apg12 another thing you can do with a Glock is remove the s spring. This will let the weapon fire but when the shooter goes and releases the trigger to reset he will have to stop at the reset to have the weapon fire again if he goes past the reset you will have to pull the slide back before it will fire. Glock taught this trick in there class to help teach new shooters what trigger reset is.

Place a spent casing on the slide, have him dry fire without knocking the casing off

I was thinking the same thing.

IM sent

Yeah, that turned out to be a lot of his problem too. The many repetitions with snap caps has helped him to stop anticipating recoil, especially mixing in the snap caps with live rounds at the range.

Sight picture was, and still is a big issue. I have a hard time getting him to focus on the front sight as he pulls the trigger instead of the target itself. But he is improving with practice, and much help from you guys.

Thanks again

Ruck

Figured it was. That's usually the issue with most of the beginners I see. I actually don't teach front sight post focus. I teach focal plane shifts at the basic level. Have the shooter continually shift from the target to front sight to rear sight during a slow trigger press. During the slow trigger press I have them constantly analyst the precise sight alignment and compare it to the sight placement on the target. If the sights move out of alignment or placement, the press stops. When it returns, it continues.

I do this for two reasons:

1- At the basic level you are basically programming your brain. It is very important to reinforce the way your mind processes what you see. Any time you press the trigger on a bad sight picture, you are teaching your brain that it is proper. It is also teaching yourself sight alignment relationship with the produced level of precision. This gives you a basis to know how much or how little of the gun you need to reference in order to take a shot, bases on the level of accuracy required.

2- Target discrimination. Most of us spend 90% of our time focusing on the front sight post when training hard. This is because most people just shoot paper, steel or threat targets. Very few people actually put up scenario targets and use hand overlays to force ourselves to process the target to decide whether it is appropriate to shoot the target. Processing (discriminating) the target takes place at the target's focal plane, so focusing solely on an object 2 feet from the eye makes this impossible. Training with vision shifts from the target to both sights continuously makes us comfortable getting our eyes moving to tasks sooner, which allows the shot to happen sooner.

this might be hard to explain but...

To at least get the point across that he's anticipating it (most guys just don't believe you):


I always like the students that tell me their pistol sights are "off". Yeah, cause your black gun, and everyone else's are just magically that much different. As I learned from the late Mr. Awerbuck, even if it was off it'd be somewhere in the range of a couple thousandths of an inch or less. So unless you had a crappy gun smith change your sights, its going to be close enough.


The dryfire drills with snap caps, or snap caps in a loaded mag during practice is another great way to teach this as you've already found out.


Lastly if you don't suffer from the same issues, you can shoot your friends gun and force him to WATCH YOUR TRIGGER FINGER from the side. He can assess the target after you've shot but watch how much the gun does/doesn't move while you are shooting, and show him slowly so he might actually be able to observe it. Sometimes we even pull the trigger for our students while they are holding the gun, proving its the trigger finger and not a sight alignment issue.

Something that may have not been brought up (unless I missed it) is "what is he doing with his off hand?"

The offhand should be applying as much or more pressure to the grip/frame as the trigger pullin' hand.

After a bunch of practice, it should be just as tired if not more so than the strong hand.

(For righties) The pistol grip should be something like: grab with right hand, place heel of left hand on exposed part of grip, between right fingers and right heel of hand, at a 45 degree angle.  Left fingers should squeeze right fingers, thumbs forward, and some push-pull action works well for a lot of people.  

You can have your friend do this with an empty gun, assume a shooting stance, then you manually grab his slide and violently rack it.  It will force him to get better footwork, a better grip, etc.  At first he will stumble backwards because he doesn't have a steady base.  Then he will learn that he has to have a steady base.  From the rear leg, up  the spine, out the arms and to the hands should be "locked in".  It's easy to demonstrate this to someone by doing the above drill.

Footwork is often overlooked.  One needs a strong base in any martial art.  

By doing this drill, you will be pushing him Harder than the recoil from an actual round does, and live-fire may begin to seem tamer in comparison.

There are some very good youtube videos on "how to grip a pistol" from some of the big names and channels.  Tell him to study those, and do the things mentioned in this thread.

And of course, when he is dry-firing, the goal should be to keep the front sight between the rear sight's ears.  If the front sight "touches" the sides, that's a fail. The sight picture needs to stay the same through the trigger pull.  His dry fire practice should be done while pointing at a white wall, so that he can see his sights better.  Don't have him dry-fire while pointing at a particular target, that is counter-productive, especially for a beginner.  The only goal is to keep the front sight from touching the rear ears in his POV.

Have him train with revolver.  Mix in live shells with empty ones in the cylinder. Helps pratice trigger control and jumping issues.

That's a good idea too, never thought of that one either. Although the only revolver I own is a Taurus with an 8 3/8" bbl chambered in 454 Cassull so I don't know if that would be good or bad?

But it sure would be FUN watching him anticipate live round or empty case!

Flinch inoculation drill can work wonders.

The Flinch Inoculation Drill allows the shooter to focus on gun noise and gun movement. Step one of the drill is to have the shooter point the gun into a suitable back stop with no target and fire the gun with their eyes closed. The initial point of attention is the sound of the gun. The shooter is allowed to listen to each individual shot until they are comfortable with the sound of the gun.

Step two is to feel the push of the gun in the hands as the muzzle lifts and settles with each discharge. The eyes are still closed in step two and the shooter is allowed to shoot until they are comfortable with the feel of the gun during discharge. In each of the two steps, 5 to 6 rounds is the average that the shooters need to accomplish the task.

Step three is to allow the shooter to watch the gun movement from each side and then the rear while only focusing on how the gun actually moved in their hands, again allowing the number of shots needed to satisfy the shooter.

These three steps allow the shooter to assure the subconscious mind through the cognitive download of practical experience that the sound of the gun and the movement of the gun is of no consequence to the safety and integrity of the shooter.

https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/dont-jerk-the-trigger/

Anticipating recoil. Or jerking the trigger can be fixed by shooting a lot! To realize the recoil isn't going to hurt you. Then the recoil isn't a big deal and won't worry about it as much

Dry fire using the proper shooting techniques is the only way. I used to lay a quarter on the frame of the gun and practice trigger control/sight control while dry firing trying to keep the quarter on the gun.

The range is the worst place to fix it. A proper grip is important as is proper finger placement on the trigger and I just dont see any way to build the proper technique into muscle memory without a lot of dry firing.

All great advice from previous posters..... I find from time to time a student will be a natural at maintaining sight alignment/ sight picture while gently manipulating the trigger to the rear.

This is rare though. Most students are hard focused on the front sight and during the natural arc of movement, see the front sight "right where they want it" and feel they need to get the shot off quick --- thus "jerking" the trigger.

The BIG secret to accurate shooting is trigger control and sight alignment.....master these and you are well on the way to accurate shooting.

Make sure the student is following the basics of breath control and follow-through for before and after the shot breaks....trigger should be a gradual building of pressure until they have a "surprise" break.

Another trick I do to identify if the student has a trigger or sighting issue is to have them point in....focusing only on the front sight while I place my finger on the trigger and break the shot. Then have the student place their finger on the trigger, but not move it.....instructor then place your finger on top of their finger and show them what a gradual building of pressure feels like. Make sure you start the student in close at 3 or 5 meters. Shooting alot will not fix this issue unless they are practicing perfect fundamentals. Also, I agree with the post above.....dry fire practice is very important. I do 10X more dry fire than live fire during my competitive season.

Hope that little bit helps and one with struggling students.

1.  Dry fire with a dime on the front sight.
2.  Mix up dummies with live ammo so the student "sees" his flinch.
3.  Mix it up centerfire with a 22LR.  Put a few shots through centerfire, then a few through rimfire noticing what you do when you pick up the rimfire.  Then "fix it" with the 22 firing a few rounds and then learn it with another rimfire mag.  Then put a few centerfire through and pickup the 22LR again and see where you are.  

The centerfire/rimfire swap helped me more than anything.

I agree with this because this was me! Lol! but I learned the hard way, bought different guns and spent a lot of money on ammo but it didn't help. Taking time off after moving helped when all I did was dry fire and pay attention to how my finger movement and how the gun frame moved through the pull.

Ball & Dummy drill.

Slow and steady squeeze until the "surprise" happens.

Get dummy rounds and randomly load his mags so he doesn't know which round is the dummy round. People who flinch a lot can see how bad of a flinch they have with dummy rounds a lot of the time.

Dry firing with a light or laser helped me a lot. Makes it easier to see how the muzzle is moving as you pull. Work on holding the center of the beam or the dot on the target all the way through the pull.

I did the dry fire thing with people too, only I had them use the sight laser and make sure that when they pulled the trigger the laser stayed still on the target.

Working with my son now (right handed), he's pushing the trigger to the left, so I'm teaching him how his right hand needs to move around the grip a bit so that his pull will be straight, and to stabilize the pistol more with his left hand.

Get them a hooker....

Acclimation

Good article by Ron avery about learning to let the gun recoil.  I'm seeing him next week for a handgun class.

Travis Haley also teaches a similar thing where you close your eyes and fire 5 shots, trying to feel where the shots went.

I've always used the ball and dummy drill when instructing.  It seems like a very good way to illustrate proper fundamentals.

Ball and Dummy Option 1:

Load a mag with a mix of live and snap caps, randomly, so they don't know the order.  Have them fire one round at a time slowly while focusing on proper fundamentals.  You'll see the movement on a snap cap and so will they.

Ball and Dummy Option 2:

Stand behind him and have him lock the slide to the rear.  Take him mag and either load one round or load zero rounds.  Insert mag and release the slide.  Have him draw and fire with proper fundamentals.  You'll see if he fucks up.

Do it until they stop with whatever bad fundamentals they're practicing.  Usually once a week or every few times out to the range to illustrate the atrophy over time.

Great suggestions.

Once dry fire training is complete, one of the other things I like to do is at the end of a range session, present and shoot 100 times or more.

present->shoot->back to ready x 100 or more

They'll get tired. That's the point. At some point the shooter will stop caring about the flinch and just shoot just to get it over with. Like basketball and other sports, once muscle memory starts to build you want to take the mind out of it.

My dry-fire practice pistol is a Ruger P89. I used to have a crappier P94 with a mushier trigger for that, that was great.

Even with low end match ammo, that's like billions of rounds!

Also, I do agree with this.  Learning the fundamentals on a known quantity like a Ruger MKIV or S&W Victory or something similar will go a looooooooooooong way in establishing shooter confidence.  I will say, I don't think I've gotten over my .45 flinch.

I didn't read all the posts so with that said I suggest to anyone who has a jerking problem. Is to get training from a instructor. They will show you the best grip and stance and follow through. There are a lot of good videos out there but nothing like a one on one instructor's help.

Use a true DA pistol. He can practice a really slow and smooth pull.

Thats how I learned.

Gen3 S&W autos are good for this.

Dry practice