I had a .40 a few years ago (Taurus 24/7 PRO :o) and it would hurt my wrist a little but not too bad after a few rounds.
Fast forward to today. My dad thinks I’m the devil because I talked him into another new pistol. This time it was a G22 RTF2. We took it to the range this last weekend and it shoots great except I can hardly shoot it because after a mag through it, my right wrist starts killing me (and when it throws brass and it bounces off the wall, landing between my shooting glasses and my eye it isn’t much fun). I have a feeling my grip is screwy because I also have the issue described in the grip thread just a couple down from this one (I’ll work on the solutions in that thread this next weekend) and my firing hand thumb tends to rest on my slide stop. In short, I’m all fucked up.
I’m pretty sure I know whats wrong with two of those problems but could it potentially just be a grip issue that makes the .40 hurt my wrist so bad?
I don’t personally believe the recoil from a .40 is enough to case wrist pain unless you have some underlying physical issue. having a sore wrist after shooting could also come from the wrong grip or too much tension in the wrist.
I would probably start with loosening your shooting hand and taking up the slack with the support hand. focus on watching the front sight rise and fall back down into the notch. take note does it go straight up and straight back down, or go up to the left or to the right.
a gun is going to recoil no matter how hard we hold it. what’s important is that we develop a grip that allows it to return to the same position after recovering from recoil.
The .40 is like black liquorish or Hillery Clinton in the handgun community, either you love em or you don’t. I like shooting both the .40 and .45, especially in my M&Ps. I recommend having some professional trainer or someone who knows what the hell they are doing, evaluate your shooting and then renting an M&P40.
Trying shooting 500 rounds of .40 or .45 in a 3 day class per day, or that amount in four or five hours. It really isn’t that bad at all.
I feel its got to be a grip problem causing this. Either that or I’m just a pussy. I’ll play with my grip and see if any of the suggested things or anything else I can think up helps next time I go shooting. I need to start saving up for some quality training and get all my shit sorted out.
I agree it might be worth having a doc look at if it is a sharp pain and not soreness. Do you spend alot of time on a computer, or picking up kids? I have know a couple of folks that have gotten “mommy thumb” from lifting thier kids. There was actually a write up on this on either msnbc or yahoo the other day. (mommy thumb, not wrist problems from shooting).
Severe ongoing pain? Maybe an issue for a doctor. Only when you shoot a .40? Grip issue all day long. I’m not going to sit here at a computer and pretend to be the pistol ninja, but I do have quite a bit of training with the pistol, and I’ve worked at a range for the past 7 years watching all kinds of people try to shoot all kinds of pistols in all kinds of different ways.
The thing about a .40 (and a .357 Sig for that matter) is that due to the high pressures, they tend to snap more at the muzzle, wheras a 45 (especially with a heavier frame like a 1911) tends to stay more on plane, so while the recoil is there on the 45, it’s more of a push than a snap. The first thing about your grip that I would check is how high it is. The lower on the grip you are, the more torque the recoil will put your wrist through. You need to get your primary hand as high and tight on that grip as possible. Also, you mentioned your thumb hitting the slide stop. Unless you have gigantic thumbs, youve got your grip torqued pretty hard over (assuming right handed if primary thumb is on slide stop. The majority of the pressure on the pistol should come from the palms and heels of your hands, not your fingers and thumbs. Get high and tight and apply most of your pressure on the sides instead of front to back. Get as much meat to grip contact as you possibly can. This should stabilize the pistol in your hands, which will lead to improved control and accuracy.
I have shot .40’s and in my opinion I will never own one for anything other than game guns and I am avoiding even that at the moment. However I was/am a bit of a 10mm fan and one year I shot about 5k+ rounds of doubletap ammo including some range sessions of 300+ through a custome 10mm 1911. Using the modern thumbs forward grip I never had a sore wrist but I did get numb fingers, sore hands, finchy at the end of range sessions. The worst thing though was the “tennis elbow” I was getting.
I am just saying this to make my point that IMHO wrist pain from moderate .40 shooting is not normal when using an appropriat grip. I am not a doctor and would never give medical advice but once you are past the medical part of the equation I would seek some training or advice from someone who knows the propper way to show you to hold/perform with a handgun.
Somewhere on the springerprecision website there used to be 2 great videos on propper handgun shooting.
I’ll chime in and add that as someone who shoots almost only .40 these days, I agree with several others in that all circumstances considered you may have some likely minor physical issue with your wrist.
For duty, .40. Never had any issues. You sir have an underlying medical issue. I have had Carpal Tunnel release on both hands and I still have no pain. Didn’t even have pain before the surgeries. Too much unsupported non ergonomic typing in my cruiser.
I had considered that it might be something wrong with my wrist because every now and then I get a little pain in that wrist and I can make it pop (well its kind of a grinding sound) on demand. I was just wondering if it was possible that its a grip issue. It seems that it most likely is not so I’ll just have to stick with shooting my 9’s and .45’s.