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Can a bad trigger help you be a better shooter?

berettaprofessor

berettaprofessor

Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
Messages
3,434
Location
Kansas
Hey all; I was shooting one of my favorites today, the Browning SA-22 short below. I bought it from CDNN about 6 years ago and find it to be one of the more frequent plinkers I pick up; it's 22 short, so no recoil or noise to bother me or the neighbors and, anyway, it's just gorgeous. Scoped with a Leupold cantilever base and a Leupold 1.5-6x scope, it's all I need for the rifle's range, and it's about a 3MOA shooter in my hands at 60 yards. I'm not fond of the trigger though, never measured it but its got to be in the 7-8 lb range and not the cleanest "wall" I've encountered.

Anyway, because of the trigger today, I found myself concentrating more on trigger technique, squeeeeeze and keep the crosshairs on target, breathe and shoot between breaths, and slowing down between shots. I'm wondering if my rifles of crisper triggers and 1.5-2.5# are actually working against me, letting me be lax on fundamentals? Anyone else ever feel like they work more carefully, technic-wise with a bad trigger?

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IMO, no. A bad trigger is just that. I can shoot a lot of different triggers, but one that is truly bad is a nightmare. Replace it with a decent trigger. You'll be much happier and less frustrated. Case in point, I have an AR 10. The factory AR trigger was awful. It had a catch right as the sear broke. I replaced it with a CMC drop in trigger and never looked back. Another example, Ruger puts 6 lb triggers in everything-even a 77/22. That was replaced as well with an adjustable trigger so I could get a lighter pull. Get the point? Don't waste your time on a bad trigger.
 
IMO, with a new shooter a bad trigger will make the shooter develop bad habits like jerking the trigger. A light, crisp trigger will break easily, reinforcing the mechanics of a good trigger squeeze.

In no circumstance would I think that a heavy or mushy trigger as helping to make a shooter better.
 
I don't think bad triggers make you better, but I do think good triggers can spoil you. I purposely keep stock and mil-spec triggers on some of my guns for this reason. All my Ar-15's except one are 4 to 6lbs and I haven't even measured the one on my model 94 30-30 cause I'm not ever gonna change it anyway.🙂
 
I am always intrigued by the good and bad trigger thing, I had a friend who told me his gun had a really bad trigger it was why he couldn’t shoot it well, we were at the range together one day and he hands it to me to try with a full magazine I shoot the 10 ring out of the target he stands there speechless finally says how did you do that I tell him there is no issue with the trigger other than being slightly heavy. I watch him shoot and see he is jerking the trigger badly so I help him with his trigger pull and after another 50 rounds he is doing quite well I asked him why he thought he needed a trigger job /replacement he tells me his friend who has all his guns triggers worked on right out of the box told him all factory ones are garbage. I worked with him on 5 more range outings and he became an excellent shooter with this gun . For all the years I have been shooting I have never had to have a trigger job or replacement done on all the guns I own it is why I always find this subject so intriguing.
 
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Most of my triggers are set at 2lbs, some are 1-1.5 (i used to set everything at 3). My r95s trigger is 3.5lbs or so and i do notice a difference, but my technique dosent change, just the amount of expected force to break the trigger. When it was 6-7lns i didnt like it, but it wasnt hard to shoot.
Too light and too heavy i dont really consider bad triggers just ones that need tuning.....and they have to be way to either side of the spectrum to really be a problem.

IMO a "bad" trigger is one that is noticeably inconsistent in pull weight and/or release.
Squishy and heavy that breaks the same way every time might not be pleasant, but its predictable.
IME getting surprised by the trigger breaking either causes you to focus too much (imo/e) on your trigger control or slap the trigger.
 
All you'll learn from shooting with a bad trigger is how to shoot a gun with a bad trigger well. Most of that wont apply with a really good trigger as you wont need to spend as much effort to get a clean break on a good trigger. So you can concentrate on sighting and holding well as the good triggers wont distract you or require all that concentration on the trigger pull.
 
Hugger-4641 said:
I don't think bad triggers make you better, but I do think good triggers can spoil you. I purposely keep stock and mil-spec triggers on some of my guns for this reason. All my Ar-15's except one are 4 to 6lbs and I haven't even measured the one on my model 94 30-30 cause I'm not ever gonna change it anyway.🙂
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This best describes my opinion, though ill nitpick one thing. I dont think bad triggers make you better per se, but i do think they can make you more well rounded. Years ago, before i got into collecting C&R, i wanted all of my firearms to have the best trigger possible. I have worked on 1911 triggers (and mostly got it right!), cajunized CZs, and upgraded ARs. I could shoot tiny groups (1/2 moa or so) with my accurized Savage rifle at the time, and shot all of my other firearms well also, but if you would have asked me to hit a 10" plate with a DAO Smith revolver at 50 yards i would have struggled... if not been downright embarrassed. Today, after years of living with triggers as is, I can still make that savage rifle shoot tiny groups. I can still rock my CZ, 1911s, and ARs. Not all that much better than I could back then, and any improvement came from time spent on that platform and not from enduring lesser triggers. Ask me to hit a 10" plate at 50 yards with a DAO Smith revolver today and more often than not, without trying all too hard, I'll hit it with every round in the cylinder.

Another thing that makes you more well rounded... shooting more often from field positions. Shooting standing or kneeling does not shrink your groups shooting from the bench. But it does shrink your groups shooting standing or kneeling.
 
Is nasty medicine better than sweet medicine?

Concentrating on sight alignment and trigger is great, but a bad trigger will stay a bad trigger, and your trigger pull mechanics will not improve because of it.

The factory triggers on my Ruger MKII's had a lot of take up, creep, and over travel. I had hit a peak in Bullseye Pistol scores with the things. I took the pistols to Clark, paid for a trigger job and their adjustable trigger. The trigger is adjustable for take up and over travel. The gunsmith took out the creep. My scores have gone up. Only having a little take up means I am not hitting the trigger like a train during timed and rapid fire. Hitting the trigger hard leads to low shots. This is also true for too much over travel. And a clean trigger means I can concentrate on breaking the trigger without flinching.
 
I look at it as a way to maintain focus. When starting back from a long layoff, or warming up for deer season, I will put a box or two of 22 shells through my titanium J-Frame kit gun with a 3 inch barrel and adjustable sights. At least half of this will be done shooting double action. By revolver standards, the trigger is not bad, but it is heavy and reasonably consistent. Compared to my rifles, it is horrible. However, the concentration on the fundamentals that it takes to shoot the kit gun well certainly reduces the time it takes me to get ready to hunt. I agree with the sentiment that shooting only with a great trigger will tend to make ME sloppy and unfocused. Pure sloth and laziness I am sure.
 
berettaprofessor said:
Hey all; I was shooting one of my favorites today, the Browning SA-22 short below. I bought it from CDNN about 6 years ago and find it to be one of the more frequent plinkers I pick up; it's 22 short, so no recoil or noise to bother me or the neighbors and, anyway, it's just gorgeous. Scoped with a Leupold cantilever base and a Leupold 1.5-6x scope, it's all I need for the rifle's range, and it's about a 3MOA shooter in my hands at 60 yards. I'm not fond of the trigger though, never measured it but its got to be in the 7-8 lb range and not the cleanest "wall" I've encountered.

Anyway, because of the trigger today, I found myself concentrating more on trigger technique, squeeeeeze and keep the crosshairs on target, breathe and shoot between breaths, and slowing down between shots. I'm wondering if my rifles of crisper triggers and 1.5-2.5# are actually working against me, letting me be lax on fundamentals? Anyone else ever feel like they work more carefully, technic-wise with a bad trigger?

View attachment 1208081
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It's just the opposite with me. Bad triggers tend to make me jerk more. I get impatient. 😚
 
A bad trigger is never good for accuracy. You can learn to overcome it but all the other things need to be done almost perfectly while you put added emphasis on trigger work. Jerking the trigger or an inconsistent break are the big items to defeat. A lighter, consistent trigger is a confidence builder because you know it is going to function so fix it——-can’t blame it on the trigger now.
About 10 years ago Field & Stream had a long article on bad triggers, optics, light weight long guns and such compared with “good” versions of the same. The results were a bit of a surprise especially with accuracy with bad triggers. The five panelists / testers showed a bad trigger can be compensated for but it wasn’t as bad as they initially thought.
 
Steel Horse Rider said:
The technique that improved my shooting the most was when I built a flintlock. My flintlock had a set trigger but the delay from pulling the trigger to the powder igniting made me stay on target much longer.
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I like that one.

My Daughter was bad about follow through and told me on one miss, "I was aiming at it when I pulled the trigger." I then told her to watch the bullet go through the target and it all came together for her.

Really need to learn that lesson before or at least concurrent with shooting at moving targets.
 
IMHO, a bad trigger can still allow good groups, but it has always required more "focus" to do so.
A good trigger allows me to spend that focus on other fundamentals.
A better trigger , being more consistent, makes a world of difference .
 
It won't make you better in the sense that you will shoot better with a gun that has a bad trigger than with a gun that has a good one, but it can help show up technique problems.

That is, a nice trigger can mask trigger technique problems. You can get away with more if the trigger is light, smooth, breaks nicely, etc. If the trigger is bad, it will force you to do everything exactly right. When I do pistol dryfire practice, I intentionally pick a gun with a stiff trigger that is less than ideal. It makes me do everything exactly right--if I'm the least bit sloppy with my technique, the sights move all over the place.
 
Here are two recurring experiences I have had the unfortunate opportunity to witness time, and time again when I take shooters to the range in coaching/instruction sessions:

Very commonly, folks have some baseline experience of shooting hunting rifles or 22LR's, but we'll end up at the range together as they take "the next step" in their journey to challenge their skills. But when they get behind one of my rifles, or behind their new performance rifle, they have a lot of trigger hand influence on their rifles, and they jerk triggers like they're setting a hook on a 5lb bass...

In other words, not surprisingly, bad triggers install bad habits into shooters, which they bring with them when they come to better triggers.

Alternatively, I've also witnessed shooters who are trained on crisp, light triggers taking their first runs with lower grade triggers - and not surprisingly - they don't have the bad habits for over-gripping the rifle, and haven't developed a tendency to JERK the trigger when they're on target to overcome a heavy, long travel trigger.

Something to remember: shooting aids help shooters with lesser experience than they do highly experienced shooters. "Professional" shooters will have highly developed skills and automaticity ("muscle memory") to manage triggers, even bad triggers. Inexperienced shooters won't have the developed skills to manage any trigger, so putting them behind a trigger which is more easily managed will help them shoot better, "more better" than it helps the "pro".
 
Getting good with a bad trigger will make you good with that bad trigger.

Most shooters will take longer to get good with a bad trigger, which makes it a terrible teaching aid unless your goal is to slow their progress and/or frustrate them.

berettaprofessor said:
Anyway, because of the trigger today, I found myself concentrating more on trigger technique, squeeeeeze and keep the crosshairs on target, breathe and shoot between breaths, and slowing down between shots. I'm wondering if my rifles of crisper triggers and 1.5-2.5# are actually working against me, letting me be lax on fundamentals? Anyone else ever feel like they work more carefully, technic-wise with a bad trigger?
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I am guessing you ended up concentrating more on the shots because after you had several bad shots, you realized you really needed to up your game in order to accomplish the same precision you accomplish with better triggers. You slowed down and concentrated more because you were doing everything in your power in order to make the bad trigger work for you.

A good trigger isn't letting you be lax on the fundamentals. If you are lax on the fundamentals, that is on you. You can't blame the gear for that unless of course you are talking about being lax on the fundamentals of a bad trigger. Then you need the bad trigger.
 
A bad trigger is never good for accuracy.
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Not what I intended to claim.

That is, a nice trigger can mask trigger technique problems. You can get away with more if the trigger is light, smooth, breaks nicely, etc. If the trigger is bad, it will force you to do everything exactly right. When I do pistol dryfire practice, I intentionally pick a gun with a stiff trigger that is less than ideal. It makes me do everything exactly right--if I'm the least bit sloppy with my technique, the sights move all over the place.
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JohnKSa has the concept I was "shooting at"

I then told her to watch the bullet go through the target and it all came together for her.
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And jmorris has some good advice for us, as always.
 
I kinda get the OP's point, in that anything forcing you to properly manage the trigger is, ultimately, a good thing. The catch, though, is that we should all be properly managing the trigger, every time, on every gun. When that - along with the few other really critical skills required for competent shooting - is mastered, then we should be close to demonstrating the full potential of the gun.

At that point, the only thing a less-than-perfect trigger accomplishes is to interfere with the process.
 
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