How To Gently Squeeze Trigger In Rapid Fire?
- Thread starter HGM22
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I agree with that. Part of learning to shoot fast is pushing yourself beyond your "competency" zone.ATLDave said:
So once you can shoot well shooting at a particular pace, to get faster you need to push yourself to go faster. Your groups will open up, but keep pushing to a point. Then dial things back a bit, until your groups just start to get better. That will probably be faster than the pace at which you shot similar groups previously. It's kind of a "two steps forward and one step back" approach.
Bobson
Member
Sounds like this thread has really gone full circle at this point lol.
1. Start with what you can do, provided you can put shots on target as desired.
2. Speed up, measurably if possible (see the video in post #2).
3. Once you've sped up to where you're no longer getting the accuracy you want, slow down to the point of last success - the point where your skills are strained, but you're faster than before with minimally acceptable accuracy. Remain there until it becomes comfortable.
4. Return to Step 2 and move on.
1. Start with what you can do, provided you can put shots on target as desired.
2. Speed up, measurably if possible (see the video in post #2).
3. Once you've sped up to where you're no longer getting the accuracy you want, slow down to the point of last success - the point where your skills are strained, but you're faster than before with minimally acceptable accuracy. Remain there until it becomes comfortable.
4. Return to Step 2 and move on.
I've gone against "conventional wisdom" for years - I see some folks are now starting to teach the method(s) I prefer:
1. I use a "controlled slap" on the trigger. The slow, deliberate squeeze may be OK when learning, but most of my practice is geared towards SD.
2. Focus on the target. As everyone seems to state, X number of years of evolution has taught us to focus on the threat - I see no reason to fight human nature / evolution by focusing on the front sight.
Yeah, I play with focusing on the front sight every once in a while, but I always go back to focusing on the threat / target.
#2 also needs to be approached based on one's eyesight - it's a lot tougher to focus on the front sight these days than it used to be (I'm farsighted).
I also tend to shoot with one eye closed - this is mostly due to the fact that I'm originally cross dominant, but the dominant eye changes due to fluctuating pressure on my dominant eye. The doc has been monitoring for years, and says there's nothing to worry about, but we keep a watch on it.
Trying to accurately acquire a target when your dominant eye can change minute by minute can really throw you for a loop if you try to shoot with both eyes open.
1. I use a "controlled slap" on the trigger. The slow, deliberate squeeze may be OK when learning, but most of my practice is geared towards SD.
2. Focus on the target. As everyone seems to state, X number of years of evolution has taught us to focus on the threat - I see no reason to fight human nature / evolution by focusing on the front sight.
Yeah, I play with focusing on the front sight every once in a while, but I always go back to focusing on the threat / target.
#2 also needs to be approached based on one's eyesight - it's a lot tougher to focus on the front sight these days than it used to be (I'm farsighted).
I also tend to shoot with one eye closed - this is mostly due to the fact that I'm originally cross dominant, but the dominant eye changes due to fluctuating pressure on my dominant eye. The doc has been monitoring for years, and says there's nothing to worry about, but we keep a watch on it.
Trying to accurately acquire a target when your dominant eye can change minute by minute can really throw you for a loop if you try to shoot with both eyes open.
basicblur, I would argue that most shooters get the best results (in terms of combining speed and accuracy) by using either a target or front-sight focus depending on distance/difficulty of shot. Not many people can go one-for-one on, say, 6 or 8" circles at 20 or 30 yards using a target focus (though a small number perhaps can). Conversely, not many people are going to shoot an El Pres drill at 5 yards faster with a front sight focus.
One also has to ask (depending on your situation)...
Is the primary purpose of the first shot to hit the target or simply get the target off the X and having to react to you instead of you reacting to the target?
I remember hearing an interview with one police officer involved in a shootout where he stated his first few shots were to put his attacker on defense more than getting a hit.
I believe this was a recent case where the officer used an extraordinary number of rounds before neutralizing the target.
Granted, his was an exceptional case (I think his first few shots were thru his windshield, and he also tried skipping a few bullets off the pavement, under his car), but I also think some conventional wisdom is long overdue for a rethink.
I won't even go into the "only one way to do it" mentality...
Is the primary purpose of the first shot to hit the target or simply get the target off the X and having to react to you instead of you reacting to the target?
I remember hearing an interview with one police officer involved in a shootout where he stated his first few shots were to put his attacker on defense more than getting a hit.
I believe this was a recent case where the officer used an extraordinary number of rounds before neutralizing the target.
Granted, his was an exceptional case (I think his first few shots were thru his windshield, and he also tried skipping a few bullets off the pavement, under his car), but I also think some conventional wisdom is long overdue for a rethink.
I won't even go into the "only one way to do it" mentality...
I'm not thrilled with the idea of cops using suppressing fire on suspects. Those rounds go somewhere. And the somewhere can include innocent bystanders. Misses are going to happen sometimes in gunfights, but to not even be trying to put the bullets someplace safe/ok does not make sense to me in a non-military context.
I'm sure he wasn't either, but when he pulled up he was:
1. In his car (limited mobility).
2. I believe he stated he had his seat belt on (more limited mobility plus extra time required to remove belt).
3. His (surprise) attacker was taking shots at him thru the windshield - don't remember but it may have been with a rifle.
Given his circumstances, I don't blame him one bit for using the first few rounds as suppressive fire.
Jim Watson
Member
Speed versus accuracy, speed with accuracy.
Reminds me of the golf pro who said "Give me a guy who can drive the ball a long way, I will TEACH him to putt."
I have watched an IDPA shooter develop that way. He is naturally agile on the move and fast on the trigger, obvious from the start when he was pretty wild on the targets. He has LEARNED accuracy and has moved up to Master class.
Suppressive fire:
Lazarus Long: Get a shot off fast. This upsets him long enough to let you make your second shot perfect.
Bill Jordan: No better distraction than a .357 in the belly button.
Reminds me of the golf pro who said "Give me a guy who can drive the ball a long way, I will TEACH him to putt."
I have watched an IDPA shooter develop that way. He is naturally agile on the move and fast on the trigger, obvious from the start when he was pretty wild on the targets. He has LEARNED accuracy and has moved up to Master class.
Suppressive fire:
Lazarus Long: Get a shot off fast. This upsets him long enough to let you make your second shot perfect.
Bill Jordan: No better distraction than a .357 in the belly button.
ny32182
Member
Wall of text coming up.
I'm with taliv on this. Slow trigger squeeze/ "surprise" break (once you are not a brand-newbie with your gun anymore, there are no more surprises in my opinion)/ physical ability to shoot a tight slowfire group is an important skill. I still shoot at least one group pretty much almost every practice. I want to be able to hit a paster at seven yards, a head box at 30, and a classic target A-zone at 50. If I'm doing that, I know I'm doing decent slow fire trigger pulls, or at least good enough for what I'm doing (USPSA).
In my experience, if you want to go fast, you have to go fast. The best analogy I've heard recently: Driving a Camry for 200k miles on the street gives you lots of driving experience, but it won't turn you into a race car driver that will have any hope of being competitive against other race car drivers. The point being, that contrary to a lot of old/prevailing wisdom, slow isn't fast, and "the speed" won't come by magic by itself. You have to MAKE it come by shooting faster than your comfort zone normally allows, and making mistakes. You can shoot a million rounds of perfect slowfire groups, but unless you force yourself to go faster and faster, you will never be fast. The trick of course is taking those slowfire fundamentals, and then picking up the speed. You will always “cut corners” to some degree as you shoot faster. How much you will “shortcut” depends on the minimum accuracy requirement for the shot, and what you know you can get away with based on your own results in practice.
I’m not sure where else to say this, so I’ll just say it here. I think the grip pressure balance (50% strong hand/70+% weak hand) is one of the biggest things that people are doing wrong when it comes to shooting accurately enough at speed on tight shots. You have to actually DO the common wisdom here, and I don’t think most people are doing this well enough. I know I’m one of them. Your strong hand has to be relatively relaxed for you to get the independent movement of your trigger finger necessary to pull the trigger without squeezing the rest of that hand and impacting the shot. You have no such requirement for your weak hand, so you are free to lock down that grip as hard as you want. The more grip pressure you have coming from your weak hand, the more completely isolated stabilization force you have on the gun, and the more you can “relax” your strong hand to get a good isolated trigger pull. Learning to do the correct grip force balance reflexively in dryfire is something I think virtually everyone can improve. I know I’m among them.
To the OP’s direct question: When I'm working with a student I have them do a few specific exercises to develop shooting speed. (My students are typically C/B type USPSA shooters that are looking to get better. They are already competent gun handlers, have at least an academic grasp of classic fundaments, and are probably already better shooters than 99% of the average handgun owning public). If they have a mental block initially about shooting faster, I believe all the following is a good progressive path to take, and may be what the thread starter is looking for.
1) First, I want you to prove to yourself that you can pull the trigger just as fast as anyone else, and that you can actually see the sights at that speed too. You probably can’t process whether a sight picture is correct in that time, but you can see a sight picture to some degree at least, and process it afterward (different topic). To this end, I want to remove all other inputs besides pulling the trigger as fast as possible, and seeing the front sight lift and return. Just dump a mag into the berm as fast as you can pull. No target. Just see the sight lift and return, but don’t wait. Pull as fast as you possibly can. If your grip is good, you will be able to see the sights at this speed. If you check the splits, you will see that they are probably in the same neighborhood with the very best shooters on earth. Your finger works the same as everyone else’s. If there are issues with being able to do this (and assuming you are in good physical health, etc), they are grip related, and your grip needs to be fixed.
2) Bill drills at progressively further ranges are great for this. You are going for all As or close Cs. At 7 yards you can be relatively relaxed, probably target focused as well, and your splits should be the same as they are on the berm drill. If you don’t have serious fundamental issues, you should be able to shoot As as fast as you can physically pull the trigger. Moving out to 10, 15, 25, and 50 yards, you are gradually moving back toward slower, very fundamentally correct mechanics to get the desired hits. I like to push the edge of shooting speed on the longer range bill drills. To do these quickly, you have to shoot mechanically good shots at a high rate of speed, which is a very large part of the end game in USPSA. Everything has to be right.
3) Mix in transitions, like with a Blake drill. Again, you can do these from close to far, and with lots of work you will learn what you need to do at each range to get acceptable hits as fast as possible.
A few other random points about different parts of the discussion:
-Target focus vs. sight focus: The hinge for me is surprisingly close. Anything beyond 5-6 yards I start to go sight focus, and even there, I waffle a bit especially if the shot is on a partial target.
-Intermediate steps for improvement: These are great, but I find it more efficient to not kid yourself about what the end goal is. If I have a student, and we are doing a drill, I simply tell them, “this is the GM time”. This is the goal. We are going to push as hard to hit this time as we can. If that doesn’t happen today, dryfire it up and next time out, hopefully we are closer.
-I’m not ever surprised when a shot breaks (hopefully), and I’m not feeling any resets when shooting at anything faster than a pure slowfire group shooting pace. That said, I do “ride the reset”. I just do it instantly after the shot. My finger never comes off the trigger.
-A national champion level shooter was once a newbie too. I don’t believe there is fundamentally a different path for any newbie vs. any national GM, if they are working towards the same kind of goals. They might not be at the same skill level now, or ever, but that doesn’t change the fact that they both need to develop the same skills to the maximum level that they can.
I'm with taliv on this. Slow trigger squeeze/ "surprise" break (once you are not a brand-newbie with your gun anymore, there are no more surprises in my opinion)/ physical ability to shoot a tight slowfire group is an important skill. I still shoot at least one group pretty much almost every practice. I want to be able to hit a paster at seven yards, a head box at 30, and a classic target A-zone at 50. If I'm doing that, I know I'm doing decent slow fire trigger pulls, or at least good enough for what I'm doing (USPSA).
In my experience, if you want to go fast, you have to go fast. The best analogy I've heard recently: Driving a Camry for 200k miles on the street gives you lots of driving experience, but it won't turn you into a race car driver that will have any hope of being competitive against other race car drivers. The point being, that contrary to a lot of old/prevailing wisdom, slow isn't fast, and "the speed" won't come by magic by itself. You have to MAKE it come by shooting faster than your comfort zone normally allows, and making mistakes. You can shoot a million rounds of perfect slowfire groups, but unless you force yourself to go faster and faster, you will never be fast. The trick of course is taking those slowfire fundamentals, and then picking up the speed. You will always “cut corners” to some degree as you shoot faster. How much you will “shortcut” depends on the minimum accuracy requirement for the shot, and what you know you can get away with based on your own results in practice.
I’m not sure where else to say this, so I’ll just say it here. I think the grip pressure balance (50% strong hand/70+% weak hand) is one of the biggest things that people are doing wrong when it comes to shooting accurately enough at speed on tight shots. You have to actually DO the common wisdom here, and I don’t think most people are doing this well enough. I know I’m one of them. Your strong hand has to be relatively relaxed for you to get the independent movement of your trigger finger necessary to pull the trigger without squeezing the rest of that hand and impacting the shot. You have no such requirement for your weak hand, so you are free to lock down that grip as hard as you want. The more grip pressure you have coming from your weak hand, the more completely isolated stabilization force you have on the gun, and the more you can “relax” your strong hand to get a good isolated trigger pull. Learning to do the correct grip force balance reflexively in dryfire is something I think virtually everyone can improve. I know I’m among them.
To the OP’s direct question: When I'm working with a student I have them do a few specific exercises to develop shooting speed. (My students are typically C/B type USPSA shooters that are looking to get better. They are already competent gun handlers, have at least an academic grasp of classic fundaments, and are probably already better shooters than 99% of the average handgun owning public). If they have a mental block initially about shooting faster, I believe all the following is a good progressive path to take, and may be what the thread starter is looking for.
1) First, I want you to prove to yourself that you can pull the trigger just as fast as anyone else, and that you can actually see the sights at that speed too. You probably can’t process whether a sight picture is correct in that time, but you can see a sight picture to some degree at least, and process it afterward (different topic). To this end, I want to remove all other inputs besides pulling the trigger as fast as possible, and seeing the front sight lift and return. Just dump a mag into the berm as fast as you can pull. No target. Just see the sight lift and return, but don’t wait. Pull as fast as you possibly can. If your grip is good, you will be able to see the sights at this speed. If you check the splits, you will see that they are probably in the same neighborhood with the very best shooters on earth. Your finger works the same as everyone else’s. If there are issues with being able to do this (and assuming you are in good physical health, etc), they are grip related, and your grip needs to be fixed.
2) Bill drills at progressively further ranges are great for this. You are going for all As or close Cs. At 7 yards you can be relatively relaxed, probably target focused as well, and your splits should be the same as they are on the berm drill. If you don’t have serious fundamental issues, you should be able to shoot As as fast as you can physically pull the trigger. Moving out to 10, 15, 25, and 50 yards, you are gradually moving back toward slower, very fundamentally correct mechanics to get the desired hits. I like to push the edge of shooting speed on the longer range bill drills. To do these quickly, you have to shoot mechanically good shots at a high rate of speed, which is a very large part of the end game in USPSA. Everything has to be right.
3) Mix in transitions, like with a Blake drill. Again, you can do these from close to far, and with lots of work you will learn what you need to do at each range to get acceptable hits as fast as possible.
A few other random points about different parts of the discussion:
-Target focus vs. sight focus: The hinge for me is surprisingly close. Anything beyond 5-6 yards I start to go sight focus, and even there, I waffle a bit especially if the shot is on a partial target.
-Intermediate steps for improvement: These are great, but I find it more efficient to not kid yourself about what the end goal is. If I have a student, and we are doing a drill, I simply tell them, “this is the GM time”. This is the goal. We are going to push as hard to hit this time as we can. If that doesn’t happen today, dryfire it up and next time out, hopefully we are closer.
-I’m not ever surprised when a shot breaks (hopefully), and I’m not feeling any resets when shooting at anything faster than a pure slowfire group shooting pace. That said, I do “ride the reset”. I just do it instantly after the shot. My finger never comes off the trigger.
-A national champion level shooter was once a newbie too. I don’t believe there is fundamentally a different path for any newbie vs. any national GM, if they are working towards the same kind of goals. They might not be at the same skill level now, or ever, but that doesn’t change the fact that they both need to develop the same skills to the maximum level that they can.
243winxb
Member
Trigger Time.
With Bullseye 45 rapid fire, your squeezing/pulling the trigger before your back on target or squeezing almost 100 % of the 10 second time. The ISSF rapid , with 5 shot in 4 seconds, is even faster, but triggers are lighter then the 3 1/2 lb 45. When your on the clock, you will learn to shoot fast. I did both. http://www.bullseyepistol.com/
With Bullseye 45 rapid fire, your squeezing/pulling the trigger before your back on target or squeezing almost 100 % of the 10 second time. The ISSF rapid , with 5 shot in 4 seconds, is even faster, but triggers are lighter then the 3 1/2 lb 45. When your on the clock, you will learn to shoot fast. I did both. http://www.bullseyepistol.com/
Everything starts with the basics. I don't agree with starting someone out shooting as fast as they can. To me that's like putting a kid on his first day of little league in the batters box with Aroldis Chapman on the mound and telling the kid just to keep swinging at those 101-103 mph fastballs until he learns to hit them.
The more correct repetitions you do of any task, the better you get at it. I have to ask the shooter who use terms like "slapping the trigger" to think about that for a minute and ask themselves if they are really "slapping the trigger" like an inexperienced shooter would, or if they are actually performing a correct trigger pull at a very high rate of speed? Something they've learned to do after thousands of correct repetitions.
The same thing about front sight focus. Are they really ignoring the front sight, or have they seen enough correct front sight pictures and is the muscle memory in their grip and stance such that the gun is "on" when they bring it up? Have they seen the correct front sight picture enough times that the brain automatically recognizes it and unconsciously moves it's focus to other other things?
And what do most of us do when our shooting isn't up to par? We go back to the basics, shooting slow and by the numbers while we attempt to diagnose the problem.
The more correct repetitions you do of any task, the better you get at it. I have to ask the shooter who use terms like "slapping the trigger" to think about that for a minute and ask themselves if they are really "slapping the trigger" like an inexperienced shooter would, or if they are actually performing a correct trigger pull at a very high rate of speed? Something they've learned to do after thousands of correct repetitions.
The same thing about front sight focus. Are they really ignoring the front sight, or have they seen enough correct front sight pictures and is the muscle memory in their grip and stance such that the gun is "on" when they bring it up? Have they seen the correct front sight picture enough times that the brain automatically recognizes it and unconsciously moves it's focus to other other things?
And what do most of us do when our shooting isn't up to par? We go back to the basics, shooting slow and by the numbers while we attempt to diagnose the problem.
I musta missed that post - did someone in here suggest starting someone out shooting as fast as they can?
Mebbe I missed that post also? For myself, I use a controlled slap - the operative word being controlled.
It always amazes me how folks can tell others (usually with great certainty) exactly what they are seeing - not what they think they see.
As stated, I'm farsighted and not getting any younger - I have to try to focus to get the front sight sharp, but being farther away, the target is instantly in focus.
Unless I remove my glasses, like many of us older folks I have to hold a book at arm's length in order to read - I do all my reading sans glasses.
I remember one of my former coworkers that I helped down the road towards SD always coming back to me and telling me how his groups were shrinking, and how small they were.
I always told him (since he was interested in SD) that now his groups have tightened up, it's time to speed up - if the groups get too big, time to slow back down and diagnose the problem.
I also tell him it wouldn't be a bad thing to practice some point shooting, but that's opening up a 'whole 'nother can o' worms...
ny32182
Member
We may have different definitions of "new shooter" here. For someone who has never fired a handgun before, sure, I'm not going to tell them to do anything other than learn how the gun works and execute good deliberate fundamentals on the first day. (Typically these are not the guys I would personally be working with)
But even a low level USPSA shooter is not really a "new shooter". They are likely already far ahead of the general pistol owning public.
Maybe the OP can add some clarification on where he is and where he wants to go.
Thank you for the kind words.. to be fair I'm on the bottom end of that incredibly competitive group. But then again I have a day job too.
basicblur said:
In post 23 taliv said this:
taliv said:
basicblur said:
There is a lot of research out there that says in many cases we "see" what we think we see, not always what's exactly there. In many cases if there is information missing, like in a low light environment, the mind fills in the blanks with what it's experience tells it should be there.
Now think for a minute about those things you see every day. Say the things on the side of the road as you drive to work. You see them every day, but do you actually take note of them? For most people the answer is no, unless something is different enough to give the brain a signal that something is not the same as it always is. So to translate the way our brains and eyes work together to shooting, I have to wonder if the shooters who say that they are 100% target focused and shoot fast and accurately aren't so used to seeing the correct sight picture that their brain doesn't make note of it. The correct sight picture would be there if they slowed down and deliberately thought about it, but the brain is so used to seeing it when the gun comes up that it immediately moves on to the target so the shooter doesn't make note of it in his conscious thoughts.
ny32182 said:
Unless a member posts his experience or I know him personally and know his experience I always default to what I'd tell a beginner here so someone doesn't go out to the range and try something way above their experience level and get frustrated. I am aware that these threads are read by a lot of lurkers who may have zero experience shooting and I'd hate for their first trip to the range to be a bad experience based on something they read here.
Sometimes we get into these conversations and we forget that there are a lot of participants who are just reading and not posting who have an unknown level of experience or maybe no experience at all.
Most of my instructing experience has been in the Army and with LE. I start every class with a 3 yard grouping exercise so I get an idea of the skill level of the students before we really get into things.
Bartholomew Roberts
Member
That is one of the things I've noticed. If you grip tightly enough with the offhand to minimize sympathetic squeeze in the strong hand, you can shoot much faster - especially if you have a good, smooth trigger. Shooting my Hi-Power I almost have to come off the the trigger to shoot fast because the reset is long and soft. But it is very easy to pull straight back despite that. When I switch to a gun with a shorter, more positive reset, I tend to dump rounds low and left until I get familiar with the trigger pull again.
I'm reminded a bit of a practice I learned in Chris Grollnek's carbine class. He had us jam our trigger finger through the trigger guard as much as possible - I think I was contacting the trigger just below the first joint of the trigger finger. Then we would squeeze like we were shaking someone's hand; but with just the trigger finger. Using this method, you could really run the carbine fast just by twitching your finger. You had good control and tactile feedback of the trigger. It could tend to jerk the muzzle around some if you didn't have solid form; but I did nail 10"x20" steel at 300yds standing like that.
I've thought about that with pistols as well; but there is literally no service-sized pistol made where I could get my finger that far inside the trigger to try that.
That makes sense insofar as it goes, but when someone asks as question with a bad premise (how to pull "gently" and fast at the same time), I don't think reinforcing the bad premise* is helpful.
If someone is asking how to get from being a slow, accurate shooter to a fast shooter, it doesn't make sense to me to tell them stuff that's going to build in a pretty low ceiling.
Sure. The sights are aligned, otherwise the bullet would be going somewhere else. But target-focus refers to the literal focus of the eyes. Our eyes have a variable focus distance (barring some medical disorder), so we can focus on something relatively close (like a front sight) or further away (like a 5 yard target); we can switch back and forth between them fairly rapidly (less rapidly with age), but we cannot focus on both simultaneously.
But even when a shooter is making the decision to leave their eyes focused at/on the target, they'd better be using some kind of aiming method if they want to hit. It may be a reliance on "index" at very close ranges, or it may be a blurred sight picture at slightly longer ranges, but it shouldn't just be banging and hoping.
I'm several notches below ny' in skill, but I know from experimentation that there are certain distances where I'm absolutely faster just leaving my eyes focused on the targets (probably in part because I don't have to wait for my 40-something eyes to switch focus back and forth). I know I'm definitely doing what I say because, after years of shooting with a front-sight-only-every-shot approach, it takes a conscious effort NOT to have my eyes focused at gun-length.
But that's far afield from the OP's question.
* Saying the question has a "bad premise" is not intended as a criticism of the OP. Given how many shooters have been told that "gently squeezing" the trigger is a non-negotiable fundamental, I would say most shooters with some formal training share that bad premise.
Sheepdog1968
Member
Lots of good advice already that should help is listed. In terms of increasing speed slowly, about a 10% speed increase at a time is what was recommended for me to try.
ny32182
Member
I think you are making some assumptions that are not necessarily correct:
1) The OP is focused only on CCW type shooting
2) You should focus only on training for whatever the easiest shots are that you will encounter when the lights are on.
The second one especially is a great way to lose on game day, whatever that means to you.
1) The OP is focused only on CCW type shooting
2) You should focus only on training for whatever the easiest shots are that you will encounter when the lights are on.
The second one especially is a great way to lose on game day, whatever that means to you.
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