Below is an article from the July Dillon Blue Press that contends that maximum speed and minimum disturbance of the shooter’s aim is best achieved by removing one’s finger fully out of contact with the trigger when shooting fast strings.

As the article states, that’s contrary to what many trainers and competitors advocate, which is to keep one’s finger in contact with the trigger during the process of resetting the trigger and firing the next shot.
Your thoughts?

Link.
(Sorry for the formatting. The article is easier to read online.)

Added: Based on just a little experimenting with a P320, I found that I could not keep the gun nearly as steady during dry firing by removing my finger from the trigger for reset than by keeping it in contact. On the other hand, it did seem as though I could operate the trigger faster by removing my finger between shots.

By Duane Thomas
It is accepted as a truism by many people that
the key to fast and accurate shooting is to hit the
trigger reset, i.e. let the trigger return forward
between shots no further than required for the
mechanism to reset. That’s not really true. In this
article we will discuss the problems that come
with trying to shoot fast by hitting the trigger reset,
also I’ll tell you a superior technique that actually
does work really well in fast shooting.
Before we proceed, let me make it clear that
what we’re discussing is dealing with a reasonably
short, light trigger pull – 1911, GLOCK, SIG P320,
the single-action shots on a DA/SA auto, etc. Double-
action shooting will not be covered here.
I have written articles on hitting the trigger
reset, myself. It’s a very useful technique for slowto
medium-speed shooting. The problem comes
when we take a technique that works well at slowto
medium-speed, and then try to make it work at
high speed simply by executing the slow/medium
technique faster.
When we try to hit the trigger reset at speed,
there is a very real tendency to get what we call
“trigger freeze.” This is a bit of a misnomer since
there’s really nothing malfunctioning in the trigger
mechanism, rather we are trying so hard to be fast,
to shorten the amount of forward movement of our
trigger finger in pursuit of speed, we actually begin
pulling the trigger to the rear again before it’s gone
far enough forward to reset. This leads to an embarrassing
interruption in our string of fire. Also, when
we’re used to hitting the trigger reset, then we speed
things up, we tend to pull the trigger too hard, with
a predictable negative effect on accuracy.
Rob Leatham has said, and I paraphrase:
Teaching people a trigger technique that
works for slow- and medium-speed shooting,
and then teaching them to use the
same technique for shooting fast is like
teaching someone to walk, then when the
time comes to run, telling them, “Okay,
now just walk really, really fast.” Because
they’re two entirely different things. When
you’re walking, you’ve always got at least
one foot on the ground, and a lot of the
time you’ve got two feet on the ground.
When you’re running, a lot of the time you
have NO feet on the ground.
That’s an excellent analogy, because the only
way to run is to lose contact with the ground. You
cannot run by walking really fast, trying to keep
one foot on the ground at all times. Similarly, you
cannot shoot fast by constantly keeping your finger
on the trigger.
What I am about to tell you will sound counterintuitive,
and contradict what you hear from many
other sources, but here it is: the only way you will
ever be able to shoot really fast is if you take your
index finger off the trigger between shots. When
we’re trying to control forward movement of the
trigger with our index finger, there’s a lot of muscular
tension in the finger. Tense muscles cannot
move fast. Also we wind up slowing forward
movement of the trigger because we’re actually
fighting its return.

Watch Rob Leatham shoot. His index finger
comes so far off the trigger between shots it’s
practically banging off the inside front of the trigger
guard. And he’s blazingly fast. For myself, I
am in hot pursuit of the sub-two second Bill
Drill. Felt like I was bashing my head into a brick
wall because, using trigger reset, I could only
rarely get my splits (shot-to-shot speed) down
below .20 second, and frankly there were a lot of
.21 to .24 splits in there, as well. Occasionally
there might be a .18 or .19, but that didn’t happen
too often. I was only able to get my splits
down consistently into the .18s and .19s after
Grand Master Scott Pries told me to take my finger
completely off the trigger between shots. That
might not sound like a big improvement, but take
it from me, there is a world of difference
between consistent .18-.19s
and consistent .20-.24s.
Not only does taking your finger
off the trigger speed up splits
because your index finger is more
relaxed thus not retarding forward
movement of the trigger, it also completely
eliminates trigger freeze. Of
COURSE your trigger always resets
when you take your finger off the
trigger between shots; there’s nothing
there to STOP it from resetting.
Let the trigger drive your finger forward.
Let it fling your finger off of it.
You will frequently hear the technique
we’re discussing here called
“trigger slapping.” I don’t like that
term since that seems to me to
equate to hitting the trigger really
hard. I prefer the term “trigger tapping.” The key
to getting accuracy along with your speed is to
tap the trigger not terribly harder than is required
to actually break the shot, therefore you won’t
have a lot of excess energy moving the gun
around. In dry fire, practice hitting the trigger
rapidly, over and over again, staring out so light
you don’t even break the trigger. Tap, tap, tap,
tap. Make the amount of force you put into the
trigger tap incrementally harder. Tap, tap, tap,
tap. More. More. Until finally you hit the trigger
hard enough to break. Do that procedure several
times. Memorize that amount of force. This is
how hard you want to be hitting the trigger in
rapid fire with live ammo.
Trigger tapping doesn’t require a hugely
refined, super-light match trigger. Trigger pulls on
my carry GLOCK 17 go 4-1/4 pounds according to
my NRA weight set. By the standards of a serious
competitor, those are actually fairly heavy trigger
pulls. But I have always competed in matches
with my carry gun, so 4-1/4 pounds it is. Honestly
does compel me to admit it’s easier to get the
most from trigger tapping if you are, in fact, tapping
a really light trigger. But it can be done with
heavier trigger pulls, you just have less margin for
error, and have to execute the technique with a
higher skill level.
There is a theory going around that installing a
New York Trigger module in a GLOCK speeds up
splits because the trigger reset is more powerful. In
my experience this is untrue. While you can make
trigger tapping work well with a 4-1/4 pound trigger
pull, doing it with the 8 to 12 pound trigger
pulls and far stiffer “wall” you get with a New York
Trigger or New York Trigger Plus (or the equivalent
current production NY-1 or NY-2) module is a
completely different proposition. Of
course, that’s my experience. There
may well be someone out there in
the big wide world burning things
down with a New York Trigger in
their GLOCK. I’ll believe it when I see
it, but I’m not holding my breath.
Like I said before, I know all this
“trigger tapping” stuff might sound
counter-intuitive, you would think
that less index finger movement
would necessarily be faster than
more index finger movement. In this
case it’s not really the amount of finger
movement that’s important, it’s
the quality of finger movement. Trigger
reset is slow because it requires
a tense index finger; trigger tapping
is fast because it requires a relaxed
index finger. Relaxed muscles can
move faster because they don’t have to overcome
their own resistance before they can begin to
move, and once they do start moving, the movements
are far faster and smoother.
Hitting the trigger reset does have its uses. For
things like a fast first shot from the draw, long distance
shooting, cutting really fine shots as when
hitting a target’s A-zone when it’s mostly covered
by a no-shoot target, long target transitions i.e.
moving the gun between widely spaced targets
and being instantly ready to shoot when the gun
gets to the next target, having the trigger pinned
up against “the wall” with almost enough force to
fire the gun but not quite, then applying that last
little bit of force to fire the gun, is king. Trigger
reset versus trigger tapping is not a “dump one,
completely replace it with the other” proposition.
You need to have both techniques in your bag of
tricks. But when it comes time to rock ‘n’ roll, trigger
tapping is the way.
Duane’s website is Self-Defense-Handguns.com

I'll try it with my P226. The glock might be different. I seem to be able to ride the link easily enough.

This is the new training standard that I've witnessed especially over the past year or so. And it does work.

I've been trying to perfect it and I'm slowly getting there, but the muscle memory is so ingrained it's tough to overcome.

My take is with shooters of a low to medium skill level shooting off reset works best until fundamentals are fully mastered. Once to an advanced level then coming off the trigger more has its advantages.
In precision shooting ( such as NRA bullseye which is fast becoming a lost art sadly) shooting off reset is essential.
Much of this is focused on speeding up the discharge of the shot rather than the precision of the shot. I enjoy run and gun as much as the next guy and there are some truly gifted shooters at high levels of this type of competition to be sure, but I am rather Disappointed at the immense focus on speed all the time

Well, major props to him because he is definitely selling a product. Pulling out all stops so it seems.

Fact of the matter is that he has strung together a bunch of empirical observations, named dropped Robby, concluded "I can't do this so this can't be done" and wrote it into an article. Leaving much actual fact out. Rooster crows, the sun comes up, so the rooster had to make the sun come up.

Where to start? The trigger stall he refers to is the same false prophet that many police chiefs have trotted out when any sort of trigger prep is brought up. Trigger prep will get you kilt!!! Don't want to train? Want to marginally train? Want to have inconsistency in your training? Yep, slapping the trigger in an uncontrolled fashion is probably the best thing for you. Then when you want to slow down and "be accurate", pin the trigger to the rear until the sights stop, ease it out to the reset point, and slap it again.

Try this. Grab a friend and a timer. Head to the 10 yard line on a IPSC target. Place a small circle in the middle of the body of the target. Hold yourself accountable to shoot the best groups that you can. Misses don't count. Load a magazine with 10 rounds. For the first five rounds. Take a sight picture. Start with your finger off of the trigger. On the beep, just as fast as you can go break the shot. Record the time, and the accuracy on the target. Repeat for five rounds. Then for the next five rounds, prep the trigger aggressively. On the beep, from that hard prep, break the shot. Record the time and accuracy. At the end of the day, you'll find that the prep shots are much more accurate and a full 1/10 or more faster. Faster and more accurate, you say? That stuff really sells itself.

Then there is trotting out Rob. Well, if you disagree with the article, you disagree with Rob. Um, no. See, I've actually had this conversation with Rob. NRA in Houston. He dropped by the booth and we were chatting, and he showed me his idea of trigger control. And then he had me try it in dry fire with one of the M&Ps we had at the booth. His theory has little to do with slapping. And everything to do with you can do anything you want with the trigger as long as your follow through is immaculate. Funny, no mention of follow through in the article. Rooster crows, sun comes up. Immaculate follow through is key. And Rob teaches it as so.

Yeah, I'll pass on "trigger tapping" or whatever you wish to call it. I can show results actually training, instead of trying to take a short cut of coarse trigger control and poor accuracy. I prep aggressively and can shoot .14-15 splits out of a 9mm service pistol all day long with great control. My accuracy doesn't suffer. Oh yeah, and guess what? I don't have to transfer from one technique to go fast, to another technique when I need to be accurate. It doesn't work that way anyways. Most people can get fast up close, but they fall apart when they have to be accurate. Or they have to slow down to make head shots because the shot is "harder" and their accuracy won't keep up. Prepping allows the shooter to switch between target areas, distances, and navigate no shoots and hostages without having to change pace or trigger control styles. I'll choose to be fast and accurate instead.

Pass.

Here's the real trick. No matter your trigger control style, you slap at a certain pace. Prepping the trigger reduces the distance. Reducing the distance allows the shooter to control the amount of input that gets put into the gun. Practice at prepping, and drills such as the Bump Drill allow the shooter to learn finer trigger control that leads to less motion put into the gun, which equals better accuracy. Speed and Accuracy? What a concept.

The next logical argument is the "gross/fine motor skill" argument. The argument that under stress your fingers will become little Vienna sausages, you'll get tunnel vision so badly that you can't see your sights, you'll stare at the target while drooling, and slap the trigger 28 times for a pistol that only holds 16. I love the "gross/fine motor skill" arguments. I love to hear dudes telling me that under stress, I will not be able to hit a slide stop, but yet I will be able to hit a mag release, pull the trigger, etc. Then after that is laid out, I point to the fact that under stress we seem to have no issues moving the selector on an AR. Exact same movement, similar sized part. Invariably, I get told "well, that's different" which translates into "yeah, you got me in a box with your damned, unwelcome logic". Guess what? You'll do as you train. If you train to do all these skills, and you are invested in the process of shooting the gun, under stress you'll do the same thing. You may do it a little worse, but the trained will always do as they are trained. Same thing with trigger prep. You will do as you train.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Well, major props to him because he is definitely selling a product. Pulling out all stops so it seems.

Yeah, I'll pass.

Damn Jones, don't be so mealy mouthed ... say what you really think!

... and thanks for the input.

Would it be overkill if I said, "I love Sigforum" again?

Well done, Jerry.

You're right on about Leatham, too.

I'm tempted to say Thomas is overthinking some aspects of this. He seems to be really wound up about feeling the trigger reset in the microsecond that it happens, and he's tensing up and perhaps psyching himself out because of it.

Fully releasing the trigger may actually help him shoot faster. But I'm reminded of Major League batters who tense up too much at the plate to hit. Quite a few of them benefit from waiting for the pitch standing fairly upright and with the bat only loosely held in their hands. By forcing them to think ahead and look carefully, the looser stance seems to lower the degree of physical and mental tension so that batters are better focused and do better at the plate.

I guess I basically suspect that Thomas may have sidestepped a problem rather than identified a novel solution.

quote:

Originally posted by agony:
This is the new training standard that I've witnessed especially over the past year or so. And it does work.

I've been trying to perfect it and I'm slowly getting there, but the muscle memory is so ingrained it's tough to overcome.

It's really not that new. The Rogers Shooting School is one of the oldest teaching establishments around and Bill Rogers has been teaching flip and press, coming off of a trigger, forever.
A massive amount of confusion usually ensues because people do not separate a finger work in reset and finger work in trigger press. Finger work in reset a'la Rogers and Leatham, and some others, implies finger coming off of a trigger face to avoid trigger freeze and short stroking. This is opposite to a classic keeping a contact with a trigger face at all times, which does a good job of avoiding a trigger freeze and short stroking as well as long as shooter doesn't try to hit a reset point to a millimeter.
Trigger finger work in trigger press, regardless how you work the reset, is something different. Having shot with both Bill and Robbie, they have their own ways to describe what they want done.

I've been to Rogers twice. 2006 and 2008. I hold an advanced rate. They did not teach anything of the sort when i was there.

Bill showed up for the safety brief on Sunday, but was gone back to Florida on Monday morning. Both times, I had Claude Werner running the show with Rosie and Ronnie.

They may teach it now, but they didn't teach it in 06 and 08.

I still don't understand what follow through has to do with accuracy? Isn't the shot gone?
I have always released the trigger as soon as the shot is fired. I learned through training that I should then prep trigger instead of just slapping all the time.

quote:

Originally posted by jezsuiz:
I still don't understand what follow through has to do with accuracy? Isn't the shot gone?
I have always released the trigger as soon as the shot is fired. I learned through training that I should then prep trigger instead of just slapping all the time.

Follow through has everything to do with accuracy. You know, when you are shooting along and you hit that dummy round or round with a hard primer when you are expecting the gun to go boom and it goes click? What happens to the gun with 80 percent of shooters? The muzzle dips from where they were attempting to push down on the gun to "control" recoil. That is a follow through error and it happens to a lot of people. I get a nasty case of it spring and fall it seems.

For a right handed shooter, this type of follow through error will cause the rounds to impact to the 7 o'clock of point of aim. For a left handed shooter, it causes the rounds to impact to the 5 o'clock.

At the time you pull the trigger, the round hasn't left the barrel, so there is a connection.

We teach to prep the trigger under recoil with just enough trigger travel movement to get the job done.

The other horrible thing about this trigger trap or whatever it is caused is now the shooter has now turned the trigger into an on/off switch. When they need to stop shooting because conditions change, they can't because the trigger control style is so very uncontrolled and coarse. Short cuts always have pitfalls, which is why I prefer just to put in the work ahead of time.

quote:

Originally posted by bpnkrtn:

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Well, major props to him because he is definitely selling a product.

Damn Jones, don't be so mealy mouthed ... say what you really think!

... and thanks for the input.

Of course if we're honest about the obvious, so is Mr. Jones.

quote:

Originally posted by jezsuiz:
I still don't understand what follow through has to do with accuracy? Isn't the shot gone?

Mostly... But there's more to it than just dwell time. But in general shooting where follow through is going to make a noticeable difference isn't really the same kind of shooting where trigger reset is going to matter in the slightest.

quote:

Originally posted by jezsuiz:
I still don't understand what follow through has to do with accuracy? Isn't the shot gone?

Follow through is one of the fundamentals of marksmanship. It doesn't matter if one is shooting a pistol, carbine, shotgun, or rifle.

Dry fire practice shows this. Jljones noted this above in his "click" discussion above. Shoot a low recoiling firearm -- such as a PCP pistol or rifle -- and the importance of follow through becomes obvious.

It's about 15 mins in but it pretty much sums it up. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AKW6T0xNIcs

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
I've been to Rogers twice. 2006 and 2008. I hold an advanced rate. They did not teach anything of the sort when i was there.

Bill showed up for the safety brief on Sunday, but was gone back to Florida on Monday morning. Both times, I had Claude Werner running the show with Rosie and Ronnie.

Well, it seems like this was Claude's show then? I went there 4 years ago, I think. Rosie passed away and Claude retired by then but I do remember him posting on pistol-forum that he used flip and press. Don't know if he is a member here to clarify.
Bill shot 123 demo in our class and did talk flip and press. I also believe it is in his book which, as it always happens, I cannot find to look it up. You still have it, the book?

Did you get your advanced score in 06 or 08, or both?

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

You know, when you are shooting along and you hit that dummy round or round with a hard primer when you are expecting the gun to go boom and it goes click? What happens to the gun with 80 percent of shooters? The muzzle dips from where they were attempting to push down on the gun to "control" recoil. That is a follow through error and it happens to a lot of people.

Interesting way of putting it. I always thought that the error described is an anticipation. I presume that the follow-through, whatever that means to different people, is screwed up in this case as well but the root cause is anticipation. Is it not?

quote:

Originally posted by YVK:

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:


[QUOTE]Originally posted by jljones:

You know, when you are shooting along and you hit that dummy round or round with a hard primer when you are expecting the gun to go boom and it goes click? What happens to the gun with 80 percent of shooters? The muzzle dips from where they were attempting to push down on the gun to "control" recoil. That is a follow through error and it happens to a lot of people.

Interesting way of putting it. I always thought that the error described is an anticipation. I presume that the follow-through, whatever that means to different people, is screwed up in this case as well but the root cause is anticipation. Is it not?

I'm not Jerry, but I believe he's talking about the post-ignition push, not the pre-ignition push. I believe we are discussing a shooter beyond novice.
Pre-ignition push - anticipation or push prior to the bullet leaving the barrel.
Post-ignition push - the push down after the bullet has left the barrel in the attempt to control the recoil. Exaggerated of course cause the grip should be sufficient to control, but the subconscious has other intentions.

This is where Jerry's teaching excels beyond the standard. He teaches the importance of follow through and the breakdown of the application. Shooters plateau or fall apart when the subconscious hasn't been wired to properly follow through at speed and multiple shots. Multiple shots meaning beyond the double tap. Fire 1 shot we need 2 sight pictures and a hard prep on the trigger, fire 5 rounds we need 6 sight pictures and a hard prep on the trigger. A lot of shooters will fire take their finger off the trigger and snatch the gun back to looks at the results on the target, rather than the feedback from the sights and the proper follow through.

Distance and multiple shots is where this application can make or break you. 170 yards with a pistol without follow through can assure a miss. A bill drill at 10 yards without follow through will generally result in leaving the A-zone.

I'm not saying you don't understand this either, just so that those reading this exchange can maybe have a better understanding.

My own observations, I'm tending away from trigger reset. I'm seeing things like dead triggers (didn't fully reset) and or unable to duplicate reset under pressure. With a dead trigger the student's response is to pull it harder not to reset or tap rack. Training will overcome this but I don't have unlimited time or $ to train my officers and many of them don't have any interest in firearms and don't train on their own time (I offer to train with them off duty but I don't get many volunteers.) On the other hand some students do great with trigger reset because it gets them thinking about the trigger pull. Rob's podcast was similar to what Adam Painchaud from the Sig Academy told us recently in a firearms instructor's meeting. Good stuff and great conversation.

Admittedly, I have been practicing shooting from the reset but I'm simply not at the level of many on this forum to shoot for tenths of a second split speeds.
It has made for better consistency/groups.

I do, however, find it amusing when someone in a video comments about the short/crisp/excellent reset on a pistol while clearly lifting their finger off the trigger 1/4" or more between each shot.