and went with a coarser pattern:

Morini CM84E 'Sensiv' Trigger.JPG

It's hard to see, but there is a hole in the lower left so the optical safety works.

I think it helps a tiny bit, and it certainly doesn't make things worse.

Where can find this beautiful red trigger for MG2?

[thirdwheel]

Gary very good analysis and explanation, lots to be realised and learned by others in there.
Gwhite I really see how you are trying to make it work for you and the advice over here from out top coach as you age is to also go for a thinner trigger to bite into your pad more and not "float" on the pad.
I bet you have tried every option of trigger weight distribution and movement distance to try and work around your lack of feel and feedback, if you have not there make be something that may make some difference.

[Gwhite]

I made one for my free pistol, with a single pyramid, and cranked the trigger weight up to 100 grams. I think it definitely helped re-establish some feel for the trigger. Now I just need to practice getting my shots off smoothly and quickly, before my eyesight fades and the shakes set in...

[NN109]

Time for an update: It's difficult to print really sharp points, but by making the "checkering" coarse enough, you can still get a "pointy" feel to the trigger. I haven't tried sharpening the points yet. I worked with three different designs:

3D Printed Sensive Triggers.jpg

The first one (which was the coarsest of the ones I tried initially) was still way too fine, and I couldn't really feel any difference. The middle one was a bit better, but it still didn't really enhance the feel of the trigger. I've currently got the coarsest one installed, and that definitely provides some additional feel.

I haven't had a chance to practice with it very much, but I think I will stick with this version for a while. After several days off due to holiday festivities, I finally picked up the pistol last night, and shot this right off the bat:

Sensive Trigger Target.jpg

I'm sure there was a bit of luck involved, but I haven't shot a target like that in years. Now I just need to build my stamina back up & get my shot process ingrained using the new trigger.

I need to double check that I have one of the grooves centered for trigger weighing, but I think the latest one will do the trick, even without sharpening.

These look great and solve the problem that i was finding a solution for! Is there a way i can get hold of the 3D files ? Are they available commercially?

Thanks

[Gwhite]

I have been meaning to organize & distribute a lot of my shooting related 3D files, but haven't gotten around to it. I want to make both STL & STEP files available in case people need to tweak the designs.

I'm not sure if I can post the files directly due to restrictions on files types that can be attached in the forum, but I assume I can zip them and post them that way. If the forum won't allow that, I'll have to finally figure out how to post stuff on Thingiverse.

I'll look into it this weekend.

[Gwhite]

Well, it looks like the forum allows Zip files, so I've attached one that has two different versions of the trigger, in both STL & STEP formats. Version 3 uses 8 rows of 4 points, and Version 4 is a bit coarser, with 6 rows of 3 points. The patterns are arranged so there is a notch in the center for trigger weighing. There are also some notes on the printing process, post-printing cleanup and the hardware required.

The trigger down rod on the MatchGun MG2 is the same size. The same trigger designs should work on that too, although I think I tweaked the design slightly. It was a couple years ago, and I'm a bit fuzzy on the details.

Steyr 3D 'Sensive' Trigger Blades.zip

(212.78 KiB) Downloaded 307 times

[mus]

Thank you for sharing, this looks really interesting!

[NN109]

Well, it looks like the forum allows Zip files, so I've attached one that has two different versions of the trigger, in both STL & STEP formats. Version 3 uses 8 rows of 4 points, and Version 4 is a bit coarser, with 6 rows of 3 points. The patterns are arranged so there is a notch in the center for trigger weighing. There are also some notes on the printing process, post-printing cleanup and the hardware required.

The trigger down rod on the MatchGun MG2 is the same size. The same trigger designs should work on that too, although I think I tweaked the design slightly. It was a couple years ago, and I'm a bit fuzzy on the details.


Steyr 3D 'Sensive' Trigger Blades.zip

Thanks a ton! These look great, will update the forum if I Print / Tweak the design.

[Bret P]

The long term goal is to make a good (relatively quick) trigger pull automatic, so I can concentrate on my sight alignment.

My new "shot-process-for-geezers" has several aspects:

1) Start with the sights just above the black, and get them all lined up & in sharp focus.

2) Drop smoothly (and more quickly than I used to) into my hold, increasing pressure as I lower the pistol

3) Increase pressure on the trigger as quickly as possible without disturbing the sight alignment so the shot breaks within a second or so of settling.

With luck, the shot will break before either my eyes get tired, or the shakes kick in.

WHEN I can execute that properly, my shots easily stay in the 9 ring. At my age, that's plenty good enough. The problem is training enough to make proper execution more than a random event.

IF you get a really smooth release, you would be amazed at how well you can shoot, despite some misalignment of the sights. At least for a few seconds, my wobble is much smaller than the amount I can easily disturb the sights with poor triggering.

This is where an electronic trainer comes in useful. It will show you what your hold is capable of, and for how long. If you aren't shooting within your hold, it's due to poor triggering.

If you just hang your pistol out at arms length, for most shooters, the end of the barrel will wobble a lot less than a 5 mm radius (10 mm diameter). IF you keep your sights perfectly aligned, all your shots should fall within a circle that big on the target like they were fired down a tube. It's the angular error caused by sight misalignment that opens that up into a funnel shape instead of a tube.

Sight alignment is critical, but it's a waste of time if your triggering introduces more angular disturbance than your natural hold/aiming ability.

You have to master both aspects to get really good scores. If you can focus on your front sight properly, I'd guess the vast majority of shots outside the 8 ring are due to triggering errors. For old timers, the biggest triggering error I see (and have experienced) is holding too long/ and/or forcing the shot off. Waiting for the pistol to stop flopping around is a waste of time. You need to get the shot off before the wobbles kick in, and that quiet period gets shorter & shorter... A big part of the battle is mastering a smooth FAST shot release without forcing the shot off.

Time to do more dry firing...

To speed everything up more, why don't you shoot more like in dueling pistol and come from the bottom, sight alignment, then release. Alot quicker?

Thanks to all for the advice on these various pages.
Bret

[Gwhite]

In theory, sports science experiments have shown that you are more stable (briefly) if you relax into a position, rather than muscling your way into it. This is why it is recommended to come down into your hold, rather than up. I think the advantage only lasts a couple seconds, which is another reason to try to get your shot off fairly quickly.

Everyone's optimum timing is different, and it presumably also varies a bit from day to day. This is where having an electronic trainer is really helpful, especially if you study the timing of things rather than just the default target trace. Once you settle, you enter a period of minimum wobble. The goal is to get your shot off early in that period. If you are young & fit, the minimum wobble will last a lot longer than if you are old & feeble. I suspect the length also varies more as you get older, so you need a little more margin, and that may also expand as you get tired during a match.

[rokada]

In theory, sports science experiments have shown that you are more stable (briefly) if you relax into a position, rather than muscling your way into it. This is why it is recommended to come down into your hold, rather than up.

I generally agree. But - to make things more complicated, as usual in real life - when time is really limited, like in "3 seconds green, 7 seconds red" disciplines or even standard pistol shortes series, "bottom up" movement is needed. So why try to master two different shooting routines when you can focus on just one?

[Gwhite]

The precision required to win an air pistol match is much more demanding than sport pistol, which much more about speed than pinpoint accuracy. They are two very different events.

By the same rationale, one should shoot center hold for air pistol. You can do that, but I don't know of any high level coaches that would recommend it. I've personally seen many beginning shooters who's scores jumped up when they switched to a sub-six hold after shooting center hold "because it made more sense" to them.