The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery. Massad Ayoob
trigger with the tip or the pad of the trigger finger. When asked why, we are told that this is the most sensitive portion of the finger and therefore the part most suited to this dextrous task. That makes sense as far as it goes, but let’s analyze the target shooter’s task versus the defensive shooter’s.
In bull’s-eye pistol matches, the core event is shot with the .22 caliber. You have, let’s say, a High Standard .22 match pistol. It weighs 48 ounces, more if you have it scoped, and it has a crisp 2-pound trigger pull that needs to move only a hair’s breadth. The gun is loaded with standard velocity (read: low velocity) .22 Long Rifle, which kicks with about as much force as a mouse burp. In this course of shooting events, “rapid fire” is defined as five shots in 10 seconds. All well and good.
But let’s put ourselves somewhere else, perhaps a darkened parking lot. Our 260-pound assailant, Mongo, is coming at us with a tire iron. We are armed with a baby Glock, the G33 model that weighs only about 19 ounces. Its New York trigger gives us a pull weight of almost eight pounds over 3/8 of an inch. The power of its .357 SIG cartridge is that of some .357 Magnum revolver rounds, generating significant recoil. For us, “rapid-fire” has just become five rounds in one second, before Mongo reaches us with the tire iron.
Let’s see, we have a few things to think about: a 3-pound gun with a 2-pound trigger, versus a 1-1/4-pound gun with an 8-pound trigger. We have 1/10 of an inch of movement versus 3/8 of an inch. We have almost no recoil versus sharply noticeable and palpable recoil. We have five shots in 10 seconds versus five shots in one second. Have the mission parameters changed for the trigger finger?
Obviously, the answer is yes. We’re going to need a stronger finger, a finger with more leverage, to achieve the necessary results.
Placement And Fit
You’ll find that you have much more control of a longer, heavier combat trigger pull if you contact the trigger with the palmar surface of the distal joint of the index finger. It is at this point that the digit has the most leverage to draw the trigger rearward with the most speed and the least effort.
At LFI, we developed a simple test to allow you to see and feel this for yourself. Open this book and set it down where you can read it with your hands free. Take your non-dominant hand, turn its palm away from you, and extend the index finger. Stiffen it up: this finger is going to be a trigger with a heavy pull.
Now, with the index finger of your shooting hand, try to pull that “trigger” back, using the tip of your trigger finger. You’ll have to use great effort – enough effort to probably distract you from focusing on much else – and when the finger does start to give, it will move in fits and starts.
S&W’s “Ranger” trigger has smooth surface so the finger can glide across it during fast double-action work without pulling the muzzle off target.
Now try it again, making contact with the pad of your trigger finger. The pad is defined as the center of the digit, where the whorl of the fingerprint would be. You won’t feel much difference.
Now, for the third and final portion of the test. With your “finger/trigger” still rigid, place your trigger finger at the same spot. Make contact with the crease where the distal phalange of the finger meets the median phalange, as shown in accompanying photos. Now, just roll the stiffened finger back against its force. Feel a huge difference? This is why the old-time double-action revolver shooters called this portion of the trigger finger the “power crease.” It is here that we gain maximum leverage.
Of course, for this to work the gun must fit your hand. In the early 1990s, when gearing up to produce their Sigma pistol, Smith & Wesson paid some six figures for a “human engineering” study of the hands of shooters. It turned out my own hand fit exactly their profile of “average adult male hand.” Not surprisingly, I found the Sigma to fit my hand perfectly.
In the old days, shooters tried to “stage” double-action revolvers, especially Colts like this snub Python. Today’s more knowledgeable shooters use a straight-through trigger pull. Note the distal joint contact on the trigger.
Gaston Glock did much the same. However, he went on the assumption that the shooter of an automatic pistol would be using the pad of the finger. When I grasp the Glock properly in every other respect, my finger comes to the trigger at the pad. To make it land naturally at the distal joint, I need the grip-shape slimmed and re-shaped, as done by Robar (21438 N. 7th Ave, Suite E, Phoenix, AZ 85027) or Dane Burns (700 NW Gilman Blvd, Suite 116, Issaquah, WA 98027). On a K-frame S&W revolver whose rear grip strap has not been covered with grip material, my trigger finger falls into the perfect position. Ditto the double-action-only S&W autos, and ditto also the Browning Hi-Power with standard trigger and the 1911 with a short to medium trigger.
This is the hand of a petite female on a gun that’s too big for her, a Model 625 from S&W Performance Center. Note that she has been forced to use the “h-grip,” in which the hand and forearm are in the shape of lower case letter h. One can get better trigger reach with this method, but at the expense of weakened recoil control.
Proper grasp means that the web of the hand is high on the back of the grip-frame, to minimize muzzle jump and stabilize an auto’s frame against the recoiling slide. The web should feel as if it is pressing up into the grip tang on the auto, and should be at the very apex of the grip frame of the revolver. The long bones of the forearm should be directly in line with the barrel of the gun. This properly aligns skeleto-muscular support structure not only with the handgun’s recoil path, but also with the direction of the trigger pull. The trigger finger, we mustn’t forget, is an extension of the arm.
Although the Glock was designed to be shot using the pad of the trigger finger; the author finds he has better control in extreme rapid fire with his finger deeper into the trigger guard.
Many prefer the short-reach trigger on a 1911, particularly those with small hands or those who use distal joint contact on the trigger as the author does. This is a 10mm Colt Delta Elite customized by Mark Morris.
When the gun doesn’t fit and the finger can barely reach the trigger, it will tend to pull the whole gun inboard. That is, a right-handed shooter will tend to pull the shot to the left. If the gun is too small for the hand and the finger goes into the trigger guard past the distal joint, the angle of the finger’s flexion during the pull will tend to yank the shot outboard, i.e., to a right-handed shooter’s right.
This is why gun fit is critical. The key dimension of determining the fit of the gun to the hand is “trigger reach.” On the gun, it is measured from the center of the backstrap where the web of the hand would sit, to the center of the trigger. On the hand, it is measured from the point of trigger contact (distal joint suggested) to the center of the web of the hand in line with the radius and ulna bones of the forearm.
Avoid if possible the expedient hand position called the “h-grip,” intended for adapting a too-small hand to a too-large handgun. In it, the hand is turned so that, with the hand at the side, hand and forearm would resemble a lower case letter “h.” This brings the backstrap of