I keep my thumb on top of the safety as much to keep the bore axis pressed down low as anything else. I've never had an issue with this hold causing problems with grip safety engagement, although that is something that's very dependent on the individual hand of the shooter, and mine seem to disengage the GS just fine. (However, all my carry 1911s have had grip safeties with "memory bumps" anyway.)
1911 grip and safety release
- Thread starter Osageshooter
- Start date
Wish my AHG would arrive.
I agree. Shot that way for years (until Farnum's course). Raising the thumb satisfied Mr. Farnum, the worlds' foremost advocate of "flying thumbs", AND eliminated the little bit of "safety bite" I experienced.
No time is lost with both thumbs up--it's compfy.
Wasn't really an issue for me, but my hand compresses the grip safety a little more with thumbs up (or angled a little forward)-maybe an issue with older style grip safeties.
Either way, thumb on or above the safety solves the issue of inadvertent thumbing the safety on.
I can't think of any particular situation where I would need to rapidly engage the safety, whereas I can imagine countless scenarios where getting it disengaged faster can make a world of difference. I ride the safety - I find it the most comfortable way to hold the pistol, and the best way to assure a consistent grip each and every time I pick it up.
Go your own way - but my way works for me.
Go your own way - but my way works for me.
my thumb drops below the safety after I release it ... both my 1911s have pretty stiff springs and the odds of me resetting the safety by accident are almost zero ... I've tried it both ways, I find I'm better able to control the gun ... and return it to safe ... with my thumb below the lever ...
I do not shoot thumbs high or with my thumb in the safety of my 1911s. IMO, those grips are fine for the range and games but weak when it comes to weapon retention. I believe that a strong one handed grip should be your first concern and then support that grip with your off hand. You can't get a strong and secure one handed grip thumbs high.
If your weapon retention technique...
... consists of gripping your pistol tight, then I respectfully suggest you get some hands-on training in weapon retention.
I'm teaching an informal class for some of the security guys at the base where I'm working. Retention has a lot more to do with body movement then it does with the type of grip your hand uses.
Put it another way: If I want to take control of your pistol, and you let me have the position to do it, all your strong grip will do is keep the gun in your hand while I stick the muzzle up under your chin. (IE your hand will go up there; pulling the trigger at that point would be unadviseable)
So far this week, we've been working on weapon takeaways. If you know how to do it, it's fairly easy to accomplish.
OTOH, if you know the ways a person might try to take your gun, it's not hard to move in a way that makes that very, very difficult for them.
But the way your hand is on the pistol has next to nothing to do with it.
Respectfully,
M
... consists of gripping your pistol tight, then I respectfully suggest you get some hands-on training in weapon retention.
I'm teaching an informal class for some of the security guys at the base where I'm working. Retention has a lot more to do with body movement then it does with the type of grip your hand uses.
Put it another way: If I want to take control of your pistol, and you let me have the position to do it, all your strong grip will do is keep the gun in your hand while I stick the muzzle up under your chin. (IE your hand will go up there; pulling the trigger at that point would be unadviseable)
So far this week, we've been working on weapon takeaways. If you know how to do it, it's fairly easy to accomplish.
OTOH, if you know the ways a person might try to take your gun, it's not hard to move in a way that makes that very, very difficult for them.
But the way your hand is on the pistol has next to nothing to do with it.
Respectfully,
M
There's no excuse for a weak grip, I don't care what you're teaching, if you can't hang onto your gun the rest is meaningless. You need to be able to shoot one handed, you need to be able to run and move, you need to be able to beat someone with your gun if necessary. Defensive gun handling starts with a strong one handed grip, everything else builds off of that.
Weak grip?
WC145, for your argument to be valid, you'd have to establish a few things:
1) The over-safety grip is in fact weak. This isn't a given. (Maybe it is for your hand type, or your hand strength, but that doesn't make it so for everybody.) It seems a number of us have no trouble controlling our weapons with this grip. I shoot a steady diet of +P, and have absolutely zero trouble with one hand control. Then again, I have long fingers, and wear size L or XL gloves, depending on make.
2) That those of us who use this grip can't shoot one-handed. Again, this is not a give. I don't use an over-safety grip when I shoot left-handed, so the argument veers a bit, but I can and do shoot with either hand.
3) That those of us who use this grip can't shoot and move. Again, bad assumption on your part.
4) The gun as club thing.... First, I doubt very many of us on TFL have ever practiced this, let alone applied it. However, I'd point out that with regard to hand to hand weapons, a saber grip (fencing), uses thumb on the spine of the grip, and not wrapped around. In theory, this should be an even weaker grip than the one we've been discussing, yet it has been in effective use for a few centuries.
Last point: I'm not arguing that a good grip is not important. I am saying that if you want to start introducing up-close physical contact into the equation, then grip is the least of your concerns.
M
WC145, for your argument to be valid, you'd have to establish a few things:
1) The over-safety grip is in fact weak. This isn't a given. (Maybe it is for your hand type, or your hand strength, but that doesn't make it so for everybody.) It seems a number of us have no trouble controlling our weapons with this grip. I shoot a steady diet of +P, and have absolutely zero trouble with one hand control. Then again, I have long fingers, and wear size L or XL gloves, depending on make.
2) That those of us who use this grip can't shoot one-handed. Again, this is not a give. I don't use an over-safety grip when I shoot left-handed, so the argument veers a bit, but I can and do shoot with either hand.
3) That those of us who use this grip can't shoot and move. Again, bad assumption on your part.
4) The gun as club thing.... First, I doubt very many of us on TFL have ever practiced this, let alone applied it. However, I'd point out that with regard to hand to hand weapons, a saber grip (fencing), uses thumb on the spine of the grip, and not wrapped around. In theory, this should be an even weaker grip than the one we've been discussing, yet it has been in effective use for a few centuries.
Last point: I'm not arguing that a good grip is not important. I am saying that if you want to start introducing up-close physical contact into the equation, then grip is the least of your concerns.
M
If you mean a real one handed grip, then thumb down is stronger and what's generally taught. It controls recoil better, but thumb up tight against the frame steadies the gun better. When I say thumb down, I mean DOWN in a fist. Not horizontal under the safety-- which is a good way to get yourself killed under stress of a gun fight.
Shooting thumbs up with a proper two handed grip is strong and secure enough for hundreds of thousands of shooters--if not millions.
You've essentially just said that a highly qualified internationally known instructor like John Farnum, to name just one, teaches thousands of ordinary citizens, police, and military (many of whom pay for their own training), a handgun shooting method that isn't strong or secure enough.
You've also told me that my shooting method isn't strong or secure.
And there's that Jerry Miculek fellow who advocates gripping the gun 70% weak hand and 30% strong hand. Personally I like 60/40 or 50/50.
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I'm not telling anyone to change what they're doing, I gave my opinion based on what I do, see, and feel. I didn't say my way is the only way, I didn't tell anyone to do things my way, I just said it is my way and I gave reasons why I prefer it over the thumbs high method. And, while I'm not John Farnum, I didn't just fall off the turnip truck - I'm an experienced shooter, LEO, and martial artist. I shoot the way I do based on my experience and training and because it works for me and works very well. Also, it enables me to use the same grip when shooting either pistols or revolvers.
Lastly, if I recall the thumbs high, two handed grip is said to be 40% strong hand 60% weak hand, that doesn't translate into a strong one handed grip. If you go from shooting two handed to one handed and have to change your strong hand grip to do it, you're doing something wrong.
Lastly, if I recall the thumbs high, two handed grip is said to be 40% strong hand 60% weak hand, that doesn't translate into a strong one handed grip. If you go from shooting two handed to one handed and have to change your strong hand grip to do it, you're doing something wrong.
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60/40?
I've never heard of the 60/40 under discussion.
But I can't think of any form I use where my primary hand does not do most of the work, except for those forms where it does all of the work.
I can't be the only one here who finds the 1911 to be a very mild frame, when it comes to recoil? My 10mm is only slightly lively, and my .45 CBOB is a pussycat. It's not that I'm immune to recoil - I don't particularly enjoy .44mag or higher, and I don't care for lightweight .357 snubbies. But my first non-.22 handgun was a .357 GP100, that I used to mostly shoot mags out of, so .45acp just never really seemed like much.
WC145, I'm not trying to say you fell off the turnip truck. But if you are now limiting your statements to what works or doesn't work for you, so much the better. At first, you said
I don't remember ever seeing a turnip truck in Maine, by the way. Potato trucks, and even lobster trucks, but I don't remember any turnip trucks. (Grew up near Augusta, and did a stint at Brunswick.)
Not sure where in Maine you are, WC145, or what MA you practice. But if you're near Portland, and are remotely interested, there's an aikido school at 226 Anderson Street where you could probably get the instructors to demonstrate some handgun takeaways. I have a few cop friends, and most of them weren't impressed with the retention training they received via academies and departments - which is why I met most of them at aikido or jujutsu schools.
Cheers,
M
I've never heard of the 60/40 under discussion.
But I can't think of any form I use where my primary hand does not do most of the work, except for those forms where it does all of the work.
I can't be the only one here who finds the 1911 to be a very mild frame, when it comes to recoil? My 10mm is only slightly lively, and my .45 CBOB is a pussycat. It's not that I'm immune to recoil - I don't particularly enjoy .44mag or higher, and I don't care for lightweight .357 snubbies. But my first non-.22 handgun was a .357 GP100, that I used to mostly shoot mags out of, so .45acp just never really seemed like much.
WC145, I'm not trying to say you fell off the turnip truck. But if you are now limiting your statements to what works or doesn't work for you, so much the better. At first, you said
To me, that read like you were speaking for all of us, not for you, but that doesn't mean it was your intent, and I'm happy to give you the benefit of the doubt.
I don't remember ever seeing a turnip truck in Maine, by the way. Potato trucks, and even lobster trucks, but I don't remember any turnip trucks. (Grew up near Augusta, and did a stint at Brunswick.)
Not sure where in Maine you are, WC145, or what MA you practice. But if you're near Portland, and are remotely interested, there's an aikido school at 226 Anderson Street where you could probably get the instructors to demonstrate some handgun takeaways. I have a few cop friends, and most of them weren't impressed with the retention training they received via academies and departments - which is why I met most of them at aikido or jujutsu schools.
Cheers,
M
Yes, if you take away the support hand 100% of the grip comes from the dominant hand, but in the high thumbs method the support hand is an integral part of the grip (60%, 40%, whichever), it's not just in a supporting role. Take it away and your one handed grip has to change to make up for that difference, right? The way I shoot my support hand does just that, take it away and I don't have to change anything.
Also, I do not shoot isosceles (sp?), I use a modified Weaver type of stance, I don't think the high thumbs style lends itself to a quartered stance very well. Correct me if I'm wrong.
This is exactly what I meant.
If you read what I wrote I said 'I don't do this and here's why', I was limiting my statement to what works for me from the start.
I was using "you" in a general sense, not speaking to you specifically, I suppose I could have written "I can't see how you can get a strong and secure one handed grip thumbs high", but I write the way I speak.
No, I don't have any recoil issues either.
It never seemed instinctive to me to not use the thumb to help grip the pistol and I've never had any recoil issues either with any .45 auto except for a lightweight Officer's ACP. But on the other hand, I guess I'm one of the minority that sees no reason for a +P load. And for that matter, any of the current must-have modifications for .45 autos, not that I still own any (Colts, that is). Maybe the thumb on top of the safety works better with a big safety. I used to engage the safety with my left hand anyway.
I also take issue with the theory about the thumb position on a fencing saber, which was carried over into both the final US and British cavalry sabers, both of which had depressions on the top for the thumb. The problem is that it just doesn't work when using a "real" sword, to include a small sword and a rapier, against another heavy weapon. There won't be enough strength in the grip to withstand a blow. So in other words, no, it hasn't been in use for centuries. Fencing is gaming and the equipment shows it. And those final cavalry sabers were designed for nothing but thrusting but even they were not without controversy.
I am amused by recalling some old and long-dead practicioners who said you had to work out your own methods yourself. That's about the last thing contempory instructors would allow, now isn't it? Not just gun instructors, either. Here I permit anyone to do their shooting any way they please, provided I can do the same.
By the way, I usually did my shooting one-handed. That part benefited the most from practice.
I also take issue with the theory about the thumb position on a fencing saber, which was carried over into both the final US and British cavalry sabers, both of which had depressions on the top for the thumb. The problem is that it just doesn't work when using a "real" sword, to include a small sword and a rapier, against another heavy weapon. There won't be enough strength in the grip to withstand a blow. So in other words, no, it hasn't been in use for centuries. Fencing is gaming and the equipment shows it. And those final cavalry sabers were designed for nothing but thrusting but even they were not without controversy.
I am amused by recalling some old and long-dead practicioners who said you had to work out your own methods yourself. That's about the last thing contempory instructors would allow, now isn't it? Not just gun instructors, either. Here I permit anyone to do their shooting any way they please, provided I can do the same.
By the way, I usually did my shooting one-handed. That part benefited the most from practice.