SAA - how to grip for accuracy

[Magnumite]

Not shifting hand when holding low on the plow all well and good when you have big hands. Others have to adapt.

Hard recoiling single action revolvers will shift in the hand when fired. This is why bisley type grip configurations are found on the big caliber conversions and even the FA revolvers.

Read Ross Sigfried on the subject.

 

[CraigC]

Seyfried.

 

[Magnumite]

Got it. Love his writings.

 

[murf]

the gun will shift if you let it. if you keep a firm grip on the gun all the way through recoil, your hands will not shift. if you relax your grip and try to fight the recoil, your hands probably will shift.

bc, if you cock the hammer with your off-hand thumb, your grip shouldn't change. even on "kahuna" loads.

murf

 

[gazpacho]

Wow. Wet bar of soap. Really? Sliding around in my hand?

CraigC, for some reason I find your comments offensive. Go away.

 

[BCRider]

Murf, the only way that the Super Blackhawk is staying put with the big .44's is if I'm holding on like I'm on the big roller coaster from Hell.... And by that point my hands and arms would be shaking so hard I wouldn't be able to aim worth diddly.

Fattening up the grips with a new custom made set helped a lot. But with the recoil from the .44Mag it still rolls back a little in my two handed grip and more if I hold one handed.

I've also been doing this long enough now that I don't ease up or change my grip when it goes bang. In fact I've gotten pretty good over the past couple of years at a nice follow through where the trigger is still held back and my grip is consistent all through the shot.

The good news to this is that when I held high up around near to the hammer I was getting my finger whacked by the dragoon trigger guard on the SBH like so many others have found. With the lower down hold I can actually shoot it one handed and the guard only kisses the back of my finger moderately without enough force to cause any sort of pain. And with two hands not at all or just barely.

If you and Craig are able to hold it well enough that the gun doesn't move then fine. But a lot of the rest of us can't or find that it's better if we don't. But it's a small and controlled amount which is not at all like the slippery bar of soap idea.

 

[CraigC]

If you and Craig are able to hold it well enough that the gun doesn't move then fine.

It is simply unnecessary and has a huge effect on speed. There's no way to work a single action quickly if you're having to reposition your grip after every shot. What you want is a firm grip but don't white knuckle it. Relax your arms so that the recoil is absorbed by your wrists and elbows, rather than the grip sliding through your hand. However, absolutely do not try to strongarm it. You'll fatigue quickly and the sixgun will win every time. I use the same grip whether I'm shooting a .22LR or a .44Mag.

Some folks are uninterested in working a SA quickly and that is fine. I've heard it said many times that folks shoot their SA's when they want to relax but I've always wanted to be "good" with one, not just relax and fart around at the range with them. Getting "good" means a lot of practice and finding every little trick you can to work one efficiently.

We should never stop learning. I'm as bad as anybody about getting set in my ways but I try to keep an open mind and when something new comes along, I give it a try. One thing I've learned in the last few years is to place the weak side thumb against the side of the recoil shield. This helps immensely with the sixgun's stability and puts the thumb in a good position to work the hammer quickly. "Flatlander", who knows what a sixgun is all about, over on RugerForum came up with this. It's done much to improve my shooting.

CraigC, for some reason I find your comments offensive. Go away.

Excuse me??? If you can't handle a courteous response to your incorrect hold or loose grip and are so easily offended, maybe it's YOU who should go away. Only a fool takes offense where none was intended.

 

[murf]

bc,

i'm not knockin your method, just trying to explain mine. the goal, here, is to "get rid of the soap", as it were. for mild recoil loads, not so difficult. on kahuna loads, problematic.

my kahuna load: gun - 45lc blackhawk w/4&5/8" barrel (empty wt. 36ozs.), load - 325gn lbt lead bullet @ 1275fps 12 feet from muzzle. this gun kicks hard and fast due to the light weight and the short barrel.

i use a two hand hold, push/pull style with my off-hand thumb over my shooting-hand thumb. my stance is weaver (i think). grip is firm with both hands.

when the shot breaks, the gun's recoil rotates my wrists straight up pulling my arms up with them. i let this happen. the gun winds up vertical, my arms wind up around my ears and i usually have to take a step backwards with my right foot. i bring the gun back to level, cock the hammer with my off-hand thumb, and repeat as long as my arms can stand the pounding.

as far as i know, my grip does not move. i think the key is that i let my wrists break and don't try to force them not to break.

fwiw,

murf

p.s. my elbows are locked when i pull the trigger. i think the recoil unlocks them at some point in the recoil.

 

[BCRider]

Craig, Murf, the more I think about it the more I'm thining that the .38Spl loads I shoot in my CAS guns don't move in my hand. And like you Craig I'm going for speed as well as consistency as I'm shooting in matches. I'm actually not doing too badly either. But by the time I've cocked that hammer quickly 10 times my thumb is sure gettin' tired ! ! !

The black powder .44 Uberti Remingtons do shift a little. But the grips are bright shiney varnish which I find a little slippery. I may look at stripping them and giving them a nice matt tung oil finish instead. Besides, it would be more period correct that way. They may still slip around a little after that but not by much.

The big Blackhawk is where I don't see holding it hard enough to avoid any hand roll. The shape is such that there's just too much with that style of design that allows the gun to roll in the grip. I'm already holding it as hard as you're saying and it still moves. And frankly I'd expect no less given the style of the grips on SA guns.

Murf, my hold with the SBH is as you describe. I try to get as full a double wrap of my support hand around the strong hand as I can with the thumb of the support hand laying over the knuckle and web of the strong hand. In my case the recoil results in my forearms being up around 20 to 30 degrees at most with the wrists letting the barrel angle up to maybe 45 to 50 before they come back down close to the original position from muscle memory. I don't conciously try to lift or fight the gun. And even with the magnums when I go for that "7th round" the hammer pretty much falls without any muzzle reflex... OK, now and then a bit of that damned flinch may show itself... But for the most part the gun is just supported. It all seems to work as I can manage 3 inch or less size groups at around 15 yards. Which is as good as I shoot any handgun with the old guy eyeballs and nerves.

Still with all that the gun still moves around in my grip such that I need to use the pinky down under to lift it back up. I'd say that the grips slide through my hands somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 inch.

 

[murf]

bc,

fwiw, i got tired of my bird finger getting bloody after a cylinder of kahuna loads. the hogue monogrip solved that problem.

murf

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy Again

Well, first of all, I ain't interested in speed. Everybody who watches me shoot CAS knows that.

I dunno if I am shooting Big Kahuna loads, but a full case of FFg behind a 250 grain bullet is nothing to sneeze at. And the gun most certainly shifts in my hand. I dunno about using my offhand thumb to cock the hammer because I only shoot single action revolvers Duelist style (one handed). So that's what I do. I hold the gun lightly and allow it to do whatever it wants to in my hand. It never jumps out of my hand, my knuckle never gets whacked by the trigger guard, and my accuracy is surprisingly good, despite the fact that I may need to regrip after each shot. Allowing the gun to shift in my hand makes it easier for my thumb to reach the hammer spur while the gun is up in the air.

Now the Three Screw Flat Top 44 Mag that I just bought, that's a handful. No problem shooting it one handed with 44 Specials, but I may have to rethink things a bit for the full Magnum loads. May have to go to the squaw grip (two hands).

 

[Old Fuff]

Ah... Well the .44 Magnum case will hold a whole lot of black powder...

Recoil isn't bad at all.

 

[HDCamel]

I guess, to elaborate, what feels natural to me is pretty much the way that Craig grips.

 

[BCRider]

HD, you've actually got a fair amount of difference there. Your grip from the picture is the manner I'm using now. The high hold I was using before is pretty much just like Craig's.

Note how your first knuckles of the thumb and trigger finger are more or less at the same height across the back strap? And how the wider "shelf" of the grip frame is almost totally esposed? (sorry all, I don't know the proper name for that portion)

Contrast this to Craig's grip which is higher up and twisted more around the grip so the first knuckle of the thumb is almost resting on that metal "shelf".

I found that as I put my hand up higher like Craig I had to twist it around so my thumb was well around just like his grip. It does work but it felt somewhat unnatural to me. I also found that at the slightest provocation the gun would tend to shoot left.

Bringing my grip down a little so it looks like the grip you're using I find that I can hold it evenly like your hand is shown and that I can pull the trigger very naturally and the gun shoots straight with equal "amounts of the groupings to the right as the left now. Before my "fliers" were all well left of center and it was almost impossible to get the gun to err to the right.

I know all this talk of "fliers" makes it sound bad. But come on now, we all have them from time to time. For me it showed that my grip and trigger pull associated with the new grip was more neutral by the fact that when I did err teh direction was more evenly random. Before any fliers were always strongly to the left. I don't seem to need to force my accuracy so much with the slightly shifted grip. As a result I'm getting better accuracy and tighter groupings than before. It just works better all 'round.

Now before anyone jumps at their keyboard I'm not saying that this is right or that is wrong. Well... other than for me. But at the same time it's surprising how a slight shift in grip style made such a big difference.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Ah... Well the .44 Magnum case will hold a whole lot of black powder...

Recoil isn't bad at all.

Well, yeah, if I were to load 44 Mags with BP they would hold less powder than my 45 Colt loads. So recoil would be real nice.

But in this case I was shooting factory loads with that heathen Smokeless stuff. Recoil was right smart shooting one handed. I think I may have even flinched a little bit.

 

[HDCamel]

BC, I see...

But yeah, whatever feels most natural...

I fiddled with my grip a whole lot before I just sort of relaxed my hand, stuck my arm out and dropped the gun in and let it settle naturally into place. Never looked back.

Doesn't work for everything though...

 

[CraigC]

Actually, our grips are almost identical. Mine is not higher, I just place my thumb a little higher. Actually resting it on the top flat of the grip panel, while HD folds it down against the middle finger. Most my sixguns have a nice beveled edge there and it's a good reference point. It also works fine whether shooting one or two handed. I don't grip them very high, the hammer never contacts the web of my hand when cocked.