Defensive Shooting Fundamentals Session 5: Understanding Trigger Control

Trigger Control is the one important fundamental skillset that you need to understand as a shooter that really doesn't have any other corollary in your everyday life or in the natural world. When we talk about trying to maintain control of something with most of our hand but then isolating the motion of our index finger relative to the rest of the hand and to that object that's not something that we do, generally speaking. And certainly not at the fine motor skill level that we're going to want to do it. When we have a very high level of precision shot, in a life and death circumstance under extreme stress. When it comes to maintaining control of the trigger. The most important thing that we can talk about is touching and pressing. And that's why a fundamental drill that we always do is the, Extend, Touch, Press, drill. That drill separates the three aspects of defensive shooting in our extended shooting position. So the fundamental extended shooting position getting the gun out there, making sure that at some point we feel the trigger and then we slowly smoothly press the trigger. Or we very rapidly and smoothly press the trigger depending on the amount of precision that we need. Now, nowhere in this process do we want to be taking up the slack or staging the trigger. Now this laser light training gun has a very consistent trigger pull until the very end. And then it hits a little bit of a wall and then it snaps. So if I wanted to I could develop the habit of taking up all that slack hitting that wall and then breaking the shot. Well, the problem is when I'm shooting very rapidly I'm not going to be stopping and then breaking the shot. Only when I'm paying attention to my trigger control in a training environment. When I'm getting ready to take an extremely precise shot maybe a much smaller target or a target as much further away would I be staging the trigger in that way. So I'm essentially learning two different trigger presses. And when it comes to your gear, if you're familiar with the concept of a double action, single action gun. One that has a gun with a trigger that allows you to pull a very heavy very long trigger pull for the first shot. Then after the gun cycles, it's a very short crisp, single action trigger pull for all subsequent shots. Almost all of those types of guns will have a D Cocker And there's a gun from one particular European company that doesn't have a D Cocker on those models. And then we don't advocate those types of guns in either configuration one with the D Cocker or without, because it causes you to have to learn two different trigger pulls. And the first one, is a very long heavy trigger pull which makes it harder to be precise, obviously. So when we have a gun that has one consistent type of trigger pull, like most of our modern striker fired guns, types of guns that we recommend for defensive use. We don't want to turn it into a two different type of trigger pull gun. We don't want to have the staging and then the snapping and then sometimes just a smooth trigger breaths. We also don't want to obsess about the reset. We don't want to obsess over where the gun resets for that next shot. As you can see here, I'm not quite letting this trigger go far enough forward. Although the trigger is moving it's not resetting and I'm not shooting again. I have to let the trigger go all the way forward before I can shoot again. Now at point there's a spot where, the trigger resets and then just after that, the trigger continues to move. So that last quarter of an inch on this gun which is actually very little compared to some guns on the market. This last quarter of an inch of travel isn't necessary but I would much rather have the trigger go too far forward. As long as I don't lose contact with the trigger then I would have the trigger not go forward enough and short stroke the gun. Now this used to be much more of a problem, when we talked about long double action trigger pulls, especially double action revolver trigger pulls. This idea of short stroking and not letting the trigger go far enough forward. But it's still a real concern, especially for people who are taught to obsess mechanically over that trigger reset. So I'm going to advise you not to worry about that. Once you drive the gun out, and get your initial contact, you reach full extension. At that point you're just going to let the trigger go far forward. But what I don't want to see you doing is taking your finger off the trigger and slapping every time. So that sequence for multiple shots string of fire is extend touch, press, manage recoil, reset, press, manage recoil, reset, press. Not, extend, touch, press, recoil, touch, press, recoil, touch, press. Make sure that finger stays on the trigger throughout that multiple round string of fire until you're done shooting coming back into the ready position. And that's when you're going to remove your finger and put it back in whatever your index position is. So trigger control first and foremost, remember that we want it to be smooth and consistent. That the consistency is in the smoothness at whatever pace your need for precision dictates. So if I were taking an extremely precise shot, I might drive out, close my eye focus on the front sight, sight alignment, sight picture, slow, slow, slow, slow press, right. If I'm going to take a very low precision shot. I might be starting my press on the way out and getting that shot to break just as I reach extension. The trick is, I'm still being consistent. So I'm not going fast, stop, slow on the highly precise shot and I'm not going slow-fast on the fast shot or vice versa. I'm always either pressing smoothly and quickly or pressing smoothly and slowly. Either way it's going to be adjusted to the appropriate pace for the amount of deviation control that I need. But the consistency in the brain is important. You're always pressing the trigger smoothly. So you want to break the habit of staging and breaking. You know in target shooting situations, especially if you're in an old kind of target shooting, mechanical stance, locking the gun up and trying to hold it perfectly still. And some of those situations, it may make sense and it might even help to take up that slack, sit right there, get everything perfectly settled, stop talking, stop breathing, and then break that shot. And certainly you can develop extreme trigger control in that locked in, push pull isometric tangent situation. But in defensive shooting situations, we're much more likely to be in a, both arms fully extended lowered center of gravity situation where there is some movement to the gun. And we want to make sure that we're pressing that trigger smoothly, not staging and then snapping the trigger in a way that without the isometric tension and without the lockdown of the gun, the gun actually moves just a little bit. And that little bit, maybe enough in your extremely precise situation where you're going to cause a miss. And we see this a lot on the ranges. So for you touch and press, reset, by letting the trigger go out far enough, you can error too far, you don't want to error too short, because then the gun won't be able to be fired again. Just don't take your finger off the trigger. So smooth press, stay in contact while you're resetting, and adjust the pace of your trigger press to the level of precision you need for the amount of deviation control that is appropriate in your defensive shooting situation.