grip pressure and cant

[trinity]

Hi all,

When I hold my pistol with a very relaxed grip, almost not gripping it but just balancing the gun in my hand, the sights are aligned.

However, if I actually apply grip pressure, the gun rotates clockwise. This change's impact is most visible to the rear sights, it now has the left edge higher.

So this seems to indicate a grip form fit issue, right? Where do you think the problem is? Is it missing compound under the web of the hand? Or is it an issue up front with the finger grooves?

Thanks.

[NanoZ]

Trinity:

I think you are pushing the grip with the heel of the hand.
Work in your grip in that part.

Nano

[Fred]

Trinity,

Before you start working on your grip, you might want to try the following. Assuming you are right handed, hold out your arm straight in a relaxed manner with your hand open and fingers curved as if you were holding a gun. Then close your fingers as if you were gripping harder. If your hand/wrist/arm work like mine, you will see your hand rotate clockwise. That just seems to be the way the muscles and tendons work, at least in my case. If it is also true for you, no kind of change to the grip will alter it. Presumably that's why some FPs (Steyr, Morini CM80) allow the user to cant the sights.

HTH,
FredB

[trinity]

Trinity,

Before you start working on your grip, you might want to try the following. Assuming you are right handed, hold out your arm straight in a relaxed manner with your hand open and fingers curved as if you were holding a gun. Then close your fingers as if you were gripping harder. If your hand/wrist/arm work like mine, you will see your hand rotate clockwise. That just seems to be the way the muscles and tendons work, at least in my case. If it is also true for you, no kind of change to the grip will alter it. Presumably that's why some FPs (Steyr, Morini CM80) allow the user to cant the sights.

HTH,
FredB

Hi Fred,

You know what, you are right! It does rotate a little clockwise... I never thought it was something biological, I always thought it was some problem with my grip. Humm...

So now the question is: is canting the pistol all that bad?

[Fred]

Need to correct - or at least qualify - something I said above. I said no kind of change to the grip will alter the rotation caused by one's arm/wrist/hand. However, what I meant was that no reasonable alteration of the gripping surfaces would make such a change. The way that grip makers can compensate (or not!) for this rotation is by changing the rotational angle of the inletting that determines at what position the gun sits in the grip itself. Or, the inletting can be made oversize - e.g. Steyr air pistols - with adjustment screws to alter the angle.

Thanks to Trinity's original question, today I finally realized why my "new" grip for my Hammerli 150 has never felt "right" no matter how much work I did on it. This grip is inletted so that the gun is rotated perhaps 10* clockwise when I use my normal wrist position. I have been unconsciously adapting to this by rotating my wrist counter-clockwise to true up the sights, just assuming that cant was a bad thing. But this alteration to my normal wrist position has had quite a negative effect on my grouping ability.

Today, when I put the old grip back on the gun, after pondering the implications of Trinity's question, everything felt "right" again. So thanks to Trinity for that. However, what Trinity giveth she taketh away. Now she has opened up the possibility that cant may NOT be a bad thing, which could be a real can of worms. Oh well....

[trinity]

Need to correct - or at least qualify - something I said above. I said no kind of change to the grip will alter the rotation caused by one's arm/wrist/hand. However, what I meant was that no reasonable alteration of the gripping surfaces would make such a change. The way that grip makers can compensate (or not!) for this rotation is by changing the rotational angle of the inletting that determines at what position the gun sits in the grip itself. Or, the inletting can be made oversize - e.g. Steyr air pistols - with adjustment screws to alter the angle.

Thanks to Trinity's original question, today I finally realized why my "new" grip for my Hammerli 150 has never felt "right" no matter how much work I did on it. This grip is inletted so that the gun is rotated perhaps 10* clockwise when I use my normal wrist position. I have been unconsciously adapting to this by rotating my wrist counter-clockwise to true up the sights, just assuming that cant was a bad thing. But this alteration to my normal wrist position has had quite a negative effect on my grouping ability.

Today, when I put the old grip back on the gun, after pondering the implications of Trinity's question, everything felt "right" again. So thanks to Trinity for that. However, what Trinity giveth she taketh away. Now she has opened up the possibility that cant may NOT be a bad thing, which could be a real can of worms. Oh well....

I think a little cant isn't horrible, but the more cant you have, the more complex your sight adjustments will be. For example, if you have a little cant clockwise, and your shot is high, if you just click down, you would have moved your shot low left, instead of just lower.

I guess the real question is, is it better to have a small cant, or is it better to try to correct the cant by going the other way?

To be honest, I get a sense that maybe the answer to my questions, like everything else in life, seem to be in the balance, it isn't one way or the other, but something in between.

Hehe, sometimes I just want things to be binary... can't anything be simple anymore? :-)

[jackh]

I have some cant. Especially as the match moves on, I guess I tire and roll the pistol inward (anti-clockwise for a righty). My question is whether rolling the the arm out at the elbow or the shoulder is the better correction. Rolling out the shoulder and leaving the elbow natural seems to me more comfy. I suppose that is my answer. Do you suppose there is more strength and steadiness with the shoulder rolled in or out?
Jack H

[Rapid]

Personally I do not like any form of cant. It does not work in the Rapid Fire event.
However, do you remember Alexander Melentiev who shot an incredible 582 free pistol score in 1980? He canted his (custom made) pistol a full 90 degrees (palm facing upwards). Did not inspire a lot of followers though!
Could not find a picture on the net.
Cheers,
Bob

[scout18]

I say shoot without a cant. just to take a position. Try dry fire training and when you break the shot your sights shoud l not move. I use my first stage of the trigger pull as a check to see if I am moving as I operate the trigger. if I am I try again and if I can't (pun) make it work in my 3 to 5 seconds I start over. If it don't work fixit. That is my new quote, you all may use it. (grin)