Shooting to Reset a Bad Practice?

R

Radny97

New member
Hear me out. I’ve noticed many online and magazine reviewers recently (hyper) focusing on how good a particular gun’s trigger reset is. To the point that they are faulting the gun if they short stroke the gun’s trigger and ride the reset too closely.

I don’t get this mentality. Triggers each have differences in the manner in which they operate. From a long smooth revolver trigger with full let off required, to a very short crisp 1911 break and tiny reset, to a striker fired mushy take up and usually slightly longer but more positive reset, they all have their different characteristics. It seems a cop-out to me when someone faults a trigger for not resetting the way their Gucci Glock does. Why expect the latest gun to reset like the last one does?

When some reviewer who is riding the reset experiences a failure because they thought the trigger reset when it didn’t, isn’t that a user error and not a gun design error? Seems like a lot of people are becoming too reliant on each trigger to be exactly the same as the other, rather than taking the time to learn the gun.

In other words, when I see a reviewer nitpicking a trigger (and this is not the same as a legitimate criticism of a 14 pound gritty trigger) I tend to think, “well, you just haven’t practiced enough on this platform to really learn the gun.”

An I wrong, or do reviewers tend to blame user error and unfamiliarity with a gun on the gun itself instead of on themselves?


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Radny97 said:
When some reviewer who is riding the reset experiences a failure because they thought the trigger reset when it didn’t, isn’t that a user error and not a gun design error? Seems like a lot of people are becoming too reliant on each trigger to be exactly the same as the other, rather than taking the time to learn the gun.
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I consider that to be user error, yes.

An I wrong, or do reviewers tend to blame user error and unfamiliarity with a gun on the gun itself instead of on themselves?
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Well, after all, they ARE experts. THEY couldn't be wrong ... so it must be the gun's fault.
 
Some guns have shorter resets than others, that’s just reality. Reset is one of the relatively few things that can be measured on a firearm in what are often subjective aspects of a review. So it’s easy to note that the reset of pistol A is longer/shorter than pistol B. The reality is some people do care about it so it makes sense to me to point it out. It’s up to you as the reader to decide if you do or don’t care about that. I also agree that a reset can generally be learned. That said, if you’re used to a short reset when you go to a pistol with a longer reset it may be noticeable (it has been for me). So again, reviewers point it out, some more so than others.

I’ve said this on other threads, I’ll say it here. I find people tend to take reviews of pistols they own/like overly personally. Just because someone might not like the thing you do doesn’t mean you’re wrong or that the other person is right. Preferences vary and the market has a lot of choices.


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I don't see that it matters where/what the reset it, provided it is consistent.

Can you drive a standard transmission car or truck? Ever drive more than one? Are all the control responses (clutch, gas, brake, etc.) all the same from model to model or even individual vehicle to vehicle?

No. And, I'd add "of course not!"

Think guns are, or should be any different?

Every mechanical system has the potential to be different than every other, and I mean each individual unit can differ from the next. When these are so small as to not be easily noticed, we don't even realize they are there.

Despite all best efforts at complete uniformity, differences will exist, or be created during operation. Such is the nature of mechanical things.

Learn how to drive, don't say the car is defective if it doesn't work the way you THINK it should. It's not.

And, remember that the purpose of some people who do reviews is to earn a paycheck, not give honest or accurate information.

Ever see a movie you thought was great but the critics said it was terrible??
case in point...
 
44 AMP said:
And, remember that the purpose of some people who do reviews is to earn a paycheck, not give honest or accurate information.

Ever see a movie you thought was great but the critics said it was terrible??
case in point...
Click to expand...

I don’t get what the first sentence has to do with the second. There are a number of things that are subjective in life, certainly movies. Just because a person writes they don’t like a movie doesn’t mean that person is being dishonest. Maybe that person honestly doesn’t like that movie.

I see this all the time when I look at comments on reviews where someone states the reviewer must have been paid if it was a positive review and that person had a negative experience himself/herself as opposed to the reviewer. Or the reviewer was simply looking for controversy if it’s a negative review. You yourself pointed out the differences that can exist in even the same model of a thing. I myself have had bad experiences or good experiences with firearms that people here on this forum have had the opposite experience. My immediate reaction wasn’t to assume that other person was lying.


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I guess the thing that really chaps me is when a reviewer criticizes a gun for not having a good reset when the gun isn’t designed to ride the reset. It’s like criticizing a diesel truck because it doesn’t do 0-60 in under 8 seconds. It’s just not made for that.
As an extreme case one of the most popular handgun reviewers on YouTube was reviewing a S&W 686 and mentioned that he didn’t like that you had to let all the way off the trigger for follow up shots. Really?!?
 
Radny97 said:
I guess the thing that really chaps me is when a reviewer criticizes a gun for not having a good reset when the gun isn’t designed to ride the reset. It’s like criticizing a diesel truck because it doesn’t do 0-60 in under 8 seconds. It’s just not made for that.
As an extreme case one of the most popular handgun reviewers on YouTube was reviewing a S&W 686 and mentioned that he didn’t like that you had to let all the way off the trigger for follow up shots. Really?!?
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I get what you’re saying in that yes on a revolver the trigger has to be let all the way out. But a person can still not like that fact and express as much. Now you as the reader can read that and think, “Well that’s the nature of the revolver and it’s silly to expect otherwise”, as it seems you did, but In my opinion I don’t know that it should chap you. It’s just a review, and these days there are a ton of reviewers out there due to the ease of posting content. Find a reviewer that is more up your alley.

I’d also say that what you’re describing has, to me, less to do about the practice of shooting to reset and more about how someone reviews a firearm. Shooting to reset can be done with a revolver, the shooter just has to understand the reset is much further forward than on other designs.


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Depends on the intended use of the gun, and how it was designed. A light trigger, with a short take-up, no over travel and a short definitive reset are what most people want. As i understand it glock popularized this with their pistols and it to some degree, has not become the benchmark.

Is it suitable to shoot to reset for all applications, no. Is it very beneficial in some, yes. Pick the right tool for the right job.
 
TunnelRat good points. It seems to me that people who expect all triggers to “shoot to reset” are not as well trained as they purport to be. If you don’t know how to shoot well without riding the reset, then you’re not a very well developed shooter. It would be like saying you’re a really good and experienced driver when you don’t know how to drive a stick. Nope, you’re not.
 
I can’t say that I agree. I learned to drive on a stick a long time ago. I haven’t driven on a stick in so long that I would likely have to refresh myself on doing it. None of my cars (nor the cars that I have access to) have a manual transmission. I generally drive highway and I’m either cruising at speed or sitting in traffic. The fun of shifting gears on twisty backroads like when I learned to drive a stick are at the moment well behind me.

I don’t know that my ability to be a good driver has suffered because of my lack of using a stick when none of the cars I own require it. To me the most important aspect of a good driver is awareness of what’s going on around him/her. Now some people will extend that to “feeling the car” and say you need a manual to do that. My own experience says you don’t. I can feel the shifts on an automatic transmission and when and where they should happen (as a function of my familiarity with the car) so I know if the car is malfunctioning. These days I spend a good portion of my time dodging people staring at their phones. I could care less if they are driving a manual, I would just like them to stop drifting out of their lane.

Again, I think this comes down to what does or doesn’t matter to you, whether as either a driver or a shooter. I learned to shoot centerfire on mostly revolvers and I still have a S&W Model 19-5. I shoot it periodically and I can respect the skill it takes to use a revolver well, but it’s not a type of firearm that I use regularly for a number of reasons. Does this make me a bad shooter? For the firearms I shoot typically my experience says no, based on performance relative to my peers. It’s just not something I’m overly interested in, and the same is true of some reviewers. If you want to view that as the reviewer lacking skill that’s certainly your prerogative and I know people personally that agree with you. At the same time I don’t see the point letting it irk you. Move on to a reviewer that is more to your liking. Stressing about opinions on the internet is a waste of time imo, something it took me a while to realize.


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thinking on this, I got to wondering where the phrase "shoot to reset" comes from and what it is supposed to mean. I get the meaning (I think) from context, but "shoot to reset" seems to be a contradiction, and an inaccurate description.

Trigger reset, being the position in the trigger's forward travel where the mechanism "re-connects" (lines back up so another shot can be fired) isn't something I can understand how one "shoots to" that.

I can't "shoot to reset", what I can do is "release (the trigger) to reset" AFTER firing a shot. "Riding the reset" seems like a more apt term if "release to reset" doesn't float your boat. Seems to me it is a lot like "riding the clutch" on a stick shift car.

A lot of us, who grew up shooting before Glocks existed, and who learned to shoot different kinds of guns, learned to release all pressure on the trigger and allow it to come all the way forward to ensure the trigger did fully reset. This may not be the absolute fastest way to shoot but it is a way that always works with every gun you might pick up.

You can learn to stop trigger return movement just after it resets, but its something you need to learn for each individual gun you shoot and can feel the reset point clearly. some guns don't have a clear "feel" in the trigger when it resets just an audible click, which you can always hear when handling the gun in practice but not necessarily hear when shooting when your primary focus is elsewhere.

Some gun's triggers reset with a "click" you can feel in the trigger, but aren't really obvious and that's something you have to train to learn.

I have shot Glocks that literally slapped my trigger finger when the trigger reset. I found that quite annoying. After a while, it got uncomfortable. I don't need a gun that slaps me to say "hey. I'm reset you can shoot again now". But, that's just me...:rolleyes:
 
I don't mean to abrasive, but there are three pretty prominent gun reviewers who speak about triggers and always discuss reset. However, when they show you a close up of their shooting in gun reviews, never do they actually use the reset. It's always fully forward and pull.

That said, I do. I REALLY like a fast reset. But that is how I like it. I find I enjoy rapid shooting less with an HK or CZ that are known to have long resets. I just feel it slow. Not the weight of the pull, but the amount of trigger forward.

Another suspicion, I think rapid fire "low and left" hits are always attributed to finger placement. However, if you are not riding a reset and shooting fast, your finger has to overcome take up and wall. Not a true two stage, but certainly a a real thing. I really doubt anyone can pull a consistent per pound movement of their finger when their finger has zero resistance for half the movement and some resistance for the other half. Just seems to me that's why guns pull lower at break (when shooting fast).


Finally, no. I think you might be forgetting gun manufactures are mechanically making the tactile reset feel on purpose. They don't have to be there. So that the LCP gen2 or the VP9 have two clicks in their pull to reset, that's a mechanical issue. That isn't a user issue. Gray Guns offers a service to VP9s to remove that "false reset" issue.
 
I shoot 1911s, and any discussion of "reset" is more or less meaningless with a 1911.

Are you suggesting that there are other makes and types of handguns than 1911s? ASTONISHING!

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wild cat mccane said:
Finally, no. I think you might be forgetting gun manufactures are mechanically making the tactile reset feel on purpose. They don't have to be there. So that the LCP gen2 or the VP9 have two clicks in their pull to reset, that's a mechanical issue. That isn't a user issue. Gray Guns offers a service to VP9s to remove that "false reset" issue.
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I have a VP9B. Mine doesn’t exhibit two resets, no matter how slowly I let the trigger out. I have heard people have had that issue, but in the two I’ve owned (I had a standard models years ago) that false reset hasn’t been there. I did actually have a USP compact that had an out of spec trigger spring where you could feel two resets. With my VP9 I don’t feel two reset points, it’s just the reset is longer than others and kind of anemic.


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It's a rub of the trigger bar that may or may not be on a VP9. I know my VP9 had it.

But just as an example. The LCP gen2, which I really like, has a horrible click before a real reset that is just as tactile as the full reset.
 
44 AMP said:
thinking on this, I got to wondering where the phrase "shoot to reset" comes from and what it is supposed to mean. I get the meaning (I think) from context, but "shoot to reset" seems to be a contradiction, and an inaccurate description.

Trigger reset, being the position in the trigger's forward travel where the mechanism "re-connects" (lines back up so another shot can be fired) isn't something I can understand how one "shoots to" that.

I can't "shoot to reset", what I can do is "release (the trigger) to reset" AFTER firing a shot. "Riding the reset" seems like a more apt term if "release to reset" doesn't float your boat. Seems to me it is a lot like "riding the clutch" on a stick shift car.

A lot of us, who grew up shooting before Glocks existed, and who learned to shoot different kinds of guns, learned to release all pressure on the trigger and allow it to come all the way forward to ensure the trigger did fully reset. This may not be the absolute fastest way to shoot but it is a way that always works with every gun you might pick up.

You can learn to stop trigger return movement just after it resets, but its something you need to learn for each individual gun you shoot and can feel the reset point clearly. some guns don't have a clear "feel" in the trigger when it resets just an audible click, which you can always hear when handling the gun in practice but not necessarily hear when shooting when your primary focus is elsewhere.

Some gun's triggers reset with a "click" you can feel in the trigger, but aren't really obvious and that's something you have to train to learn.

I have shot Glocks that literally slapped my trigger finger when the trigger reset. I found that quite annoying. After a while, it got uncomfortable. I don't need a gun that slaps me to say "hey. I'm reset you can shoot again now". But, that's just me...:rolleyes:
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Thank you, this to me is more about shooting to reset than what has been discussed so far, which seemed more about the review process and how to fairly or appropriately review something.

I actually tend to agree to a point on this. Shooting to reset works well when the pistols in question all have the same reset. When they don’t then you can short stroke the trigger and end up with what some call trigger freeze. It’s happened to me as I have a number of pistols with different triggers (though these days I’m in the process of reducing what I have). There’s a balance here in that you don’t want/need to necessarily come completely off the trigger to the point where your trigger finger touches the interior of the trigger guard, but if you’re trying to release to just that point of reset I think you’re setting yourself up for potential failure. I also don’t really think it buys you that much speed. Watch some competition shooters. A good number of them practically slap the trigger when shooting at speed at certain distances. Their control of the firearm physically is such that they can maintain their sight alignment through that more gross motion of their trigger fingers, or at least through practice they know the deviation that will result from doing so won’t be a problem at the given distance.

There’s also the notion of “trapping the trigger”. A number of people I’ve seen when shooting for accuracy will fire a shot, hold the trigger to the rear, slowly release the trigger to the reset, then press the trigger again. I do it sometimes too. The idea, and wild cat touched on it, is that the less trigger motion overall the less opportunity to disrupt your sight picture. I think there’s truth to that. The problem I’ve seen is this is absolutely not the way to shoot at speed. At speed you want to be resetting the trigger as the pistol is cycling, so that as the muzzle comes back down on target you can press that next shot immediately without waiting to then let the trigger forward. If you get in the habit of trapping the trigger it can make you slower at shooting at speed. There are idiosyncrasies to what shooting to rest does or doesn’t mean, or more accurately should or shouldn’t mean depending on the goal.


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wild cat mccane said:
It's a rub of the trigger bar that may or may not be on a VP9. I know my VP9 had it.

But just as an example. The LCP gen2, which I really like, has a horrible click before a real reset that is just as tactile as the full reset.
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I definitely get your meaning as I’ve experienced it as well. I actually had a P320 that would click right before the reset. It was only that one P320 though. It’s annoying, even if only in dry fire.

Also to clarify, I would agree the trigger on the VP9 is subpar. I’m selling that VP9B. There are just a number of pistols I like better in multiple ways, even if I do like the grip.


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Oh yeah, we’ll try shooting a GP100 using the trigger reset. You’ll be in trouble using that in a self defense situation. Being an old revolver guy I’ve always shot releasing the trigger completely, but now thanks to using the short resets on my 9mm semi’s I’ve gotten into the bad habit of occasionally locking up myGP100 due to its false reset.
 
I drag on the VP9 a bit right now because I am trying to convince myself not to pick up a new one. I think it does have some things going for it. Mine did have the second click. But I've also read a lot about people like yourself saying not theirs.

After you mentioned the 3 mag HKs are the night sight versions, I've bookmarked the new NS Optic Sku and check prices everyday. It might win me over soon. :D
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbWfwQyglmA

The above referenced YT vid may be what the OP is referring regarding trigger reset.
Folks, do watch the video from professional competitive shooter JJ Racaza.
I barely understand his or the technique.

JJ Racaza is able to fire multiple handgun rounds very quickly and accurately. He's extraordinary as are all the competitors in that class of skill & capability. The video speaks of not using reset as it hinders speed & accuracy (I think that's what's being said as I admit as just me watching the vid a couple times is way over my head).

My main experience was with LE and Glocks. While accuracy was important, Glock and my limited LE training always taught to try to feel the trigger reset. Maximum speed was never a goal. Anything approaching competitive shooting speeds would have been all on one's own time & expense.

If this isn't what the OP is speaking of, OP please comment. Otherwise, again, I think this video might be a prime example of why the OP started the thread.
 
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