Really sound advice. I had a USMC shooting instructor that had a similar mentality: That firearms are devices and operate a specific way when they receive specific inputs. The firearm is mass produced uniformity and completely dependent on a shooter for everything, so the wild card in how the firearm functions is the shooter. Shooters will all vary in hand size, dexterity, strength, finger length, or can have a history of a hand injury that can make it hard to use a certain part of your finger. Advice that works for others might not work for you, so you have to experiment. He helped me qualify as a rifle expert by showing me a prone shooting technique when you bend a leg and keep the other straight. Because of my torso proportions and the principle of stability, it worked for me.
“Focus on the principles behind the technique rather than the technique itself.” I love that. I switched from Glocks to Berettas and the first thing I noticed was I shot ‘hard to reach’ double action triggers with more precision. That was an eye opener for me to realize I do better by using just the very tip of my trigger finger rather than the middle of the digit.
I tried for a while trying to fire my revolver with the center of my finger pad and I just could not keep the sight steady due to the trigger being a long pull. Once I placed the trigger right behind the first bend, the sights stopped moving. That is when I realized that I may have to adjust my finger placement on different guns.
Absolutely. A double action revolver pull necessitates more of an alignment around the crease for me too, as you've got a lot more weight too, so smooth pull depends on getting a little more leverage. Pistol seems to be more mid pad for me.
This is outstanding shooting advice. Nearly 95% of videos I’ve watched on TH-cam focus a whole lot more on techniques. A lot of times(as you mentioned), different people have different techniques. Knowing that your technique is also important, it’s good to realize WHY you want to practice good technique…and knowing the principle behind why you honing your techniques makes everything easier to understand. Great job!
Superb demo, Sir. I am a 80 plus Senior Citizen-actually an old Museum Piece in great health- who has been getting all kinds of conflicting grip advice, etc., I continue to hit targets at around 10 o'clock...Shooting right handed. In any event, as far as we can tell it's my trigger placement that's the issue. Been using the first pad of my finger and then the first finger cress...Still shooting high right. Will try your technique.
Army doctrine uses the digital joint to contact the face of the trigger. We preach Straight to the Rear. Which digital joint is up to the shooter, based on their individual hand size.
I understanding what your saying however finger placement depends a lot of the grip as everyone's hand size, finger length is different. This is what actually allow for a straight trigger pull to the rear as well as being able to keep your sights properly aligned during trigger press.
I appreciate this video. A lot of men try to push their "techniques" onto you as if it were law without understanding our anatomies and strategies can differ. I use the first pad of my finger and keep it straight. That works for best for me.
For me, finger placement does matter. After seeing this video I pulled out my S&W 380 Bodyguard, unloaded it and tried the different positions. What I found using the first finger bend on the center of trigger was that my finger impacted the magazine release area before the hammer released. While this method may work on a larger handgun, I wouldn’t recommend learning to shoot in a way that doesn’t work on all of your firearms. Middle of finger pad on center of trigger is the best method.
Me reminding myself straight to the rear really helped. I was confused about squeezing the trigger for walk some folks. After this video my shots are a lot less jerky
You're absolutely right that being a student of the gun,tactical shooting or whatever you want to call it is a martial art! This is something I've said many times,once in a while I'll get a quizzical look & that's usually someone who hasn't broken down the barriers yet. But getting back to the point,yeah,all you have to do is squeeze the trigger w/out altering the attitude of the gun. Doesn't matter what gun but that's it. Now that's easier said than done & I'm not gonna go into all that but to re-introduce a learning curve & to hopefully get better,shoot w/gloves,shoot one handed,shoot the gun upside down if ya want to. Each one of these will force you to work on s different aspect of your gun handling & hopefully get better & isn't that what we all want to do anyway? Great video & I got to kick the TH-cam algorithm in the teeth! Thumbs up all a round👍
I have fairly long fingers but a little gun and had a problem with dropping the magazine because my finger was hitting the mag release... this video made me realize my massive man paws are not the problem ... I’m not going straight to the back I’m jerking at an angle... if I go straight to back my finger doesn’t touch mag release
“Every martial arts is a style, which has different techniques” A bit of what we’ve always known but haven’t always explicitly acknowledged, especially in this light. And the concept doesn’t necessarily “punch past” every target, but still a very valuable perspective to add. Nice.
He’s right. If gun doesn’t move off target when fired, then everything is good. You will adjust finger placement automatically if gun is not on target-if focused on controlling the gun.
Depends also on the trigger. In my country we got an tactical guidelines for LEO pistols. There is double trigger pressure (35N) + double trigger way (1,2cm). Due tho the high pressure and the long way a lot of ppl canted theier wrist slightly to the inside. If the they place the finger more into the middle its getting eve. more worse. But I agree with you, it doesn't matter that much. Grip and proper aim is much more important. Keep up the good work
This all makes sense and I’ve practice it and see what you say is true. However, I was practicing prepping my trigger doing some drills and I think it’s helpful if you have your finger on the pad and not close to first joint when you’re practicing prepping the trigger after the wall. I think this gives you a better feel for the trigger and the amount of force you have to input to prep the trigger before it breaks. As an orthopedic surgeon, I can tell you that the pad of the finger has much more sensory nerve innervation than anywhere else on the finger. There are also more proprioceptive receptors in the pas of the finger which tell your brain where your finger is in space. I’m thinking that this enables you to perform fine motor activities like prepping the trigger after the wall more accurately if you use the pad as opposed to anything closer to the joint. I tried fully prepping the trigger with my finger over the pad, and then more proximal close to the joint and I’m definitely able to perceive and prep it better with my finger on the pad. Let me know if you might agree with this Myles.
Thanks for saying the same thing over and over again. Really powerful demonstration that you can hit a target 12 feet away, also. I'm glad this video wasn't thirty seconds, but was instead over five minutes of just repeating yourself over and over again.
When I shoot sub compacts I find my shot consistency is best when my finger hooks the trigger at the first bend. This limits the room for pushing the muzzle off the vertical axis. It works for me so I am going to stick with it.
I was hoping to find something on how to improve my straight line pull off the trigger, but this was a great and informative video, thank you for the lesson
I'm trying to achieve that but difficult using a stiff stock Glock trigger. And difficult while taking rapid shots. Some how the first joint comes into play . How can I just take it out of the equation?
My index finger is over 3.5" long. If I keep it within the first digit, then I have a considerable amount of real estate between the index and the gun. I'm noticing better results dry firing with my second digit. I'll try it out live and see how that goes. Wish more videos had people in mind who dont have average anatomy. What works for the average person isn't necessarily going to work for the non-average person.
My HK p30s has the paddle mag release inside the trigger guard. When I fired the piston the mag would drop out.I discovered my finger was in too far and the tip was touching the paddle causing the mag to drop. I moved it back so just enough of my fingertip was touching the trigger. Problem solved. So it does matter where you place your finger on the trigger. Sorry you're wrong.
whn dryfiring I noticed that If I go after the bend of the finger, my sight do not move when shooting a doubleaction autoloader, when using the meat of my last phalange it always moves a bit - tre trigger is slightly creepy, especially thorwards the end and a bit heavy . might be because Doublestacks are a bit big for my hands
@@TacticalHyve Of course you couldn't find it with Google search. The term "Trigger Finger Paradox" is the term I came up with while ago. This phenomenon is only known to the handful of world's most accurate pistol shooter which excludes most of action shooters, because for the action shooting pulling the trigger straight to the real is good enough. In fact, late Ron Avery was only one ever talked about this phenomenon on the TH-cam(I can't find the video any more) until I found yesterday 'tire iron' talks about it (back in 2016). Pat McNamara also talks about it some what, but not quite. He only mentions the technique that in learned from his would class bull-eye shooter friend, but the idea is still there.
Are you saying this video aligns with what you define as Trigger Finger Paradox? Not sure what you're trying to convey. Regarding the world of practical shooting and trigger control, there are several key principles, straight to the rear being only one of them--mentioned in the video. As for bullseye shooting techniques, we are not familiar as none of us are involved in the sport.
@@TacticalHyve Did you watch tire iron's Feb13, 2016 video? This is little difficult idea to grasp, it involves geometry of trigger finger(bio-mechanic) vs. mechanical movement of trigger. If you aren't interested in shooting one hole group at 50 ft. with one hand only, then you don't have to worry about it. Like I said before, for the type of shooting that you do(which is mostly action shooting), pulling the trigger straight to the real is good enough. I call it the "trigger finger paradox" because if you "try" to pull the trigger straight to the real, you'll most likely to push the shot just little bit to the left "after the seal release" for the right handed shooter, because of the contradiction between bio-mechanic of the trigger finger vs. mechanical movement of the trigger which is straight back and forth with relation to the gun. You have to "learn how to let the trigger move straight to the back naturally", instead of trying to pull the trigger straight to the real with your trigger finger. You might not understand the difference for now yet, Ron Avery explain it best in his TH-cam, but can't find the video now.
Got it. That's clearer. Yes, just watched the video, and it's basically what we were trying to say in the video about trigger finger placement, but we didn't go in depth about bio-mechanics--because we do so in the online course that our video was leading people to. We mentioned in the video how there will be a certain trigger finger placement that will lend itself to making it easier for one to follow the principle of straight to the rear, naturally.
Really sound advice. I had a USMC shooting instructor that had a similar mentality: That firearms are devices and operate a specific way when they receive specific inputs. The firearm is mass produced uniformity and completely dependent on a shooter for everything, so the wild card in how the firearm functions is the shooter. Shooters will all vary in hand size, dexterity, strength, finger length, or can have a history of a hand injury that can make it hard to use a certain part of your finger. Advice that works for others might not work for you, so you have to experiment. He helped me qualify as a rifle expert by showing me a prone shooting technique when you bend a leg and keep the other straight. Because of my torso proportions and the principle of stability, it worked for me.
“Focus on the principles behind the technique rather than the technique itself.” I love that. I switched from Glocks to Berettas and the first thing I noticed was I shot ‘hard to reach’ double action triggers with more precision. That was an eye opener for me to realize I do better by using just the very tip of my trigger finger rather than the middle of the digit.
100% - Different hand sizes, different guns... Straight to the rear!
I tried for a while trying to fire my revolver with the center of my finger pad and I just could not keep the sight steady due to the trigger being a long pull. Once I placed the trigger right behind the first bend, the sights stopped moving. That is when I realized that I may have to adjust my finger placement on different guns.
Absolutely. A double action revolver pull necessitates more of an alignment around the crease for me too, as you've got a lot more weight too, so smooth pull depends on getting a little more leverage. Pistol seems to be more mid pad for me.
This is outstanding shooting advice. Nearly 95% of videos I’ve watched on TH-cam focus a whole lot more on techniques. A lot of times(as you mentioned), different people have different techniques. Knowing that your technique is also important, it’s good to realize WHY you want to practice good technique…and knowing the principle behind why you honing your techniques makes everything easier to understand.
Great job!
Superb demo, Sir.
I am a 80 plus Senior Citizen-actually an old Museum Piece in great health- who has been getting all kinds of conflicting grip advice, etc., I continue to hit targets at around 10 o'clock...Shooting right handed. In any event, as far as we can tell it's my trigger placement that's the issue. Been using the first pad of my finger and then the first finger cress...Still shooting high right. Will try your technique.
Army doctrine uses the digital joint to contact the face of the trigger. We preach Straight to the Rear. Which digital joint is up to the shooter, based on their individual hand size.
I understanding what your saying however finger placement depends a lot of the grip as everyone's hand size, finger length is different. This is what actually allow for a straight trigger pull to the rear as well as being able to keep your sights properly aligned during trigger press.
I appreciate this video. A lot of men try to push their "techniques" onto you as if it were law without understanding our anatomies and strategies can differ. I use the first pad of my finger and keep it straight. That works for best for me.
For me, finger placement does matter. After seeing this video I pulled out my S&W 380 Bodyguard, unloaded it and tried the different positions. What I found using the first finger bend on the center of trigger was that my finger impacted the magazine release area before the hammer released. While this method may work on a larger handgun, I wouldn’t recommend learning to shoot in a way that doesn’t work on all of your firearms. Middle of finger pad on center of trigger is the best method.
Me reminding myself straight to the rear really helped. I was confused about squeezing the trigger for walk some folks. After this video my shots are a lot less jerky
You're absolutely right that being a student of the gun,tactical shooting or whatever you want to call it is a martial art! This is something I've said many times,once in a while I'll get a quizzical look & that's usually someone who hasn't broken down the barriers yet. But getting back to the point,yeah,all you have to do is squeeze the trigger w/out altering the attitude of the gun. Doesn't matter what gun but that's it. Now that's easier said than done & I'm not gonna go into all that but to re-introduce a learning curve & to hopefully get better,shoot w/gloves,shoot one handed,shoot the gun upside down if ya want to. Each one of these will force you to work on s different aspect of your gun handling & hopefully get better & isn't that what we all want to do anyway? Great video & I got to kick the TH-cam algorithm in the teeth! Thumbs up all a round👍
Appreciate the comment! Glad you liked the video.
I have fairly long fingers but a little gun and had a problem with dropping the magazine because my finger was hitting the mag release... this video made me realize my massive man paws are not the problem ... I’m not going straight to the back I’m jerking at an angle... if I go straight to back my finger doesn’t touch mag release
“Every martial arts is a style, which has different techniques”
A bit of what we’ve always known but haven’t always explicitly acknowledged, especially in this light. And the concept doesn’t necessarily “punch past” every target, but still a very valuable perspective to add. Nice.
He’s right. If gun doesn’t move off target when fired, then everything is good. You will adjust finger placement automatically if gun is not on target-if focused on controlling the gun.
Depends also on the trigger.
In my country we got an tactical guidelines for LEO pistols. There is double trigger pressure (35N) + double trigger way (1,2cm).
Due tho the high pressure and the long way a lot of ppl canted theier wrist slightly to the inside. If the they place the finger more into the middle its getting eve. more worse.
But I agree with you, it doesn't matter that much. Grip and proper aim is much more important.
Keep up the good work
Are you from Germany?
Sir, you're awesome, I am a fan. You are so right about martial arts and firearms relations.
Buen video amigo, como siempre!! Saludos from Argentina!
This all makes sense and I’ve practice it and see what you say is true. However, I was practicing prepping my trigger doing some drills and I think it’s helpful if you have your finger on the pad and not close to first joint when you’re practicing prepping the trigger after the wall. I think this gives you a better feel for the trigger and the amount of force you have to input to prep the trigger before it breaks. As an orthopedic surgeon, I can tell you that the pad of the finger has much more sensory nerve innervation than anywhere else on the finger. There are also more proprioceptive receptors in the pas of the finger which tell your brain where your finger is in space. I’m thinking that this enables you to perform fine motor activities like prepping the trigger after the wall more accurately if you use the pad as opposed to anything closer to the joint. I tried fully prepping the trigger with my finger over the pad, and then more proximal close to the joint and I’m definitely able to perceive and prep it better with my finger on the pad. Let me know if you might agree with this Myles.
Thanks for saying the same thing over and over again. Really powerful demonstration that you can hit a target 12 feet away, also. I'm glad this video wasn't thirty seconds, but was instead over five minutes of just repeating yourself over and over again.
Thank you again for another great video! Btw, what ear protection are you wearing?
3M/Peltor
When I shoot sub compacts I find my shot consistency is best when my finger hooks the trigger at the first bend. This limits the room for pushing the muzzle off the vertical axis. It works for me so I am going to stick with it.
I was hoping to find something on how to improve my straight line pull off the trigger, but this was a great and informative video, thank you for the lesson
I'm trying to achieve that but difficult using a stiff stock Glock trigger. And difficult while taking rapid shots. Some how the first joint comes into play . How can I just take it out of the equation?
He likes it straight to the rear
😂😂
Please elaborate on how to take the first jount out of the equation. So only yhe second joint of the trigger finger works
Whats the trigger pull in terms of pounds . By any means this is not a stock trigger on a Glock or any other carry handgun .
So ... what the explanation behind straight to the rear?
What brand the sunglass do you use, thanks
My index finger is over 3.5" long. If I keep it within the first digit, then I have a considerable amount of real estate between the index and the gun. I'm noticing better results dry firing with my second digit. I'll try it out live and see how that goes.
Wish more videos had people in mind who dont have average anatomy. What works for the average person isn't necessarily going to work for the non-average person.
Good points! Haters gonna hate!
Like these tips. Thanks!
Thanks for the info!
Thanks !
My HK p30s has the paddle mag release inside the trigger guard. When I fired the piston the mag would drop out.I discovered my finger was in too far and the tip was touching the paddle causing the mag to drop. I moved it back so just enough of my fingertip was touching the trigger. Problem solved. So it does matter where you place your finger on the trigger. Sorry you're wrong.
I can't shoot accurately at all, with the tip of my finger. I never could. I was always used to the middle part. And I okay with that.
Straight to the rear
Best drinkinggame show ever🤣 "straight to the rear " 😂😂
I use the first bend of my finger and i found my shots were better.
Adjust to a technique that will fulfil the principle...
The definition of martial is military or war like so yes shooting is a martial art.
Now add speed ...
I use the very tip of my finger. I'm more accurate with it. If I put the middle of the pad of my finger, my shots go low left
You may be clenching finger tips on handle or pulling/pushing trigger. I donthebsame thing when I'm mag dumping.
Now do this same video with a double action 12-13 lb. Trigger versus a competition 2-4 lb. Trigger.
whn dryfiring I noticed that If I go after the bend of the finger, my sight do not move when shooting a doubleaction autoloader, when using the meat of my last phalange it always moves a bit - tre trigger is slightly creepy, especially thorwards the end and a bit heavy . might be because Doublestacks are a bit big for my hands
I see that Staccato. Nicest gun ever that John Wick has
i noticed finger placement does matter for my glock, none of my other hand guns
Same!
You mean muscle memory...
More like 21/2 yards😂
4 to 5 yards
Hi honey... going straight to the rear.
Do you know about 'trigger finger paradox'?
Don't think we've ever heard that. Doing a quick Google search, there is nothing on trigger finger paradox.
@@TacticalHyve Of course you couldn't find it with Google search. The term "Trigger Finger Paradox" is the term I came up with while ago. This phenomenon is only known to the handful of world's most accurate pistol shooter which excludes most of action shooters, because for the action shooting pulling the trigger straight to the real is good enough. In fact, late Ron Avery was only one ever talked about this phenomenon on the TH-cam(I can't find the video any more) until I found yesterday 'tire iron' talks about it (back in 2016). Pat McNamara also talks about it some what, but not quite. He only mentions the technique that in learned from his would class bull-eye shooter friend, but the idea is still there.
Are you saying this video aligns with what you define as Trigger Finger Paradox? Not sure what you're trying to convey.
Regarding the world of practical shooting and trigger control, there are several key principles, straight to the rear being only one of them--mentioned in the video.
As for bullseye shooting techniques, we are not familiar as none of us are involved in the sport.
@@TacticalHyve Did you watch tire iron's Feb13, 2016 video? This is little difficult idea to grasp, it involves geometry of trigger finger(bio-mechanic) vs. mechanical movement of trigger. If you aren't interested in shooting one hole group at 50 ft. with one hand only, then you don't have to worry about it. Like I said before, for the type of shooting that you do(which is mostly action shooting), pulling the trigger straight to the real is good enough.
I call it the "trigger finger paradox" because if you "try" to pull the trigger straight to the real, you'll most likely to push the shot just little bit to the left "after the seal release" for the right handed shooter, because of the contradiction between bio-mechanic of the trigger finger vs. mechanical movement of the trigger which is straight back and forth with relation to the gun. You have to "learn how to let the trigger move straight to the back naturally", instead of trying to pull the trigger straight to the real with your trigger finger. You might not understand the difference for now yet, Ron Avery explain it best in his TH-cam, but can't find the video now.
Got it. That's clearer. Yes, just watched the video, and it's basically what we were trying to say in the video about trigger finger placement, but we didn't go in depth about bio-mechanics--because we do so in the online course that our video was leading people to.
We mentioned in the video how there will be a certain trigger finger placement that will lend itself to making it easier for one to follow the principle of straight to the rear, naturally.
tl;dw:
yes it's very important
Guess you didn’t watch the video... it isn’t.
My grip is so good that my finger doesn't move the sight when the shot breaks. I practiced a lot to earn that.