Trigger Squeeze

burbank jung said:
I assume everyone that dry fires uses snap caps or something similar.
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I don't. Why would you assume that?

It depends on the firearm. I shoot 1911s. Generally, 1911s can be dry fired with no negative consequences. Some other types of pistols are prone to breaking the firing pin if dry fired without a snap cap in place.

For semi-autos, do you slide and eject every snap cap or pull the hammer back?
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Pull the hammer back.
 
Press could work for me. But now let's move forward. Tell me about follow up? After the sight rises your trigger finger slackens so the trigger starts to move back to its original position and your front sight is coming down. Now what? What I think is a guess like maybe holding the trigger in so you don't have press through the full travel again? I'm sure some of you have trained rapid fire.
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Allow the trigger to travel back to reset and hold it there until your front sight is on the target and between the rear sight blades and then fire again.

Ideally, you should be reset when your sights come back down. Not something I consistently do.

[edit] You might want to check out Brian Enos's book: Practical Shooting: Beyond Fundamentals
 
burbank_jung said:
I assume everyone that dry fires uses snap caps or something similar.

For semi-autos, do you slide and eject every snap cap or pull the hammer back?

Minor issues but curious.
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I generally do, but it’s not such a requirement that I won’t dry fire without one.

It depends on the mechanism. If it’s a striker fired pistol that doesn’t have a DA mode then I retract the slide enough to cock the striker. If it’s a hammer fired pistol that is single action only or I am practicing the single action mode of a DA/SA pistol then sure I’ll cock the hammer. For DA/SA pistols most of my dry fire is in DA.


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I've never known anyone who really enjoys dry firing beyond a couple of minutes but if you do I'm jealous because I've spent alot time in my garage/basement that wasn't fun getting ready for tournaments.
T o'heir
"Dry firing isn't fun..." It's a very long time and well known training technique for practicing sight picture, breathing and trigger control. And it can be fun.
 
The choice of particular word: squeeze, press, pull, stroke is usually trying to get a certain point across, that it's different than some bad thing you're trying to avoid. The word chosen depends greatly on what the teacher has set the definitions in her/his mind. That probably changes culturally over the years and depends on whatever vocabulary the teacher was taught.

My generation doesn't use the word "stroke" regularly. But we push buttons. But a problem is that the word "push" doesn't imply fine control or restraint, and neither does "pull". I guess the new words are to get people to pay more attention to trigger control, to imply moving the trigger rearward with just enough force to get the trigger moving smoothly and to break within the required time frame.
 
What mental steps do you take when shooting your pistol?
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Brother.. I do not get into considering a bunch of nuances. I pull the trigger when I want the gun to go bang. I have shot my gun (alot) and I am very familiar with how my trigger breaks. I couldnt tell you a dang thing about the trigger pull if you asked me. Its simply an innate thing from shooting the gun thousands of times. I just pull the trigger evenly

I dont think it much matters what someone wants to call it.

I dont think many gunfights are going to hinge on trigger pull nuances or what you call it.

If conveying the nature of a trigger pull to someone learning to shoot. I would call it an even and deliberate press. If someone wants to call it a "stroke", I guess they can. Instructors often try to be different (just enough) to set themselves apart from the next guy. Terminology could be a good way to do that. Same thing.. different word. I would not call it a stroke but again, I dont think it really matters.
 
I'm going to say (as I have said before, and I will undoubtedly say again) that muscle memory plays a huge part in the process.

I mostly carry and shoot 1911s. I do my own trigger jobs, and pretty much all of my pistols (other than a couple of mil-surp Sistemas that I haven't touched because I have no intention of ever carrying them) are set to between 4-1/2 and 5 pounds, and I've pretty much eliminated creep and grit.

Yesterday at the range, I tried a new commander-size pistol they have there. The trigger pull weight as measured on a scale is just about 6 pounds, with some creep and a fair amount of grittiness. And I found that it was impossible for me to shoot it accurately. "Combat" accuracy at 25 feet was no problem but target accuracy at 75 feet was not going to happen.

I found that when shooting off a rest for accuracy, the difference between my 4-1/2-pound triggers and this 6-pound trigger seemed mu greater than it is. At times I felt like I was pulling/pressing the trigger with all my strength and nothing was happening. It didn't help that there was a bit of a catch mid-way through the creep portion of the release. I could feel the sear start to move, then it would stop and I had to increase the pressure still more to get it to release.

Cleaning all that up would take 15 minutes or less, but to me it just emphasizes the role that muscle memory plays. I've shot other guns at the shop (1911s) that came from the factory with 3- or 3-1/2-pound triggers, and I had trouble shooting them accurately, too ... because the gun would go off before my muscle memory expected it to. The light triggers are easier to adapt to, because they're clean. The heavy, gritty, creepy trigger is (IMHO) almost impossible to adapt to. It's less noticeable when shooting offhand at a silhouette, but very noticeable shooting off a rest for accuracy.
 
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The principles described below apply to both handguns and rifles. It's all about learning how to press the trigger to make the gun fire without moving the gun.

  1. The first principle of accurate shooting is trigger control: a smooth press straight back on the trigger with only the trigger finger moving. Maintain your focus on the front sight (or the reticle if using a scope) as you press the trigger, increasing pressure on the trigger until the shot breaks. Don't try to predict exactly when the gun will go off nor try to cause the shot to break at a particular moment. This is what Jeff Cooper called the "surprise break."

    Now of course you shouldn't be surprised if your gun fires when you press the trigger. You expect it to fire. The point of the surprise break is not that you're surprised because the gun fires. It's that you don't know exactly when, within some time interval, the gun will fire.

    And the group of instructors I teach with have found the concept to be very useful in teaching beginners.

  2. One wants to place his finger on the trigger in a manner that facilitates that. Usually, the best place for the finger to contact the trigger will be the middle of the portion of the finger between the first knuckle and the fingertip, and that part of the finger should be perpendicular to the direction in which the trigger moves.

    • With some triggers, e. g., heavy double action triggers with a long travel, that placement might not provide enough leverage to work the trigger smoothly. In such cases, the trigger may be placed at the first joint.

    • In either case, the trigger finger needs to be curved away from the gun sufficiently to allow it to press the trigger straight back without the trigger finger binding or applying lateral pressure to the gun. If one has to reach too far to get his finger properly on the trigger (or turn the gun to the point that the axis of the barrel is significantly misaligned with the forearm), the gun is too big. (For example, I have a short trigger reach and can't properly shoot some handguns, like N frame Smith & Wesson revolvers double action.)

  3. By keeping focus on the front sight (or reticle) and increasing pressure on the trigger until the gun essentially shoots itself, you don’t anticipate the shot breaking. But if you try to make the shot break at that one instant in time when everything seem steady and aligned, you usually wind up jerking the trigger.

  4. Of course the gun will wobble a bit on the target. It is just not possible to hold the gun absolutely steady. Because you are alive, there will always be a slight movement caused by all the tiny movement associated with being alive: your heart beating; tiny muscular movements necessary to maintain your balance, etc. Try not to worry about the wobble and don’t worry about trying to keep the sight aligned on a single point. Just let the front sight be somewhere in a small, imaginary box in the center of the target. .

  5. In our teaching we avoid using the words "squeeze" or "pull" to describe the actuation of the trigger. We prefer to refer to "pressing" the trigger. The word "press" seems to better describe the process of smoothly pressing the trigger straight back, with only the trigger finger moving, to a surprise break.

  6. You'll want to be able to perform the fundamentals reflexively, on demand without conscious thought. You do that by practicing them slowly to develop smoothness. Then smooth becomes fast.

    • Again, remember that practice doesn't make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.

    • Practice also makes permanent. If you keep practicing doing something poorly, you will become an expert at doing it poorly.

  7. Many people are uncomfortable with the idea of the gun firing "by surprise." They feel that when using the gun for practical applications, e. g., hunting or self defense, they need to be able to make the gun fire right now. But if you try to make the gun fire right now, you will almost certainly jerk the trigger thus jerking the gun off target and missing your shot. That's where the "compressed surprise break" comes in.

    • As you practice (perfectly) and develop the facility to reflexively (without conscious thought) apply a smooth, continuously increasing pressure to the trigger the time interval between beginning to press and the shot breaking gets progressively shorter until it become indistinguishable from being instantaneous. In other words, that period of uncertainty during which the shot might break, but you don't know exactly when, becomes vanishingly short. And that is the compressed surprise break.

    • Jeff Cooper explains the compressed surprise break in this video beginning at 36:04. This article by Jeff Campbell and this article by Jim Wilson might also be helpful.

    • It may help to understand the way humans learn a physical skill.

      • In learning a physical skill, we all go through a four step process:

        • unconscious incompetence, we can't do something and we don't even know how to do it;

        • conscious incompetence, we can't physically do something even though we know in our mind how to do it;

        • conscious competence, we know how to do something but can only do it right if we concentrate on doing it properly; and

        • unconscious competence, at this final stage we know how to do something and can do it reflexively (as second nature) on demand without having to think about it.

      • To get to the third stage, you need to think through the physical task consciously in order to do it perfectly. You need to start slow; one must walk before he can run. The key here is going slow so that you can perform each repetition properly and smoothly. Don't try to be fast. Try to be smooth. Now here's the kicker: slow is smooth and smooth is fast. You are trying to program your body to perform each of the components of the task properly and efficiently. As the programing takes, you get smoother; and as you get smoother you get more efficient and more sure, and therefore, faster.

      • I have in fact seen this over and over, both in the classes I've been in and with students that I've helped train. Start slow, consciously doing the physical act smoothly. You start to get smooth, and as you get smooth your pace will start to pick up. And about now, you will have reached the stage of conscious competence. You can do something properly and well as long as you think about it.

      • To go from conscious competence to the final stage, unconscious competence, is usually thought to take around 5,000 good repetitions. The good news is that dry practice will count. The bad news is that poor repetitions don't count and can set you back. You need to work at this to get good.

      • If one has reached the stage of unconscious competence as far as trigger control is concerned, he will be able to consistently execute a proper, controlled trigger press quickly and without conscious thought. Of course one needs to practice regularly and properly to maintain proficiency, but it's easier to maintain it once achieved than it was to first achieve it.
 
He makes it look easy but it's not, I bought a Glock 19 a few years ago just to have a gun to learn that technique, I can do it....some days.
Shooting a pcp air rifle is the closest thing there is to dry firing without the monotony of dry firing, I have one already but another on order that's stocked much more like a hunting class silhouette rifle, should make the colorado winter more bearable in my garage.
 
Part of it is practice, but there's another factor at play with the world class shooters. I certainly haven't met all of them, but off the top of my head I can remember meeting Rob Leatham, Todd Jarrett (when he was at the top of his game), and Travis Tomasie. The thing that struck me about those three gentlemen was that their wrists and forearms are HUGE. (And Rob himself is huge -- I'm over 6 feet tall, and he towers over me.)

So Rob talks about locking your wrists so the gun doesn't flip up in recoil when you shoot. Yet I just watched a video of his wife (who is also a professional shooter for Team Springfield) in action, and her gun (which I believe was a 9mm) very clearly did flip up in recoil. Not a lot -- but a lot more than Rob's gun, which doesn't move at all. He simply overpowers the gun.

We aren't all fortunate enough to be able to overpower our gun, so we have to train the best we can to do the best we can with what we've got. Do wrist strengthening exercises. I keep a grip exerciser on my desk next to the computer so I can relax from what I'm working on by just forgetting the screen and doing a couple of sets of grip crunches -- or I'll do them (alternating hands) while I watch a YouTube video. Another good one is to use a dumbell and do wrist curls. The hand grippers work more on the hands. The wrist curls build up the wrists.
 
I think intentional practice of each component of the shot is important so it becomes a habit. My reason for it is based on shooting archery. My daughter picked this up quick because she plays golf. I instructed her by showing her the basics and explaining to her that it was like golf and to maintain the same form with every repetitive form at the range. Then, by mastering the form, she will consciously adjust it to the archery target trail just like when she is at the golf course. Likewise, the same is done other sports like shooting or hunting.
 
The best example of proper trigger use in rifles is when a Garand is used in an Infantry Trophy Match 600 and 500 yard stages shot from the prone position. Each stage's 24 shots in 50 seconds on a silhouette target. All 24 bullet holes inside 12 inches extreme spread. Had to reload twice.
 
"You have to treat your trigger finger as it's own entity."


quote: A world class pistol shooter --- That I forgot the name of...
 
I've been shooting this gun quite a bit lately, my friend Gary just bought it, it's a Fienwerkbau, the model 2 is a vintage .177 CO2 gun. I'm having a little trouble with getting the trigger to go when I'm ready, to me the first stage is to heavy, there's not a definitive wall like my Anschutz rifle.{picture is from the net}

 
Nice pistol. I can't help you Double K from my experience. The closest I can do so is suggest from what I know. As a traditional archer, I warm up with a light bow just like a rifleman warms up with a .22 or maybe even an air rifle. My natural point of aim is first. I shoot with my eyes closed so I don't chase a point. I feel for form, namely the anchor point and release. At 10-15' I try and ignore the sound of the aluminum shafts hitting each other. At best, my arrows are grouped tight. Maybe you can do the same at close range. Close your eyes and feel for trigger press and the pressure on your wrist.. With a good group, you can open your eyes and shoot at the bullseye.
 
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