handguns - how important is the reset?

Training Training and Tactics
1

I’ve been shooting handguns for a few years, but I’m still very much a novice. I recently completed a basic handgun class (not one of the big names), and the instructor was very adamant about using the reset on the trigger. From what I’ve read elsewhere, my fine motor skills will be gone in a gunfight, and I won’t be able to feel the reset. It doesn’t help that I was using an M&P, which has a very subtle reset. Your thoughts?

2

Here’s how I see it:

  1. Shooting the “reset” is the best way, with a service trigger, to shoot quickly and accurately.

  2. Shooting is a fine motor skill, so if you do not have it, you will not be able to shoot. The people that teach that theory are selling you snake oil. Be very careful of the rest of the ciricula.

  3. Some really fast and really accurate guys slap the trigger. TGO is one. You are not TGO (Rob Leatham). Don’t slap the trigger.

  4. Get some quality training with a tier one trainer. By tier one I mean someone who has served in a tier one unit and in combat, trained other members of the same unit, and/or has a personality suited to training.

That’s pretty much how I see it.

M_P

3

The whole gross/fine motor skill debate is generally BS. Keep training to recognize and make use of trigger reset. It’ll do nothing but make you a better shooter.

4

I do believe that he, and other trigger slappers, use incredibly light triggers on 1911s and are able to get away with the “slap”.

5

Agreed. You will react the same way you trained.

6

Yup. It’s the unfortunate cascade effect of a company that tried to come up with a good excuse for issues related to its slide release (which they didn’t want you to use to release the slide). The wrongly defined & explained “fine vs. gross motor skill” concept became part of the shooting/tactical lexicon and went on to infect any number of otherwise reasonable issues.

Exactly. Slapping a very short, non-hinged 2.5# trigger on a 2.5# gun is a lot different than slapping a longer, hinged, 5#+ trigger on a 1.5# gun.

As for the importance of reset, it depends completely on your skill level and what you’re trying to accomplish. There is also a lot more to a “good” reset than just short trigger travel. How positive (clear tactile indicator) is the reset? How much force does the trigger put on your finger to get it forward and reset again?

7

Besides being able to manipulate the trigger, I think a gooda arguement about the fine motor skills is “What happens between hitting the mag release and having to push the slide catch?”.

8

An ideal trigger press might degrade to a crappy mashed/snatch but a crappy mashed/snatch will never upgrade to an ideal trigger press. Strive for catching the reset and if you have to settle for something less, you will be no worse off for having done so but in all likelihood, you will be at least some degree better off. Pretty good risk/reward in my opinion.

9

IMO…

The whole trigger reset thing came about from an effort to teach people efficient trigger maniputlations, e.g. maintaining contact with the trigger continually for fast follow up shots and not taking the finger completely off the trigger with each shot. That is a good thing.

However, I have seen the over emphasis of the whole trigger reset thing manifested with some ugly ass shooting, where the officer would yank / cank / snatch the trigger so horribly, shots may or may not be on the target backer EVERY TIME, but he sure had a “pretty” text-book trigger reset EVERY TIME. Since when did letting the trigger out become more important than how it is impressed (at the academy where he was passed, don’t ask me how) I rhetorically asked?

This also leads to further inefficient shooting because the shooter will press the shot and then carefully and diligently reset the sear, taking a whole lot of time while the sights are on target. Instead, the shooter should be resetting the sear during the recoil cycle and be on it ready to press it again as the sights settle back from recoil, much the same as three things can be done concurrently (or in parallel) during the press-out, the trigger can be reset during recoil, not sequentially to it.

Jeff Gonzalez calls it the “Aim - Press - Recover” cycle. Since, to us, “Recover” denotes postshooting procedures, I have modified it for our training by calling it the “Aim - Press - Reset” cycle. Once the shot is fired, the sight is watched through recoil (if possible) and as it settles back (recovers / resets) the trigger is reset and you are immediately ready to launch the next one.

10

I have no where near the ability nor experience as the previous posters, but I do instruct a lof of first time shooters, and I teach trigger reset as part of the follow through fundamental.

Stressing trigger reset with first time shooters fixes a majority of their issues, beacuase I have noticed a habit of many to slap the trigger, because they feel that aiming is the only thing they need to do, and they will be on target.

It is something that you may or may not remember to do in a real life scenario or even do correctly, but that doesn’t mean you should not train yourself with the best set of fundamentals at the highest standards.

Have you ever heard of game slippage, when talking about practicing/playing sports? Same thing goes for shooting.