Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Heh! Is this what they got at Blackwater?

All the lucky Gun Bloggers that got selelcted to go to Blackwater and train with Todd Jarrett might have instruction like this:



Looks like some good info even in that little blurb, but I'll have the participants elaborate.

Like the hand-marking noted in Sharp as a Marble

Listen carefully what he says about putting the pad of the trigger finger on the trigger. He doesn't want 'influence' from the knuckle farther back and "allow that 7 o'clock push at times." (3:25ish in)

Heh. I'm a '5 o'clock push at times.' You'd expect that for a left hander.

Even Breda tells me: "But I think you might be using too much finger on the trigger. (for where the shots go off to the right) Slow down and use only your fingertip on the trigger. This will help you squeeze straight back instead of yanking it."

So Todd knows my trouble, BREDA knows my trouble, even deep down, I know my trouble. And now my pistol range is closed for remodelling, so no application of new concepts. Sheesh. All the luck.



Update: Dammit! How come they change the embed code OVERNIGHT on these video sites. It's no END to annoying. I hope it's fixed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I got some first-hand tips from the blackwater trainees.

I'm left-handed too so any righties reading this should reverse everything.

One of the things they told me is to rotate the grip so that, the barrel is directly in alignment with the bones of the stronghand forearm.

For me, that means I have to rotate my grip slightly. Looking down from the top, I have to rotate my hand counter clockwise slightly from my normal grip.

This does three things that I notice immediately: More of my palm is behind the grip, more of the right side of the grip is exposed because my fingers have rotated more to the front of the grip, and my trigger finger is now not capable of going past the tip because the rotation effectively shortened the reach of the finger.

The next step is the support hand. That newly exposed portion of the grip on the right side? Your support hand palm should be in contact with that area.

With the gun in the strong hand grip described above, stretch your support arm out. Angle your hand downward until the tendons at the top of the wrist are strained. Without changing the angle, press the palm of your support hand against the right side of the grip that is exposed, wrap your support hand fingers around your strong hand fingers. Both thumbs should be pointed at the target.

On the 1911, they said to put your strong hand thumb on top of the safety, but my Ruger doesn't have one so that's a little different for me.

This grip should be used in the isosceles stance.

They also said that a common instruction was "hold it 20% tighter". So the grip should be nice and firm.

I haven't tried it at the range yet, but after I do, if it works for me, I'll post on it on my blog complete with pictures.

Mike W. said...

As a fellow lefty I too suffer from the 5 O'clock push at times.

Thanks for the description of Todd's grip advice. I'm going to try it out.