When I was at the range last Saturday with Brendan, I got to do some pistol shooting. As I was shooting, a new shooter started to practice his own brand of marksmanship at the point just to my right. Apparently he had already set up a target during the last cease fire. I did not pay him any mind as I was concentrating on my shooting. In particular I was practicing something in particular that I had learned at the Glock Armorer's School - something that in years of firing an issued Glock 19, an issued Glock 26 and a personally owned Glock 26 I had never learned on my job. That was simply that the trigger on a Glock resets with only a very small amount of forward movement after the pistol is fired and you can feel it click into place and then immediately fire again if need be. For years, way too many of them now, whenever I fired a Glock, I allowed the trigger to move much further forward that I had needed to before firing again.
Now, I have to point out that while my allowing the trigger that much forward motion or follow through before reengaging it seemingly never adversely effected how well I could shoot with a Glock, I was quickly learning that it definitely had effected how fast I could get back on target and fire the next shot. It had been slowing me down markedly. I am no Quick-Draw McGraw (if you know who that is you are old) but with some practice of this new to me technique, well - I was getting a bit faster with being able to reengage the target and with follow-up shots. That is a good thing. My accuracy may also have improved slightly due to this new method that I was using but since I was already shooting very well with the Glock that is hard to say with certainty. While I am sure my accuracy has improved a bit as of late, whatever little improvement I showed last Saturday could simply have been a product of my additional practice over the past month or so.
Trigger reset is no foreign subject to experienced shooters. it should not be anyhow. Every modern firearm in functioning condition (at least everyone I know of with a trigger) resets the trigger after a shot is fired so long as you do not hold it back. The trick is, at least with most of them, to determine how far forward the trigger must travel before it resets and thus before it is ready to fire again. Some triggers have to travel fairly far forward again before they reset. Some do not. For example, my issued SIG 229 has a horrendously, in my opinion, long amount of trigger travel. It is double action only so if you allow the trigger to move fully forward after each time you fire it you then have to go through that huge amount of trigger travel on each shot. Then again, if you have been made aware of the feature of said pistol then you know that there is a certain point that the trigger needs to travel forward where it will reset and from which point you can again squeeze off another shot and that point is nowhere near all the way forward. The thing about the SIG though is that it seems to take a magic touch for you to feel the reset when you are shooting. Sometimes I get it right on each shot while at the range, other times I'll get it every other or every few shots and at yet other times it seems I cannot find or should I say feel the mark.
With my Glock 26, once that I learned that I only had to let the trigger move forward ever so slightly before actually feeling the trigger reset I have found the reset position on almost every shot I have fired. It is very distinctive once you have found it before or at least it seems that way to me. I think one of the reasons it may be easier to find the reset trigger position on a Glock as opposed to a pistol like the Sig is that the initial Glock trigger travel is less and is much more 'crisp' than on a Sig. Your finger has traveled less and therefore is probably 'ready' to travel less back forward to find the reset. Is that a mental or physical thing on the part of the shooter - maybe both. All I know is that is how it feels to me.
Back to the range and my observations which now will include the shooter who was shooting next to me. When I took a break, I noticed he was also shooting a Glock, maybe a model 19 or 17. I was immediately drawn to how he followed through with his trigger finger after each shot. This was not so much because I had been practicing my own follow through in order to reset the trigger with minimal forward trigger travel although I am certain that had something to do with it but more likely due to the fact that he was almost flicking his trigger finger forward, allowing the trigger to move fully forward after each shot, and causing his trigger finger to come completely off of the trigger within the trigger guard. I kept watching with some interest. He did this each time. The strange thing was that he did not seem to be jerking the trigger when he fired as I imagined he must also be doing; in fact it seemed he had fairly good trigger control as he fired the pistol just terrible trigger control as he allowed the trigger to move forward. I then took a look at his target. The shots, at 10 yards (It was either 10 or 15 but I think 10) were all over the paper and some were probably off of it. Either he had a lousy sight picture, was actually jerking the trigger as he fired without me realizing it, or his follow through was effecting his shots. My guess is that it was his follow through. His whole hand and arm were jerking each time he let his trigger finger flick forward. It was a very distinct move and my guess is he thought he was doing things correctly, my guess is that someone probably taught him to do that and I guess this because I have never seen anyone pick up a gun who has never shot before and then start flicking their finger forward like that after each shot. Now I could have been missing trigger jerk as he was squeezing off his shots, but I sure was not missing this forward flicking that caused his follow through to jerk. It was terrible.
As for trigger follow through, even if you are not going to go with the trigger as soon as it resets, or in other words are going to allow the trigger more forward movement, or even allow it to move forward as far as it will go after each shot, there is no reason at all that I can think of (with any pistol I have ever fired) to let your trigger finger come completely off of the trigger after each shot and certainly never a reason to flick your finger forward with force after each shot before squeezing of another shot. All that flicking your finger forward like that accomplishes is to make it take longer for you to get through your next shot because you have to completely reseat your finger on the trigger and start over again from the furthest point possible. Well there is one other thing it will accomplish and that is likely that you will not only flick your finger forward but will probably jerk the trigger when you squeeze it again. The more I think of it the more I become convinced he must have also been jerking the trigger, if not right from his first shot then almost certainly on any subsequent shot after he flicked his trigger finger forward off of the trigger.
I did not tell him and here is why: Sometimes when you try to help another shooter at the range, especially one who does not know you, that other shooter takes great offense and maybe even thinks you are insulting him or her for giving that advice. So, I rarely offer advice to people I do not know while at the range, that is unless there is a safety violation taking place and I then either call a range officer to have it corrected or will point it out to the other shooter myself. About the only time I ever suggest any shooting techniques to someone at the range, who is a stranger to me, is when they ask or when I see a dad (sorry have never seen a mom doing such at the range though I am sure there are many of you doing it) trying to help his son or daughter to shoot and he is not getting it right and seems to be a bit embarrassed in front of his child. Then I may have him step aside for a moment with me and I'll make a friendly and brief suggestion. I find in instances like that, the assist usually is appreciated but you can bet I will try to make sure the dad seems like the appreciative type first.
There was one other thing I noticed at the range last weekend. Another pistol shooter, this one to my left, was shooting a coupe or few different handguns. He was with a younger guy - probably his son. After firing several shots he handed the pistol to the younger guy who then commenced firing. When I got to the range that day, I noticed, and how could I not, that they put a blue band around my left wrist when I was paying for our range time but they did not put one on Brendan's wrist. I quickly realized his must have been because I had told the guy at the counter that I would be shooting pistols and had showed him my LE ID but just to be sure I asked him about why the hospital type wristband. He said that it was a new policy to identify legitimate pistol shooters because all too many times some pistol shooters would hand their pistol to an unlicensed person, or non LEO, for some shots. That is pretty much forbidden, except under very specific circumstances, in New York state (yes gun laws here suck the big burrito) and it is expressly forbidden at this range for a non-pistol permit holder or non LEO to shoot pistols.
Well the younger guy seemed pretty safe and all, I was pretty certain he had shot pistols before. I called Brendan over and noted it to him, he was only a few points away from me to my right on the first two rifle points. He saw right away why I had called him over without me saying anything. All I had to do was ask what he saw and he got it. We did not make it obvious and watched a little more from a respectable distance. I also noticed, while we were watching the youngster shoot, that the two range officers on duty were both on the other half of the range (the longer distance points) and both were sitting down and BS'ing to one another. Neither was paying attention to a single thing that was going on with the shooters. One was looking away from me and one was sort of facing my direction. After about a minute or more, the range officer facing in my direction looked over and saw Brendan and I standing there, basically facing in his direction and must have figured those shooters look like they are bored or ready for a cease fire or maybe wanted something from him. He got up and headed our way. When he was about 20 feet from us and about 10 feet from the other two shooters you cold see him suddenly go on alert. he realized the youngster was shooting and not wearing the blue wristband. He asked the older of the two, without interrupting the younger guy who was actually shooting, if the young man had a pistol license and told him politely that if he did not then he was in violation of the rules (which be the way were posted about 2 feet from the young shooter's head). The older of the two got infuriated almost immediately. He started mouthing off and yelling but it did not last long. The range officer put him in his place pronto telling him not only could they be forced to leave the range but they could be arrested. I was kind of surprised the range officer allowed them to stay at the range but he is one of the nicer and more level headed range officers at this particular range. I had considered saying something o the older guy myself but after giving him the once over I took him for an arrogant grouch much like I can be all too often. I decided to hold off since the younger guy was not being unsafe. I am happy I did, I did not need an argument because I wanted to enjoy the rest of my day with Brendan after once losing my temper a bit with him over something silly earlier on. I had smoothed things out by then and did not need to roil the waters again. Good for me that I held off too, had he started yelling at me like who knows how things might have turned out. Sometimes it is just better to observe especially when the other guys have guns. At least when the range officer confronted him he realized the range officer held some authority at the range and after a it of huffing and puffing it was resolved. It was probably no time for a stranger to butt in but had the guy gone further, like getting physical, we would have given the range officer a hand for sure; as I said - he is a nice guy.
All the best,
Glenn B
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