The Best Way to Hold a Beretta Px4 Storm Full Sized 9mm

[coboblack]

As far as the basics of thumbs forward, here's some pointers Coboblack:

Primary Hand:
-Web of hand as high on the grip/grip tang as possible
-Gun as centered in the wrist as possible (Grip the gun, aim downrange one-handed, is the gun centered on your wrist and straight down your arm, or is it cocked to the side a bit?)
-Thumb flagged high NOT clamped down on the grip (This will make sense later)
-Fingers wrapped around grip
-Hand squeezes front to back (Don't think about squeezing with your finger tips, think about pulling on the front strap of the grip and pulling it straight back into your palm. Subtle but can make a difference)
-This hand should NOT be white knuckle gripping the gun. Think ~50% grip pressure.

Support Hand:
-Wrist rotated forward, locked out or as close to it as possible
-Thumb will be pointed downrange
-Fingers will be at a 45 degree downward angle
-Wrap all 4 fingers around the primary hand, TIGHT up under the trigger guard (don't put the index finger on the triggerguard, does absolutely nothing for recoil control)
-Rotate the base of your thumb up as high as you can get it on the grip. Focus on clamping the base of your thumb into the highest part of the grip/frame that you can. (The more you rotate your hand, the more your wrist locks out, the straighter your support arm becomes, the higher you get on the gun = maximum recoil control + consistency)
-Your thumb will now be pointing forward. Gun hand thumb can come to rest on the back of your support thumb, and for guns where you have interference with the slide release or decocker, you can use your gun hand thumb to "grab" the base of your thumb bone/palm area.


Cliff Notes:
-Empty hands, no gun, try this for demo to start getting the feel of this grip
-Make a "V" with both of your hands.
-Point both thumbs at the target (Thumbs will be straight, both wrists locked or nearly locked out, fingers at 45 deg to the ground)
-Close 3 bottom fingers on the gun hand, index finger straight (Hey, getting some trigger index practice!)
-Wrap 4 support fingers around the 3 gun hand fingers (think of gripping a gun grip)
-Clamp support hand down on gun hand. Think about clamping base of thumb into the extended gun hand index finger

If you did this right, you end up in a close to good upper body stance that should resemble some form of Isosceles. You end up close to how you'd want to grip the gun in thumbs forward. This pretty much gets your whole upper body stance 80-90% of the way to where you'd want to get it, and the rest will depend on your own unique physiology.

Golden nugget:

The support hand wrist is crucial to achieving the performance improvements with thumbs forward. Little differences here make a huge difference with everything else. What helps you get close to ideal is how you think about it. Think about rotating the wrist forward as far as you can without causing significant discomfort. More importantly, think about clamping the base of your support thumb into the highest point of the grip that you can. The more you rotate that wrist forward towards being locked out, the higher it brings the base of that thumb. Most people want to squeeze side to side with their whole support hand, and they usually do it 1-3" lower on the grip. Instead of thinking about squeezing side to side, mentally tell yourself that support hand is a C clamp, and you are clamping the base of the support thumb into the top, side of the grip. That subtle difference in how you squeeze, as well as that 1/2" to 1" difference in height of the support hand on the grip is what makes all the difference in the world with recoil control on semi autos.

Here's some pics:

tn_8 by Dillo Dynamics, on Flickr

tn_9 by Dillo Dynamics, on Flickr

tn_41 by Dillo Dynamics, on Flickr

tn_18 by Dillo Dynamics, on Flickr


Important Note!

Here's how a significant number of people shoot thumbs forward, or start out shooting it. This gets you ~75-85% of the performance. Notice the difference? The first pics are support wrist locked out and as aggressive as possible (for me at least, everyone is different). This picture is with the support wrist backed off about 15-25 degrees (I'm guesstimating). THAT is the distinction I'm trying to make here. That few degrees of difference makes a huge difference in recoil control. Thanks Rob for being the guinea pig for these pics. We'll get that grip tweaked yet!

tn_30 by Dillo Dynamics, on Flickr

And here's what I mean by grabbing the back of the thumb bone/base of palm if you have issues with your gun hand thumb interfering with the slide release or decocker:

Again, great info brother, appreciate it.

 

[M. Sage]

There are a lot of people who say it, I dont agree with it. But I said it out of fairness.



Thanks brother, great advice.



I'm trying to be politically correct, seems to be a few stubborn bulls in this barn. Trying to avoid any unnecessary drama. Looks like I failed =P

I'm not too big on being politically correct if it flies in the face of reality. Fairness is borne out and balanced by reality, and the reality is that if you want to control recoil, this "fad" () is currently the best game in town, as Travis pointed out. If reality makes people butthurt, I can't help them...

 

[coboblack]

I'm not too big on being politically correct if it flies in the face of reality. Fairness is borne out and balanced by reality, and the reality is that if you want to control recoil, this "fad" () is currently the best game in town, as Travis pointed out. If reality makes people butthurt, I can't help them...

Well I'm not experienced enough to know what is a fad or not. Now if you want to talk about "Tornado Guards","Fifty Fifty" or the "berimbolo"....then I can't talk Jiu-Jitsu with you and actually know what am talking about, but as a lesser experienced person..I prefer to ask questions and not offend anyone who might give me some good answers =)

You all have been extremely helpful and I appreciate it BTW. And I appreciate the tongue and cheek shots at me, I can laugh at myself. =D

 

[coboblack]

I am going to take some videos next time I am at range, or have wife take some pics of me holding and hopefully you guys can let me know what I need to work on. I really appreciate this.

 

[SIG_Fiend]

I'm speaking generally here. Rather than getting caught up in specific technique, what I've found works best is looking at different techniques and trying to understand at least the basic aspects of it. Figure out the pros and cons. With thumbs forward and more of an isosceles upper body stance, here's some basics:

Pros:
-Both arms extended evenly, so no bias. Relatively neutral muscle tension and extension of the gun is everything.
-You get a maximum contact patch on the gun
-Grabbing the gun creates a fulcrum point by default. Rotating support wrist down cams back the opposite direction of that fulcrum point, directly resisting muzzle flip. Think of your support pinky (or really your whole hand) as a lever that is forcing the gun back down and keeping it from flipping as much.
-Even extension of arms, even contact patch all the way around the gun/grip, and relatively equal pressure allows for consistent recoil control. Now the sights just jump straight up and fall straight back down into the rear notch. Now you can focus on driving the gun and achieving the acceptable level of sight alignment for the shot. Many other grip methods and stances have uneven/biased muscle tension (arms not evenly extended, inconsistent contact patch on the gun, etc.) which results in inconsistent recoil control with the sight bouncing up and all over the place. This takes more time and effort to manage. We're talking about tenths of a second here, but it makes a huge difference. Those few tenths of a second could mean more accurate shots, and could be several additional shots you may not have achieved before in the same period of time.

Cons:
-To achieve the full performance of thumbs forward requires pretty much locking the support wrist out hard. This can be uncomfortable for some, and impossible for others that may have medical issues. If this is the case, you can still achieve a majority of the benefit by using the backed off technique pictured above. At the end of the day, it's really just about taking the most you can get anyways.
-Can take a little bit of time playing around with different grip pressures and different amounts of tension in various upper body parts to achieve the proper grip and recoil control.
-With your support wrist locked out, generally you are not quite as strong as with your wrist backed off a bit. You don't have quite the same level of grip pressure. Again, this can take a little playing with to ensure placement of both hands is just right to take up the slack. When in doubt, as a test, death grip the gun with both hands and then see how it reacts in recoil. This can tell you if you're almost there and only need to make some minimal changes to grip and upper body stance/tension, or if you still need a lot of work.

 

[itchin]

some good stuff in this thread. I can't hit the broadside of a barn with my xd45. I know it is me and not the gun because other people have shot it with great accuracy. I guess I need to take one of these classes.

 

[scap99]

some good stuff in this thread. I can't hit the broadside of a barn with my xd45. I know it is me and not the gun because other people have shot it with great accuracy. I guess I need to take one of these classes.

Dry fire drills. Do them until you can control the trigger while keeping the sights aligned on a target. Good vids and tutorials on you tube.

Sight focus. Focus your eye on the front sight. I prefer all black sights ( no dots or bars ) and a narrow front blade.
Level the top of the front and rear sights, and even out the daylight seen on each side of the front blade. Easier done than typed.

Trigger pull. Slow and steady. Let the gun going off be a surprise do you're not anticipating or flinching.

Follow through. For now. Keep the trigger pulled back all the way through the recoil cycle. After the gun settles. Let the trigger put only as far as the reset. You will feel or hear it reset. Keep trigger at this position until you are ready for next shot.

Ear protection. Use plugs and muffs until you are comfortable with the sound and pressure pulse.

Do not look at each shot after you shoot it. Keep focus on the front sight.

Load 2 or 3 In the mag and shoot them in a slow controlled manner. Then evaluate your group.

Yoda tip: one shot a group does not make.

Even if you miss the bull. 3 shots touching is consistent. Then you can figure out where you need to hold for accuracy.

Final tip. SLOW IT DOWN. don't blast a whole mag in 3 seconds then get pissed at the birdshot like pattern.



Tapatalk sent it.

 

[OldCannon]

 

[coboblack]

LOL...yeah,yeah. That was honestly one I didn't know I was using incorrectly untill a week or so ago from this forum. I mostly said magazine but would sometimes use the word "clip" interchangeably and always write it on my targets (I guess because its less letters). Thank you for the humiliation, I will use it now to force out that bad habit =D

Definitely don't want to kill small puppies. Especially the awesome ones in that picture. My stepdad raised pitbulls my whole life, such a great, misunderstood breed.

 

[SIG_Fiend]

Accuracy is as simple as sight alignment (1 eye, rear sight, front sight, inline with your desired point of impact on target), and a smooth trigger pull without upsetting that sight alignment. It really is that simple, which is what's so damned annoying when it doesn't happen quite that easily! Sometimes it might seem like the planets need to align for that accurate shot to happen. What you're really trying to achieve is the mental disconnect between the act of pulling the trigger, and the gun going off. Think about pulling a squirt gun trigger. No big deal. Once you know there's an explosion happening after you pull the trigger, that's when we all start playing mind games with ourselves. Whether conscious or subconscious, you all know what I'm talking about. That anticipation, "It's about to go off! Oh no, here it comes! NOW" and then you yank the trigger trying to pull it before the recoil happens. There's other ways it manifests itself, but at the end of the day they're all mind games. More trigger pulls, various training drills, and some practice on this can help minimize it to the point where you're just pulling a simple lever and it's no big deal.

Next time you're at the range, try this. It's called the 5 in 1 drill. It's 5 perfect dryfires for every live round. Load up a single round from the magazine (don't drop it in the chamber, this can damage extractors), drop the mag. Focus on all the fundamentals and try your best to make that live round your best shot. Once you've fired and followed through (get your sights setup back on target, trigger reset and ready to go), go ahead and rack the slide so the gun is ready to go. Now you need 5 perfect dry fires before you can wash, rinse, and repeat with the next live round. If you screw up on a dry fire, do as many more as you have to in order to get 5 perfect ones. This is such a simple drill. The cool thing? We all know how easy it is to go through a box or two of ammo in like 5-10 minutes or less. That gets expensive fast, and the fun is over too soon, much of the time with little training value. This drill forces you to slow down, forces extreme focus on the fundamentals, and it makes you conserve ammo. If you properly focus hard on each fundamental, trying your best to achieve the perfect shot every time....you will be completely wasted at the end of 50 rounds. I mean that can actually take a 1 hour range trip right there. I usually revert to this drill if i'm doing something else and notice my accuracy is slipping. I'll slow myself down, do the 5 in 1 for 5-10rds, then get back to what I'm doing. Another cool thing I find with myself as well as students is, transitioning from several perfect dryfires to a live shot, you can actually see a definite improvement yourself. Not an improvement someone else is saying you made, you see it for yourself, and you also start to see what you're doing wrong, so you can learn to start self-correcting. Anyways, great drill to keep in the toolbox.

Fundamentals (In case anyone asks):

1. Stance
2. Sight Alignment
3. Sight Focus
4. Grip
5. Trigger Control
6. Breath Control
7. Followthrough (Oft misunderstood. This one sets you up for success.)

Golden nugget: I use this analogy. Forget where I heard it, but it works well. "From your toes to your fingertips." Focus on the fundamentals like that, one at a time. Once you get one where you want it, forget about that one and move to the next until setup on the target and at the brink of breaking the shot. Don't clutter your mind focusing on all the fundamentals at once consciously. As Ronco says: Set it and forget it! LOL

 

[coboblack]

@Sig Great tips again, I took a few things that I could remember reading from your post and applied it and it felt really comfortable. My stamina for holding the gun got better and reduce the minor movements of my pistol, the recoil was down, the control was better and I felt comfortable without the finger on the trigger guard. Anyway, thanks for the advice brother it helped, noticeably.

P.s. I sent you a pm of a video of me shooting with the finger on the finger guard, I was hitting the target well, but I feel like I was making some other mistakes with my stance and arm position. If you have time and have any critique let me know...but only when you are bored, no rush =)

 

[SIG_Fiend]

PM sent.

Another thing that can help sometimes. The longer you hold the gun out there, the harder it gets and the more you start moving. Simple kinetics. Hold a 2lb barbell out there for awhile. 2lbs, no big deal right? After awhile it feels heavier and heavier and it's not so easy. Solution? Just take a break! If you have the gun pressed out there long enough you see more movement in the gun and your arms are getting tired, it's time to take a break. A good way to do this is called the compressed ready or high compressed ready. Bring the gun back in to your chest and you can rest your elbows or forearms on your chest with the gun pointed downrange. The pic below is an example of one variation of the high compressed ready. When starting out with this stuff, you might not want to have your muzzle elevated quite like that, and instead pointed straight downrange. Just make sure, as soon as you come off target and go to compressed ready, the trigger finger goes back to index on the frame of the gun and not the trigger guard. Take a breather for a few seconds and once you're rested, press the gun back out straight to the target and get on the trigger only when you get the sights where you want them on target.

tn_38 by Dillo Dynamics, on Flickr

 

[coboblack]

^ Funny, I mentioned this in the PM before I saw this post. I practice the high compressed ready when I was teaching my right eye to become dominate (or at least to teach my brain which image to look at when shooting with both eyes open, and shooting right handed)