I'm a decent shooter with a Sig or 1911. I can't duplicate the accuracy with a Glock. Any piece of advise regarding placement of the finger on a Glock trigger or method of activating the trigger that you use differently than on a Sig or 1911?

Sink more finger in the trigger maybe?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=...6g&t=16s&pp=2AEQkAIB

Are you prepping the trigger to the wall? Where are your misses, all over or generally grouping left, right, high, or low? Those questions will help give some ideas to help with accuracy.

Without knowing more I can only speculate about some things, but a 1911 and a Classic line SIG fired in the single action mode have … well, single action triggers whereas the Glock trigger is technically a double action trigger. Pulling a single action trigger with a light, crisp break requires very little movement to release the sear to break the shot. A double action trigger, though, requires compressing the mainspring (or striker spring) to some measurable degree before the sear is released.

It may be that with a single action trigger you’re accustomed to just pressing it until the sear releases and you can get away with that because the mechanism is in sort of a go/no go state. A DA trigger mechanism, though, requires pulling it some degree before letoff.

Although its value isn’t limited to double action triggers, one thing that helped my accuracy with a variety of guns was to develop the habit of what is called a good “follow through,” or “pinning” the trigger to the rear. In slow fire that can be a deliberate hesitation with the trigger pulled fully to the rear, but in rapid fire the same principle applies, only we’re not as aware of the “pin” and hesitation.

In addition, with a double action trigger or even one with some slack at the beginning of the stroke, we must concentrate on ensuring that the gun is controlled as well as possible for that part. When I see someone having difficulty with a Glock or even a SIG P320 that has a single action trigger with initial slack, I coach them like this:

“Aim at the target.” “Now, touch the trigger.” “Start pressing the trigger to the rear, but slowly, slowly, slowly, press, press, press” until they break the shot. Almost everyone sees immediate accuracy improvement when they do that. It’s hard to describe in writing, but it’s all about controlling a trigger pull/press throughout the stroke while aiming at the target. As one instructor told me a long time ago, there’s only two things we must do to hit a target: Aim at the target, and keep the gun aimed at the target until the bullet leaves the barrel.

Once we’ve gotten good results by doing that slowly and practicing it enough times, then we speed up and our habit with the process will (hopefully) carry over to shooting more quickly.

I was hitting low and left with my Glocks after being used to a 1911.
I moved to the first joint on my trigger finger and concentrate on pulling straight back.
I also learned to apply slightly more right pressure with my off hand thumb on the frame.

Now hit POA.

PC

Shooting my 239 I practice with the first shot DA the of course SA.

I was hitting a bit low and left so will try the advice next time at the range. Thanks for all the advice

It depends on your gun and the size of your hand/length of your fingers. You need to find the spot that works best for you...this means allows you most easily to pull the trigger all the way to the rear without disturbing the sights. This is figured out through dry-fire. And then once you've figured that out, it's important to maintain that same positioning in live fire...if you're not very deliberate about it you'll have an unconscious tendency to revert to what you're used to during a string of fire. You need good, consistent practice reps to develop that proper index.

Sigfreund also made a good point about the trigger. The 1911 trigger pulls straight to the rear and tends to have a light, crisp break. The Glock trigger pivots, and is kind of a two stage affair with light early takeup and then a significant wall that can be pretty spongy leading up to the break. I recently bought a 43x after being out of Glocks for a long time, and have been trying to master it. My situation is different than yours as I'm coming from more experience on DA triggers where the ideal technique is to pull through consistently, and there's not really a defined wall before the break. Even the SA triggers on my DA/SA guns and the P320 trigger have more of a "rolling break" than the Glock did out of the box. With the Glock I'd get the trigger up to the wall and then it would require a significant increase in input right before the break, leading to movement in the sights just as the striker dropped. I polished up the internals a little bit and that helped some...I've currently got some parts coming to hopefully make it even better.

Grip is another factor, maybe more important than trigger pull, especially under rapid-fire. If I can keep my grip firm and consistent shooting at speed, the trigger tends to not matter very much. It'll keep the gun centered enough to keep A-zone hits on a USPSA target most of the time. But right now if I'm shooting slow fire bullseye style trying to make tiny groups, everything has to be fine-tuned together to be successful. Hopefully with more practice that fine-tuning becomes more automatic and translates to improvement when shooting at speed as well.

Again, it’s impossible to diagnose accuracy problems without knowing what the problems are, but a few more general comments.

When I taught shooters who were issued DA/SA SIG model P220 pistols their primary problem when controlling the gun (“trigger” control) was firing the first DA shot. That was so common that some gurus actually advised just yanking the trigger and throwing the shot away to allow getting down to the serious business of using the single action mode. That, of course, bordered on idiocy for a number of reasons, not least because it would have made it impossible for law enforcement officers to qualify with today’s (nonsensical) “no miss” courses.

My approach was to have the shooters practice a DA shot over and over: Fire DA, decock, fire DA, decock, fire DA …. Ultimately that’s what’s necessary with any trigger mechanism, but it’s more obvious with the Classic line SIGs because the DA pull is much longer and heavier than the Glock’s, for example.

There is, however, another factor that affects accuracy with Glock pistols. As mentioned above, it’s very common for right-handed shooters to hit low and primarily left (left-handed shooters hit right) as pictured below. During a nighttime session by shooters who had recently transitioned to Glocks from SIG P320s, the target was a steel silhouette hanging on the t-post with the white paint at the top located at the right of the yellow boxed area. The dark-colored area on the backstop berm to the left of the post was where virtually all of the misses hit the ground. That chewed-up area was caused by a lot of misses—a huge number of misses experienced by right-handed shooters.





All those misses were not something I’d ever seen when the shooters were issued P320s, and the reason? What is evidently the issue is the tendency of shooters to increase pressure on the grip of the pistol with their three support fingers as they’re pulling the trigger to the rear. That tends to cause the muzzle of the pistol to rotate toward the left for a right-handed shooter.

Glock fan pundits will say, “Oh, it happens with all pistols, not just Glocks,” and that may be true, but not nearly as commonly as with Glocks, and probably because of its more squared grip shape.

The other issue, I believe, is the size of the Glock grip that is too large for some shooters and makes it harder for them to position their fingers properly on the trigger for a straight-to-the-rear pull. They tend to push the gun to the left as they’re pulling the trigger and that increases impact misses to the left.

Increasing grip pressure and pushing the trigger to the side rather than pulling straight back have greater effects with a double action trigger like the Glock’s because the trigger stroke is longer than with a crisp-breaking single action trigger that doesn’t move as much before letoff.

Maintaining pressure against the slide of the pistol with one’s support thumb helps counteract the tendency to rotate the pistol in that direction, but it isn’t the best solution, and of course can’t help if shooting one-handed. I counsel a firm grip on the pistol to help ensure that the shooter doesn’t increase the pressure as they’re pulling the trigger, and that seems to help. It also helps avoid “limp wrist” malfunctions that Glocks are more susceptible to than are many other pistols.

It’s also important to pull the trigger straight to the rear and avoid any tendency to push it to the side, but people with small hands will have more difficulty with that. Again, though, a firm grip on the pistol to help keep it from rotating as the trigger is pulled will help some.

In any event, a more detailed description of whatever accuracy problems a shooter is having can help with a diagnosis.

And, oh yeah: Did I mention how much I love teaching people to shoot Glocks accurately?

I’ll also say as a right handed shooter who was hitting just left of POA with Glocks only, concentrating on front to back grip pressure on my dominant hand fixed the issue. My understanding is it has to do with the trigger pivot and pulling it up into the break. Learning how to run a Glock trigger has made my DA shot on my DA/SA guns my most accurate shot. It also helped tremendously in my transition from DA to SA at speed.

I agree with what has been said, if you’re shooting 1911s and Sigs in SA mode it easy to slap your way through those triggers with good to decent results. It’s a lot harder to get the same results slapping your way through a Glock or a long DA trigger pull. How deep you put or don’t put your finger will not cure accuracy issues if you’re slapping through the trigger.

The size and shape of the Glock grip is more an issue with me than the actual trigger pull as I shoot my single stack G43 better than my G17. I actually have to be careful of my grip with the 17 as I don't have large hands.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
All those misses were not something I’d ever seen when the shooters were issued P320s, and the reason? What is evidently the issue is the tendency of shooters to increase pressure on the grip of the pistol with their three support fingers as they’re pulling the trigger to the rear. That tends to cause the muzzle of the pistol to rotate toward the left for a right-handed shooter.

Glock fan pundits will say, “Oh, it happens with all pistols, not just Glocks,” and that may be true, but not nearly as commonly as with Glocks

I counsel a firm grip on the pistol to help ensure that the shooter doesn’t increase the pressure as they’re pulling the trigger, and that seems to help.

It’s also important to pull the trigger straight to the rear and avoid any tendency to push it to the side, but people with small hands will have more difficulty with that. Again, though, a firm grip on the pistol to help keep it from rotating as the trigger is pulled will help some.

All of this matches my experience as a LE firearms instructor for over a decade, dealing primarily with Glocks.

"Low and left" is a very common phenomenon with inexperienced or semi-experienced Glock shooters. It's not exclusive to Glocks, but does seem to be exaggerated or at least more prevalent on Glocks.

The advice given by sigfreund is exactly what I have my shooter focus on as well: firm and steady "handshake" grip pressure, plus pulling the trigger straight to the rear.

Your grip pressure shouldn't change from your initial grip in the holster through the end of the trigger pull. You shouldn't be adjusting your grip or adding or removing pressure along the way, and especially not tightening it when pulling the trigger, a phenomenon known as "milking the trigger". Establish a proper firm master grip initially and leave it there through your draw, presentation, and trigger pull. The only thing changing is the trigger finger. (Note that this is also one of the major causes of shooters struggling with adapting to pistol red dots... Folks with sloppy grips/draws, who don't get a proper and repeatable initial grip and are used to adjusting it throughout their presentation, will typically struggle to reliably acquire their dots.)

Pulling the trigger straight to the rear may be something you can fix just by focusing on it and how you use your trigger finger, or may necessitate changing backstraps or modifying where you place your initial grip in order to allow you to put more trigger finger into the trigger guard than you did before, to modify the trigger/finger placement and physically allow for a more straight back pull.

Some really good input from knowledgeable people already posted.

I’m not a competition shooter, but I shoot just about every firearm equally well. Because my fundamentals are solid. I credit this primarily to learning to shoot on a DA/SA, but only focusing on the DA. The long, heavy pull teaches you to have a good grip, control movements, and keep the sights aligned.

When shooting, you have to take the time to decock after each shot. Know what the awesome thing is? Dry fire doesn’t require a decock and it’s cheaper. But how do you know if you’re disturbing your sights during dry fire? There’s no bullet hole to give you feedback. Balance a coin on the front sight post. Dry fire practice DA pulls with a coin balanced and I will guarantee you will see an improvement in your Glock shooting results.

So what about tips/techniques to keep the coin balanced? Everyone has their own approach, so take what makes sense from everyone and try it to see what works for you. I start with natural and repeatable. If you have to bend strange ways, hunch, balance, whatever, it’s not going to work well. Yeah, you can get there, but it’s a lot. I’d rather fine tune what is natural.

What works for me is a natural stance that is generally isosceles. I’m not worried about exactly where my feet are or if I’m flat footed or slightly on the balls of my feet. I'm standing. Arms fully extended, but not necessarily elbows locked. Natural feeling. Main hand grip is high, getting the rear tang into the web of my thumb. Grip is focused on pressure to the front and back straps. Think C-clamp, not strap wrench. Finger on the trigger. Not worried about first distal pad or whatever. Not concerned if it’s high, low, or middle. Finger goes where it feels natural. Support hand filling in the space between main hand palm and fingertips. Support thumb usually ends up resting on the frame. Not for some push/pull or 80:20 or whatever, but because it feels natural. I may apply pressure with it to hold sight alignment and sight picture, but it’s not conscious. Grip is firm enough to keep the pistol from jumping out of your hands, but not a death grip. At least not to start. Death grip can serve a purpose, but that’s beyond fundamentals.

Now dry fire is going to get you on track, but it’s not everything. There are things that dry fire cannot replicate. That is the bang and the bullet hole. The small, contained explosion happening feet from your face can induce some subconscious reactions. Usually known as anticipation or flinch. To me, the big thing about a flinch is just getting used to it. Relax your body a little and just realize it’s not going to blow up and it’s not going to fly out of your hands. Let the recoil happen.

The bullet hole is a tricky one. Especially as you’re trying to improve. Why? Because you naturally want to see how good or bad you did. You want instant feedback. Often, you want it so instantly, you unconsciously dip the pistol at the last second to see over the sights and look at the target. And you flub it because of that. Focus on shooting a string of at least 5 before you allow yourself to look at the results. Concentrate on reacquiring the front sight and realigning on target. Do not look down range. If you play golf, this is the some thing as tying to see where your ball goes, only to top it because you stood up.