Originally Posted by __jb

I think I might need to adjust the way I am shooting. I hold the gun straight, but when it fires it seems to rise a lot in my hands. I sort of let the gun go its own way. I don't put any pressure on the gun to make it stay on target. Should I do that? I notice that good shooters seem to be able to hold the gun still and not let it rise in their hands.

Well first of all you should find what stance is most comfy for you. The two basic stances, Isosceles - stand facing your target, spread your feet shoulder width or slightly more apart and slightly bend knees, your hands will come out directly in front of you. Weaver - stand, facing your target, step back with your strong side/firing side so that you are at an approximate 45 degree angle to your target, then rotate on the balls of your feet until they are pointed at the target, your upper body will be almost squared to the target. Knees should be slightly bent, the front knee slightly more than the rear. Both hands on your pistol, kept centered between the sides of your body, then raise swinging straight up and find your sight picture pointed at your target.

Then you need to find what your comfortable grip position would be. GLOCKs are usually a little easier to control, because their design allows for a high hold, which puts your hand up closer to the bore axis(the absolute center line of the barrel from the muzzle to rear of the weapon), which makes it easier to control muzzle flip. You get your grip to where the web of you hand is tightly up against the grip radius or you can bring it down some. As I said, what ever is comfy for you, time will dictate.

Then, as for grip pressure and force. When applying grip pressure, grip the pistol with both hands and start to squeeze, you dont have to get white knuckle, just watch for the point when the pistol starts wiggling and then back off until its stops and thats all the grip pressure needed. Push out with the firing hand and pull in with the support hand, this force works in the same manner. Practice in your shooting stance, and put the pistol up like you are going to fire, get your grip pressure set and then start to add in the push/pull force. When the pistol starts to wiggle, slightly back off until it stops and thats where you'll need to be.

Experiment with these techniques to find what you like. I have used and taught many people using these techniques and so far I have never had a problem with anyone. Also, remember to take time with your trigger squeeze, dont jerk it (pardon the pun). The main objective of trigger squeeze is for it to surprise you. Take it slow, and dont anticipate. Position the meaty middle part of the tip of your trigger finger on the trigger. Anyways, I hope this helps. Happy Shootin! Boomer.

Oooo, Boomer paragraphs buddy. Para-graphs

Originally Posted by sfguard

Oooo, Boomer paragraphs buddy. Para-graphs

HAHA.. monster energy drink on my keyboard

Found a picture of that jam LOL




LOL

Originally Posted by sfguard

Oooo, Boomer paragraphs buddy. Para-graphs

OK bud, I fixed if for you. I was in the moment, and was never that good in English Class.

Originally Posted by Boomer

OK bud, I fixed if for you. I was in the moment, and was never that good in English Class.

Much gooder thank you Boomer

Originally Posted by rydd2

You got it there...practice and more practice. It will get better, by the way kudos on handling a problem SAFELY and figuring out what happened! Congrats on yer new toy..enjoy!
rydd2

Originally Posted by bearone2

good report

Thanks, guys...

It was fun just getting out there and shooting!

Originally Posted by Boomer

Well first of all you should find what stance is most comfy for you. The two basic stances, Isosceles - stand facing your target, spread your feet shoulder width or slightly more apart and slightly bend knees, your hands will come out directly in front of you. Weaver - stand, facing your target, step back with your strong side/firing side so that you are at an approximate 45 degree angle to your target, then rotate on the balls of your feet until they are pointed at the target, your upper body will be almost squared to the target. Knees should be slightly bent, the front knee slightly more than the rear. Both hands on your pistol, kept centered between the sides of your body, then raise swinging straight up and find your sight picture pointed at your target.

I didn't realize there were two different stances.

I use the Isoceles, except that I have never heard it called that before. I also lock my knees to keep from moving, or maybe it's just a reflex. I would think it might be harder to hold steady with my knees bent, but I'll try it.

Although I have never heard of the Weaver method either, it seems to make more sense to me. From a geometry standpoint, it would seem to be easier to control kick of the pistol if your feet were parallel to the pistol (or at 45 degrees). That way your back foot could brace against the kick more efficiently than if both feet were perpendicular to the pistol (parallel to the target).

Originally Posted by Boomer

Then you need to find what your comfortable grip position would be. GLOCKs are usually a little easier to control, because their design allows for a high hold, which puts your hand up closer to the bore axis(the absolute center line of the barrel from the muzzle to rear of the weapon), which makes it easier to control muzzle flip. You get your grip to where the web of you hand is tightly up against the grip radius or you can bring it down some. As I said, what ever is comfy for you, time will dictate.

As I shot more and more, I made a conscious effort to push my hand as far up on the grip as possible. I figured that the higher I got the top of my grip, the easier it would be to control the kick of the gun. Is that what you are calling "muzzle flip?"

Originally Posted by Boomer

Then, as for grip pressure and force. When applying grip pressure, grip the pistol with both hands and start to squeeze, you dont have to get white knuckle, just watch for the point when the pistol starts wiggling and then back off until its stops and thats all the grip pressure needed. Push out with the firing hand and pull in with the support hand, this force works in the same manner. Practice in your shooting stance, and put the pistol up like you are going to fire, get your grip pressure set and then start to add in the push/pull force. When the pistol starts to wiggle, slightly back off until it stops and thats where you'll need to be.

Another excellent tip. Thanks!

I have been trying to force the gun not to move... to sort of keep it exactly where it is while it fires. I am not able to do that because I don't know when it's going to fire. Consequently, the gun moves quite a bit when I fire. I'll try your method of pushing out with my firing hand and pulling with my support hand. That sounds like a good idea.

By the end of my range shoot, I did get better at determining when the gun was going to fire. I could sort of pull the trigger back a bit (almost halfway) in a hurry, knowing that it wouldn't fire for quite a ways yet. Then I seriously squeezed the trigger the rest of the way. Is that a bad thing to do?

The way I am shooting now, I am pretty accurate from short distances. I am much slower to get off a second shot than most people because it takes me quite a while to regain my site picture, re-aim, and pull the trigger.

Originally Posted by Boomer

Experiment with these techniques to find what you like. I have used and taught many people using these techniques and so far I have never had a problem with anyone. Also, remember to take time with your trigger squeeze, dont jerk it (pardon the pun). The main objective of trigger squeeze is for it to surprise you. Take it slow, and dont anticipate. Position the meaty middle part of the tip of your trigger finger on the trigger. Anyways, I hope this helps. Happy Shootin! Boomer.

I will take some notes on your comments along with me the next time I go to the range.

You have been a great help, Boomer. Thank you very much...

Originally Posted by sfguard

Oooo, Boomer paragraphs buddy. Para-graphs

OMG... A Fed and the Grammar Police...

You moonlighting, sf?

Originally Posted by sfguard

Found a picture of that jam LOL




LOL

Yep, that's eactly what it looked like.

Originally Posted by __jb

As I shot more and more, I made a conscious effort to push my hand as far up on the grip as possible. I figured that the higher I got the top of my grip, the easier it would be to control the kick of the gun. Is that what you are calling "muzzle flip?"

I have been trying to force the gun not to move... to sort of keep it exactly where it is while it fires. I am not able to do that because I don't know when it's going to fire. Consequently, the gun moves quite a bit when I fire. I'll try your method of pushing out with my firing hand and pulling with my support hand. That sounds like a good idea.

By the end of my range shoot, I did get better at determining when the gun was going to fire. I could sort of pull the trigger back a bit (almost halfway) in a hurry, knowing that it wouldn't fire for quite a ways yet. Then I seriously squeezed the trigger the rest of the way. Is that a bad thing to do?

The way I am shooting now, I am pretty accurate from short distances. I am much slower to get off a second shot than most people because it takes me quite a while to regain my site picture, re-aim, and pull the trigger.

Yes there are actually quite a few pistol shooting positions. You can do Isosceles or Weaver in an unsupported or supported manner. Then theres one handed positions, where you body will be almost if not perpendicular to your target or your body could face or be at an offset angle also. Kneeling supported/unsupported one or two handed. And there are a bunch of prone and laying positions.

The Kick is Recoil. It falls in line with Newtons' - For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Recoil is the opposing force created from the bullet leaving the barrel. Muzzle flip, muzzle rise or muzzle jump, is the upwards jump of the front end of the weapon, it has to do with bore axis. The shorter the bore axis distance, the less muzzle flip there will be as compared to a pistol with a longer bore axis. A good example of this would be to shoot a couple of mags through your 17 and then shoot a service length Springfield Armory XD9. The bore axis is longer on the XD and when I have shot that combo, except I was shooting a GLOCK 22 and service length XD40, I did notice a little more flip from the XD. The flip happens because your hand is lower than the center line of the bore, thus when you fire a round, the weapon wants to move straight back, but since you are holding the weapon below the center line of the barrel, the resulting action is for the gun to move back and up. Keeping a stiff wrist helps to quell the flip action.

This is where the term "Limp Wristing" comes in for GLOCKs. Because of their light weight, polymer frame design, and the blocky heavy weight slide, if you dont keep you wrist stiff enough during a shot, the force of the recoil flips your hand up so quickly and violently, the slide is unable to move through its entire cycle of motion. When this happens, your hand is moving up so fast, it is actually working to close the pistols action, not letting the slide travel all the way back causing FTF or FTE to occur. Like your Stove Pipe jam.

You could kinda compare it to an AR-15 platform weapon. Eugene Stoner designed the rifle so that the bore, recoil assembly and stock were in a straight line. Even though most of the stock is below the bore axis, when you shoulder the weapon, it will sit as close to center line of the bore as possible. This design was made so as to lessen muzzle rise, thats why 5.56/.223 M-16/AR-15 weapons dont jump as much when fired.

As far as GLOCK trigger pull, I have set and slowly pulled it just to get an idea of what it feels like. I have equated it down to 3 parts. First is the slack take up. Second is the tooth on the trigger bar depressing the safety plunger, and Third is the combination reward/downward motion force of the trigger bar applying pressure to the striker and the trigger bar being moved down by the connector.

For trigger control, just keep at a steady rate, moving your finger in a rearward pulling motion. Apply a steady increasing force to the trigger as its pressure increases, dont speed up, cause that can lead to trigger jerk which you dont want to get caught in. Keep a nice steady slow pulling pace, if your pull slows a little its OK. Just remember, take you time, go slow, even take in a couple breaths between shots until you get better.

Im glad to provide any advice. As I have said before, Id rather help any noob(not that you are one), regardless of their skill level, so that a shooter can have a good base of tools to learn from and become able and to know what they are doing, rather than just out there flailing around(not that you do). I can see that you are on the right track, and I hope that you keep on truckin'. Good luck, you will get there in time. Happy Shootin! Boomer.