Get a Grip on Handgun Grip
By Austin Chamberlain
How many Instagram Reels have you seen of people shooting a pistol and just absolutely ripping on the trigger? They shoot so fast that you have a hard time believing that anybody could shoot a pistol that fast and accurately. How do they do it? What kind of mountain troll did they have to defeat to gain the special item “Hermes’s Fast Hands”? Their hands are not bestowed with the secret eldritch powers of old; they just understand how important gripping their pistol is.
Your grip on a handgun is very important. Not from the perspective of marksmanship; old-school shooters could still hit their targets with the classic “teacup” grip with one hand on the bottom of the handgun, but from the perspective of practical shooting. When I say practical shooting, I’m referring to shooting competitions or tactical training. Settings where fast follow-up shots are very important. Good grip builds a consistent foundation for pressing the trigger and quickly returning the sights to the same place each time. Go search “Beginner Series - Predictive Shooting Explained” and “Predictive vs Reactive Shooting 4K” on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfFS0AGD9z4 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py17x4YYw0w), and you will understand what I mean. Luckily, there is more than one way to grip a handgun that will help you build consistency between your palms.
There are many ways to grip a handgun, but I’ve found that three techniques in particular tend to be successful for 99% of the people I teach. I call them the Vice Grip, Horseshoe Grip, and the Push-and-Pull Grip. One of the most important aspects of a good grip is consistency. You should grip a handgun the same way every time, that way your grip becomes a foundation in your shooting and not a variable. The differences come from where you apply pressure to the handgun; however, the hand placement is the same for all three.
Hand Placement
I am going to refer to the strong hand and weak hand throughout this article. I define a strong hand as the dominant hand. If you are right-handed, your right hand is your strong hand, and your left hand is your weak hand (vice versa for left-handed people). The first step is to take the web of your strong hand between your thumb and index finger and place it on the back of the handgun as high as you can underneath the slide.
Strong hand goes as high up into the backstrap of the grip as possible.
Next, wrap your pinky, ring, and middle finger of your strong hand around the front of the grip as naturally as possible, keeping your index finger on the frame and out of the trigger guard (trigger finger discipline, people!). I usually float my thumb high like I’m giving a thumbs-up and will place it later.
Now that your strong hand is 90% of the way there, let’s talk about weak hand. There should be a large gap on the handgun between the tips of your fingers and the heel of your palm of your strong hand. The goal of the weak hand is to contact as much of the handgun as possible. Place the heel of the weak hand palm on the gap between the strong hand fingers and palm. This next part can be a little uncomfortable, but the weak hand will rotate forward at the wrist. The weak hand thumb should be pointed forward and can be placed on the left side of the frame. Ensure the thumb is not contacting the slide, as that can slow the slide enough to prevent it from loading the next round when you go to shoot the gun. The weak-hand fingers will then wrap over the top of the strong-hand fingers. You can check whether your wrist is rotated enough by establishing your grip and straightening your weak-hand fingers. If they are pointing about 30-45 degrees down from the slide of the handgun, that is enough rotation. If they are pointing in the same direction as the slide, rotate your weak-hand wrist a little more.
After that, you should have a good grip. Pressure is the other half of a good grip. But why are certain parts of it so specific? The idea of having your hand contact as much of the pistol as possible relates to recoil control. Think of it this way: if you shoot a handgun one-handed, it's much harder than shooting it with two hands. Part of that is because there is less of you on the handgun controlling the recoil when you press the trigger. The other oddly specific portion is the rotation of the wrist. If you look at a handgun when it recoils, the muzzle rotates up and towards the shooter. The rotated wrist creates a force that rotates in the opposite direction (forward and down) to help cancel out the force generated during recoil.
Grip Pressures
Once the hand placement is correct, the next step to achieving a good grip is grip pressure. This is where the differences occur among the Vice Grip, Horseshoe Grip, and Push-and-Pull Grip. You should try each of these methods because it’s very likely that one will work better than the other two. As a general rule of thumb, when it comes to how tight you grip the handgun, you should grip it tightly so that your hands are shaking, and then back off the pressure until your hands become stable. The location of the pressure changes varies between methods.
Vice Grip
The Vice Grip is my personal favorite because, for me, it keeps the handgun centered while I press the trigger, and I’m not very worried about recoil. It’s also very consistent for me. The pressure for the Vice Grip comes primarily from the weak hand. The strong hand should grip just tight enough that you can shoot the handgun with one hand without it jumping out of your hand. Believe it or not, it doesn’t take much pressure to keep the handgun in your hand. I consider it 70% perceived pressure with the weak hand and 30% with the strong hand. This keeps your strong hand loose so you can press the trigger quickly and avoid the kind of tension that can cause trigger-freeze. For context, trigger freeze occurs when you trigger finger tenses up so much that you don’t press the trigger completely.
The pressure comes from squeezing the fingers to the palm. You want there to be equal pressure on both sides of the handgun. If there is more pressure coming from one side, then your shots will start to go in the direction of the most pressure. For example, if you are putting too much pressure on the right side, your shots will start to go towards the right, and vice versa. But if the pressure is equal coming from the left and right side, your shots will be more centered on the target. This works well for me, however, the downside is that it burns your weak-side forearm out when you grip it tightly for too long.
Horseshoe Grip
The Horseshoe Grip gets its name from the mental idea of what it should look like. The idea is that instead of a handgun, you are holding a horseshoe with the opening facing up. You are holding the ends of the horseshoe and trying to force the tips to touch. This puts a lot of pressure high up on the pistol and helps a lot with recoil control. You can feel your chest engage when using this method. If you are like me and don’t exercise nearly enough, it doesn’t take very long for your chest to burn out, and then your grip starts to lack pressure. Equal pressure on both sides is important, like the Vice Grip.
Push-and-Pull Grip
The previous two grip methods require pressure from the left and right sides of the gun. The Push-and-Pull method changes by applying pressure to the front and the back of the grip. This is helpful for recoil control, as pressure is applied forward and backward, which is roughly in line with the direction of the recoil impulse. This also eliminates the side-to-side input you might struggle with using the previous methods. However, in my experience, I have noticed that a small amount of side-to-side input still naturally occurs. I don’t use this method for two reasons: I prefer to control the side-to-side input, and I don’t mind a snappy handgun. That said, it’s still a good idea to try it yourself, as it may work better for you.
How to Test Your Grip
Now that we know the different methods of gripping a pistol, how do you know what works best for you? The point of a good, consistent grip is to enable faster, more accurate follow-up shots. So go do some fast shooting. I recommend doing a Bill Drill at 15-20 yards. A Bill Drill is six shots from the holster as fast as you can on a USPSA, IDPA, or PCSL target. You don’t need a shot timer, but I highly recommend one, as most models nowadays also show the time between shots, which is helpful. A really good goal to shoot for (see what I did there?) is all six shots in the center zone in three seconds or less. It’s a hard goal that will intentionally push you to shoot fast while maintaining accuracy. Also, because it’s so difficult, it will show you big differences in the grip changes you make. Good trigger control and vision are mandatory foundational skills because you want to isolate your shooting to your grip. Try the Bill Drill and see how the different grips affect your shooting.
Final Thoughts
Grip is a huge factor in being a good handgun marksman. It allows for faster follow-up shots in a practical shooting setting, and who doesn’t love shooting fast? Next time you are going out to the range to practice with your handgun, try all of these grips for a few Bill Drills and see how it affects your shooting. See you out on the range!
