February 20, 2026 • 28 mins
Are you consistently hitting low and left on the target? You aren't alone, and it's likely not your sights that are the problem. In this episode of the Guns Podcast, hosts Brent Wheat and Roy Huntington dive deep into the most critical fundamental of marksmanship: the trigger pull. They discuss why untrained shooters often view the trigger press as insignificant compared to "high-speed" tactics, and why mastering this single mechanic is the secret to accurate shooting.
Roy shares his experiences as a police firearms instructor, breaking down the mechanics of the "trigger jerk" and offering practical drills to diagnose and cure it. From the "holding a bird" grip technique to using lasers for dry fire practice, this episode is packed with actionable advice. They also tackle the common fallacy that buying a custom trigger or expensive sights will instantly fix bad habits.
Whether you are a new gun owner struggling with accuracy or an experienced shooter trying to speed up without losing precision, this conversation strips away the myths and focuses on the Zen of the perfect press. Tune in to learn why slowing down is the fastest way to get better.
Key Takeaways
· Trigger control is the single most important factor in shooting accuracy; a good press can compensate for a bad stance or grip.
· Shooting "low and left" is the classic sign of a right-handed shooter jerking the trigger.
· Grip the gun like you are holding a small bird: tight enough so it doesn't fly away, but not so tight you crush it.
· Using a rail-mounted laser during dry fire practice is the best way to visualize trigger jerk.
· Upgrading your hardware (triggers, sights) will not fix software issues (bad technique).
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If you can do a good trigger pull,you can shoot just about anything.
And if you have a terrible trigger pull,you'll always
shoot awful.
Hi there.
(00:20):
Welcome to this episode of the GunsPodcast.
I'm your host, Brent Wheat,along with co-host Rory Huntington.
We'd like to thank you
for joining us here on one of the world'sbiggest gun talk programs.
As we talk about all the stuffthat we find interesting
about the world of shooting.So howdy, Roy.
How's it going today?
You know what?I don't have any complaints.
And Susie doesn't listen,even if I do, so you know.
(00:43):
Oh, what the heck? I know.
Should I cut that part out in the edit?
Yeah. Maybe not.
Yeah. Good idea. So.
Well, today we're going to talk abouta, a topic that I've done zero research,
but yet I've done an entire lifetimeof research about.
And it's.
Why does your trigger pull suckso badly and.
(01:05):
Wait for as well?
As I like to say, why are you a jerk?
You're a trigger jerk.
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(01:30):
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Well, Roy, are you accusing me
being a jerk, a trigger jerk?
Yeah, triggeris the key word there, Exactly.
If someone today says you'rea jerk, right?
You know,
that would be different if they come upand they say, are you a trigger jerker?
(02:17):
Yeah, yeah.
And today we're going to talk aboutsomething that non trained
people think is completely insignificant.
And well trained people realizeit's the entire,
almost the entire, process
of shootingwrapped up into one important point.
And that, of course, is trigger pull.
(02:39):
If you can do a good trigger pullyou can shoot just about anything.
And if you have a terrible triggerpull, pull,
you'll always shoot awfuluntil you fix that problem.
So, Roy, you were police firearmsinstructor for a long time.
Trigger, Paul,
how important is Trigger
Paul to shooting whatever.
(03:01):
It's like onlythe only most important thing, period.
Because you can haveyou can really have a crappy stance.
You could be shooting left weak handed.
You know,you could have a terrible sight picture.
But if you have a marvelous triggerpress, chances are pretty good
you're going to do whatever it isyou were trying to do, you know?
(03:24):
Yeah, but if you have the best stance
ever seen on Earth and a sight picture
that the gods will be amazed by,
and then you jerkthe trigger you're going to miss.
Exactly.
And don't you agreethat that untrained people,
(03:46):
they really it's like,okay, I understand the importance,
but let's get down to the good stuffof kicking in doors
and jumping and rolling and shootingseven, you know, bad guys.
It all starts with trigger pull.
And that's that's why I thoughtthis was such an important topic,
because untrained folksjust don't seem to get that.
And I guessbecause it's such a, physically small
(04:07):
part of what you're doing.
But it is, as you said, it'sonly the most important part
of whether you shoot in a pistol or rifle.
Shotgun, crew served weapon.
Well,I don't know about that, but anyway, so,
let's start with Roy, your philosophy.
How do you explain and how do you teachhow to pull a trigger?
(04:28):
Well,you don't know what you don't know, right?
And, new shooters especially,
don't know that they don't knowhow to pull the trigger.
Right.
And I think once you tell them
that this is important,many of them will respond positively.
(04:48):
And then you can take themthrough the learning process.
But I found the ones that are mostchallenging are the oh, I grew up hunting.
My grandfathershowed me everything about guns.
I already know how to do this.
And no,they don't, with very rare exceptions.
You know.
I went to basic training in 1972.
I spent a whole eight hours on range.
Yeah, I'm an NRA certified firearmsinstructor.
(05:08):
So, but this is a timely topic
because literally about two days ago,there was a young man here.
He just bought his first gun,a Glock, in December.
I bumped into him somewhere.
We started talking about guns.
He said, you know, I'm really.
I kind of am strugglingbecause all my shots are going
low left all the time, and I just reallydon't know what to do. And,
(05:33):
so I said, well, you know what?
Why don't you stop by?
I'll be happy to help you with that,you know?
And so he was really surprisedand appreciative.
He knew me a little bit from magazinesand videos and stuff.
And so he came over,we spent a couple of hours and,
and it was a classic caseof just jerking the trigger, you know,
and once I made him understandthat the stance you have is fine, right?
(05:56):
Your sight picture is fine,
but it's how you press the triggerthat's causing us problems.
And how I illustrated that with himwas that I put my back to the target
and I said,your job is only to aim the gun.
And I put my finger on top of hisin the trigger guard.
And then I said, let me press the trigger.
I said, butyou just keep the sights on the target.
(06:17):
And so I would press the trigger.
And we shot about a five round group.
And so I turned around, I lookedand it was this really nice little teacup
sized group at about eight yards whennormally his would have been maybe 20in.
Right.
And I said, so what have we just learned?
My back was to the target. Right.
(06:38):
You aimed the gun.
All I did was press the trigger smoothlyand look what happened.
And I have to end his.
He just, like, went, Holy cow.
This is.
I had no idea, you know, and I thinkwe need to also talk about something else.
There are people who are betterat teaching this that I am, definitely.
But people say squeeze the trigger
(06:59):
and and yes, that's the case.
But I a lot of peopleand I had somebody tell me this
was they said,oh well when you said squeeze the trigger,
I thought you meant like, you know,squeeze the gun and squeeze it all.
Because if you if you do like squeeze,then your whole hand
tightens up and stuff like that.
And so there needs to be a wayof where you isolate the grip from
(07:21):
the press of the trigger.
And I
and sothat's what I've explained to people now,
I also stumbled onto something and I thinkI stole this from somebody was I said,
hold the gun like you would a small birdso tight enough that it can't fly away.
That, but not so tightthat you're going to kill it,
you know, because you we've all seenthose people that squeeze
a white knuckle, you know, and pretty soontheir hands are shaking
(07:44):
and they're scaredto death of everything. So,
the other thingthat I have introduced to people,
when it's possible with the type of gunthey have, is, a laser.
And so I don't personally advocatecarrying lasers as a defensive tool.
But if you do, that's fine.
Just make sure you're trainingand you understand there
(08:06):
limitations, you know, and advantages.
But what they're great at is
you put that laser on a target.
And when you squeeze the trigger,if you have a smooth trigger pull,
then the
laser just barely dances around becauseyou can never hold him perfectly still.
Right.
But but if you have a jerk, that laserbeam dances
(08:28):
across the targetlike it's doing the Macarena out there.
Yeah, right.
Yeah. And.
And then that's an easy way to practicedrive firing in a safe area
at home or something. Is that you?
You put that laser on the walland then just keep pressing that trigger
until it stays smooth, you know, and thatthat's a huge advantage right there.
(08:49):
And somebody did ask me, they said, well,what about those laser snap caps?
You know, they make a thing
that it's like connected to an appand you can have a screen
that's reflective and you put a, a laserdummy around in the chamber.
You probably seen those.
And so when you pull the trigger it firesa little shot, a laser onto the target.
Well that's fine,but all it does is show you
where you happen to be aimingat the time that you pulled the trigger.
(09:12):
It doesn't show the laser dancing around.
So, so, yeah.
Invest in a $50 red laserthat clamps on the rail
of your pistolfrom Amazon and, practice that way.
Yeah.
So I suppose we should define this.
What if,
you had to write a
(09:33):
definition of a good triggerpull for most guns?
What does a good trigger pull look like?
Actually, it's the same for every gun,
you know,because ultimately you will always meet.
But a lot of people call the wall,you know, which is on a semi-auto.
It's obvious.
You take up the slack
(09:54):
and then you reach a point to where nowthe sear actually starts to move, right?
And then that's when the critical moment
of the smooth pressand follow through occur.
If you're shooting a double actionrevolver, there's a lot of take up,
of course,which is you could consider that to be
just the initial part of take uplike you would on a single action.
(10:16):
But then just before the gun fires, youhit a slightly invisible, smoother wall.
But that's just before before the,sear releases.
And so those two parts of the pressare the most critical press.
So you can hurry through the beginning.
You can take up slack like a son of a gun.
You know, you can stage a double actiontrigger pull until
(10:38):
just before it lets off.
But then that's the moment of truth.
And then that'swhere everything has to calm down.
And that'swhen everything has to become smooth.
When you practice your press, you want toexperiment with, if you put too much,
finger in thetrigger on the trigger, chances are good
you're going to pull the gun downand left.
(10:59):
For instance, if you don't put enough in,you might pull it in another direction.
And so finding a spot on thereto where you can press straight back,
because it's a state of mindmore than anything.
Because your fingers bending in an arcso you can't really press straight back.
But if you imaginethat, press straight back.
That's the goal there.
(11:19):
Oh. The other thingwhile we're talking about that is,
and this young man who was herethe other day,
he tended to ride the reset,which means in his semi-auto,
he would he would let the trigger forwarduntil it just barely reset, you know,
and then because he said show YouTubechannel or somebody told him that,
you know, that way you don't have to takedo the take up right now.
(11:40):
You can shoot faster and more accurately.
What's that?
The only thing was,sometimes his gun wouldn't go off
because he hehe didn't let it fully reset.
And so I had to teach him to.
No, actually, get your fingerlike come off the trigger even, you know.
So it resets fully.
But, trigger press. Yeah.
That'swhat it's all about. Sight pictures.
(12:00):
Adequate. You.
I know for a factyou will agree with me on this,
because we have both pointedguns at bad guys.
And in all of the, I don't know,
hundreds of times in our careerwhere we pointed guns at bad guys,
I absolutely do not ever rememberlooking at my sights.
I never once aimed through
my sightsand got a sight picture on a bad guy.
(12:22):
I would always indexover the top of the sights
because your eyes will not allow youto not look.
It's a threat.
Yeah. You know.
Yeah.
If you're if you're looking at the threatand then you force your eyes
to look at the sights,they will fight you.
You know.
And so I think that's proof, though,that the sight picture
(12:43):
is secondary to the trigger press,because we've all seen a lot of cops
make really good hits.
They weren't looking at their sights,
but they were pressing the triggerreally well.
So. So. Right.
What do we do?
Practice. Practice?
I was going to say.
And and I'm just going to say,I think one of the biggest problems is,
(13:05):
as you kind of alluded to, with that,
the guy you were training is, you know,I need to shoot faster.
And I think that's where you canI've seen this.
You can trainfolks in a decent trigger pull,
and then you say, okay,go a little faster,
and then it goesto hell because they think,
speed means you
throw all those, fundamentals outand you just start going really fast
(13:29):
and they get back into that whole thingof just snapping their finger back as as,
hard and fast as they canand creates a whole host of problems.
So if you've got to shoot faster,you do the same thing with maybe
a little more alacrity, butyou don't change anything at all in it.
I think that's hard for for completebeginners to really understand.
(13:49):
What do you mean?
I can do all that and think about take upand but still do it faster.
Well, that comes withwhat's that word you came up with, Roy?
Practice. Yeah.
Practice.
Well, you know,it's like you don't buy a piano
and then try to play Tchaikovsky.
You know, youyou learn where the notes are
and you learn how to play chords,and you become smoother,
(14:12):
and you become more experienced,and then you can play better,
and then you can play faster.
And that's exactly the same as shooting.
And so when, when you're a new shooter,
you put all of thisshooting fast out of your brain.
You're months away from that.
If you're smart.
(14:33):
The other thing is, make every shot count.
One of my favorites targets to useare those cheap eight
inch paper plates you buy,you know, like 500 of them in a thing.
They're like $3, right?
So I'll tape up.
I did what I made the other day.
I tapeup, 8 or 10 of them on this tall target.
I have.
And I said, okay, now let's stand here.
We set up at about eight yards, and Isaid, I just want you to take one shot
(14:57):
on each target, take your time.
And then I walked him through.
Okay. That's it.
Take up the slack.
You're at the wall now. Slowly press.
Think about what you're doing.Think about the press.
Be smooth. Don't hurry.
His particular issuewas that he had a really good press
and I guess you could even see his triggerfinger move.
And then they get anxious and they go,
(15:21):
I have to shoot now.
You're exactly right.
And then that last little bit,it would go actually slow motion
videoed him and it wasit was clearly obvious in the video
you could see nice smooth,you know, trigger pull.
You could see his triggermoving back slowly.
And then all of a sudden, that ladright at the break, he hurried it through.
(15:44):
And but the beauty of these targetslike this, where you're putting one bullet
on each one, is that youryour inconsistencies are obvious.
So if you're putting 25 shots onin the center
of a silhouette, you have no ideawhere they're going, right?
They're spread all over the place.
So and I just going to hit on that, that,
(16:04):
you know, I've, I've been to a lot oftraining as, as you have to Roy
and I've only been to a couple that I feltwere a little sketchy and,
the common denominator in those,
with those trainers that I
didn't feel reallydid a good job, in my opinion.
It was that whole idea.
They didn'treally talk about trigger press,
(16:25):
or its role in, in, marksmanship.
They were really focused on speedand getting those rounds downrange.
And like you said, now you've dumpedthree magazines into a silhouette.
Well,did you learn anything? Or you just learn?
Keep pulling that trigger really fast.
And, you know,I contrast that with, say, gunsight.
(16:46):
And I think Clint, Smith at Thunder Ranchdid this too.
Is okay.
Here we are, kids.
Everybody's ready.
Make ready one shot, you know, wherever.
Okay. One shot.
Wherever.
And it's funny because about a third ofthe class is real impatient.
So, like, okay, I can do one shot.
I want to do three and five and mag dump.
(17:07):
We're building that fundamental.
And it goes back to that.
You know my favorite phrase?
Yeah.
Slow down, Speed Racer.
It's when you're when you're, training.
Certainly.But when you're training by yourself.
And I know Roy does this and I do it,I spend time
one slow fire shot at a time
because I'm focused on getting everything,set up.
(17:30):
Right.
And that will show that glaring error of,oh, man, I really you know,
I pulled the trigger, I bad trigger pullwhatever my, my issue was.
But you
you will not diagnose that and fix itif you're just mag dumping all the time.
And if your instructor wants youto start out, you know, dump a mag
every time and,you know, pairs and triples and all that.
(17:53):
I don't know that that instructorreally knows what they're talking about.
But when you go to a classand they start out one single boring shot,
that's somebody that understands,you gotta
you got to build the foundationbefore you can put the house up.
No, I agree completely.
And I think it's very importantand very beneficial.
I have a little drill that I do and,
if someone's new to their semi-autopistol is, I have them load
(18:17):
a magazine with one roundand then close the slide.
And so when we're ready to shoot, theyput the magazine in, they run the slide,
they get their shooting stance,they use their sights, they press.
We see where the bullet goes.
The slide locks backwhen now they have to stop.
So they have to drop the magazine.
(18:38):
We talk about what happened.
Did you think about it?
Do you even remember pulling the trigger?
You know, what were you thinking about?
They loaded up the round, closedthe slide, put it back in.
So that does two things.Number one, it slows things down.
It gives us a chance to talk aboutwhat just happened.
And the hidden benefit of this is itgives them
(18:59):
manipulationskills and gun handling skills.
Right.
So they get the practice loading themagazine, putting the magazine in the gun,
dropping the slide,locking the slide back.
And it helps them to practiceall this kind of stuff.
And, I mean, I think when that young manwas here for two hours,
I don't think we shot 50 roundstotal, really.
(19:20):
You know, we went very, very slow.
And then the other thing we didwas I broke out a single shot rifle
and he had never shot a single shot rifle.
Actually, I don't think he'd ever shota rifle before, now that I think about it.
And, so I had him hitting an eightinch round
gong at 100 yardswith this rifle pretty fast.
(19:43):
And it was interesting because that's
when he really realizedhow important the trigger press was. Yep.
Because it, you know, a rifle.
You're good in silence on a rest,you squeeze the trigger.
I had him kind of jerked the triggera couple of times.
It was. Became real obvious, you know?
So, I mean, I don't know,I think if you're new to it,
(20:03):
don't be in a hurry.
It's a train.
Methodically and slowly. The.
If as you get smoother, you'll get faster.
I mean, you're not going to becomeRobby Latham.
Probably because he's inhuman, but,
Yeah.
And he does it
wrong according to doctrine,which we won't get into it for this test.
(20:24):
It's true.
He slaps the triggerlike sudden. Slaps the heck out of it.
But he didn't choose 50,000.
Yeah, he shoots 50,000 rounds a year.
You know, I've seen him shoot rings aroundpeople when he was using, a,
high point, you know, with an 8 poundtrigger pole.
So, yeah, eight.But I think take your time.
Concentrate on that trigger press drive.
(20:45):
Firing is your friend.
Get a laser so you can see what'shappening when you pull the trigger.
Another thing I like to do is tell people.
Imagine that you have a dimebalanced on the top of your front sight.
And when you press the trigger,you don't want the dime to fall off.
Yeah. And so keep that in your mind.
We actually used to do that.
(21:05):
I was going to say I'm laughing because.
Yeah, that.
Yeah, that
because it was hard to get the dimeeven balance on the top of that you know.
Yeah. Model 19. But yeah. Right.
You know
now the Glock, you could stackthree rolls of quarters up there.
It wouldn't move.It's still a valid drill.
But you know what was interestingtoo with this young man
(21:26):
is that at the end of the time he was,he said,
you know, because I let him shoot upan, excuse me,
a single actionwhich had a crisp purple and he said,
so this trigger pull on my Glockisn't very good,
Learning has occurred, grasshopper.
Yeah.
And I said, no, it's not,I said, but you can still shoot it.
(21:48):
Yeah, I can, because I shot it.
And he saw I could shoot little groups.
I said, but it takes practice.
And so,
he wants me to install a newtrigger in his Glock. Now.
Well, that's a that's a good,
illustration of that fallacy, though.
You can put that new triggerand it'll be a better trigger.
But unless he,
(22:08):
knows how to use that trigger, it'snot going to do him any good whatsoever.
And that goes back tothat whole discussion we have of Americans
in general.
Shooters specifically thinkif I buy this new whiz bang,
5000 accessory, suddenly I'm Robby Latham,and that's not how it works.
Young Russ Young, we talked about that.
(22:29):
Yeah.
Because he was saying, well,you know, if I did this, if I did that,
if I bought this computer programand I hooked it up to my gun and out
and I said, no, I said,if you were already really good,
I said, then a custom
trigger will give you another few percent.
Yeah.
You know, if you were already really,really good, then better
sites will help you a few percent, I said.
(22:51):
But if you're jerking the triggerand you put a better trigger and bigger
sights on it, you will still be jerkingthe trigger, you know?
So you have to overcome all that first,you know, before you make that,
make that next step.
So but yeah, get so get a laserif your gun can hold one.
Truly that is one of the best things.
And the other thingwhen you're practicing with your semi-auto
(23:14):
or either have your friend load
your magazine 5 or 6 rounds,but put a dummy round in there,
because it's hard to fool yourself,
but you know, but have him do that,or have your wife or somebody.
And then when you're shooting, it'sreally interesting to be going bang, bang.
And then you go click.
(23:36):
It's for experienced shooters.
That should be horribly embarrassing.
And you know, I was going to say I've,I've still do that on occasion.
Not very often.
Typically it's with a new gun,but you get some kind of malfunction,
you're testingand you get okay, here we go.
Click oh well, that was embarrassing.
Everybody saw that.
(23:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I will say one thing about that though.
I've talked to top, competition shootersand I've seen them do that.
Right.
Except what they're doing is
they're anticipating recoilfor the recovery.
And so when they're shooting,they're so good
that as the gun is firing,they're pushing back down against it
(24:22):
to recover from recoil faster.
Or at least that's what they say.
Yeah.
Well,I was going to say, you know, when you're
truly a Zen master,
quarter point or court recognized expert,
you can break all the rulesand get away with it,
just like Robbie Latham, becauseI remember we were at gunsight, and he
(24:44):
it was a media event.
We were talking about trigger pull
and the, the,the coaches were working with us.
And then Robbiekind of got this little look.
He says, I don't do any of that.
And it's like, well,I guess I can't argue with the result
because obviously, like yousaid, he'll shoot rings around anybody.
But that's the difference.
Here's a guy that's been doing, you know,
how many ever rounds per year for decades.
(25:06):
Plus he's superhuman,you know, I'd love to play in the NFL,
but I don't have the genetics for it, so,
I don't need to compare myselfto, you know,
an NFL player and,you know, 40 yard dash times.
I need to compare myselfto 63 year old former magazine editors.
So you got to understand thatuntil you reach that level
(25:29):
where, you know, you can break the rulesand do something different.
I don't care what they taught youin basic.
I don't care what Papa taught youwhen it comes down to the
the magic secret of shooting,you get your trigger, pull right,
and everything else is downhillfrom there.
You know, I've talked to Larry Michel,like so over dinner and because people
(25:50):
who shoot revolvers, they want to learnhow to shoot double action revolvers fast.
Yeah.
You know, well, first of all, you don'tyou have to learn how to stay, dude.
You have to learn how to shoot slowly,methodically.
It will slowly comeas you get smoother and smoother.
Then you'll be able to shoot fasterand you'll be like Jerry Mitchell, like,
right?
But Jerry told me was he said,
(26:11):
my triggerpress, it's all about the trigger press.
And so even if he's shootingsix shots in 2/10 of a second
at a target, guess what?
He's still pressing the trigger smoothly.
You know, and and and it justis the way it is.
If you're, if you're watching this,if you jump on our YouTube channel,
(26:33):
do a search for, shooting small frame
revolvers or, you know, shooting revolversaccurately, that kind of stuff.
And I've got a kind of a longish videoon how to shoot
small frame revolvers accurately.
And we talk about, sight pictureand staging the trigger.
And I actually show you how to do that.
And, and it's interesting because there'shundreds and hundreds of comments and,
(26:56):
I mean, virtually all of them wereI never knew this before.
Nobody ever showed me this before.
And I tried it at the range.
And now I suddenly can shootmy double action revolver accurately
and so it's not anything to be ashamedabout.
You just need to learn.
So. Exactly. Well, good.
Good stuff.
We've revealed the secret of shooting.
(27:18):
That would probably bea good alternate title for this video,
because itit really is the secret to shooting.
You mastered triggerpull and everything else.
Like I said,is is downhill from there. So,
reach out if you got questionsor comments.
Editor at Guns Podcast USAor of course you can leave us a comment
if you're watching on YouTube.
And we love to hear what folks are,thinking about
(27:39):
and their experienceand the questions you have.
And we'll try to help youas much as we can.
But, you know, Roy,we we talk about a lot.
We're violating the gun writers codebecause we don't know everything, but,
well, at least give you the,benefit of our experience and our opinion.
Speak for yourself.
By golly, I know. My goodness.
(28:01):
Well, another great episode.
And before we go, we need to,as I said, pay the bills.
Here's a word from our great sponsor,Tango Down.
VisitTango down.com to explore the full lineup
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Tango down Combat gear without peer is.
(28:22):
On behalf of my co-host Roy Huntington,
of course I am Brent Wheat,the host of the Guns Podcast US.
And as we say, every episode, now it'stime to get out there and get shooting.
If you can do a good trigger pull,you can shoot just about anything.
And if you have a terrible trigger pull,you'll always
shoot awful.
Hi there.
(00:20):
Welcome to this episode of the GunsPodcast.
I'm your host, Brent Wheat,along with co-host Rory Huntington.
We'd like to thank you
for joining us here on one of the world'sbiggest gun talk programs.
As we talk about all the stuffthat we find interesting
about the world of shooting.So howdy, Roy.
How's it going today?
You know what?I don't have any complaints.
And Susie doesn't listen,even if I do, so you know.
(00:43):
Oh, what the heck? I know.
Should I cut that part out in the edit?
Yeah. Maybe not.
Yeah. Good idea. So.
Well, today we're going to talk abouta, a topic that I've done zero research,
but yet I've done an entire lifetimeof research about.
And it's.
Why does your trigger pull suckso badly and.
(01:05):
Wait for as well?
As I like to say, why are you a jerk?
You're a trigger jerk.
But first, before we get to that, though,we gotta pay the bills.
So here's a quick wordfrom our great sponsor, tango down.
(01:30):
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(01:54):
Tango down combat gear without peer.
Well, Roy, are you accusing me
being a jerk, a trigger jerk?
Yeah, triggeris the key word there, Exactly.
If someone today says you'rea jerk, right?
You know,
that would be different if they come upand they say, are you a trigger jerker?
(02:17):
Yeah, yeah.
And today we're going to talk aboutsomething that non trained
people think is completely insignificant.
And well trained people realizeit's the entire,
almost the entire, process
of shootingwrapped up into one important point.
And that, of course, is trigger pull.
(02:39):
If you can do a good trigger pullyou can shoot just about anything.
And if you have a terrible triggerpull, pull,
you'll always shoot awfuluntil you fix that problem.
So, Roy, you were police firearmsinstructor for a long time.
Trigger, Paul,
how important is Trigger
Paul to shooting whatever.
(03:01):
It's like onlythe only most important thing, period.
Because you can haveyou can really have a crappy stance.
You could be shooting left weak handed.
You know,you could have a terrible sight picture.
But if you have a marvelous triggerpress, chances are pretty good
you're going to do whatever it isyou were trying to do, you know?
(03:24):
Yeah, but if you have the best stance
ever seen on Earth and a sight picture
that the gods will be amazed by,
and then you jerkthe trigger you're going to miss.
Exactly.
And don't you agreethat that untrained people,
(03:46):
they really it's like,okay, I understand the importance,
but let's get down to the good stuffof kicking in doors
and jumping and rolling and shootingseven, you know, bad guys.
It all starts with trigger pull.
And that's that's why I thoughtthis was such an important topic,
because untrained folksjust don't seem to get that.
And I guessbecause it's such a, physically small
(04:07):
part of what you're doing.
But it is, as you said, it'sonly the most important part
of whether you shoot in a pistol or rifle.
Shotgun, crew served weapon.
Well,I don't know about that, but anyway, so,
let's start with Roy, your philosophy.
How do you explain and how do you teachhow to pull a trigger?
(04:28):
Well,you don't know what you don't know, right?
And, new shooters especially,
don't know that they don't knowhow to pull the trigger.
Right.
And I think once you tell them
that this is important,many of them will respond positively.
(04:48):
And then you can take themthrough the learning process.
But I found the ones that are mostchallenging are the oh, I grew up hunting.
My grandfathershowed me everything about guns.
I already know how to do this.
And no,they don't, with very rare exceptions.
You know.
I went to basic training in 1972.
I spent a whole eight hours on range.
Yeah, I'm an NRA certified firearmsinstructor.
(05:08):
So, but this is a timely topic
because literally about two days ago,there was a young man here.
He just bought his first gun,a Glock, in December.
I bumped into him somewhere.
We started talking about guns.
He said, you know, I'm really.
I kind of am strugglingbecause all my shots are going
low left all the time, and I just reallydon't know what to do. And,
(05:33):
so I said, well, you know what?
Why don't you stop by?
I'll be happy to help you with that,you know?
And so he was really surprisedand appreciative.
He knew me a little bit from magazinesand videos and stuff.
And so he came over,we spent a couple of hours and,
and it was a classic caseof just jerking the trigger, you know,
and once I made him understandthat the stance you have is fine, right?
(05:56):
Your sight picture is fine,
but it's how you press the triggerthat's causing us problems.
And how I illustrated that with himwas that I put my back to the target
and I said,your job is only to aim the gun.
And I put my finger on top of hisin the trigger guard.
And then I said, let me press the trigger.
I said, butyou just keep the sights on the target.
(06:17):
And so I would press the trigger.
And we shot about a five round group.
And so I turned around, I lookedand it was this really nice little teacup
sized group at about eight yards whennormally his would have been maybe 20in.
Right.
And I said, so what have we just learned?
My back was to the target. Right.
(06:38):
You aimed the gun.
All I did was press the trigger smoothlyand look what happened.
And I have to end his.
He just, like, went, Holy cow.
This is.
I had no idea, you know, and I thinkwe need to also talk about something else.
There are people who are betterat teaching this that I am, definitely.
But people say squeeze the trigger
(06:59):
and and yes, that's the case.
But I a lot of peopleand I had somebody tell me this
was they said,oh well when you said squeeze the trigger,
I thought you meant like, you know,squeeze the gun and squeeze it all.
Because if you if you do like squeeze,then your whole hand
tightens up and stuff like that.
And so there needs to be a wayof where you isolate the grip from
(07:21):
the press of the trigger.
And I
and sothat's what I've explained to people now,
I also stumbled onto something and I thinkI stole this from somebody was I said,
hold the gun like you would a small birdso tight enough that it can't fly away.
That, but not so tightthat you're going to kill it,
you know, because you we've all seenthose people that squeeze
a white knuckle, you know, and pretty soontheir hands are shaking
(07:44):
and they're scaredto death of everything. So,
the other thingthat I have introduced to people,
when it's possible with the type of gunthey have, is, a laser.
And so I don't personally advocatecarrying lasers as a defensive tool.
But if you do, that's fine.
Just make sure you're trainingand you understand there
(08:06):
limitations, you know, and advantages.
But what they're great at is
you put that laser on a target.
And when you squeeze the trigger,if you have a smooth trigger pull,
then the
laser just barely dances around becauseyou can never hold him perfectly still.
Right.
But but if you have a jerk, that laserbeam dances
(08:28):
across the targetlike it's doing the Macarena out there.
Yeah, right.
Yeah. And.
And then that's an easy way to practicedrive firing in a safe area
at home or something. Is that you?
You put that laser on the walland then just keep pressing that trigger
until it stays smooth, you know, and thatthat's a huge advantage right there.
(08:49):
And somebody did ask me, they said, well,what about those laser snap caps?
You know, they make a thing
that it's like connected to an appand you can have a screen
that's reflective and you put a, a laserdummy around in the chamber.
You probably seen those.
And so when you pull the trigger it firesa little shot, a laser onto the target.
Well that's fine,but all it does is show you
where you happen to be aimingat the time that you pulled the trigger.
(09:12):
It doesn't show the laser dancing around.
So, so, yeah.
Invest in a $50 red laserthat clamps on the rail
of your pistolfrom Amazon and, practice that way.
Yeah.
So I suppose we should define this.
What if,
you had to write a
(09:33):
definition of a good triggerpull for most guns?
What does a good trigger pull look like?
Actually, it's the same for every gun,
you know,because ultimately you will always meet.
But a lot of people call the wall,you know, which is on a semi-auto.
It's obvious.
You take up the slack
(09:54):
and then you reach a point to where nowthe sear actually starts to move, right?
And then that's when the critical moment
of the smooth pressand follow through occur.
If you're shooting a double actionrevolver, there's a lot of take up,
of course,which is you could consider that to be
just the initial part of take uplike you would on a single action.
(10:16):
But then just before the gun fires, youhit a slightly invisible, smoother wall.
But that's just before before the,sear releases.
And so those two parts of the pressare the most critical press.
So you can hurry through the beginning.
You can take up slack like a son of a gun.
You know, you can stage a double actiontrigger pull until
(10:38):
just before it lets off.
But then that's the moment of truth.
And then that'swhere everything has to calm down.
And that'swhen everything has to become smooth.
When you practice your press, you want toexperiment with, if you put too much,
finger in thetrigger on the trigger, chances are good
you're going to pull the gun downand left.
(10:59):
For instance, if you don't put enough in,you might pull it in another direction.
And so finding a spot on thereto where you can press straight back,
because it's a state of mindmore than anything.
Because your fingers bending in an arcso you can't really press straight back.
But if you imaginethat, press straight back.
That's the goal there.
(11:19):
Oh. The other thingwhile we're talking about that is,
and this young man who was herethe other day,
he tended to ride the reset,which means in his semi-auto,
he would he would let the trigger forwarduntil it just barely reset, you know,
and then because he said show YouTubechannel or somebody told him that,
you know, that way you don't have to takedo the take up right now.
(11:40):
You can shoot faster and more accurately.
What's that?
The only thing was,sometimes his gun wouldn't go off
because he hehe didn't let it fully reset.
And so I had to teach him to.
No, actually, get your fingerlike come off the trigger even, you know.
So it resets fully.
But, trigger press. Yeah.
That'swhat it's all about. Sight pictures.
(12:00):
Adequate. You.
I know for a factyou will agree with me on this,
because we have both pointedguns at bad guys.
And in all of the, I don't know,
hundreds of times in our careerwhere we pointed guns at bad guys,
I absolutely do not ever rememberlooking at my sights.
I never once aimed through
my sightsand got a sight picture on a bad guy.
(12:22):
I would always indexover the top of the sights
because your eyes will not allow youto not look.
It's a threat.
Yeah. You know.
Yeah.
If you're if you're looking at the threatand then you force your eyes
to look at the sights,they will fight you.
You know.
And so I think that's proof, though,that the sight picture
(12:43):
is secondary to the trigger press,because we've all seen a lot of cops
make really good hits.
They weren't looking at their sights,
but they were pressing the triggerreally well.
So. So. Right.
What do we do?
Practice. Practice?
I was going to say.
And and I'm just going to say,I think one of the biggest problems is,
(13:05):
as you kind of alluded to, with that,
the guy you were training is, you know,I need to shoot faster.
And I think that's where you canI've seen this.
You can trainfolks in a decent trigger pull,
and then you say, okay,go a little faster,
and then it goesto hell because they think,
speed means you
throw all those, fundamentals outand you just start going really fast
(13:29):
and they get back into that whole thingof just snapping their finger back as as,
hard and fast as they canand creates a whole host of problems.
So if you've got to shoot faster,you do the same thing with maybe
a little more alacrity, butyou don't change anything at all in it.
I think that's hard for for completebeginners to really understand.
(13:49):
What do you mean?
I can do all that and think about take upand but still do it faster.
Well, that comes withwhat's that word you came up with, Roy?
Practice. Yeah.
Practice.
Well, you know,it's like you don't buy a piano
and then try to play Tchaikovsky.
You know, youyou learn where the notes are
and you learn how to play chords,and you become smoother,
(14:12):
and you become more experienced,and then you can play better,
and then you can play faster.
And that's exactly the same as shooting.
And so when, when you're a new shooter,
you put all of thisshooting fast out of your brain.
You're months away from that.
If you're smart.
(14:33):
The other thing is, make every shot count.
One of my favorites targets to useare those cheap eight
inch paper plates you buy,you know, like 500 of them in a thing.
They're like $3, right?
So I'll tape up.
I did what I made the other day.
I tapeup, 8 or 10 of them on this tall target.
I have.
And I said, okay, now let's stand here.
We set up at about eight yards, and Isaid, I just want you to take one shot
(14:57):
on each target, take your time.
And then I walked him through.
Okay. That's it.
Take up the slack.
You're at the wall now. Slowly press.
Think about what you're doing.Think about the press.
Be smooth. Don't hurry.
His particular issuewas that he had a really good press
and I guess you could even see his triggerfinger move.
And then they get anxious and they go,
(15:21):
I have to shoot now.
You're exactly right.
And then that last little bit,it would go actually slow motion
videoed him and it wasit was clearly obvious in the video
you could see nice smooth,you know, trigger pull.
You could see his triggermoving back slowly.
And then all of a sudden, that ladright at the break, he hurried it through.
(15:44):
And but the beauty of these targetslike this, where you're putting one bullet
on each one, is that youryour inconsistencies are obvious.
So if you're putting 25 shots onin the center
of a silhouette, you have no ideawhere they're going, right?
They're spread all over the place.
So and I just going to hit on that, that,
(16:04):
you know, I've, I've been to a lot oftraining as, as you have to Roy
and I've only been to a couple that I feltwere a little sketchy and,
the common denominator in those,
with those trainers that I
didn't feel reallydid a good job, in my opinion.
It was that whole idea.
They didn'treally talk about trigger press,
(16:25):
or its role in, in, marksmanship.
They were really focused on speedand getting those rounds downrange.
And like you said, now you've dumpedthree magazines into a silhouette.
Well,did you learn anything? Or you just learn?
Keep pulling that trigger really fast.
And, you know,I contrast that with, say, gunsight.
(16:46):
And I think Clint, Smith at Thunder Ranchdid this too.
Is okay.
Here we are, kids.
Everybody's ready.
Make ready one shot, you know, wherever.
Okay. One shot.
Wherever.
And it's funny because about a third ofthe class is real impatient.
So, like, okay, I can do one shot.
I want to do three and five and mag dump.
(17:07):
We're building that fundamental.
And it goes back to that.
You know my favorite phrase?
Yeah.
Slow down, Speed Racer.
It's when you're when you're, training.
Certainly.But when you're training by yourself.
And I know Roy does this and I do it,I spend time
one slow fire shot at a time
because I'm focused on getting everything,set up.
(17:30):
Right.
And that will show that glaring error of,oh, man, I really you know,
I pulled the trigger, I bad trigger pullwhatever my, my issue was.
But you
you will not diagnose that and fix itif you're just mag dumping all the time.
And if your instructor wants youto start out, you know, dump a mag
every time and,you know, pairs and triples and all that.
(17:53):
I don't know that that instructorreally knows what they're talking about.
But when you go to a classand they start out one single boring shot,
that's somebody that understands,you gotta
you got to build the foundationbefore you can put the house up.
No, I agree completely.
And I think it's very importantand very beneficial.
I have a little drill that I do and,
if someone's new to their semi-autopistol is, I have them load
(18:17):
a magazine with one roundand then close the slide.
And so when we're ready to shoot, theyput the magazine in, they run the slide,
they get their shooting stance,they use their sights, they press.
We see where the bullet goes.
The slide locks backwhen now they have to stop.
So they have to drop the magazine.
(18:38):
We talk about what happened.
Did you think about it?
Do you even remember pulling the trigger?
You know, what were you thinking about?
They loaded up the round, closedthe slide, put it back in.
So that does two things.Number one, it slows things down.
It gives us a chance to talk aboutwhat just happened.
And the hidden benefit of this is itgives them
(18:59):
manipulationskills and gun handling skills.
Right.
So they get the practice loading themagazine, putting the magazine in the gun,
dropping the slide,locking the slide back.
And it helps them to practiceall this kind of stuff.
And, I mean, I think when that young manwas here for two hours,
I don't think we shot 50 roundstotal, really.
(19:20):
You know, we went very, very slow.
And then the other thing we didwas I broke out a single shot rifle
and he had never shot a single shot rifle.
Actually, I don't think he'd ever shota rifle before, now that I think about it.
And, so I had him hitting an eightinch round
gong at 100 yardswith this rifle pretty fast.
(19:43):
And it was interesting because that's
when he really realizedhow important the trigger press was. Yep.
Because it, you know, a rifle.
You're good in silence on a rest,you squeeze the trigger.
I had him kind of jerked the triggera couple of times.
It was. Became real obvious, you know?
So, I mean, I don't know,I think if you're new to it,
(20:03):
don't be in a hurry.
It's a train.
Methodically and slowly. The.
If as you get smoother, you'll get faster.
I mean, you're not going to becomeRobby Latham.
Probably because he's inhuman, but,
Yeah.
And he does it
wrong according to doctrine,which we won't get into it for this test.
(20:24):
It's true.
He slaps the triggerlike sudden. Slaps the heck out of it.
But he didn't choose 50,000.
Yeah, he shoots 50,000 rounds a year.
You know, I've seen him shoot rings aroundpeople when he was using, a,
high point, you know, with an 8 poundtrigger pole.
So, yeah, eight.But I think take your time.
Concentrate on that trigger press drive.
(20:45):
Firing is your friend.
Get a laser so you can see what'shappening when you pull the trigger.
Another thing I like to do is tell people.
Imagine that you have a dimebalanced on the top of your front sight.
And when you press the trigger,you don't want the dime to fall off.
Yeah. And so keep that in your mind.
We actually used to do that.
(21:05):
I was going to say I'm laughing because.
Yeah, that.
Yeah, that
because it was hard to get the dimeeven balance on the top of that you know.
Yeah. Model 19. But yeah. Right.
You know
now the Glock, you could stackthree rolls of quarters up there.
It wouldn't move.It's still a valid drill.
But you know what was interestingtoo with this young man
(21:26):
is that at the end of the time he was,he said,
you know, because I let him shoot upan, excuse me,
a single actionwhich had a crisp purple and he said,
so this trigger pull on my Glockisn't very good,
Learning has occurred, grasshopper.
Yeah.
And I said, no, it's not,I said, but you can still shoot it.
(21:48):
Yeah, I can, because I shot it.
And he saw I could shoot little groups.
I said, but it takes practice.
And so,
he wants me to install a newtrigger in his Glock. Now.
Well, that's a that's a good,
illustration of that fallacy, though.
You can put that new triggerand it'll be a better trigger.
But unless he,
(22:08):
knows how to use that trigger, it'snot going to do him any good whatsoever.
And that goes back tothat whole discussion we have of Americans
in general.
Shooters specifically thinkif I buy this new whiz bang,
5000 accessory, suddenly I'm Robby Latham,and that's not how it works.
Young Russ Young, we talked about that.
(22:29):
Yeah.
Because he was saying, well,you know, if I did this, if I did that,
if I bought this computer programand I hooked it up to my gun and out
and I said, no, I said,if you were already really good,
I said, then a custom
trigger will give you another few percent.
Yeah.
You know, if you were already really,really good, then better
sites will help you a few percent, I said.
(22:51):
But if you're jerking the triggerand you put a better trigger and bigger
sights on it, you will still be jerkingthe trigger, you know?
So you have to overcome all that first,you know, before you make that,
make that next step.
So but yeah, get so get a laserif your gun can hold one.
Truly that is one of the best things.
And the other thingwhen you're practicing with your semi-auto
(23:14):
or either have your friend load
your magazine 5 or 6 rounds,but put a dummy round in there,
because it's hard to fool yourself,
but you know, but have him do that,or have your wife or somebody.
And then when you're shooting, it'sreally interesting to be going bang, bang.
And then you go click.
(23:36):
It's for experienced shooters.
That should be horribly embarrassing.
And you know, I was going to say I've,I've still do that on occasion.
Not very often.
Typically it's with a new gun,but you get some kind of malfunction,
you're testingand you get okay, here we go.
Click oh well, that was embarrassing.
Everybody saw that.
(23:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I will say one thing about that though.
I've talked to top, competition shootersand I've seen them do that.
Right.
Except what they're doing is
they're anticipating recoilfor the recovery.
And so when they're shooting,they're so good
that as the gun is firing,they're pushing back down against it
(24:22):
to recover from recoil faster.
Or at least that's what they say.
Yeah.
Well,I was going to say, you know, when you're
truly a Zen master,
quarter point or court recognized expert,
you can break all the rulesand get away with it,
just like Robbie Latham, becauseI remember we were at gunsight, and he
(24:44):
it was a media event.
We were talking about trigger pull
and the, the,the coaches were working with us.
And then Robbiekind of got this little look.
He says, I don't do any of that.
And it's like, well,I guess I can't argue with the result
because obviously, like yousaid, he'll shoot rings around anybody.
But that's the difference.
Here's a guy that's been doing, you know,
how many ever rounds per year for decades.
(25:06):
Plus he's superhuman,you know, I'd love to play in the NFL,
but I don't have the genetics for it, so,
I don't need to compare myselfto, you know,
an NFL player and,you know, 40 yard dash times.
I need to compare myselfto 63 year old former magazine editors.
So you got to understand thatuntil you reach that level
(25:29):
where, you know, you can break the rulesand do something different.
I don't care what they taught youin basic.
I don't care what Papa taught youwhen it comes down to the
the magic secret of shooting,you get your trigger, pull right,
and everything else is downhillfrom there.
You know, I've talked to Larry Michel,like so over dinner and because people
(25:50):
who shoot revolvers, they want to learnhow to shoot double action revolvers fast.
Yeah.
You know, well, first of all, you don'tyou have to learn how to stay, dude.
You have to learn how to shoot slowly,methodically.
It will slowly comeas you get smoother and smoother.
Then you'll be able to shoot fasterand you'll be like Jerry Mitchell, like,
right?
But Jerry told me was he said,
(26:11):
my triggerpress, it's all about the trigger press.
And so even if he's shootingsix shots in 2/10 of a second
at a target, guess what?
He's still pressing the trigger smoothly.
You know, and and and it justis the way it is.
If you're, if you're watching this,if you jump on our YouTube channel,
(26:33):
do a search for, shooting small frame
revolvers or, you know, shooting revolversaccurately, that kind of stuff.
And I've got a kind of a longish videoon how to shoot
small frame revolvers accurately.
And we talk about, sight pictureand staging the trigger.
And I actually show you how to do that.
And, and it's interesting because there'shundreds and hundreds of comments and,
(26:56):
I mean, virtually all of them wereI never knew this before.
Nobody ever showed me this before.
And I tried it at the range.
And now I suddenly can shootmy double action revolver accurately
and so it's not anything to be ashamedabout.
You just need to learn.
So. Exactly. Well, good.
Good stuff.
We've revealed the secret of shooting.
(27:18):
That would probably bea good alternate title for this video,
because itit really is the secret to shooting.
You mastered triggerpull and everything else.
Like I said,is is downhill from there. So,
reach out if you got questionsor comments.
Editor at Guns Podcast USAor of course you can leave us a comment
if you're watching on YouTube.
And we love to hear what folks are,thinking about
(27:39):
and their experienceand the questions you have.
And we'll try to help youas much as we can.
But, you know, Roy,we we talk about a lot.
We're violating the gun writers codebecause we don't know everything, but,
well, at least give you the,benefit of our experience and our opinion.
Speak for yourself.
By golly, I know. My goodness.
(28:01):
Well, another great episode.
And before we go, we need to,as I said, pay the bills.
Here's a word from our great sponsor,Tango Down.
VisitTango down.com to explore the full lineup
and sign up for email updatesso you don't miss what's next?
Tango down Combat gear without peer is.
(28:22):
On behalf of my co-host Roy Huntington,
of course I am Brent Wheat,the host of the Guns Podcast US.
And as we say, every episode, now it'stime to get out there and get shooting.
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