Shooting with gloves on

[Justin]

So I decided to go to the range yesterday and do some shooting. What with it being all of 40* out, I was wearing a heavy winter coat and a pair of gloves.

Just for the heck of it, I decided to try doing the whole drawing from concealment and engaging the target thing in my winter getup.

Surprisingly I didn't have much trouble drawing the pistol (a fullsize USP) or pulling the trigger. There were a couple of trouble spots, though.

1)Engaging the safety with gloves on takes a bit more concentration than normal.

2)The gloves completely changed how the gun pointed. The pistol sat higher up in my hand than I'm used to.

3)The toughest part was hitting the magazine release. I had to practice a few times before I got to the point where I could hit the release with any sort of regularity.

Once I got the empty magazine out, putting a fresh one in wasn't that tough, and for the first time ever I was grateful for that bit of engineering that will drop the slide if you slam the magazine home hard enough.

Accuracy didn't suffer that much, but then I was shooting at 7 yards.

All in all it was an interesting exercise, and something that seems worth trying if you live somewhere cold enough to warrant a heavy coat and gloves.

 

[Chupacabra]

One thing I really like about the USP is the enlarged trigger guard. Makes it a lot easier to use with a gloved hand.

 

[Anthony]

Hi Justin,

Massad Ayoob wrote several years ago about selecting a pistol in .45 ACP for his police department in New Hampshire. One of the requirements was that it work with heavy winter gloves. They ended up choosing the Ruger P-90 over several other brands.

Ayoob also pointed out that the best pistols for use with such gloves have enlarged trigger guards and are traditional double action. That is, a long trigger pull for the first shot with comparatively shorter single action pulls for all remaining shots. Once the firing was done the pistol could be decocked back to double action mode. This was to avoid an accidental discharge while holding someone at gunpoint which is not very hard to do when you consider how little tactile sensitivity you have in heavy winter gloves combined with the light trigger pull of most single action triggers.

His favorite winter sidearm to that point had been the SIG-Sauer P-220 European which uses the heel clip magazine release on the bottom of the grip. The last time I looked at a catalog SIG was still cataloging this pistol if you would be interested.

For grins, I took my Ruger P-90 and several other pistols out to the range one winter day with my winter gloves. This included a couple of 1911s, a couple of Smith & Wesson pistols, Kahr K-40, Browning Hi-Power, and a few revolvers.

The P-90 won hands down.

 

[Andrew Rothman]

I quoted Ayoob about this here: http://thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47753

For your convenience:


http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/ayoob79.html



quote:
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The best combination of tactile sensitivity and adequate warmth will be found in gloves made of high-tech materials such as Thinsulate. You can always try the old arctic outdoorsman’s trick of making a slit lengthwise in the trigger finger pocket of the gloves or mittens, through which you can extend your index finger just long enough to make the shot and then bring the digit back to its warm place if that is necessary. Downside: I found that snow tended to get into the glove through the slit.

When I toured Anchorage, Alaska, in the company of local city and state law enforcement officers, I learned their approach to “deep freeze shooting situations†insofar as gloves. Most, when they were outdoors long enough to have to worry about it, knew that in the Alaska winter the cold would be so savage that they would need substantial, serious-size gloves that could get in the way of manipulating their rifles and shotguns. They learned to fit the gloves just snugly enough to stay in place, but loosely enough that they could be flung clear, or the officer could at least raise the hand, sink his teeth into the end of the glove fingers, and jerk a bare hand clear to operate the gun.

It is always important to keep the finger completely clear of the trigger guard until such time as the decision to immediately and intentionally fire has been made. This is even more starkly necessary in cold weather, where hands numbed by cold or blocked from touch by fabric can start applying pressure to the trigger without the person holding the gun actually feeling it. I know one deer hunter who made a habit of letting his index finger stray to the trigger of his 7mm Magnum Remington Model 700 hunting rifle. One frigid late afternoon in the remote wilds of Utah, his finger rested on that trigger, and began to contract. He didn’t notice it was happening until he was jolted back to reality by the deafening roar of his hunting rifle. Fortunately, nothing but his pride was hurt. Since that accidental discharge, he has become scrupulously careful to keep his finger away from the trigger area until he is certain that the time to fire has come.

There are special “hunter’s mittens†or “shooter’s mittens†designed for Arctic-level cold that have separately articulated finger pockets for the trigger finger. Whatever your handwear, it is critically important that you log some practice time with it on, handling and shooting your firearms. The gun will feel bigger when held in a gloved hand. If your firearm has a very small trigger guard, such as the old Winchester Model 1897 pump shotgun, a glove thick enough to be really warm may also be thick enough to fill the trigger guard to the point where the glove material is putting pressure against the trigger without you realizing it.

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[marvl]

This brings up a related question, who makes a good set of gloves for shooting? Something that will keep your hands reasonably warm and not unduely restrict your finger movement. Any thoughts?

 

[P95Carry]

Hey ... a subject dear to my heart ... I kicked off a thread a while back ...

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47753&highlight=gloves

On this very subject ... go take a peek cos we had some quite good feedback.

 

[Erik]

Gloves change things!

Try it out and see for yourself.

You may find your self shopping for new gloves, maybe even new pistols.

 

[fastbolt]

This is a subject that isn't mentioned as often as it probably should be, especially in training venues.

I've searched for the right combination of "practical" gloves for many years, for both their intended purpose, suitable to the task and environmental conditions anticipated, as well as for shooting.

Long before I worried about becoming a cop, I learned that shooting a smooth wood or bone handled SA revolver in the middle of winter often left me with the choice of either warm hands, or varying degrees of cold hands ... depending on how badly I need to make the shot ... which meant either barehanded or thinner gloves than I'd prefer.

Later, in L/E work, I learned that different tasks still meant at least a couple of different types of gloves, and this was even before surgical gloves became something we had to consider. The tasks encountered during rural patrol sometimes required better hand protection than the thin deerskins gloves used when patroling the urban streets. How about the gloves worn by bicycle patrol folks?

I occasionally practice shooting with different gloves, as this is easily done when I work our outdoor range. I've mostly been wearing one of the popular spandex & neoprene types for the last couple of years, but also some leather & fabric gloves. It's still not as easy to shoot using gloves, as it is without wearing them. No surprise. But I practice.

My main concern about wearing gloves doesn't come from my L/E job, though, but from my motorcycle riding. I still have different gloves for different weather and conditions, and none of them are the "best" gloves to wear for "shooting". They're intended for the conditions involved with riding, and they really work well for that purpose.

Bottom line? For ME, I practice weapon presentation & shooting with different gloves often enough to at least remind myself of the difficulties introduced by wearing different gloves ... and I also practice removing at least the strong hand glove as fast as possible, for those actual situations where I may suspect I might have need to present my weapon, and want to place myself in a better position of advantage.

This is something I started doing back when I used to drive a marked unit. I'd have my strong side glove off right after I put the gear selector in Park and unlatched my seatbelt. Well, unless I was bailing out of the car and in foot pursuit ...

But if it was a "routine" situation and I assessed the potential threat situation and decided to put the glove back on ... or the situation made me want to wear gloves to handle something, or someone, then I was back to realizing ahead of time the potential difficulties involved with presenting and shooting my duty weapons while wearing gloves ... which would simply require that I deal with them accordingly, as best I could ... and I'd fall back on my experience during practice devoted to that situation.

It's not a perfect solution, and I don't mean to imply it as such ... but everytime I don a pair of gloves, the potential need to be able to handle and shoot a weapon is still present in my awareness, as is the possible difficulties involved in wearing or removing the gloves ... if only in my "background" awareness somewhere.

Sometimes even "Shooting Gloves" aren't as good for shooting as some of us might wish.

 

[Morgan]

The best general purpose gloves:

Hatch Specialist gloves - any police supply store should have them.

You can shoot, write, fight, etc. They make an insulated pair that's warmer, but still thin on the front of the glove.

Other types for best warmth, but these have served me well.

 

[El Tejon]

Justin, any motorscooter supply shoppes out there? Might be worth a look and you can get a chain for your wallet.

I still use the old gloves IPD used. An earlier version of the gloves Morgan cited.

 

[Andrew Rothman]

Wow. My local police supply store has almost 30 different Hatch gloves!

http://www.streichers.com/catalog/categories/index.cfm?action=view_sub_category&cat_id=7

 

[Ryder]

There are special “hunter’s mittens†or “shooter’s mittens†designed for Arctic-level cold that have separately articulated finger pockets for the trigger finger.

This sure brings back some memories I used to wear fingerless woolies inside a pair of doe skin mittens such as these. Awesome warmth and they last forever. Better for long gun use however as there still exists the problem of the thumb being covered.

 

[Sven]

Brings back memories of cold winters in MN.

I'm guessing that serrated frames would be easier to get a hold on. I'd much prefer to paw a Valtro than the CZ 75 with gloves, even if the gloves were grippy themselves.