A common method of marksmanship being taught today is to rely on the reset of your trigger to know when you can pull the trigger. I on the other hand, with my experience, have never seen this to be practical. When I was in the military, we were indeed taught to follow through with the shot, but even then, I do not remember them telling us to only go out as far as the reset before taking the next shot. We were just taught to get the shot off without screwing it up, follow through, and then repeat until the threat was finished. This has followed me outside of the military, and has caused me to question people who claim that their trigger reset travel determines their rate of fire or accuracy.
The popular characteristics that people look for in their triggers today are a short, loud, and forceful reset. This is a combination of very conflicting attributes that can be hard to find, but not impossible. The short reset is usually not a big deal since it is just the distance the trigger bar/disconnector have to travel which effects the reset distance. The loud/tactile reset was what people criticized Smith and Wesson for not having in their original generations of the M&P, which I never even noticed until people mentioned it as a “problem.” The request for a trigger reset to be “forceful” is not too common, but it is known to be a characteristic in Glock stock triggers. Some shooters believe that this allows you to shoot faster, but I have my doubts.
With all of this, here is what I feel to be a better method. Forget the reset and just watch your sights. As I said earlier, watch the sights and don’t disturb them when you pull, push, squeeze the trigger. I have rarely missed my target because of a long reset or the fact that my finger will go further off the trigger than the reset requires. All the action that determines your speed is in how fast you pull the trigger without disturbing the sights. not how fast you let your finger off the trigger after getting your sights back on target. If you forget about this reset religion, take your finger off the trigger after the shot breaks instead of after you realign with the target, you may find that your rate of fire picks up a bit. Heck, I am sure that you will also find shooting well to be a lot easier and less expensive to improve on.
Regaining your sight picture will make you a faster and more accurate shooter:
Not tracking the movement of the trigger after finding your sight picture:
David served in the USMC for a few years. Deployed twice and got wounded. Retired and moved to Alaska. Has a passion for reviewing and testing guns and gear of all kinds. Enjoys working to dispel myths and show that you can train and practice in a realistic, safe, and practical way.
