Trigger control: pressing the shot without moving the sights

• Move only the trigger finger, straight back; the rest of the hand keeps the same grip.
• Take up the first stage and part of the weight early, then add pressure smoothly as the hold settles.
• Press through the steady part of your hold; never snatch at the moment the sights look perfect.
• If the hold falls apart, ease off the trigger and start again.
• Train trigger control dry, with an empty gun, where its maker allows dry firing.

Trigger control is one of the five fundamentals the NRA teaches for rifle and pistol alike: aiming, breath control, hold control, trigger control and follow-through.

The pistol training guide of the US Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) puts accurate pistol shooting in one sentence: align the sights and let the hammer fall without disturbing that alignment. Press evenly with the sights aligned, it says, and if the shot breaks as a surprise, with no reflex to disturb it, your group will be no bigger than your arc of movement: the area your sights wander over as you hold.

All three words name one movement. Only the trigger finger moves; the gripping fingers and the thumb, the USAMU guide says, neither move nor tighten, and the grip pressure stays constant. Some instructors avoid squeeze for that reason. In the NRA’s Shooting Illustrated, George Harris explains that the word suggests closing the whole hand, which moves the muzzle low and to the inside as the trigger goes back. Whatever you call it, the trigger goes straight back, smoothly.

There is no single right spot. Quandahl calls the middle of the pad of the fingertip the preferred place, but says keeping your aim as the shot fires matters more, and that your best contact point may differ from the next shooter’s. Target Rifle Australia (TRA) uses the first pad of the finger for a target rifle’s light trigger.

What matters is pressure straight back: pressing to the side moves the sights and, the USAMU guide adds, makes the pull heavier. The CMP’s guide to junior pistol shooting and the ISSF’s National Coach Course for rifle both keep the finger clear of the grip, so that it presses straight back.

If the sights move in the blank-sheet drill below, move the trigger or your finger; Quandahl prefers moving the trigger where it adjusts. Match triggers adjust far: the trigger of Feinwerkbau’s P8X air pistol slides, swings and rises, and the maker says to check the trigger weight after every change.

TRA describes two basic types. A single-stage trigger releases the shot with one movement of the finger; a two-stage trigger has a lighter first movement before a heavier second one that releases the shot.

Feinwerkbau calls the first stage the slack, and counts the trigger weight as both stages together: its AW 93 sport pistol reaches 1,000 g with 600 g of slack and 400 g in the second stage, or with 990 g and 10 g. Its Model 800 air rifle can also be set to a direct trigger, whose weight is the second stage’s alone.

Take the slack up early. The CMP’s guide starts the pressure as the sights come down onto the target, and has as much as half to two-thirds of the weight on the trigger before precise aiming begins.

In ISSF events, how light a trigger may be is a rule. For the 10 m air pistol, the 25 m pistols and the 10 m air rifle:

10 m air pistol

A trigger pull of at least 500 g.ISSF Rule Book 8.12

25 m pistols

At least 1,000 g, rimfire and centre-fire.ISSF Rule Book 8.12

10 m air rifle

No minimum: the trigger weight is free.ISSF Rule Book 7.4.4.2 L

Checked

A pistol’s minimum must hold for the whole competition; an athlete whose pistol fails a random check after the qualification is disqualified.ISSF Rule Book 8.4.2, 8.4.2.3

The rules for the 50 m pistol and the 300 m standard rifle are on their cards. An air rifle trigger can be very light: about 30 to 90 g or 60 to 150 g on Feinwerkbau’s Model 800, set with a screw. Change a trigger only as its manual says, with the gun unloaded; Feinwerkbau’s manuals call the factory setting the safest. If in doubt, ask a gunsmith.

Nobody holds a gun perfectly still, so the question is when to add the last of the pressure. Quandahl’s answer is to fire during maximum hold, while the hold is at its steadiest. Wait to see that moment before you start moving the trigger, he warns, and the shot goes off as the hold fades, wide of the mark.

The CMP’s guide wants pressure during well-centred holds, not suddenly during a momentary perfect one. Quandahl describes two presses. In the uninterrupted one, pressure rises steadily until the shot fires; if the sight picture turns unacceptable, release it all and start again. The interrupted one stops adding pressure and holds it until the picture is acceptable again; he calls it a highly advanced skill, not for beginners or intermediate shooters.

The USAMU guide goes further and does not recommend the interrupted press at all. It starts the press only once the hold has settled, then carries it on without speeding up, slowing down or stopping, so that the shot breaks as a surprise, before any reflex can disturb the sights. Not every instructor likes the surprise: Heidi Lyn Rao, an NRA pistol instructor writing for NRA Women, teaches her students to know, through dry and live practice, when their gun will fire.

A beginner whose hold is still large, says the ISSF rifle course, should press evenly as soon as the sights are roughly on the target and finish before tiredness makes the movement grow. Where to look meanwhile is in Sight picture.

The USAMU guide calls jerking the most serious error in trigger control: an abrupt press, usually with the arm and shoulder straining, the hand clamping on the grip and the trigger going back at an angle. Its cause is snatching a ten-pointer, firing in the brief moment the sights pass the right spot; new shooters do it most, because their hold is large and those moments are short.

In dry firing, a jerk shows as sights that move when the trigger releases. On the card, the USAMU guide names a bigger group, and shots off to the side that you did not call there, for a right-handed pistol shooter chiefly low and left. Reading your shot groups measures the group, and the pistol correction chart covers what a shot’s place can and cannot tell you.

The guide’s cures are dry firing, which rests the nerves from the recoil; ball and dummy, a range drill that the correction chart post runs through safely; and, back on live fire, a blank white sheet rather than a target. It puts flinching beside the jerk: the muscles tensing against the recoil and the noise before the shot. A coach, it notes, spots such errors more easily than you do.

Dry firing is working the trigger without a shot: an empty firearm, or an airgun on its dry-fire setting. NRA Family puts the rule in capitals: no live ammunition in the training area, and aim only in a safe direction. Check yourself that the gun is empty, keep ammunition and pellets out of the room, and still treat the gun as loaded.

Whether your gun may be dry fired is the maker’s call. Some rimfires need snap caps for it, Quandahl warns, or the firing pin may be damaged. Feinwerkbau allows it on its AW 93 rimfire pistol and gives its P8X air pistol a dry-fire setting, in which, it warns, the pistol is still ready to fire; Weihrauch says never to dry fire a spring-piston gun. Where your manual says nothing, ask the maker; Training at home has more for air rifles.

1. The thumb test, no gun needed. Press the pad of your trigger finger back against the tip of your thumb until the nail turns almost white, then ease off without losing contact. Quandahl draws three lessons from it: smooth pressure, straight back, and contact kept through the shot until the trigger resets.
2. A blank sheet. Dry fire at a plain white sheet and watch the front sight as the trigger releases; with no bull to chase, you see only whether the sights moved. Quandahl has a friend or coach watch them too.
3. One stage at a time. On a two-stage trigger, take up the first stage and stop. Next, add pressure on the second stage without letting the shot go. Then let the shot go in one smooth press. The ISSF rifle course has this done with the eyes closed or in a dark room; keep the muzzle on a safe backstop.

Then test it live. The ISSF course has you fire some groups without seeing each shot, and some at a blank sheet, where only the trigger counts. Give it weeks, not one evening, and keep shooting your usual cards: for each one you scan, Shooter shows where the shots landed and the group’s size. What that says about your trigger is for you and your coach to judge.

In pistol shooting, the CMP’s guide points out, the stance and the grip are the only support. And the hand that holds the pistol also presses the trigger. Expect a bigger hold than with a rifle, and a stronger urge to snatch.

A target rifle’s trigger needs only a small amount of pressure, TRA notes, so that no unwanted force moves the aim. The ISSF rifle course wants the hand on the pistol grip firm, yet free for the trigger: a hard grip blocks the finger. For the air rifle positions themselves, see Air rifle positions.

Then the reset. On Feinwerkbau’s P8X, a single-shot air pistol, the cocking lever cocks the trigger again. A semi-automatic pistol needs the trigger let forward far enough after each shot: in ISSF pistol events, a malfunction is non-allowable if the athlete did not let the trigger return far enough (ISSF Rule Book 8.9.4.2 e).

What is a two-stage trigger?

A trigger with two movements: a lighter first stage and a heavier second stage that releases the shot, as Target Rifle Australia describes it. Feinwerkbau calls the first stage the slack. You take up the slack early and fire on the second stage. The trigger weight is the two together, and some match triggers, such as that of Feinwerkbau’s Model 800 air rifle, can also be set to a direct trigger, whose weight is the second stage’s alone.

Is trigger control the same as trigger discipline?

No. Trigger discipline is the safety habit of keeping your finger off the trigger: Feinwerkbau’s manuals, for one, say to keep it outside the trigger guard while you load, unload or handle the gun, and to work the trigger only when the sights point at the target. Trigger control is what the finger does once it is on the trigger.