TargetTalk

Could someone please educate me on the effect of palm shelf tightness? i.e. effect on palming, jerking, 3rd finger grip, etc.

Is it advisable to have a very loose palm shelf?

For what it is worth, I use the tightness to enable me to repeat exactly my grip on each shot and not to hold the pistol. I believe this approach gives me the relaxation necessary to execute movement of the trigger finger without interference from muscle tension. Another way of putting this concept would be descrebed as I want to hold the pistol and not have the pistol hold me. Dissagrements welcome. Good Shooting Bill Horton

But tight palm shelf, wouldn't that give you the wrong impression that you are gripping tight, but in reality your third finger might not be gripping hard at all. Wouldn't that cause all types of jerking motion during and after trigger break?

Thump and middlefinger do the holding. Take cross balance there. Two lowest finger are only support fingers, so do not hold very thight whit them.

I like quite thight grip too, but you must feel your hand, grip and each finger.

Reference gripping the pistol. If I had six fingers I would grip with all of them. As for the thumb I only use the first joint to form the V in whitch the pistol rests. Since the developement of accurate and reliable automatics I really consider the thumb obsolete and no longer train with revolvers. Good Shooting Bill Horton

Not just the palm shelf limiting oyour hand position.

I have a cheapie Crosman 1377 lying by my bedside: I only use it for a couple of daily "shots" of regular morning and evening bedside dry fire practice. The "primitve" "non-anatomic" grip fits my hand just fine, and gives me rather more freedom of hand placement than the anatomic grips onmy match APs. It also gives me freedom of testing slightly varying hand positions tec. that are "locked" with an anatomical grip.

The natural feel and ease of holding often makes me wonder if anatomical grips provide quite a bit og false security, and restricted freedom of hand placement. Modifying your anatomical grip may help, but maybe the ideal grip would be something very simple plus individual addition of putty to fit oyour hand AFTER you've found your hopefully perfect personal hand position?

Yesterday I loosened the palm shelf of my MG1E with Morini grip.
Referring to my previous post where I missed the central pressure of the "simple grip", I realized the tight palm shelf squeezes my hand backwards, reducing hand contact with the "button" or swell that touches the middle of your palm in a good anatomic grip. Lowering the shelf enabled me to get more solid contact/pressure against my hand and a more secure grip. It also forced me to lift the end of my thumb a little bit off the thumb shelf, which didn't really matter. It's tempting to remove some walnut to make more thumb-space, but I'll wait a little until I've got this sorted out properly. Anyway, at the moment this seems to have put an end to a period of frustrating low scores and bad shooting with lots of flyers. I've also taken an AP shooting pause of almost a week to get out of this: I believe this may help sometimes.
Admittedly the distance was 5-6 metres in my basement last night, but I managed to shoot some satisfying 10 shot "ragged hole" groups with only a couple of bad shots. Good solid grip contact seems to be just as important as the squeeze from the palm shelf!

The palm shelf should really be snug, but not tight. It shouldn't prevent you holding the gun properly and snugly across the meat of your hand - i.e. pretty much all of your hand should be in contact with the grip, too tight a palm shelf can prevent that.

As Bill points out, you're aiming for a consistent grip from shot to shot, day to day.

Rob.

I also find that once my palm shelf is set, it's not set forever. What I mean is that I sometimes need to adjust it to compensate for different days. Sometimes my hands will swell from different pressure, temperature, diet, etc., or not. I always check to make sure I have the same 'feel' when I shoot.

Tolkach wrote:I also find that once my palm shelf is set, it's not set forever. What I mean is that I sometimes need to adjust it to compensate for different days. Sometimes my hands will swell from different pressure, temperature, diet, etc., or not. I always check to make sure I have the same 'feel' when I shoot.

Your hands will certainly change from day to day and even from morning to evening so yes it is always worth checking the gun before shooting.

Rob.