Once upon a time, I worked as a range officer at an indoor shooting range. A common customer question was, “Do you have a sight adjustment tool? My sights are off.” They followed this comment by disapprovingly pointing to a group well off the bullseye. Before hammering away on someone’s sights, I’d ask to put a few rounds through the pistol to confirm their claim. After hammering five rounds into the bullseye, the diagnosis wasn’t the sights. Alas, it was poor trigger control.
Shooters are in a constant battle with their trigger fingers. While some may disagree, I believe trigger control is a perishable skill that even the most seasoned shooters must continue to practice and refine. Here are six common tips I give when teaching proper trigger control.
1. Where does my finger go?
This first one seems kind of obvious. However, there’s more to finger placement than putting your finger on the trigger and yanking through the resistance. Trigger finger placement is one of the most important elements of proper trigger control.
Just as every firearm is different, so is every shooter’s hand. Long, short, fat, or skinny fingers will shoot differently depending on the firearm and trigger design. For example, my long and skinny fingers tend to wrap around a Glock trigger. I’m a left-handed shooter, so my finger pad likes to drift toward the right side of the trigger. When I press the trigger with my finger positioned that way, I tend to pull the gun to the left during the trigger press. This causes errant shots to the left of the target. However, if I adjust my finger to be in the middle of the trigger, my shots go straight.
Finger placement on the trigger is a critical skill for developing proper trigger control. If your shots are going in one direction or another, try adjusting which portion of your finger is on the trigger. I’ve seen this adjustment, time and time again, work to correct errant shots left and right on the target.
2. It’s a press, not a pull.
There are a few names for using a trigger – trigger press, trigger pull, or trigger break. While some argue these terms are semantics, there’s a psychological basis for using certain terminology. If our brains don’t know what to do, we default to a known action. A trigger pull is, frankly, synonymous with pulling your shot.
A trigger “press” is comparable to tasks we perform daily. We press buttons on our car’s radio, phone’s touch screen, or when microwaving our Hot Pocket. Pressing is a firm but consistent and controlled act. Pulling is a far less common act for our fingers. When was the last time you pulled something with your fingers (besides a trigger) versus the last time you used a finger to press something?
3. Learn the trigger.
I’ve shot quite a few pistols in my day. Depending on the make and model, the trigger pull, weight, and reset were different for each. Even then, two guns of the same make, model, and caliber can have a “different” trigger. For example, a brand new Glock compared to one with 10,000 rounds through it will have a different feeling trigger. The pre-travel (take-up), wall (resistance felt immediately before shot), overtravel (distance trigger moves after shot), and reset (movement to reset trigger) change as a firearm is broken in over thousands of rounds. Springs compress and parts smooth out. The feel of the trigger changes.
Competent and accurate shooters know their firearm’s trigger. They know the take-up, wall, and reset. They’re familiar with any grit, resistance, or peculiarities to that trigger. This intimate knowledge of their firearm’s trigger is similar to a race car driver being familiar with their car’s performance and handling. If you have more than one firearm you want to shoot well, get to familiarizing yourself with each one. While trigger familiarity can be developed on the range, it’s easier, and cheaper, to do so at home with dry fire. This brings us to our next point.
4. Dry fire is the foundation of trigger control.
In past articles, I’ve discussed the importance of trigger control. I even went so far as to recruit a few coworkers to conduct a small study on how dry fire affected our firearm competency. The results proved dry fire can increase a shooter’s score by anywhere from 10-30% in two weeks. Of course, this is highly dependent upon the skill level of the shooter. Newer shooters see greater benefits from dry fire.
There’s a method to the madness with dry fire. Dry fire focuses on trigger control. While we can work on sight alignment, sight picture, and grip; the primary focus with dry fire is to develop trigger discipline. This ties into my last point about knowing your trigger. With dry fire, there is no recoil or loud bang. You’re isolating your skill development to just trigger control. If you haven’t figured it out yet, there’s a theme to shooting accurately: consistency. Inconsistency in any of the firearm fundamentals will negatively affect accuracy. The purposeful dry fire builds consistency.
By no means does trigger-focused dry fire translate to ignoring other fundamentals. Quite the contrary. You can diagnose small movements in the firearm while pressing the trigger and breaking through the shot. Did the gun tremble? When did it tremble? Did your sights move? Where did they move? These small, nuanced movements in the firearm aren’t obvious on a 7-yard target at the range. However, they are embarrassingly apparent at 25 yards.
5. Check your grip.
Poor trigger control can originate from issues with the shooter’s grip. This often occurs due to an improper or inconsistent grip during the draw portion of shooting. Newer shooters will often draw their firearms and have to adjust their grip upon presentation to the target. A simple solution to this is to obtain a proper grip on an empty firearm and practice re-holstering it. Develop a feel for your hand position in that grip orientation and practice repeating that same grip during the draw.
Have you ever been shooting and had to re-adjust your grip between shots? You may have to readjust your grip because of a number of issues such as poor grip strength, moisture, or an improper starting grip. If your grip changes position while shooting, it directly affects the trigger finger’s position. Furthermore, if your trigger finger position is inconsistent, you may want to adjust your grip slightly. A slight change in how the firearm sits in the web of your hand affects how your trigger finger is positioned on the trigger.
6. Maintain contact with the trigger.
In the past, I’ve heard some firearm trainers claim it’s impossible to remain proficient with “riding” a trigger under stress. If you don’t practice sound fundamentals, those trainers are correct. For clarity, riding a trigger is maintaining contact with the trigger through the first shot and subsequent follow-up shots. Proper trigger control requires the shooter to release the trigger from the previous shot far enough to obtain a positive reset consistently without removing the finger entirely from the trigger surface.
A huge component of trigger control is knowing the trigger by how it feels (tactile), not by what we see. We can’t see where our finger is relative to the trigger when shooting. We have to know where it’s at based on the nerves in our finger indexing on the trigger. By breaking contact with the trigger, our finger is lost in the abyss of the trigger guard and has to re-establish contact with the trigger’s surface. This loss of feeling between the trigger and finger adds a potential point of inconsistency when shooting follow-up shots. There’s less guesswork involved in conducting follow-up shots by maintaining positive contact with the trigger.
Final Point on Trigger Control
Albert Einstein once said, “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” The aforementioned six points originate from a passionate curiosity for trigger control. Managing the ignition of a controlled explosion in our hands is not a natural act. However, consistent quality repetitions build repeatable skills. Practice often (especially dry fire) and be passionately curious about how you interact with, and control, your firearm’s trigger.
