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A high-hand grasp on a revolver. Note that the top edge of the gripframe is higher on the “hammerless” S&W Centennial (AirLite version shown), affording the shooter more control than a conventionally styled revolver. Note also the white-nailed “crush grip.”
The crush grip in action on a Kimber .45. Note that the fingernails have turned white from max-force gripping pressure.
Pick up a gun magazine with one or more stories on action shooting championships, and watch how the winners hold their guns. The webs of their hands will be riding high. Now you know why. The champions know what so many other shooters have missed.
Lost Secret #3: The Crush Grip
In target pistol shooting, light holds are in vogue. The bull’s-eye shooter is taught to let her pistol just rest in her fingers with no real grasp at all as she gently eases the trigger back. The IPSC shooter is taught to apply 60 percent strength with the support hand and 40 percent with the firing hand (occasionally the reverse, but 50 percent of available hand strength in any case).
Common sense tells us this will not do for a fight. For one thing, it is dexterity intensive, and dexterity is among the first things we lose in a fight-or-flight state. For another, the genuine fight you are training for always entails the risk of an opponent attempting to snatch your gun away. We know that action beats reaction. If you’re holding your handgun lightly or with only half your strength and it is forcibly grabbed or struck, it will probably be gone from your grasp before you can react. But if you have conditioned your hand to always hold the gun with maximum strength, you have a better chance to resist the attack long enough to react, counter with a retention move, and keep control of your firearm.
A third tremendous advantage of a hard hold, one that world champion Ray Chapman always told his students, is that it’s the ultimate consistency in hold. “40 percent hand strength” is one thing in the relatively calm environment of the training range. It’s something else when you’re at a big match shooting for all the marbles, and it’s something a league beyond that when you’re fighting for your life. One effect of fight or flight response is that as dexterity goes down, strength goes up precipitously. Even in target shooting, marksmanship coaches agree that a consistent hold is a key element of consistent shot placement. There are only two possible grasps that can be guaranteed to stay truly consistent: no pressure at all, or maximum pressure.
The front sight is the key to good hits. In close, even an image like this, well above the rear sight, will put the shot where it needs to go.
A fourth big advantage for the crush grip is that it prevents “milking.” When one finger moves, the other fingers want to move with it. The phenomenon is called “interlimb response.” As the trigger fingers tighten, so do the grasping fingers, as if they were milking a cow’s udder, and this jerks the shot off target, usually down and to one side. But if the fingers on the gripframe (NOT the trigger finger!) are already squeezing as hard as they can, they can’t squeeze any more when the index finger separately pulls the trigger, and milking is thus made impossible.
Finally, the hard hold better controls recoil. If you had me by the throat and were holding me against a wall, and I was struggling, would you relax your grip or hold harder? The harder you hold me against the wall, the less I can move. Similarly, the more firmly you grasp your gun, the less it will move in recoil, in terms of both overall gun movement and the stocks shifting in your hand.
Detractors of the concept call this “gorilla grip,” and warn that it interferes with delicate movement of the trigger finger and can cause small tremors. Those of us who advocate crush grip answer, “So what?” Delicate manipulation of the trigger disappears once the fight is on. The hands are going to tremble under stress anyway, and the shooter might as well get used to it up front in training. If the sights are kept in line, the gun’s muzzle won’t tremble off a target the size of a human heart.
Lost Secret #4: Front Sight
The most precise, almost surgical, accuracy comes when the eye focuses on the front sight, with the rear sight in secondary focus and target in tertiary focus.
Every marksman who is accomplished with open sights remembers the day he or she experienced “the epiphany of the front sight.” The phrase “watch your front sight” doesn’t mean just have it in your field of view. It doesn’t mean just be aware of it. It means focus on it as hard as possible, making sure it’s on target, and that it’s not moving off target as you stroke the trigger. Pistol champions and gunfight survivors alike have learned that this is the key to center hits at high speed under pressure.
As discussed in the chapter on point shooting, you don’t need the perfect sight picture of the marksmanship manual. But remember that the handgun is a remote control drill, and it must be indexed with where we want the hole to appear, or the hole will appear in the wrong place. The sights, at least the front sight in close, will be the most reliable such index.
A smooth roll of the trigger becomes more critical as the shooting problem becomes more difficult. With the 11-ounce .357, double-action, and weak-hand-only, you can be sure the author is focusing on this trigger stroke.
Lost Secret #5: Smooth Roll
A smooth, even, uninterrupted roll of the trigger, as discussed in the last chapter, is critical if the shooter is going to break the shot without jerking it off target.
Note that the last two elements, “front sight” and “smooth trigger roll,” are not listed as “to the lines of secrets four and five, prior.” This is because it’s debatable whether they are really lost secrets, and if so, who lost them. Every competent instructor will teach the students how to use the sights and how to bring the trigger back. The problem is, these things are very easy to forget until the student develops the discipline to first think about doing them, and then finally ingrain the concepts through repetition so they are done automatically. Power stance. High hand. Crush grip. Front sight.
Smooth roll. I try to go through it in my mind like a preflight checklist before I even reach for the gun.
You don’t even have to think about it all at once. As soon as you know there may be a stimulus to draw the gun, slip into a power stance. It might be a thug giving you the bad eye as you wait for a bus, or it might be that you’re on the range awaiting the “commence fire” signal. If you’re in the position to start, you don’t have to think about it any more.
Condition yourself to always begin the draw by hitting the high hand position. Once it’s there, it’s done and you don’t have to think about it any longer.
Crush grip? I tell my students to think of the eagle’s claw. When the eagle sleeps, it does not fall from its perch because its claws automatically clutch it with a death grip. If we condition ourselves to do this whenever we hold the gun, it’ll happen on its own when we need it without us having to think about it.
Power stance…high hand…crush grip…front sight…smooth roll. Recover these “lost secrets” and apply them…and watch your combat handgun skill increase.