Suggestions on double action trigger technique

[Spade5]

I have two S&W double action revolvers - a 64 2 inch and a 686 six inch.

I have never really fired either in double action and I figured is was about time to check it out. My main gun is a Beretta 92F but I never shoot it double action either. Single action firing is fine with all the guns but it sort of seems like cheating.

Any suggestions/tips on proper trigger control? What part of the trigger finger do you use, that type of thing.

I am not trying to be a marksman but it seems when I dry fire with the snap caps, the barrel moves about half way through the trigger pull then sort of moves back just before the hammer falls.

I am trying to develop a one handed non supported grip and to practice with both my strong and weak hands. More of a point and shoot than aim and shoot.

 

[Sam1911]

Revolvers tend to work best with the first joint of the finger hooking the trigger, rather than the pad of the finger like with an auto.

You want to pull straight through at an even pace without the sights leaving the target, but of course the most important thing is that they're on target when the hammer drops.

Your path to success is through dry-firing. Use a target dot sticker on a blank wall and practice 100+ good "shots" (WITH AN UNLOADED GUN) each night. With enough practice, you should be able to bring that hammer back and let it fall without dropping a fired case that you've balanced on your front sight.

This is probably unnecessarily more difficult with one hand. What is the purpose of starting out one-hand-only?

 

[mjackson]

Sam,
I'm no expert, but a majority of my revolver dry firing is done in double action because it is difficult and I want to be better at it. That said, I actively attempt to minimize sight misalignment, but you can only get so good at that. So, my goal is to take up a majority of the trigger pull, establish my sight picture, and release the hammer. With more and more practice I believe that I can train my finger to take up most of the trigger's travel, hold it at the same point for a brief moment while fine tuning sight alignment. The more practice hopefully will produce consistency first, and then speed later. I think this is called "staging the trigger." I'm sure others have more to add.

 

[Sam1911]

Oh sure. Staging the trigger is a well-known technique, though many shooting coaches recommend that it is a crutch you should try to avoid if you can put in the time to train away from it.

Jerry Miculek mentioned it in one of his technique videos as useful for very long shots, though, so it isn't completely off in the weeds.

 

[GCBurner]

Get a copy of Ed McGivern's "Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting", and read up on his technique. It's held up pretty well, and modern shooters like Jerry M. still follow what McGivern taught many years ago, with some refinements.

 

[StrawHat]

Dryfiring is the way to develop a good technigue. Sam1911 and I differ in one way. Lose the target and sight on a blank wall. This allows you to focus on the sights, and only the sights. You will be able to tell if the sights jiggle during the trigger pull, if they do, stop squeezing, realign the sights and resume the squeeze. Eventually, you will be able to pull straight through without disturbing the sights. After that, it is a simple matter to get on target.

I posted of using dryfiring to tune up after a decades long absence from PPC shooting in this thread.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=693816

Does it take a lot of pulls? Yes, but it is easy to do and once mastered, never forgotten. Actually, once mastered, you will probably never use the single action on your S&Ws again.

 

[MrBorland]

Count me in as one who thinks staging is a bad habit to get into. Ironically enough, staging the trigger isn't the most accurate way to shoot DA; a smooth consistent pull through the break will yield better results. While practicing, you can abort the shot if anything's not right, but mentally commit to a proper sight picture & trigger control before you start your pull, not during the pull.

As far as the pull itself, it obviously should be controlled and steady. That may sound obvious, but it's very common for folks to really yank that trigger, as though the travel is something that must be bypassed somehow. Picture using your fingertip to move a flat coin to a precise spot on the other side of the table. Giving it a good hard jab won't be nearly as effective as smoothly pushing it all the way to it's target.

Something not mentioned yet is a good high stronghand grip. When looking from the side, you shouldn't see exposed backstrap. Once you get your high grip, experiment with finger placement. As Sam1911 suggests, a good place to start is the 1st joint, but really, what's best is that which gives you the most control, which you can determine via dry fire, so long as you really watch that front sight.

At the range, try the ball-and-dummy drill, where the cylinder is randomly loaded with a mix of live & dummy rounds. It's very effective for diagnosing a flinch as the sear breaks. If you are flinching, it may be because you're thinking about when the shot will break, or perhaps because you're thinking about trying to make a good shot. If so, ditch the target altogether for a bit. Simply shoot into the berm or the backstop while you focus on a smooth trigger pull with good sight alignment.

 

[Tennessee Jed]

I am also no expert by any stretch, but have been working on double action shooting pretty seriously for a while now. I started with exactly what was advised above. First, I worked on keeping the sights steady while pulling through the trigger. Next, I working on keeping the sights steady, and aligned on target, while pulling through the trigger. Both of those steps helped enormously.

The most recent things I'm working on are, not looking to see where I hit the target until I am finished shooting, and making sure that that I see the muzzle flash. I think those both go a long way to having a decent follow through, and a decent follow through, for me, has been the best way to avoid flinching.

 

[Japle]

I don’t know if I’d qualify as an expert, although I do very well in Steel Challenge. My advice: Pull straight through without any hesitation. Practice dry-firing (a lot of dry-firing) while keeping the sights aligned. Concentrate on smooth trigger control and follow-through. Not too tight with the strong hand, but tight with the weak hand. Eventually, you’ll get to the point where you can shoot just as fast DA as you can with a SA auto. At the last match, I shot “Smoke and Hope” faster with my wheelgun than with my Open gun.

 

[Sam1911]

StrawHat, I won't argue that a target dot is necessary! Your routine is just fine, though I don't quite know if new shooters get what they're aiming for (HA! pun!) without the target dot there to help them see the sights a' wandering.

But blank wall practice is great if they do "get it."

 

[beag_nut]

Get a copy of Ed McGivern's "Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting", and read up on his technique. It's held up pretty well, and modern shooters like Jerry M. still follow what McGivern taught many years ago, with some refinements.

I bought a copy of that book, on the recommendation from someone on a gun forum. While entertaining, it does not teach how to do anything. Rather, he tells what he did and when, and under what prompting. But there is practically nothing in the book to help someone learn how to do trick shooting, or how to shoot more accurately. One must look elsewhere for guidance. I wish I knew where the elsewhere is.

 

[Sam1911]

Myoutdoorstv.com USED to host a series of six short videos by Jerry Miculek showing very precisely how to learn to shoot revolvers very well. Unfortunately, they are no longer posted there and I can't find them anywhere else now. I'm sure they are available on DVD somewhere, though.

Ahhh, why not check the source: http://www.bang-inc.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=11

That's got to be even better! 100 minutes of revolver how-to with the reigning champ.

 

[BCRider]

I use my own S&W DA revolvers in my club Speed Steel matches. There's simply no time for staging in such situations. I've also recently used one of my revolvers in IDPA events. Again there's no time for staging in those either.

Oddly enough becuase I've shot DA in matches so often and also practiced DA more than SA mode I'm at the point where I can pretty easily match my DA and SA groups. Now that doesn't mean much unless these groups are OK by most standards. Given that I have "old guy eyes" and "old guy nerves" I'm pretty happy to achieve anything under a 4 inch group at 20 yards with ANY gun. I can typicaly shoot my S&W K frame guns in DA and keep them in that sort of group or better other than the odd flyer.

When I shoot bullseye like this I catch myself staging for a brief instant sometimes. But usually I simply show down the trigger pull compared to the speed match style.

All in all my suggestion would be to work on a steady full pull. In the end you'll have a style which will get better with practice. On the other hand if you stage the trigger all the time then it'll become much like shooting SA but with a pressured cocking of the gun. More than likely you'll hit "The Wall" due to this where you simply can't get any better.

Another fun thing to do would be to hunt out the local handgun speed matches and use your revolver in them. Again it's all about learning and achieving a fast but smooth DA pull to get decent accuracy while shooting for low times.

 

[MrBorland]

One must look elsewhere for guidance. I wish I knew where the elsewhere is.

The front sight tells all.

Really, you can get a little here, and a little there (and the student of the wheelgun will & ought to hunt for these nuggets*) but the theoretical stuff is pretty simple - sight picture & trigger control. Actually doing it well it is another matter, so quality trigger time (with eyes on the front sight) is tough to beat.




* A few, if they help (no particular order):

1. Dry fire to a metronome. Sounds crazy, but it'll help develop a smooth pull. For those who compete, it's also good for working on your reloads. Or go a step further and dry fire El Prez to a beat. But only go as fast as you're able to see (see #3) and/or go smoothly. Trying to beat some arbitrary number will be counterproductive.

2. Get an action job if your gun needs it. You won't develop good DA technique if your action's rough ("smooth" is much more important than "light", btw). You may learn to compensate and shoot that gun well, but in the process, you've hard-wired bad technique.

3. Think of dry fire as a visual drill as much as a trigger control drill. To be effective, you need to see what you need to see.

4. Work on your mental game. A positive attitude and self-image are hugely important. Put another way, your subconscious can easily undermine all your hard work and quickly leave you plateaued and frustrated. A copy of Lanny Bassham's "With Winning in Mind" is a good start.

5. Don't set your bar too low. We develop our own ideas of what's "good" based on our own previous experience. What's "good" at your local Stand-N-Shoot or on your favorite forum, for instance, isn't likely to be very good at all, compared to what's actually possible when you don't subconsciously put limits on yourself beforehand. Shooting some matches will help raise your game directly, but it also helps you to see there's a whole world of "good" beyond your local range.

 

[shafter]

Imagine that there is an iron bar going from your forearm through your wrist. A very stiff wrist will help a great deal in reducing the wobble in your front sight as you squeaze through the trigger.

 

[Texan Scott]

I don't compete and I don't handgun hunt, so you can guess what my handguns are for.
For defensive close range shooting, I am a point shooter. My sight picture is sort of a 'reference'; being right-handed, I 'ghost' the left parallax image of the whole gun over center mass, and let muscle memory take over. Learning a new gun takes time, but once my hand / arm know where the gun needs to be to put the bullets where they should go, it no longer matters that the sights wiggle during a long da pull

I'll never win any prizes, but I can hit center of mass at in- the- house ranges and better in the dark.

Eta: if you do this, dry-fire with snap caps to evaluate the gun, and if you're going to get an action job, do it BEFORE you start learning the gun. Otherwise, after the action job, you'll just have to relearn it... it won't FEEL like the same gun anymore.

(YMMV)

 

[CPO15]

This book:

http://www.amazon.com/Digest-Book-Revolver-Grant-Cunningham/dp/1440218129

has a great deal of info on trigger and sight technique, and virtually no "war stories". It helped me quite a bit.

 

[Hondo 60]

Press the trigger with the same force from beginning to end.
Don't slow down, don't speed up.
Let the detonation be a surprise.
Don't jerk or "throw" the gun at the target.

Hope this helps.
Good luck & happy shootin.

 

[GP100man]

To learn how to hold it steady I have no additions to the advice given .

Wether I stage or pull thru depends on the target, how close ,how big .

Point shooting is fun & important to learn & once ya do ,try it with the weak hand LOL

Be Safe ,Have Fun ,& practice when ya have time don`t rush it .

A good tool for me is videoing my trigger pulls in live fire. I can see all my mistakes !!!