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Shooting Tips & How-To

Properly Gripping an Autoloading Pistol

August 7, 2017 by The Loadout Room Leave a Comment

Properly Gripping an Autoloading Pistol

Courtesy of Breach Bang Clear

As my colleague Wayne Dobbs of Hardwired Tactical Shooting says, there are three fundamentals of handgun shooting that can make you or break you in a defensive situation; grip, sights, and trigger [manipulation]. I would also add followthrough, as a student who came back today from the elite Rogers Shooting School called to mention to me.

For this segment, let’s look at the autoloading pistol grip discussion contained in The Tactical Professor’s Pistol Practice Program.

Properly Gripping an Autoloading Pistol

The proper grip for any handgun should accomplish several objectives:

  1. Maximize our hand friction on the handgun. The way we prevent the handgun from moving around in our hand(s) is simply via friction. Therefore, the more hand surface we have in contact with the gun, the more friction we can achieve.
  2. Minimize the gun’s motion during recoil by stabilizing the supporting joints, principally the wrists, when the gun fires.
  3. Reduce the distance between the line of the handgun’s bore and our hands to the smallest amount possible. This diminishes the rotational torque generated by the handgun upon firing.

After establishing the appropriate grip, a series of index points can be used to feel when the grip has been properly achieved. Especially in defensive encounters, there is no time for visually checking whether the proper grip is in place. Having a set of index points allows a shooter to establish a proper firing grip in the holster and during the drawstroke to know that the grip is as it should be.


Continue reading on Breach Bang Clear

Photos courtesy of Breach Bang Clear

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