First let me preface my question by saying I am not an inexperienced shooter. I purchased my first Glock in 1991 and am on my 9th Glock. I have shot my entire life and carried much of it.

That said, do most people treat the trigger like a two stage?  By that I mean do you stage the trigger by taking up slack to the wall and then break the shot once the sight picture is confirmed?

Or do you pull straight through both stages when you are ready to break the shot?

Do you approach it differently when “target shooting” vs defensive training?

I ask because for myself, I tend to take up slack before a final conscious press through the wall.

However, with a stock trigger or a minus connector I find it very easy to blow through the wall and send a shot before I am completely ready.
This has only happened a few times when trying to shoot under a timer or otherwise in a hurry.

This has never caused what I would consider a negligent discharge. The pistol has always been pointed “at” the target. But I have loosed a round or two before I was ready.

The thought of this happening in a self defense scenario is frightening.

My approach has been to use plus connectors to make the wall much heavier.  But I see so many people using reduced weight triggers it makes me wonder how others deal with this.

I realize it is probably a training issue and the answer is likely to keep the booger hook off the trigger until it’s time to shoot.  But I also have a hard time believing that’s how most people do it.

What says the hive.  

I dry fire practice a shit ton and when I am live fire shooting I don't give it a thought.

I focus on my front sight and trigger just happens.

ETA: When shooting groups/target I focus on front sight and slowly squeeze until the trigger releases. The goal is to have the shot surprise me.

There is never the thought of "Now!".

I don't have a problem with shots unintentionally getting away from me in a match.

Nope.  Slap right through the fuckin mess.

when I shoot competition I pull through the first shot in the string, and then release the trigger until it just disconnects and then press again...

most of my "practice" is with a G44 (.22lr) and I raise from low ready at indoor range, and draw from holster on outdoor permissive range, but shoot only one shot with a pull through, but release the trigger until the connector resets... I may or may not (typically not) fire a second round

Or this. ^

Love it.  

Also thanks everybody for not responding with a bunch of ridicule.

Pretty much. There's times for slapping that shit or/and times for a more gradual bang.


You're right OP it's a training issue and you are sort of over thinking it.


And what you don't think people can maintain trigger finger discipline? Is that what you mean by you have a hard time believing people do it like that? A little confused by what you mean.



Out of curiosity, did you first start shooting DA revolvers?

I shoot from the reset. There's some take up or slack before hitting the wall where the reset is located. Even hammered fired guns have this slack and wall generally speaking. Some don't have a well defined wall or reset, which I don't like much. In those cases just slap away, haha. I have found guns with little to no slack are easiest to shoot accurately in defensive situations where you shoot fast. Reason why 1911's are so popular. I also have a M&P with Apex trigger that is quite good because it has zero slack on the first shot.

No two stage triggers.  

What I mean is if you watch the vast majority of people shoot they place their finger on the trigger then take an appreciable amount of time to break the shot while they obtain a final sight picture.  I think they are probably staging the trigger during this time.

I never really thought about it. I guess I do treat the trigger like a two stage. I'll preface this though by saying that I do so with just about all guns I shoot with over a 3.5lb trigger. By this I mean I take up the slack to the friction point, clean up my sightpicture, and then break the shot. During recoil, I will ride the trigger to reset and no further, and send my next shot if needed. If I don't finger comes off the trigger and gets indexed on the frame. After enough trigger time, it's rather easy on a Glock which has a rather tangible reset. It was harder on my M&P which had a very weak reset similar to an M9 until I changed the sear and trigger out with the Apex ones. Now it is much easier to feel the reset. Having started with various DA/SA pistols, I greatly prefer the consistency of a striker pistol.

With practice you can speed this up or slow it down. You’ll be just as fast and get better hits than slapping the trigger

This isn't GD!

Train the way you fight.

I always utilize the take up for the first shot. After that, it's trigger reset all the way. The "slack" should be negligible after the first round.

Also, stock triggers all day long here. Suppose that makes me boring, but my guns are only for combative use. I am not a gamer. If you train appropriately, stock triggers feel like they aren't even there.

This.... If I am stopping at the wall I am trying to take precision shots to verify zero or zero sights/rds and more than likely I am resting the pistol to remove as much human influence as possible to get a rough mechanically zero.

Shoot more.  Shoot at steel.  Shoot a lot.

I shoot my Glocks a lot.  I really don't think too much about the trigger.  Sometimes it helps to count.  1, 2, 3.  Try to get the bang as a surprise, but between 2 and 3.

The Sig P320 has a better trigger pull.  Don't try one, unless you are going down that rabbit hole.

I ran the target out to 25Y the last two times out with a new 19XG5 and a 17G5.  Ranges had been closed and it was probably the longest spell I have had for not shooting.  These guns performed very well.  Stock triggers.  I tried a 3.5lb Glock setup and it felt like mush to me.  I haven't tried any aftermarket triggers and don't plan to.

I learned to shoot semi auto pistols before I got my first Glock back in 1997.  I've always just pulled through the trigger, no staging.  Since I have a limited number of Glocks - like 6, and about 20 other semi auto pistols, this approach works best for me.  Even with a revolver shooting double action, I pull through rather than stage the trigger.

I hadn’t thought about it until you asked, but I apparently stage the trigger as I get the final sight alignment/sight picture then break the shot.

I started with DA/SA and would stage maybe half of the initial DA as I cleaned up my aim.

Can’t say I’ve ever touched one off unintentionally. I have short stroked once or fifty times when I’m not so familiar with the pistol.

Shoot from the reset, if its a slow deliberate practice pace il deliberately stage. If I am picking the pace i let muscle memory kick in and i push through, doesnt mean i am slapping it, i am basically accelerating the speed of my normal push and time to reset.

Stock Glock (-) connector has virtually no wall.  You will pull it through if pumped up situationally.

A stock Glock ( ) or even better (.) connector has a nice wall and decent break.

Toys for Mall Ninjas and the Square Range are not necessarily smart for CCW.

This, although on reset you develop a feel & learn to not taking your finger off the trigger for each shot.

+1

Trying to ride the reset close is a recipe for trigger freeze.  That's where your trigger finger is under enough muscle tension that you don't let it out far enough to reset, or your muscle memory is telling you something that isn't the case about where the trigger is.  It can be tough to recover from, in a fast string.

It's better to relax your trigger finger and just do a smooth, full press (quickly) as the sights come into alignment.   If you're trying to manage the reset as closely as possible, it's been my experience that you tend to lose focus on the sight picture and won't be able to call your shots.

This.

Riding the reset is how slow people shoot.

Unless doing slow fire trying to shoot small groups, pull straight through.  I don't know how you could shoot with any type of speed if staging the trigger.

And for those that ride the reset/pin trigger to rear, don't do that:

A lot depend on what type of shooting you are doing.

If you're doing speed shooting or "mag dumps", it's aim pull through.

If you're doing target shooting, it's aim, take-up trigger, then a slow deliberate squeeze until the trigger breaks.

This time...……………  

My Glocks (17, 27, 23) all have the same Edge connector so there is no wall/bump. Unless shooting for groups slowly, I pull through in one smooth motion. I shoot a lot of revolver so this helps keep my trigger finger consistent.

The problem I have found with this is that if you shoot one way it’s hard to shoot another way under stress.  I find myself trying to take it to the wall under stress and blowing past it before I’m ready.

Also to everybody who mentioned it yes on follow up shots I shoot from the reset.

I think the best solution for me is the 8 lb connector.

When shooting my Glock pistols, I will pull the trigger to the "wall", make sure I am on target, then complete the trigger pull till gun goes "BANG".

The best solution is to learn to not stage the trigger and not shoot from reset .

Having different trigger pulls for different shots isn't something you're supposed to think about consciously.  By this I mean, as you're pulling the trigger you shouldn't be thinking "I'm going to stage the trigger for this shot" or "I'm going to slap the trigger", you need to learn to just pull the trigger in the manner needed for any given shot.  Same thing with sight picture, based on target difficulty you should know just how refined a sight picture you need to get a hit.  You don't spend as much time getting a perfect sight picture on a 5 yard open target as you do on a small target at 25 yards.

If you really want to learn to shoot fast and accurately try going to some USPSA matches

I was trying to think how to describe my Glock trigger pull technique when I read this, and thought, "Yeah, that's it."  

Learn to shoot a revolver double action with a decent trigger. You will learn to pull straight through the smooth 7 or 8 pounds and then release to the end of it's travel before you pull again.

BTW: Can we stop acting like "slapping the trigger" is a good thing. Slapping the trigger will not lead to fast and accurate shots. It will provide fast and sloppy shots if that's what you want.

On my striker fired pistols I simply aim and squeeze the trigger like you're supposed to do. No need to stage the trigger. The pull weight is between 3.5 and 4 lbs max as it is and the pull distance is very short.

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When we see recruits struggling in the academy during pistol training and quals, we pay attention to the grip and trigger the most as you would expect.  For the trigger, the biggest problem always comes from not pulling the trigger straight back, but yanking to one side and pulling the shot that way.  The actual pulling of the trigger and how you engage the trigger tends to have far less to do with accuracy problems.  The way we teach is the keep your finger on the trigger and have a smooth trigger pull every time.  So basically, smooth consistency.  The reality is that in the real world, be it competition or defensive/offensive, you won’t be paying attention to the trigger in some hyper-aware state.  You just need to develop the habit of a smooth and consistent trigger pull straight to the rear.