My Favorite Pistol Grip

By Gabby

As promised, here is the grip that I have found to work best for me. I use this grip on any semi automatic pistol I handle, and find it especially handy for small guns, like the Ruger LCP that caused inspired last week's discussion about slide bites. With a small pistol, especially, you want to have as much skin in contact with it as possible. This is hard to dod with a small gun, especially for me and my long fingers; I often feel like I my hands are wrapped around a grip, bun not actually touching anything. However, I have found that by using the natural anatomy and shape of my hands, I can get control in all the right places.

First, I grip with my strong hand; For me this is my right. As always, my "pointer" is straight and firmly on the side of the gun,(*see first image) nowhere near or inside the trigger guard (anything to do with touching the trigger, is whole different lesson). Middle, ring and pinky finger will wrap around the grip, and as your thumb comes around the back of the grip, the webbing between your thumb and index finger should be firmly under the "beaver tail". Doing this is important because this is how one can minimize muzzle flip.(*see middle image)

The thumb of your strong hand will not be touching the fingers of the same hand. instead it should be almost aligned with the slide(*see middle image). There may be a safety here, and if there is, some adjustments will have to be made. Now the weak hand comes into play. Between the tips of the fingers and the thumb of the first hand there is a perfect sized hole created,(*see middle image) where the fleshiest part of your other palm will fit. This may seem odd because we usually assume that both wrists are in the same position when we hold a pistol, but actually there are not. The wrist of the weak hand should almost be turning downward so that you are pointing at the target with the thumb.

If you've placed the palm of your weak hand correctly, the thumbs should fit together almost like a puzzle. The knuckle of the top thumb should lay behind the joint where the thumb meets the hand of the bottom thumb(*see bottom image). Hopefully, my illustrations will help to clarify this. Both thumbs will lay close to where the slide and the frame meet. I have actually been told that in a worst-case-scenario, if a pistol had no sights and using this grip, one could use their thumbs to align the shot. The rest of the fingers of the weak hand should be below the trigger guard...Only one finger should ever be in there!

As for grip strength,
there is no need to white knuckle it.[tweet this]

The best description I've heard, so far, is: Grip 100% with both hands, then back off a little. This grip method should help since it makes the most of whatever hand strength you've got.

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