Trigger Control and Trigger Finger Placement Drill


Proper trigger control  is the capstone in firing an accurate shot with your handgun.  You can have everything else right, including stance, grip and sight picture. Without proper trigger control your shot will miss its mark.

Dry fire training drills  are a great way to improve trigger control and help you improve your handgun shooting accuracy.  If done properly you will easily learn the skills needed to place shots on target.  Snap caps can be a good aid in dry fire training exercises.

Trigger control and trigger finger placement

The biggest impact on proper trigger control is trigger finger placement. Improper trigger finger placement will move your shot one way or the other.  Too little trigger finger for a right-handed shooter will move your shot left.  Too much trigger finger will move it to the right.  Left handed shooters will experience the opposite results.

A good drill is to grip the gun only with the back of your hand and your trigger finger on the trigger.  First of all make sure the gun is unloaded and pointed in a safe direction.

Trigger control is important in single handed pistol shooting.

Trigger control is an important element of single handed pistol shooting.

Take a grip on your pistol by placing the web of your thumb in the middle of the back-strap.  Place your finger on the trigger as you normally would, release the pressure from the rest of your hand on the gun.  You should be able to hold the gun just with the pressure from the palm of your hand on the back-strap and the pressure on the trigger.

Aim your pistol and get a  proper sight picture.  Slowly begin to press the trigger and see how it affects the sight picture and adjust your trigger finger placement until the sight picture doesn’t change.

It is very possible that different guns will require different trigger finger placement.  This drill will help you to identify the right spot for any of them.