The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery. Massad Ayoob
While this can work with a .22 or something else with light loads, it’s a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul. What is gained in getting the trigger forward is lost by a weakened hand grasp on the gun. Recoil now goes directly into the proximal joint of the thumb. Doctors tell me that this is a quick short-cut to developing artificially-induced arthritis in that joint. Such a grip was one of the “remedial” techniques employed by FBI instructors in the late 1970s for small-handed female agent recruits firing +P ammunition. It not only failed to work, it beat up their hands. It was one reason that in the landmark case of Christine Hansen, et. al. v. FBI we won reinstatement and compensation for a number of female agents who had been fired because they couldn’t qualify with the old-fashioned bad techniques. The same court ordered FBI to “revise and update its obsolete and sexist firearms training.”
Distal joint contact works well even for single-action autos. Even when the pull weight is relatively light, “leverage equals power, and power controls the pistol.” This placement of the finger eliminates the old shibboleth of double-action first shot pistols that said one had to change finger position between the double-action first round and the single-action follow-up shots. Place the distal joint on the trigger for the first heavy pull, keep it there for subsequent shots, and all will be well.
With DA-to-SA pistol, like this Beretta 92G, placing finger at distal joint will give good control with both types of trigger pull.
Rolling Pace
From here on, it’s a matter of pace. Learn trigger control as you would develop any other physical skill. Remember what I call “Chapman’s Dictum”: Smoothness is 5/6 of speed. Crawl before you walk, and walk before you run.
Start slowly. Do lots of dry fire. Watch the sights as they sit silhouetted against a safe backstop. Do not let the sights move out of alignment at any point in the trigger stroke, particularly when the trigger releases and the “shot breaks.” Then, gradually, accelerate the pace.
Generations of combat shooters can tell you: accuracy first, speed second will develop fast and accurate shooting skills much more quickly than a curriculum of speed first and accuracy second. If you stay with it for several thousand repetitions, you will find that you can roll the trigger back as fast as your finger will go, without jerking your sights off target. Put another way, we can learn to hit as fast as we were missing before.
Proper trigger finger placement for DA work with K-frame S&W .357.
Trigger control is all the more important with more difficult tasks like one-handed double-action work with a light gun, such as this Colt Magnum Carry .357 snub.
The key to trigger manipulation under stress is to distribute the trigger pressure. A sudden 4-pound jerk will inevitably pull a 2-pound gun off target. Smooth, evenly distributed trigger pressure done at the same speed will fire the gun just as quickly, but without moving the alignment of bore to target. The key words here are smooth and even.
Generations of shooters and gunfighters have learned to talk themselves through the perfect shot. They chant it to themselves like a mantra. “Front sight! Squeeze the trigger. Squee-e-eze…” One instructor says “squeeze,” another says “press”; this writer uses “roll.” To me, the word “roll” connotes the smooth, even, uninterrupted pressure that I want. The word doesn’t matter so much as the concept.
Don’t try to “stage” or “trigger-cock” the pistol. This is fine motor intensive, and our fine motor skills go down the drain when we’re in danger and our body instinctively reacts. Such skills just won’t be with you in a fight. Learn from the beginning to keep the stroke smooth and even, executed in a single stage.
A smooth double-action trigger stroke is bringing the next .357 round under the hammer of this S&W Bodyguard.
A workable solution. This Colt Python has a serrated trigger, usually undesirable for double-action work, but the ridges between the serration grooves have been polished glass smooth, solving the problem.
A word on “surprise trigger break.” Marksmanship instructors tell us to let the trigger go off by surprise so we don’t anticipate the final release and jerk the gun. However, if you say in court that the shot went off by surprise, it sounds to anyone without your training as if you didn’t mean for it to go off. That can turn a justifiable, intentional shooting into a negligent act of manslaughter. We don’t begin pressing the trigger back – we don’t even touch the trigger – until the intent to immediately fire has been justifiably formulated! The only surprise should be in what fraction of an instant the deliberate shot discharges.
Trigger Mechanicals
A light trigger pull is, more than anything else, a crutch for bad trigger technique. It is also “plaintiff’s counsel’s guaranteed employment act” in the civil liability sense. On a defense gun, you don’t need a light trigger pull, you need a smooth trigger pull.
The surface of the trigger should be glassy smooth, with rounded edges. Grooves, serrations, or checkering on the trigger will trap the flesh of the finger and translate any lateral finger movement to undesirable lateral gun movement. As the finger moves back, it may change its exact contact point with the trigger very slightly, and if that happens, we want the finger to be moving smoothly and easily across the frontal surface of the trigger. On revolver triggers in particular, it’s also a good idea to round off the rear edges of the trigger, to keep the flesh of the finger from being pinched between the trigger and the back of the trigger guard at the end of each firing stroke.
Note S&W’s internally adjustable trigger stop, coming down into trigger guard at a point behind the trigger. Because there is a remote chance it can come out of adjustment and block the trigger…
…it is usually removed from a duty gun, as it has been from author’s S&W Model 66.
Here’s a true combat trigger stop. It is welded in place. It can’t move and cause problems, yet it cures aim-disturbing trigger overtravel. Installed on author’s S&W Model 25-5, in .45 Colt, by Al Greco.
Beware of “backlash.” This is the movement that occurs in the instant between when the sear releases, and when the rear of the trigger comes to a stop. Because spring pressure resisting the finger has just been released, there is a tendency for the finger to snap back against the rear of the trigger guard, possibly jerking the muzzle off target. An “anti-backlash device” or “trigger stop” is a good idea, if it is constructed in such a way that