Mixing dry fire and live fire

I was at the New Albany Shooting Range yesterday for a spot of live fire practice and started to figure some things out with my grip. I don’t usually grip the pistol lightly and never suffer from stovepipes, even when shooting with support hand only or from retention. I found that when I gripped the pistol a little harder, three things happened:

1) The front sight moved right back into the notch by itself.

2) The muzzle rise was less and so shot recovery was quicker.

3) I was able to much better isolate my trigger finger and break the shot quicker without pulling on the trigger and torquing the gun with my other strong hand fingers.

The first two are just obvious and logical, but the third one is what surprised me. Because I could break the shots with more control over my trigger finger, I was able to shoot faster because I didn’t have to concentrate so hard on trigger control. If I can work on a stronger grip and good isolation of the trigger finger, I’ll be able to step up my game to a new level. I may only save a few tenths here and there, but during a stage that soon adds up, especially when I can better call my shots, not pull shots low or have to make up shots.

This is definitely something I need to practice a lot more as it addresses a number of areas of my shooting. Just having a good grip makes all the world of difference when it comes to action pistol shooting.