The more we talk about grip the worse it gets
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
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Secret process to grip:
1. See fast shooters on TH-cam
2. TH-cam how to shoot fast
3. Watch 10 recoil control videos
4. All say the problem is: grip
5. Hyper focus on grip
6. Try to apply newly learned info at the range
7. No success
8. Search more videos. Finally think you stumbled on the “secret tip”
9. Repeat steps 5-8 (20 times or so) - using the scientific process to isolate the logical variable in your grip.
10. Stumble across Ben/Hwansik/Jerry/Yong Lee who all say “I dunno, I don’t really do much but hold the gun”
11. Focus on other things like vision
12. Improve
13. Full circle understanding of grip
14. Improve grip now that other fundamentals are aligned (the ACTUAL variables)
15. Feel personally attacked by this comment.
Ding ding ding 🛎️ 😂 so simple but sometimes the 5-8 is a forever process 😂
Well put btw 👏🏼
I was talking #3-7 with a buddy who's at #10 and was just flabbergasted. Good shooters literally don't think about this.
@@spamin8r ya it becomes something that just happens it’s the only way you grab a gun 😂 all depends on what info your getting and what your doing
How fucking DARE you. /Jk.
Also optional step 16 is buy a px4 and just avoid barrel flip altogether.
"Free your mind and your ass will follow" applies to an astonishing number of things.
Great tip for your next prostate exam. I’m sure that was your #1 idea.
George Clinton. Good thoughts bad thoughts
It's me, I am the overthinker, and exactly as you said, I did focus on minute details in hopes that "another simple trick" will fix my grip. At the end of the day I noticed that I shoot better when I don't think at all and just do the thing. It is especially noticeable during stages where I don't have time to consciously control all of the things I thought were important for a proper grip.
💯
“You can’t think and hit at the same time” (Yogi Berra, hall of fame baseball player and coach).
Same
The words “feel” and “predictable”cannot occupy the same sentence and be true.
Exactly...
Spent the last two days on the range. New to working the Ben Stoeger material. Grip and Vision Focus have been my focus for the last couple weeks. Crushing support hand and specifically look at a specific part of the target. Its not completely at my command yet, but when its there, its so simple. When its not, its very complicated! Stoeger and those associated with him are finding what really matters.
That’s what we are trying to do
Definitely been in a class where accuracy degrades horribly after the instructor teaches some grip method from another dimension. And then proceeded to encourage an entire class to keep doing it. Weird times in the training world.
@userJohnSmith I stepped away from classes for a long time also. Recently I am seeing some places that I may be on the same page with. I’d like to check out valor ridge and a Ben Stoeger class in 2024
"It's like trying to explain the color pink to a blind person"
THANK YOU
Jesus Christ I don't know what your grip feels like, or Vogel's, or Racaza's, because those hands aren't attached to my arms. I've gone down this rabbit hole so many times and at the end of the day what works for me, is doing what works for me. I'll never be at the level of shooting you guys are because that's not my job - I just want to be consistent and proficient.
Awesome vid. I’m a tinkerer and want to constantly improve for sure but overtime I landed basically what you said. Good form, consistent grip and let the gun jump back into zero. Simplifying is the best form of teaching
Soooooo, I, in fact, DON'T need to spend countless hours researching the Master Grip on TH-cam. All of the grip talk and technique reminds me of the first time as a kid hearing tales of the "mythical" G Spot or thinking your parents had it all figured out when they raised you. Thank you for this. Very refreshing take. Instantly make ls my next range trip more relaxing.
Bro, the G spot is real. It's more easily hit when going doggy. If you're going missionary you need an to come in from a downwards angle pointing upwards.
@@paddypibblet846 hahahahahaha... It seemed like such a mystery as youngster, lol. Not so much when you get under the hood.
@@MrBhcole holy hell my comment actually got posted?!? Lol. I thought the algorithm wouldn't allow it hahahaha
Lmfao. This is a great little thread…
When I stopped thinking I had to hold it extra tight to control the recoil and let things move more fluid and relaxed things improved greatly and the dot would reset super consistent.
That happened for the first time a few days ago for me.
Wow, spot on! I remember going home after shooting classes, and being exhausted from the instructor constantly saying “grip harder” and then my shooting got worse. Ben makes so much more sense than any instructor I’ve had, brilliant!
This immediately reminded me of the, “Tiger Woods makes golf swing simple” video where it starts with a few tips and then turns into a hundred things to think about.
Not trying to control my recoil in my pistol has absolutely changed everything about the way I shoot
Yeah I’ve never heard that before and I think it’s going to be a game changer.
It’s the same as any hobby or sport. The world is full of dudes that want an analyzed, engineered solution to a human problem-and full of secret sauce methods (to buy or sell). It’s why the signal-to-noise ratio on forums is so insane.
They want someone to tell them “70/30, crush grip, pinky pressure, and gas pedal the support thumb.“ That way, they can shortcut past all the expensive, time-consuming, ammo-burning experience of shooting enough to find and burn in their best grip. Why train to find YOUR grip when someone else can describe “THE” grip so simply?
It’s like a golf swing. Technical perfection isn’t a realistic goal-repetitive consistency is. It is a marketable goal, but not a real one. If your golf swing is technically imperfect, but perfectly repeatable over thousands of thoughtful repetitions, then you can control where the ball goes.
Check out Charles Barkley and his golf swing, but, not a bad golfer.
@@Rubeless Barkley’s swing should be studied by scientists.
He doesn’t have much of a brain.
Isn't there a golfer who broke his arm and then couldn't keep his arm straight, but he just mastered the new biomechanics?
Looked it up, Calvin Peete. Broke his arm as a child and it didn't heal properly. So he kept the arm position consistent relative to the torso during the swing.
I remember in one of your videos you said hold the gun tight enough so it doesn’t move in your hands and lock the wrist stiff enough so the muzzle flip is consistent. Simple yet so damn easy to follow. I believe it was the video with you and Matt pranka
Every class video
In other words…, “learn the way, then forget the way, then find your own way”. Thanks coach👊🏼
just starting out and grip is immediately a wall for me to break through. i’ve read and watched everything there is to try and form my own technique but it still changes day to day with what i might be thinking about that day to focus on. So hearing you say that there is no secret and that you just need to work it out for yourself and not think about it too harshly gives me some relief.
This is such a refreshing take on shooting. Stop trying to control the uncontrollable and focus on what is in your control. I love it, I wish this video had been out a couple of years ago before I wasted tons of time and lots of money trying to chase down the perfect gun/grip combination out there because so-and-so on TH-cam said this is the way to go. I was on this 1 1/2 to 2 year long journey of doing that due to various TH-camrs I watch, and in some cases now it is use to watch. I shot Glocks pretty darn well but the retired Navy Seal or Green Beret I was watching said he switched from Glock to Sig because of this reason or that, so I got rid of my Glock and bought a Sig and found I did not shoot that any better. Then some other TH-camr said he switched to Wilson Combat from Glock because it was the best out there, and like an idiot I got rid of my Sig and bought a Wilson Combat only to come to the same conclusion. I spent thousands, literally thousands of dollars over that time frame just to find I don’t shoot anything else as good as I shoot a Glock. The same with grip. I’ve tried the Modern Samurai stuff, and others methods and it just made me shoot worse. And then a while back it hit me that many of these TH-camrs have Patreon supporters who pay them money to buy guns and ammo to test and do videos on, so these guys have to do these videos if they want to continue to receive that money from their supporters. One guy I used to watch, and I won’t say his name, did a video on the Glock 19x when it first came out and he trashed the hell out of it. Then a few years later he did another video on it because his Patreon supporters had been asking to do one, and he did another video on it acting as if it was the first time he was shooting it, and he gave it a really positive review! That’s when I decided I was done with all of this crap and just shoot what I like and how I like. I just wish I had spent all that money on ammo and didn’t get rid of the Glocks I had for years. Live and learn, but, like I said, I wish this video had been out then.
this is helpful. it might have been even more helpful if i had heard it when i first started shooting and was trying something new every single week looking for the key that would fix everything.
Indeed. I’ve allowed myself to go down this bottomless pit several times. Thanks for the thoughts on the issue.
New to shooting: came for the drama stayed for the incredible coaching.
This is the kind of instruction that is hard to appreciate or understand until you are in the weeds of seriously improving. Thanks Ben.
Saw a video from Tu Lam on how to grip, like 6 years ago. Started shooting better and haven’t worried about it since.
I've been struggling with this for a few months--overthinking all the oppositional schools of thought, that is. Thank you!
Great video! Thanks! Im a relatively new competitive shooter (2 years) and in my journey this video would have been super helpful right at the beginning.
I did find that I needed to work on my grip for 3 things along the way, none of them were recoil control.
1. Consistency (in both draw and transitions.
2. Trigger control, that is not disrupting the sights with other parts of my hand while pulling the trigger
3. Excessive, reactionary pinky pressure when shooting through a string that caused my shots to drop toward 6 oclock the more rounds I fired.
I have listened to you on this topic before. I want consistency. The only way you’re going to get that is to find it in live fire. My consistency comes from shooting more and experiencing it. Now my grip is fine. I found out what works best for me. Its a combination of what all of you teach but its geared toward me.
Here's what Im getting from this:
1. Successful shooters grip very differently from one another.
2. Its nigh impossible to communicate the feeling of gripping the pistol to someone else.
3. With any of the reasonable grip methods, consistency is everything.
4. The only way to develop consistency is to paying attention to grip while shooting.
Most of my questions are some form of "really though?"
Does this advice apply across all skill levels?
Assuming consistency, is there a split time that would differentiate between reasonable grip and unreasonable?
How would I know if I'm not gripping hard enough?
I will try putting all this aside next range trip and shoot only for consistency.
On the second to last one. If the pistol moves without the hands moving too, losing contact with the trigger guard is what I've heard. But to see that you need a trainer, buddy or a camera with high frame rate and a range that lets you film.
People at lower skill levels need this advice most of all. If we take “consistent, predictable, and doable” as the standard for a good grip, lower-skilled folks will have only some (or none) of those adjectives apply to their grips.
An easy example is someone whose grip falls apart halfway into a bill drill - the first three shots might be in a nice cluster, but 4 and 5 would get thrown into the C-zone high or low left before 6 goes back into the middle of the A-zone. The grip is predictable and consistent enough, but it just isn’t durable enough.
You absolutely nailed this one, ive been shooting for 4 years now here in the Netherlands with a G34 and I have often noticed when I start to put my brain on certain aspects of technique that I saw in videos it all goes sideways. Most of the time my first 6 rounds of the day are the best, last week I casually put 6 in the 10 at 25yds and it all went downhill from there as I started thinking about stuff.
Glad I saw this. Consist, predictable, repeatable. The simplest things are the most difficult. Thank you Ben.
Ben, these videos are gold. Keep them coming. Much appreciated.
I usually get some grip spray or grip chalk to help me get the grip I want. Then eventually it became like second nature. Great information.👍🏽
Thanks Ben. Dry fire here I come
The problem with talking about grip is the fact that everyone talking about it, says that you should do it “this exact way” but everyone’s way is slightly different. Everyone seems to agree on basic things like thumbs forward and get your grip up as high as you can. But they disagree on things like how hard you grip. Some instructors say grip it hard and others say don’t grip it hard. As a new pistol shooter, it feels like you get pulled in multiple directions which can lead to inconsistent results.
You are the one of the first ones Ive heard saying to just make sure it’s consistent.
I just learn so much and appreciate the little tips you give. God bless you!
“Consistency is key…”
Hearing this takes a lot of weight off my concious lol. seeing all these vids about "the new best grip technique" can be very overwhelming especially when they start talking about isolating specific fingers like you mentioned.
Your approach is refreshing. No fancy crap just common sense.
Man this video really speaks to me. The less I think and the more I feel the better I get. I think the issue is that I often don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.
Well said and thank you! I was getting tripped up on this and realized I performed better when relaxed and not rushing through the stage...
This video is great info. Don’t over complicate the grip. My support thumb presses into the gun and I’m working on fixing it.
Thanks Ben! Just took a terrible 3 day class on Aiwb & red dot. Has a super secret special grip “the wave”. I started out shooting 10 rds making one hole, ended making 10 scatrered holes. Left on the 3rd day after morning Instruction. Totally disgusted. Sucks when you realize you’ve just been hustled. Back to the drawing board. Have been working on dot torture, been successful at 3 & 5 yards. Working on 7 yd DT up to 45/50. Some friends recommended your practical shooting training book. I ve had some good trainers/ instructors but better than 50 % not so much.
Msp gets another one
That’s very logic and realistic explanation
I grip the hell out of it and my spread is 1-3 inches vs the weak grip and I have 3-6 inches of spread. You absolutely need to control the recoil and grip the hell out of it.
Thanks for this. I have smaller hands and some shoulder injuries that make some suggested grips and stances physically painful. Sometimes you have to adapt to whatever works for you.
thank you man, im one of those that picked up lil things here and there and went a whole season overthinking my entire process. your videos help alot.
I like your philosophy. Stumbled on you looking at something else and I like what I heard.
Very helpful. Your approach helps a lot.
Most instructors don't shoot at a high level and can't teach students how to shoot at a high level. So instead they spend their time talking about grip like there is some kind of secret technique to it.
I think being sight focused is a huge part of this too, as that will always give you the idea of too much recoil and over awareness of what the guns doing
I’ve slowly started to move away from that and have noticed when focusing on the target and waiting for the gun/sights cross my eyes then shooting I do a lot better and faster then when focusing on the sights and waiting for the target to cross my vision.
Also everything you talked about here is true of my experience, been down every rabbit hole with “this is THE thing that’s gonna make me control the gun better”and usually I’ll have a range day or two where I feel good and then it all falls apart and I’m looking for the next thing, I’ve gotten to a point where I had like 6 different techniques I’m constantly switching between and only one that I default to when drawing that I’m trying to get away from as it keeps my slide from locking and sometimes causes malfunctions when I put pressure into the slide.
I also tried just mimicking your grip and determined it was even worse for control however after a later reassessment and actually learning about everything that goes into the way you shoot a handgun and testing it with just ten rounds I was sold on your techniques. Just need to train them in now.
So as far as what to tech grip wise, I’d say this:
Keep it simple, consistent, and tight.
Make sure the gun cannot slip from either hand
Make sure it fast and easy to form from the draw
Make sure it doesn’t put pressure on controls or the slide
Don’t focus on the sights or recoil of the gun
Focus on the target and taking a shot when then gun returns to your eyes
Flex arms and wrists for additional control
Stay away from downwards pressure or other anticipations
And lastly, remind everyone that your not gonna be a speed demon out of the gate, so take your time focusing on a good consistent grip rather than trying every technique out there to make the gun shoot flat
I shoot a p229 in carry optics. When I started to stop trying to stop the recoil of the gun and just getting real consistent with my grip and getting a consistent return to target with my sights my shooting improved
I've been exploring the "Active Support System" for my grip. It's a complicated convoluted process of white knuckle pressure and rolling into the grip and pretending to isolate fingers etc. It's nice to know that the "keep it simple stupid" KISS method is better. Im going to apply the KISS to my ASS method now and hopefully my solo time at home will get better.
Great video!
its not about full control per se, like he said dont stop it from climbing up. its about placing sights on target/getting it back to shoot as efficiently as possible. elasticity over rigidness. at least that how I see it. Just hold it without fumbling it and let it go back.
Finally someone who talks about grip and don’t over complicate it
consistent, predictable, durable
Thanks, Ben!
Thanks for this video Ben clears lot of things up. I want to have my grip be repeatable and generally the same across all handguns. When you start adding different pressures it’s hard to be consistent. I am having trouble with vision though I can’t really track my shots as I shoot faster.
I’m glad I came across your TH-cam channel 🤙🏻👍🏻
I just came here to say after months and months of overthinking and trying to find “the right grip”
I relaxed my firing hand with about half the pressure than I thought I needed and just clamped my support hand to the side panel then the bullets started going where I was looking… 👀
spot on big stoegy
Great explanation! It took me a LONG time to realize this!
Thank you for this video sir!! I'm new and I've never heard this philosophy but I totally understand it now
Thank you very much Ben. This, and all of your videos with training tips and philosophies, are really helpful. Stuff like this is gold. I'm grateful.
Good video thanks! More isn't always more yes sir. Repeatability and consistency seem like the correct method.
I’ve been told to use my pinky finger pressure to help with muzzle rise. After a couple strings of fire I decided it was not effective. But I was thinking it was because my pinky was too weak and everyone else’s was strong 😅
Another great video from "The King" 🤣 Thank you for the explanation. Thinking about the grip can defiantly F?1% with you.
Thank God, I came to this conclusion as well. Tried out all sorts of stuff with forcing pressure and hand position but ended up just going back to just holding the gun how it felt right and shooting it. Doesn't even matter since I shoot a heavy chunk shadow 2.
Hakuna matata. Loosely translated it means “no worries”. 😂 Good stuff as always Ben.
This was excellent
Larry Vickers mentioned that he only worries about accuracy, and so when I dry fire my red dot I just try to keep that dot as still as possible, and that’s how I try to grip at the range. I just don’t even worry at all about recoil, but instead I just worry about accuracy, and for me that took so much pressure off my self conscious mind.
Got over my grip today. By staying target focused. 🤙
What really worked for me was focusing much less on how I held the gun and focusing more on the alignment of the front sight (without focusing on the rear sights) while pulling the trigger. By doing so I found my shots were much more consistent and grouped better. I has throwing shots everywhere when I focused on sight-alignment. Seems counterintuitive, but it worked for me.
Great conclusion 👌🏻
3:52
Yes! I’m 39, and have been shooting since I was a child. HOWEVER…. I’m left handed. I have always dug into my pistol when I shot it. But now, with the ambi controls on my H&K VP9 and a CZ P10S, I can’t get the slide to lock back on the last shot. I’ve dug in so much all my life, but only now am I having to deal with controls on the same side as my thumbs haha!
Love how your always cut thru the crap!
Thank you Sensei.I have been watching your channel 6+months.At the time i was shooting for some time.Thought I was more than a novice.Started watching and absorbing and bang!bang! The lights went on.Now i truely feel i know what i am doing.Simple Ben rule"Follow the concepts "to mention focus on a spot on the target"gold"I am a iron sight shooter and works like magic for me..." The mouse goes where I look.Thank you Ben
Best grip video I’ve seen.
I think the only grip advice that helped was more final position based. First step is “v grip” or put the backstrap high in the meaty “v” of your thumb and index finger. Next step is “hammer grip”, or wrapping the fingers around the grip, like youre holding a hammer. The gun should be an extension of your hand. Third is to point your thumb of your empty off hand towards the target and angle your wrist slightly down. Then being the pistol up to your offhand. That should be the position youre shooting from. Everything else in terms of pressure is preference. Just be consistent and try not to develop habits that are errorprone like applying some amount of pressure in X way. When you have to stitch a target groin to grin, the more complicated you make it, the more errors you will make
Very well said!
Yeah. The more you shoot the gun. The more you get to be consistent with it. When I shoot my Glock19 it looks super flat but it's simply because I am so comfortable with it that its consistent. When I started shooting with it, I was death gripping it to make it shoot flatter. Which never worked.
Low key jab at Lena😅😂😅😂😅😂
Definitely agree!
Great information
Rob Leatham always said something similar. He just says he holds the gun with both hands with reasonable pressure/strength. He doesn't overthink the 30/70 or any of that. He's more interested in the trigger pull and the sights.
For me it’s the whole in flight reset when a slide or the weapons cyclic rate happens faster than the brain can react to the gun firing, people think that can put pace the cyclic rate of a pistol but I honestly don’t think so, cats have a better reaction to timing than humans and a lot of people fall into the category of reaction times if the beep is .3 tenths of a second and a lot of people are at .2 if they are mentally training reaction times, some weapons cycle faster than that, help me try to figure out the correct way to spell this out lol, love you Ben you have been an amazing and integral part of my progression but I’m also tired of hearing people say in flight reset when I don’t believe people can actually outpace the cyclic rate lol great video by the way
GOLDEN RULES of GRIP TECHNIQUE:
1. get a gun that fits your hand
2. get a grip texture that grips your hand
3. practice until your dot doesn't move
You should do a video chatting with a golf pro. Exact same kind of thing, where you try to focus on a single little technique like applying pinky pressure on the grip and thinking it'll change everything and yada yada some nuance
That 'giving the finger nugget' of the other video helps when I mess with the pressure.
Can you do a video on how to regrip when you noticed it falls apart to not put some training scars in the basket on the clock? Some metric on how long a grip can be maintained during a string?
Found your videos a few days ago, struggling with consistency after a reload and trying to not muscle it down EDIT: The pinky thing is my current *secret tip* hope im close to the 20 soon hahaha
Found the same thing in racquetball. When I thought about how to do a kill shot I struggled. When I was playing and letting my body figure it out they'd just roll off the front wall.
Hey Ben, apologies if you've covered this before but since you're on the topic I'd like to hear your opinion on thumb rests. I've noticed the popularity of slide-stop replacement thumb rests has kinda skyrocketed this year, especially as the Limited Optics division grows. I started using them on my 2011s just to try it out and found that it helps with building a consistent grip as it adds another contact/index point, but sometimes also feel like its a bit extra and gets in the way. It also makes it more difficult when moving to another platform. I ended up getting the TEVO one for my Shadow 2 so that I can have a similar grip when shooting CO, but i've been on the fence about just removing all of them all together to not continue to build off a bad habit.
Grip I feel I’ve found a comfortable and repeatable grip. Something I’ve been rabbit holing recently is my arms and wrists. Been working on trying to achieve solid wrist lockout. I’ve found holding the gun out a little further with less bend in my elbows and trying to lock wrists I’ve been able to significantly reduce recoil and my dot is landing almost exactly where I left it.
I was seeing all these shooters with what appears to be significant bend in their elbows, I dont completely lock out but I’ve started trying this, when looking back at videos of me shooting its night and day if I hold the gun out a little further and try and tilt my wrists down then flatten the gun by a tiny bend in elbows
The best tip for recoil control and grip I have ever been given was "Chill my dude. Just hit the target and relax, guns gonna do what it does. As long as it's hit'n where you're point'n and when you want it to, S'all good." While that might sound like hippy wisdom, it came from a retired SEAL that was in GWOT. That man helped me shoot so much better by telling me that lol. Turns out (for me at least) the less I try to tard wrangle my Glock, the better I shoot. No think, head empty, just shoot.
For me recoil is gripping tight enough so the gun doesn't move. Wrist stiffness limits flip, but then the arms want to move upwards so a bit of shoulder stiffness stops that. Then slight tension in the elbows brings it all together so it's like a car suspension. The gun just comes back seemingly on its own without me feeling like I'm fighting recoil or having to drive the gun back down during recoil.
Gold !
Yup kinda like a golf swing really. Find your way and stick with it 👍🏻🇺🇸
I found that too short a trigger reach makes getting a consistent grip hard. Muzzle does weird things unless I really focus on the pull.
Don’t really agree.. I’ve been trying to stop shooting low left for years… I’ve tried ever grip there is until someone finally noticed my dominate hand wasn’t behind the gun…. Second thing we finally figured out was my weak side palm wasn’t really on the weapon…!! By getting behind the weapon and focusing on my palm contact which is nothing more than bring elbows in, I am shooting dead on ! Now working on the consistency of grabbing the weapon correctly and getting the support hand in place consistently… which I 100% agree is critical… but my grip had to be corrected before anything else could progress. Your a pro no doubt,, but if the first step of ladder is flawed, you will not be able to go to the next step bc you keep falling
This, 💯
I realized I couldn't manage a two handed grip without overcomplicating it, so I switched to doing one handed only and my accuracy and consistency is night and day compared to before. I know that it's not "right", but I'm just a defensive shooter
The pistol I have is not the pistol I want. The grip feels too small for me to get good contact with my support hand. This pistol doesn’t have adjustable grips.
Am I going to have to completely rework my grip once I get a pistol that fits me better?
All thoughts welcome.
In my hobbies, I tend to overthink and overanalyze. It is counterproductive and can make one go mad 😂
How about 1 handed? When i was doing the course for my CCW they taught us to hook the thumb and push hard against the side of the gun