Accurate rapid fire with a SD gun isn't about trigger control (shooting vid included)

[Tangle]

It's about sights and gun control. I wouldn't be so bold to make such a claim, but Rob Leatham got me pointed in this direction - he probably knows a bit about shooting. However, even before that, I was already seeing in my shooting that accurate rapid fire and the proverbial 'trigger control' dogma are conflicting concepts.

So accuracy in rapid fire is not about trigger control - it's about sights and maximized gun control. The prevailing dogma about trigger control is that it's the most important part of shooting. You can have your sights perfectly aligned and miss the shot because you jerked the trigger. I'm sure we've all heard that as if it were the ultimate shooting maxim. But, you can also miss the shot with perfect trigger control if you anticipate the shot and flinch - that's lack of gun control. A perfect trigger pull won't help a bit with that.

I shot this yesterday at Shooter's Depot indoor range. The 3 inch dot is at 5 yards. The gun is a box stock gen 4 G17, yep, you read that right - box stock! I know it's hard to believe I haven't made any mods to it , but I haven't. BTW, the dot connector Glock now puts in gen 4s is so good, I doubt I'll replace any dot connectors with after markets - they're that good! At least for me.

The camera is zoomed in 5X (all that camera will do) so you can see the hits better. BTW, you may notice my shots are slightly to the left of center. I believe that is NOT sight misalignment but a correction I've made to my grip causing the left bias.

And, I guarantee, I am not squeeeeezing the trigger, I am actually slapping and jerking it. So how do I get by with that? Simple - gun control. If I control my gun sufficiently, then it doesn't matter how I pull the trigger. As you watch the vid, consider that in about 0.42 seconds, I'm recovering from recoil, reacquiring my sight picture, and pulling the trigger. If it takes 0.21 seconds to recover from recoil and acquire a sight picture, how much time does that leave for trigger control? Only 0.21 seconds - that's a trigger jerk, not a trigger squeeeeeze. BTW, I got that from Rob Leatham. Rob says something on the order of, "...I know traditionalists are going to hate hearing this, but you can't go this fast [referring to his shooting, not mine] without jerking the trigger." Well, I can't shoot as fast as Rob, but I can apply his principles - here goes...



For slower fire, all that emphasis on trigger control may be true - I'm still working on that.

I don't want to give the impression that trigger control can be ignored, or that one can just go out and yank on the trigger any ol way and get good accuracy - you'll be disappointed if you think that.

But, what I do want to emphasize is that shooting at speed, is about gun control, not trigger control - at least not trigger control in the traditional sense. If you can control your gun so well that pulling the trigger doesn't disturb the gun, then it really doesn't matter how you pull the trigger does it?

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[gunthorp]

Nice! Thanks Tangle.

[Bark'n]

I've watched a lot of videos of Rob Leatham, Jerry Miculick and several others doing their magic and paying close attention to their trigger fingers while they shoot, and it sure looks like they are slapping and jerking that trigger to me... But their guns are always rock solid steady, so I guess there's something to that concept.

Nice shootin' Tangle! Great post!

[atctimmy]

OK I may be showing my rear end but here goes.

I practice point shooting inside of 7 yards. Inside of 7 yards I concentrate on pulling the trigger nearly as fast as I can. Once you do this a few times you will find a rhythm.

I don't really look at the sights I just control the gun. I concentrate on "pointing" the gun in the right direction and I work the trigger as fast as I can.

In doing so I can put 3.5 to 4 rounds down range in a second while staying on target. My groups are about twice the size of what Tangle was shooting.

It's something all of you should try.

The danger here is that a squib is going to get you because there is no stopping once you're rolling. Your brain doesn't have the time to react to a squib before your next shot.

ETA: I got the idea to try this from watching Jerry M.

[RoadRunner71]

As long as the gun is on target, you will make combat accurate hits at short ranges (say less than 30 feet) no matter how you stroke the trigger. As you say, that is "gun control" or, rather, recoil management. I think that real speed shooting does require that you know, intimately, where your trigger resets, also.

Good video, Tangle.

[Tangle]

Guys, let's not turn this into another point shooting vs sight shooting thread. One can always shoot less accurate at faster speeds regardless of the method.

[sgb]

What is acceptable technique at 7 feet may not insure reliable hits at 7 yards and will certainly be disadvantageous at 17 & 27 yards. The fundamentals become less important as the distance decreases. As the distance decreases the acceptable room for error increases. What we should note is that under pressure one will subconsciously do what one has trained to do, if you've incorporated proper trigger control into your shooting you'll continue to do so and visa verse.

[Sturmruger]

I actually practice both for defensive carry. I spend more time with my Carry gun doing up close training. Then spend more time with my .22s working from 15 to 25 yards.

[atctimmy]

Guys, let's not turn this into another point shooting vs sight shooting thread. One can always shoot less accurate at faster speeds regardless of the method.

I wasn't really talking about the aiming method. I was talking about how I work the trigger. In case you missed it I was agreeing with you. It's about recoil management ("gun control") and not trigger control.

I've also found through lots of practice that there is a rhythm to it as well. After many, many rounds my muscle memory takes over and my finger just seems to know when to break the next shot. YMMV

[WHEC724]

I honestly learned gun-control vs. trigger control by studying Jerry Miculek. I was raised shooting rifles, and found that I stunk on ice with handguns.

The problem was that I was trying to shoot the handgun like a rifle (squeezing trigger).

Jerry puts 70% of the force holding the gun in his support hand. When you have it in a 'vice' like that, you can pretty much jerk the trigger as much as you want, and it's going to remain steady (I prefer the term 'press' the trigger). As you pointed out, when you're shooting fast, there is no time for finessing the trigger.

Now for slower fire (granted I'm no expert), I still prefer a quick trigger press, vs. a slow squeeze. I imagine that I'm using a staple gun, and 'pressing' the bullet onto the target. It works for me.

[Tangle]

I wasn't really talking about the aiming method. I was talking about how I work the trigger. In case you missed it I was agreeing with you. It's about recoil management ("gun control") and not trigger control.

I've also found through lots of practice that there is a rhythm to it as well. After many, many rounds my muscle memory takes over and my finger just seems to know when to break the next shot. YMMV

I'm with you atctimmy - I know we are in agreement - I just wanted to be sure everybody else was.

Yep, know exactly what you mean by rhythm fire - very fast if one can do it right.

[claude clay]

Tangle.....well done

thats about as good as it gets lock time with a glock.

and....nice use of the rhythm method

[Tangle]

Tangle.....well done

thats about as good as it gets lock time with a glock.

and....nice use of the rhythm method

Thanks, that's encouraging! Now you'll have to put up with more of this kind of stuff. Actually my goal is 2.5 shots per second on the three inch dot. I'm right at 2.4 shots per second, but not all are on the dot.

And I know what you're thinking - that half a shot every second is gonna be the hard one .

I may have implied something here that I didn't mean to. The method in the vid is not the rhythm method - are we still talking about shooting? Anyway, the method I'm using is sight driven. I.e. I shoot when my sight comes back on target.

R. Leatham explains this as watching your front sight. But what he means is a bit different than what I have learned about watching the sights. He says you watch your sight in your peripheral vision all the way through recoil and back down again. Easy for him to say!

I'm not there - my sight goes out of sight in recoil and I pick it back up on the way down somewhere.

I am improving though. In the beginning I noticed my sight was back on target and I was standing there looking at it instead of shooting. Now, I shoot when the sight is back on target. I have no idea what I'm doing about my rear sight - I can only think about one thing at a time apparently.

[RoadRunner71]

Sights, sights, too much about sights!

But, I'm with you. I am no expert either (far from it to be sure). In rapid fire, especially while moving, my focus is on the target (CoM). The sights, or index for the point shooters, briefly are out of my focus and then, as they come back into line, the next shot is fired and so on. I wish I could follow those sights like the pros do, but ..... I am only an egg. (A gold star for any who know that reference!)

[10thmtn]

Might be a bit of semantics, really. When I think of a "smooth consistent trigger pull" I am thinking of a trigger finger that moves independently of the rest of the hand. You can execute such quite rapidly. Where folks get thrown off target is when they jerk the trigger, and in so doing, they move or squeeze their hand - which throws off their aim.