quote:

Originally posted by FedDC:
It teaches them to put their finger on the trigger and press through the first stage, stopping at the wall of the second stage. This is done to make times and because it’s more accurate…but wildly unsafe.

That’s not a trigger issue, or even a technique issue. That’s a safety violation. As a matter of fact, people have said the same things about the DA trigger. Because instructors allow the students to run around with their finger on the trigger.

Thanks for the reply.

Ensigmatic- I believe he’s talking about the first stage being the Pre-Travel on a Glock.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by FedDC:
When you watch officers qual using a super heavy 2 stage trigger, ...

What combat/SD sidearm uses a two-stage trigger?

The Glock trigger is effectively 2 stage with the NY configuration…really in almost all configurations.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Ensigmatic- I believe he’s talking about the first stage being the Pre-Travel on a Glock.

Oh.

quote:

Originally posted by FedDC:
The Glock trigger is effectively 2 stage with the NY configuration…really in almost all configurations.

No, it's not. What you're calling the "first stage" of a "two-stage" Glock trigger is just pre-travel take-up.

By your reasoning, any pistol with pre-travel take-up is a two-stage trigger. That would include every one of my 1911s, for example, and I've never heard anyone refer to a stock 1911 trigger as being a two-stage trigger.

I know some people refer to triggers with pre-travel take-up as "two-stage," but that's a misnomer, IMO. For that to be true, my SIG P210A would then be a three-stage trigger. I don't know everything there is to know about firearms, but I've never heard of a three-stage trigger.

In any event: As jljones noted: What some of these officers are doing in the name of improving their scores is unsafe. Why aren't they DQ'd for that practice?

quote:

Originally posted by chongosuerte:
Was the LA sheriff hiring idiots? Or just training them to be?

Not rhetorical. That’s a lot of NDs.

https://oig.lacounty.gov/Porta...scharge%20Report.pdf

this is their OIG report which gets into a bunch of detail the reporter at the LA Times could never have understood (given the shallow understanding that reporters try to attain to tell the story they have already decided to write).

It isnt a bad read, and has a few nuggets in it:

page iii:

quote:

We found that several factors
apparently contributed to the significant increase. The first is that the lack of an external safety lever on the M&P coupled with inattention has led to unintended discharges in locker rooms, bathrooms and other locations. The second factor appears to be that some deputies are violating basic firearms safety rules by failing to follow the admonition to keep the index finger off the trigger until the user makes the conscious decision to fire the weapon. The new handgun is more sensitive in some ways than the Beretta and unintended discharges have risen as a result. Finally, weapon-light activation errors have led to a significant number of deputies reporting that they unintentionally pulled the trigger of their weapon when they intended only to turn on the light.

Page 18:

quote:

"The authors of the analysis noted that until 2002, LASD personnel were trained, “on target, on trigger,” meaning that as a deputy is pointing his or her Beretta 92F at a target the finger would be on the trigger. According to interviews we conducted, in 2002, the training curriculum was updated so that deputies were taught to keep their trigger finger along the frame of the pistol and off the trigger until he or she made the decision to shoot. According to the Weapons Training Unit report, older deputies often kept the prior learned practice of resting their finger on the trigger, despite the new training. The report’s authors concluded “that the practice of ‘riding the trigger’ has resulted in an increase in unintentional discharges......In fact, during interviews, some LASD staff expressed the opinion that many deputies habitually placed their fingers on the trigger in a potentially adversarial setting even when not pointing their gun at a suspect.”

Page 20:

quote:

"inadvertent pulling of the gun’s trigger, rather than or in addition to the grip switch, appears to have been a factor in five out of nineteen M&P-related unintended discharges in a tactical setting in 2013 and 2014. If the partially available data from 2015 is included, the ratio is six out of twenty-five."

The report spends alot of time discussing the use of the grip tape switch (Disclaimer, I think they are inaapropriate for patrol too) on the weaponlight and some deficiencies with the training in the use of the light.

quote:

Originally posted by car541:
It isnt a bad read, and has a few nuggets in it:

page iii:

quote:

We found that several factors
... Finally, weapon-light activation errors have led to a significant number of deputies reporting that they unintentionally pulled the trigger of their weapon when they intended only to turn on the light.

That's an interesting observation, to me.

I've a WML on my home defense pistol. About the first time I went to take it out of the safe upon returning home, I almost unconsciously went to activate the light. Stopped myself, right then and there, with finger on the button, and thought "Not a good habit. All it will take is having a brain fart in doing that, and hit the trigger, instead."

I do check the light whenever I remove the pistol from the safe, but I do so only very deliberately, very consciously, rather than it being an almost unconscious, automatic action, and with the pistol pointed in as safe a direction as possible inside a residential structure.

Some observations. They are long-winded, but it is a subject I have given a lot of thought to:

It helps to understand some basic things about the type of study posted, and not just this one, but about any scientific or semiscientific research project.

The first and most obvious is to look carefully at what the study researched and what its claimed results were. This one was to examine whether shooters’ hand grip strength had an effect on their ability to shoot well. This study attempted to determine that by having a fairly large sample of law enforcement officers, men and women, fire a qualification course with pistols having heavy double action triggers. As part of the study it also tested the grip strength of the participants. The results: two things.

The first was that the women test subjects had less grip strength on average than the men. That would hardly be surprising to most people who have ever been asked or had to ask for help in opening a pickle jar in the kitchen.

The second finding confirmed that the theory used to design the study that shooters with lower grip strength, specifically women, would often perform more poorly with the guns used. The research also attempted to quantify the effects of grip strength and provided some data pertaining to how much variations in grip strength affects shooting results. That in itself made the research significantly different from the usual anecdotes and, “Well, everyone knows …,” opinions about the question.

But those two findings weren’t the only thing that the study reported, and that can always be important to understand about any such project. As it stated, this research “sought to verify independent studies” regarding grip strength and shooting ability. In other words, this wasn’t the first time the issue had been examined. Knowing that is always an important element of determining whether any research conclusions are valid. Many, many scientific studies are conducted for the sole purpose of determining whether another study’s results can be replicated. If it’s not the first time a question has been studied and if its results and conclusions verify what has been found before by other researchers, that is at least an indication that the most recent study’s results and conclusions are valid. If a study cannot be replicated, it casts doubt on the original claims and often results in their conclusions being rejected or at least ignored by the scientific community.

On the other hand, the excerpted part of the complete report posted above, and possibly the full report itself, left certain obvious questions unanswered, and that is another thing that’s often true of scientific research.

My first question was what gun was used for the research? “Double action” narrows the options down to a degree, but still leaves a number of different possibilities. Although not commonly recognized (or admitted), Glocks have double action triggers, but their shooting characteristics are hardly the same as a Classic line SIG’s with traditional DAO trigger. The other obvious question was do differences in grip strength become less important, or even completely irrelevant, if the trigger pull weight drops below a certain level? I.e., would shooters of both “genders” do equally well if they were shooting Glocks rather than DAO Classic line SIGs?

Another thing the excerpt didn’t mention was what cartridge was used for the research. More powerful cartridges are generally harder for individuals with lower grip strength to shoot well even if trigger pull weight isn’t an issue. Again, would the performance differences have been less if the guns used had been chambered for 9mm Luger rather than 357 SIG, 40 S&W, or 45 ACP?

Then there’s the “standardized police pistol qualification” that was used to quantify the results. The design and requirements of a test obviously affect how difficult it is to pass. As just a most simple question, what was the maximum range shooters had to engage? What was the size of the target(s)? If a hit anywhere on a B-27 at 15 yards is the most difficult requirement, that’s far different and easier to accomplish with any gun than hitting the center zone of an FBI-QIT-97 at 50 yards.

All of those things, and others, should be kept in mind when we try to determine how much significance we should give to a report like this. There are some things, though, that may be less important. For example, why do we believe that it would be more valid if a physician had conducted the research rather than a Ph.D. candidate?

I once heard a German medical doctor with years of experience, including military combat against the Russians in WW II, confidently state that a large and fit American soldier would have been knocked off his feet when his paramour shot him in the chest with a 148 grain target load wadcutter bullet from a 38 Special revolver. Although I was sitting in court at the time I almost guffawed out loud when I heard that ridiculous statement. Another physician made quite a name for himself years ago by actively promoting the idea that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) did not cause AIDS. There are countless other examples that demonstrate what matters is the validity of the research, not the arbitrary credentials of the person who conducts it.

The same is true of the fact that a researcher may have a theory about what his research will disclose before he conducts it, or the fact that he has “agendas.” First of all, every person on the planet has agendas. My agenda when I go to the grocery store is to find food that will be tasty and satisfying. When I conducted a semiscientific study to determine whether multiple layers of heavy clothing material had any significant effect on bullet penetration, my agenda was to find out whether the people who switch to FMJ ammunition in the wintertime had any legitimate reason for doing so, and whether I should do that as well.

Few science researchers investigate questions they’re not interested in and don’t have any expectations or theories about what the research will disclose. For the research and its conclusions/discoveries to be valid they must follow certain widely accepted procedures, but would I embark on a study to determine if I could grow okra in my back yard? Nope: don’t care.

When I find a study like the one referenced, I very seldom expect it to answer all the possible questions I could have about the subject, or even expect it to be perfect in all ways. If we just reject them out of hand for those reasons, though, we’re unlikely to ever find a single one that satisfies us.

And BTW, thanks for that report, car541. It’s one I’ll have to look at.

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:
They need to do a similar test with people who aren't police officers. I think they'd get very different results if they did.

Professional shooters would be a good place to start.

Totally different results!
Professional shooters are just that: Professional- as in they shoot all the time.
Male or female, they have the hand and forearm strength to shoot a DAO handgun with a 12# trigger pull, and a Beretta with a length of pull of about 2 feet.

It would be like doing a study on the "average baseball player" and only using people from the MLB teams.

You're going to get skewed results.

Using cops is easy and smart of you look at the reality of cops....

Easy- well, cops have guns, and they are trained how to shoot them. Granted, "training" varies, but it's to a "standard", and if you've ever went through a Police Dept Handgun Qualification Course, most of them aren't really that hard. So I have a pool of people who A) have guns and B) are somewhat trained.

Reality- do you realize that all cops aren't "gun" people? I'll bet that about 75% of my dept (allegedly 13,500 people- probably more around 10,000) only shoot their duty weapon once a year. And it's not even close to being a hard course to pass. Yet, there's many that fail it, and have to go through re-training, the majority are female, but not by much (as per my friends that are range instructors). Bouncing rounds off of the floor, wall and ceiling because they lack the forearm & hand strength to hold the weapon steady and only use their index finger.
If they're bouncing rounds off the floor with a Glock because they lack the strength to pull that trigger, how much more exaggerated do you think the results will be on a DAO Sig with a 9-12 lb pull?


As for the article about the cute little cupcake that couldn't pass the FBI firearms course-
Too bad, so sad, boo-hoo-hoo for her. She, and every other person (male and female) have 2 choices-
*Fix the problem
*quit

"I can't pass the run..."
Get your ass out on the track.
"I can't pass the bench-press..."
Get your ass to the gym.

You lack grip strength?
Start doing push-ups on your finger tips, start carrying weights by your finger tips, do forearm curls with a weight or rubber band, or the 58 other exercises that build forearm strength.
It ain't rocket science!


Fed DC-
I've been through a few great courses, and been around some phenomenal instructors and shooters- civilians, police and military...
I've been taught by a lot of them to start taking out the slack in the trigger before it's "on target".
Granted, these weren't "introduction to" or "beginner" classes.
I'll agree with you to a point- I wouldn't teach beginners to take up the slack right out of the holster. However, an intermediate or more experienced shooter, no problem.