Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Revolver Hand Grip Help

Last weekend a buddy of mine who shoots IPSC gave me some tips on my grip for my pistols. My groups immediately shrunk by half or more.

Can anybody offer the tips for revolvers? I shoot a 686 mostly with light plinking loads for fun. I would like to use a proper technique that will allow consistent hold shooting both DA and SA.

Bolivar

For good DA revolver shooting, it�s not so much the grip as it is practice. Imagine there�s a line going up the center of the frame and down the barrel, dividing the revolver into two halves. Put your hand as high on the backstrap as you can get with that imaginary line lined up with your radius bone. The natural inclination is to slip your hand too far around the gun, which takes away a lot of control. Now take your other hand and put the palm of your hand on the grip and wrap the fingers around your shooting hand. With your shooting hand, you squeeze until the revolver starts to shake, and then back off. Your support hand will do the rest of the squeezing.

Now, for DA practice, here�s how you do it. Making sure the gun is unloaded, hold it out and line up the sights. Now have someone balance a penny on the front sight. When you can pull the DA trigger 10 times without disturbing the penny, you�re getting there and you�re ready for live fire practice. Don�t worry about damaging your gun, you wont.

Best of luck.

Pachmyr makes about three differnt thickness of grips that you canfit your hand to much better than the ones that come with it.

Next, you need to place the revolver in your strong hand using your weak hand, making sure you firmly place it into the web of your hand. If the frame is not centerd in the web of your hand, the grips do not fit you. I realize this will not work in Action Pistol or IPSC as you have to draw and fire, but you need to get the grips fitting you. You trigger finger needs to fit exactly right. Too much or too little ,and you will pull to one side or the other. Gripping your hand gun consistently is just as important as placing your rifle in the sand bags the same way every shot

Forget the ole penny on the front sight myth...I don't know where that one got started, but you'll just frustrate yourself. The enertia just from the hammer hitting the frame, will take the penny off, even if you had it chucked up in a ransom rest. Just practice at targets on the wall or spots whatever. Consistency is the key, frip the revolver with about the same strength as you would hold a hammer, it doesn't require squeezing to death, and pull trigger evenly and smoothly. How quickly depends on how good your shooting, the trigger squeeze can take three seconds, or 3/100s of a second, just perform it the same each time...good luck, the revo is a blast. Forgot one important thing, for gawds sake, keep your support hand index finger off the front of the trigger gaurd, wrap all available fingers around the grip, the index finger on the trigger gaurd does absolutely nothing, except aid in bad shooting.

The only thing I can say is to hold the revolver fairly high in your hand when shooting DA. Seems to give better control.

Rubber grips also seem to give better control when target shooting. I dont' care for them when carrying, as they get caught on your clothes and give the gun away. But especially with heavier recoil, they do absorb some shock. A wooden grip, I find, is faster to acquire as your hand slides naturally (or naturally after a lot of practice) where it should be. So for action shooting, that's what I'd use. For deliberate shooting where time is not so essential, rubber helps.

I like a smaller grip rather than a larger one for DA shooting. Those S&W "Target" grips are the worst DA grips I've ever tried to use. Good for SA, though.

Bolivar, I think these suggestions others have made are well worth your consideration, but could you elaborate on what advice shrank your groups that much? It may well be that the advice is applicable to revolvers as well, with or without tweaking.

41 Keith

The pistol grip technique I was shown involved having my strong hand thumb firmly on the safety and weak hand immediately in front of it, against the frame. Weak hand wrapped over top of strong hand with "no air" in between.

I tried a variation of this (did't want to have to install a safety on the revolver, grin) but the grip dimentions did not seem to want to work with this technique

Regarding the comments of rubber vs wooden grips, when I bought this gun my wife and as yet un-born daughter bought me a set of Hough Rosewood grips for it as my very first fathers day present. If I take them off, I might as well move out of the house.

Bolivar

Bolivar. well it's either move out of the house or not hit very weel with the handgun. You can adapt,but it is very hard to become proficent with a handgun if it doesn't fit you.

Here is an idea. Buy another L frame theg rips will fit. Put it ona framed hard baord. Tell your wife the grips are too beautiful to get all scratched up