TargetTalk

how do you grip your air pistol?

Beside the all agreed front/back vise, no side pressure standard, do you grip hard? very light? just supported by top of third finger fulcrum?

Grip with third/fourth fingers, let 5th finger loose? Reverse grip with 5th finger hardest, then 4th/3rd fingers looser to enhance trigger finger movement?

Just concentrate on a stiff wrist/ forearm, let all other parts loose?

What works best for you?

Fairly hard. Firm as about to bring down a hammer on a nail. Index and pinky relaxed, avoiding fingertip involvement, stiff wrist and arm, making sure the trigger finger is sensitive and moving freely. I'm working on endurance, but when I start shooting I can almost hold the 10 steady and execute the shot. It gets away from me after ten or so shots and moves into the 9, then after 30 or so starts twitching the occasional 8.

I'm not saying I'm right, but that's what I'm doing. I shoot around 550 in matches. My two main thoughts are to get the hold into my shoulder only, and to have 100% of my focus on keeping the sights aligned through the break.

This s a tough one for coaches, because unless you can see a shooter's finger tips turning white, it's hard to tell if a shooting "over gripping". With the light recoil & trigger pull of an air pistol, you do not want to grip too hard. It's not only tiring, but it interferes with fine control of your trigger finger.

I recently purchased a grip force gauge from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Dynamome ... B00A8K4L84



We tested a dozen or so shooters. We had them shoot air pistol for a bit, and then try to duplicate the grip force on the meter. I think the average for the better shooters was around 2 1/2 pounds. One shooter was over 10 pounds, and when I got him to lighten up, his groups were nearly cut in half.

This particular device has a couple issues: it won't "latch" the peak force below about 5 pounds, and it doesn't feel much like a pistol grip. I'm going to work with Andrew Berryhill to make up some 3D printed adapters to help with that issue. One thing that is helpful is that you can adjust the size (spacing) of the gripping surfaces over a pretty wide range.

As far as your fingers & thumb are concerned, you don't want to apply pressure on the sides of the grip. Any variation in that pressure will move the pistol off axis. The most consistent pressure you can apply is ZERO. Relaxing your thumb, finger tips & pinky is a good start, but if you can comfortably get them a little OFF the grip, that's even better.