Self-Test, to see if you are doing things correctly.

One thread that might be useful in this forum, is a list of things that can be done incorrectly, and a simple way to test.  For experts, who have already sorted it all out, this is trivial, but for ordinary mortals, maybe not so.


For example, I was watching  https://www.ssusa.org/articles/2017/1/31/a-clinic-on-precision-pistol-fundamentals-part-i/ which I assumed was the same as what Brian Enos posted in his series of on-line video training/tips.  Then he said something that I wondered about, regarding "grip"  Essentially, if the lower part of the backstop is resting against soft, fleshy part of the hand, there is nothing there to resist movement of the gun.  

So, I held my pseudo-gun like I have learned to do, picking gun up with left hand, and feeding it into my right hand.  Testing Brian's idea, I closed my hand tighter on the gun, then pushed with my left hand onto the lower part of the front, and gun visibly settled into my hand.  When I wrapped my hand a little more around the gun so the lower part of the backstop was resting against a more solid part of my hand (at the base of my thumb) that "sponge" effect mostly was greatly reduced.


I like tests like this, to see how well I'm doing things.  It's like in dry fire, where I close my eyes, and see how close the gun is to where I want it.

Here is one more, from last year.  While I was practicing trigger control, I had a thought.  I gradually applied pressure, then pretended I needed to abort the shot, and simply removed my finger from the trigger.  The gun moved to the side.  I thought that was interesting, so I spent half an hour playing with the concept.  

I came away from this understanding that while applying pressure to the trigger, if my trigger finger is not far enough through the trigger guard, my hand tends to "pushes" my gun to the left.  If I put my trigger finger too far through the trigger guard, that tends to push the gun to the right.  

I thought I got things sorted out eventually, but this was on another forum, and nobody else seemed to even care.  It's also before I got involved in this forum, and learned why it's the"joint" that needs to apply pressure to the trigger, not the "pad".

Regardless, it's an easy test to try - before the gun fires, just remove the finger from the trigger, and see if the sights change.  I don't know enough to say "what to do" if the gun moves, just that something needs to be done.

(What I did, was tried lots of different positions for hands, grip, fingers, etc, until the gun stayed put.)

Back when I started, a High Master suggested I dry fire down in the ready position and really watch the dot for movement (BEFORE INSERTING THE MAGAZINE). Adjust finger position until there wasn't any dot movement when the the hammer dropped.

This why people adjust their grip so that there is no or minimal movement when the trigger breaks. The grip determines the natural finger position in many if not all cases.

If your grip on the gun is different after a sustained fire string than it was before the string then your grip is wrong. Probably the position at the end is correct.