One handed shooting

[Davinho]

So after several years, and some great tips from various people, I've achieved some modicum of skill shooting handguns two handed. Now I'm starting to work on shooting one handed, both strong and weak, just in case. And boy do I suck. I'm doing dryfire practice (always a good idea), and I don't see any major problems, flinching, or jerking. But when actually shooting, my shots always go low and waaay triggerfingerward (left when shooting strong/righthanded, right when shooting weak/lefthanded). What am I doing wrong? Too much/little thumb pressure? Squeezing all of my fingers as I break the shot? Too much/little trigger finger?

Actually, my biggest question is this: how tight should your grip be when shooting one handed? I'm thinking that it should be tighter than when shooting two handed, but...

Thanks for any input.


Dave

[mousegun]

So after several years, and some great tips from various people, I've achieved some modicum of skill shooting handguns two handed. Now I'm starting to work on shooting one handed, both strong and weak, just in case. And boy do I suck. I'm doing dryfire practice (always a good idea), and I don't see any major problems, flinching, or jerking. But when actually shooting, my shots always go low and waaay triggerfingerward (left when shooting strong/righthanded, right when shooting weak/lefthanded). What am I doing wrong? Too much/little thumb pressure? Squeezing all of my fingers as I break the shot? Too much/little trigger finger?

Actually, my biggest question is this: how tight should your grip be when shooting one handed? I'm thinking that it should be tighter than when shooting two handed, but...

Thanks for any input.


Dave

Seems to me two handed techniques (Weaver, etc.) are an expedience. Training a good pistol shot is lengthy and tedious with bulleye pistol methods, but the results are very effective. A better single handed shot is a better shot, period.

For me, the two most difficult things to master are grip and sight acquisition. Both are different than for two handed shooting, especially if you initially trained with two hands.

Here's a site for the bullseye shooter.

http://www.bullseyepistol.com/

This should help with grip:

The Wheel of Misfortune

Long time ago I was convinced the only "effective" way to use a handgun was with two hands. Then I had the privilege of watching the Romanian Olympic pistol team in rapid fire competition at the '84 Olympics. That was impressive. However, seven years later I was watching TV news and saw a film clip from Romania where that same Olympic team was engaging the Romanian secret police in a graveyard, and using their competition pistols, they prevailed. Never will forget that.

[bobfried]

You definately have too little finger on the trigger. You describing what would happen if you do not pull the trigger straight back with your finger, but rather pushing it to the side. You need to have the middle of the first section of your trigger finger on the trigger and pull it straight back. When you don't have enough of it on the trigger you will push the pistol in the direction of your trigger finger point to.

This is usually not a big problem when shooting two handed as your brain will naturally adjust and tighten up your grip to compensate. The adverse affect is that you are used to pushing the pistol now. Your grip is probably tighter than it should be due to the pressure needed to adjust.

To fix it, this is what would do:
- Build a base of modeling clay or whatever soft pliable material you have.
- Use two sharpened pencil, sharp pint down and stand them up perpendicular to each other in the clay.
- Determine how far they are apart by the width of your pistol, there should be less than a 1/4 of an inch on each side of the pistol to start with.
- Place the setup at your eye level when you are shooting normally.
- Use a snap cap, place the front of the pistol (just as if you were shooting it) between the two pencil using your natural shooting stance.
- Practice dry firing.
- Tighten up the spacing of the pencils as you get better, which means when you no longer knock the pencils over.

That will tighten up your trigger pull more than anything. Another method is to make a small rectangle out of any material, with spacign of about 1/4 around the sides of your pistol muzzle end. Stand saids contraption on the tip of a small surface than place the front of your pistol through that. It's much harder but will also train you not to dip the pistol in anticipation and to control breathing.

Once you get that down you can practice shooting using the "gangster lean" to compensate for recoil.

[bu-bye]

I enjoy shooting one handed at times and there are a few tricks I have learned.

First, never try to hold the gun too tight. With a tight grip its much harder to keep a consistent grip. The more you shot the more tired your hand and arm get. I like to use a very lite grip when I shoot one handed. I hold the pistol just enough so it does not fall out of my hand when fired. This method does not work well for quick follow-up shots but more for bullseye.

My second tip is to lower the pistol and rest after each shot. Extending your arm out full length with a 2 pound weight on the end will cause anyones arm to shake after time. After each shot give your arm a nice 10 second rest. Move very slow when bringing up and bringing down your pistol. If your bring up your pistol and can't get the sights to stop shaking bring the pistol back down and give yourself a minute to relax and rest your arm.

Third, watch your trigger finger movements. The key to great shooting is separating the muscle movements of your trigger finger from the rest of your hand. This error is multiplied when shooting single handed VS two hands. Almost every single thing we use our hands for in life require all our fingers to move at the same time. It takes years of practice to train each finger to move by itself without moving the other fingers. This came very natural to me because I play the guitar. Years before I shot my first pistol my fingers were trained to function individually. I'm not saying you need to learn the guitar but it sure helps if you play

Here is a pic from 25 yards, 5 shots, one hand with my CZ-97b.....

[maxicon]

Don't forget to do the same thing with your weak hand. That'll open up your groups!

I practice one-hand shooting, both strong and weak, and find that the same techniques work as regular shooting - slow, steady squeeze, suprise trigger break, learn to recognize when you're jerking the shot, etc. It also helps me to weight-train a bit - 5 lbs held at arms length when I'm sitting around - but I don't always keep that up.

It's a bit disheartening to be getting great two-hand groups, then find them scattering a lot more one-handed, but the more I shoot, the better they get.

[mousegun]

Six rounds, 20 yards, 14 seconds, 1860 Colt, offhand.
Santiago Peak, May, 2005.

[Dont Tread on Me]

I'm following the trainning of Yeager and Suarez. I hold the gun in a "half home boy" so the gun is about 20 degrees to the left in my right hand. If you just put your hand out straight with nothing in it you will see what I mean. You might also be able to pick up the angel from my aviator.

I then grip the gun a little harder than a hand shake but relax and bend the elbow slightly. This lets the recoil come back rather than push the gun to the left.

I do the following drill a lot. Starting with the gun in my "weaver" grip I shoot two rounds, transition to right hand only and shoot two rounds, transfer the gun into my support hand and shoot two rounds, get a weaver grip with my support hand on the gun and my strong hand supporting and fire two rounds. I then repeat then reverse the process.

[Davinho]

Great info guys!

Mousegun, thank you for those links. Lots of good stuff to read and learn.

Bobfried, I'll try using more trigger finger this evening. Shooting two handed, I use the tip of the finger since that results in the first joint lying exactly parallel to the bore at the break point.

Thanks again to all of you.

Dave

[1911su16b870]

FWIW

Front sight, front sight and front sight, bang, front sight (follow through)

while simultaneously...

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, bang...reset...

[rivviepop]

Is it common to shoot more accurately single weak/offhand than dominant side? So for me I'm right eye dominant, but when shooting single handed I am more accurate with my left hand. I do close the opposite eye when shooting single, can't do it with both open.

[TMC]

You need many more rounds down range with one hand. If you shoot relatively well with two hands and can dryfire fine then you're obviously pushing/flinching/anticapating the recoil. Don't take this as a putdown or slight as everybody does it to some degree, just understand it as the fact of whats is happening. You need to shoot enough rounds that the anticipation of recoil does not bother you and you can focus on trigger and sight alignment. Follow the advise above as it will help and try not to think about the recoil. But after shooting pistols competively for about 10 years now and with 10's of thousnds of rounds down range I believe this is the way one gets better shooting one handed and especially weak handed.

[N6ATF]

Long time ago I was convinced the only "effective" way to use a handgun was with two hands. Then I had the privilege of watching the Romanian Olympic pistol team in rapid fire competition at the '84 Olympics. That was impressive. However, seven years later I was watching TV news and saw a film clip from Romania where that same Olympic team was engaging the Romanian secret police in a graveyard, and using their competition pistols, they prevailed. Never will forget that.

Holy...

I'd love to see that clip.