Taking your grip

[gordonfriesen]

Bill Horton:
The properly stiffened wrist position actually took as much time as developing my trigger control.
**********************
Bill,
I can well believe this. Back in october when you wrote the lead post in this thread which got me thinking about the role of the wrist, someone posted the link below in a parallel thread.
http://www.pilkguns.com/anatoli2.shtml

What a coincidence! Here was exactly the hint I was looking for:

The basic problem in the stabilization of the wrist is that the muscles of the wrist are not controlled by the central nervous system but by the peripheral nervous system. An inexperienced shooter cannot stabilize his wrist without tensing his fingers. Since the isolated stabilization is not practiced in daily life, the connections of the nerves between the wrist and the central nervous system have almost faded.

This is an amazing bit of info.. You can`t even spoon food into your mouth without locking your wrist, but we are completely unaware of it, and there is very little sensual feedback. Whe you put in a screw with a screwdriver, you are aware of gripping the tool, and you are aware of turning your foreaem, but the locking of the wrist goes unnoticed. Also, I just assumed that gripping the fingers and locking the wrist went together, but that is not at all true. Try using one hand to push the other hand out of line. It is easy to hold the wrist firm. And you can move your fingers while you do it. Also, just because the fingers are gripped doesn`t mean the wrist is locked. It is easy to hold an object tight in your hand and move your wrist any way you want.

I had no idea of all this before I saw the quote above. Before, I was working on holding my grip, that is my fingers still while I pulled the trigger. But at the critical moment my wrist could let go even if there was nothing wrong with the grip and I had no idea what was causing the error. Now, I think of holding the wrist steady as I squeeze, and the flyers are reduced considerably. On the first day I did this, I hardly paid any attention to finger or even sighting. I just held the wrist and pulled the trigger. I didn`t even try to pull straight. The result was a very reliable group in the eight ring, because even with triggering errors, the flyer can only fly out a short distance if the wrist is stiff. The real flyers come from a wrist movement.

Now building on this reliability, with careful triggering and concentrated alignment, the result is a lot of tight groups.

Best Regards,

Gordon

[Steve Swartz]

Bill:

Any thoughts on whether or not BE shooters "automatically" have an advantage in moving over to international because of this?

With the M1911 you prety much have to develop yoiur grip/triggering configuration at a pretty darned high level.

Perhaps quite a few international shooters don't even become aware of the relationhip between gripping fingers, trigger finger, and wrist (with respect to perfecting undisturbed alignment during shot release) until they are well along the path . . . with some bad habits already developed?

Should we train trigger control with an M1911 Service Pistol- even if the shooter intends to shoot international only?

[a lot of live fire not necessary- I'm thinking a lot of dry firing- well, maybe with some classic ball and dummy drills]

[IPshooter]

The posts about finding your NPA are interesting, but here's a thought. Most people find their NPA by raising their pistol to their normal shooting position and settling, eyes either closed or open. That would seem to be reasonable.

But, here's a slightly different technique for finding your *real* NPA. Do your "normal" technique for finding your NPA, settle with your eyes open, close your eyes, and then dry fire. Do not lower the pistol. Then, open your eyes and see where the sights are pointed. What you will see then, IMO, is your real NPA.

Stan

[jackh]

IP
Here you are getting close to what I believe NPA should be. That is "Natural Position of Alignment" I mean the sights, gun, wrist, arm, shoulder and head in natural, comfortable position with the sights in line with your eye as you look on a line to the target. Then adjust the feet.

[David Levene]

Do your "normal" technique for finding your NPA, settle with your eyes open, close your eyes, and then dry fire.

Remember not to try that between shots in a 50m or 10m pistol final Stan, you'll get "pinged" by the officials (or you should do).

[IPshooter]

IP
Here you are getting close to what I believe NPA should be. That is "Natural Position of Alignment" I mean the sights, gun, wrist, arm, shoulder and head in natural, comfortable position with the sights in line with your eye as you look on a line to the target. Then adjust the feet.

Jack,

We are on the same wavelength about a "natural, comfortable position". I will take this one step further below...

Stan

[IPshooter]

Do your "normal" technique for finding your NPA, settle with your eyes open, close your eyes, and then dry fire.

Remember not to try that between shots in a 50m or 10m pistol final Stan, you'll get "pinged" by the officials (or you should do).

Hi David,

Actually, I meant this to be done whenever you need to set up NPA. Hopefully, in a Final you will have already done this. But, if you have to check it, see my next post...

Stan

[IPshooter]

There is one way to check your NPA and find it with a very high degree of certainty without having a pistol in your hand.

Let's assume that you have found your NPA using whatever technique works for you. Put down the pistol and leave it on the bench. Now, raise your arm and settle just as if you were going to fire a shot. Pay particular attention to where the bull is positioned relative to some part of your hand and mentally record the image you see. This is your new pistol-less way to find your NPA.

If you have sufficiently trained your position to where it is repeatable, you can just about nail your NPA without ever having picked up the pistol using the empty hand method. If in doubt, you can prove this by checking your NPA with the pistol.

My point is I can find my NPA without a pistol because it always ends up in the same place. If you can envision the "v" made between the base of my thumb and the rest of my hand, *for me* the bull has to fall on the left side of my "v", just touching the inside of the left side of the "v". It does not fall into the center of the "v".

Knowing this information does several things. One, I can check my NPA at any time with little added stress on my shoulder. Two, I can check it when the range is "cold", and I'm not allowed to handle the pistol. Three, I can check it without David throwing me out of a Final. ;-)

Stan

[jackh]

Stan
I hear you.
I stand in the approximately 45 degree position. At times with my eyes closed I have raised the unloaded pistol and try to feel the position into the alignment I want. With my eyes closed, I try to feel the alignment and stability. Then I look, make adjustments if needed to the alignment on my line of sight. Of course I will be near the target because I start at the 45 degree foot position. I can shuffle my feet to the target line at anytime.

Another thought on this is - "I lift my hand with a pistol in it." This is opposed to "I lift my pistol with my hand." Call me weird, but I see a difference in that.

[2650 Plus]

Response to Steve. Iv'e not spent much time thinking about the point you raised. Almost 100% of us military guys start out on the 1911- 0r the 9MM that happens to be the current fad and are forced to take a hard grip just to keep the pistol from flying back over our shoulder. Then there is the problem of dealing with a 5 1/2 standard trigger until you get good enough to advance to the conpetition version with 4 pounds to cope with. I do believe these heavy triggers were helpful as I had to start early or I would never have finished a string on time. That is why I keep insisting in moving the trigger finger first, Never stopong and freeing my mind to concentrate on the vital problen of perfecting sight allignment until after the pistol fires. In spite of or because of the early start on almost unmanageable pistols,I would defend the start on these pistol because of the number of military shooters wearing the international Distinguished Badge. I wish I could provide a better answer but as I said earlier I havent spent much time thinking about this issue. Good Shooting Bill Horton

[buonvento]

How can I find pockets in my grip? Does someone have any suggestion?

[Richard H]

Chalk, talcum powder, ect. any thing dry compound. You can put it on the grip, take your grip release then look at both your hand a grip. Places on your grip where the powder still is means there is a gap, verify on your hand there should be no powder in that spot on your hand.