Not a big tv watcher but got into Top Shot. I googled 'Jay Lim' because of his teacup grip and there are forums full of people making fun of him for it. I get he's not a team player and has a 'know it all' attitude but I think people are shortchanging him on his pistol shooting ability.Old, antiquated, inferior 70's technique? But consider what a teacup grip really is? It is strong hand only shooting with your support hand mearly supporting the weight of the gun to fight off fatigue.
So basically you have all of the downsides of one hand shooting without any real upside. The major downside being a slower rate of follow-up shots due to lessened recoil management (flip and lateral).Jay Lim has preformed well with this technique.
To me this means that he is shooting at marksmanship standards similar to the other guys but with only one hand!As a bit of evidence that teacup is practically one handed shooting: when he was shooting a glock 17, he complained about shooting low and left. How many folks on this board have seen shooters new to glock shoot fine with a PROPER modern 2 handed grip but start shooting low left when shooting right hand only? The issue is trigger control and he lacked it for the glock trigger! A modern two hand grip, which he doesn't have, lets you get away with being a bit lazy on the trigger. This is why I strongly believe any range day should be at least 50% strong/support side shooting.I know if he had to do speed shooting, timed target transitinging, or shooting under physical stress his competitiveness would go down the drain. But as far as basic marksmanship fundamentals go (minus the grip), I think he's gtg. After the show's over and if he willingly learns modern technique, I've got a feeling he'll be a great shooter.
That said, his attitude sucks, I can't stand much less respect people like that. He needs to fix that first.It pisses me off that so many folks ridicule him when he's actually got his fundamentals down well enough to to compete at this level without even having a proper grip.Any thoughts on this?Last edited by sboza; 04-16-11 at 00:38.Reason: I tried to post to general forum but was not allowed. Since this relates to tactics, I hope it is appropriate here.when he was shooting a glock 17, he complained about shooting low and left. How many folks on this board have seen shooters new to glock shoot fine with a PROPER modern 2 handed grip but start shooting low left when shooting right hand only?
The issue is trigger control and he lacked it for the glock trigger!He's an example of 'you don't know what you don't know'. When he said on the show 'The Glock shoots low and to the left for me' he was actually blaming it on the gun, not on his lack of ability. Someone with a reasonable amount of knowledge about shooting would know that the reason this is happening is because he's jerking the trigger, but he's too much of a know-it-all to realize it. He barely scraped by in some of those shoot-offs, especially the one with the Glock.On top of all that, he's an annoying little prick. I know if he had to do speed shooting, timed target transitinging, or shooting under physical stress his competitiveness would go down the drain. But as far as basic marksmanship fundamentals go (minus the grip), I think he's gtg.
After the show's over and if he willingly learns modern technique, I've got a feeling he'll be a great shooter. That said, his attitude sucks, I can't stand much less respect people like that.
How can the answer be improved? How to figure out where frets go away. So you can basically just use this calculator to figure out the fret positions of each of the frets for an extended range string. You can figure out the scale length of that string by simply adding the distance from the nut to the farthest fret behind the nut to the nominal scale length. Nov 25, 2014 One thing I have always wondered about it how to calculate fret spacing for a given scale length, on a given instrument (in this case obviously, specifically mandolin). How is it done? I am also curious about how people go about cutting the slots. I work with wood, so im curious if people lay it out with pencil or score the lines, and then cut each slot in a 90 degree jig, or do people have a.
He needs to fix that first.It pisses me off that so many folks ridicule him when he's actually got his fundamentals down well enough to to compete at this level without even having a proper grip.Any thoughts on this?Folks wouldn't be ridiculing him if not for his attitude. Not nearly to this extent though. He has had several opportunities to learn from people who are more experienced than him and on many of those occasions he dismissed what they were trying to teach him with comments like 'Shooting is shooting, don't teach me a new way to shoot, teach me to shoot faster'. Um, that's what they were trying to do, Jay.
Many of the instructors commented about Jay's poor attitude. Yes, he did better than I would have expected but the point remains that he probably could have done better if he had an open mind to the instruction he had the opportunity to benefit from.
When you come off as a know-it-all, it will generally rub people the wrong way. Agreed rider79, he was blaming the gun for his lack of ability with the glock trigger and proper two handed grip, either of which probably would have helped him.
The first thing I do when I mess something up is man-up and try and figure out how I can fix it. And if I have knowledgable folks around that are willing to help, I learn from them.He's too arrogant to even acknowledge that he is doing something wrong. I guess it makes sense, if you think you're doing everything right, you don't need advice from the experts.I don't have respect for that attitude and he has to change that before he can get better.
But I still think he shoots pretty well for the crap grip he has.Last edited by sboza; 04-16-11 at 10:20.Reason:. Folks wouldn't be ridiculing him if not for his attitude. Not nearly to this extent though. He has had several opportunities to learn from people who are more experienced than him and on many of those occasions he dismissed what they were trying to teach him with comments like 'Shooting is shooting, don't teach me a new way to shoot, teach me to shoot faster'. Um, that's what they were trying to do, Jay. Many of the instructors commented about Jay's poor attitude.
Yes, he did better than I would have expected but the point remains that he probably could have done better if he had an open mind to the instruction he had the opportunity to benefit from. When you come off as a know-it-all, it will generally rub people the wrong way.Yep he wouldn't try what JJ Racaza was trying to teach him. For those that don't know it JJ is one of if not the fastest Open division handgun shooters in the world and was trying his best to help Jay. Jays ego couldn't handle it and Jay says 'Just show me how to shoot faster'.idiot.
For the last six months, or so, I have been repeatedly reminded of the need to have a firm foundation in the basics of good shooting techniques. Some of the safety related ones seem to be almost too basic to have to keep repeating, but then we have yet another tragedy and it seems we apparently have not said such things enough. And then there are basic shooting skills, such as proper sight alignment and smooth trigger manipulation, that also seem so simple as to not need so much repetition. And yet, shooters are still struggling with the effective application of these important basic techniques.
Another basic technique that does not get enough attention, based on a lot of personal observation, is the most effective way to grip a handgun used for personal defense. From students, to competitors, to supposedly savvy gun folks I saw testing guns at the SHOT Show, someone needs to help these folks 'get a grip.' As I said, I'm talking about shooting a handgun used to defend your life or that of someone you are sworn to protect.
The old competitive 'bullseye' shooting technique of gently gripping the gun is not useful for self defense. For one thing, the old school theory was that you didn't want to grip the gun so hard as to induce hand tremors. When someone it trying to kill you, you will already be shaking!
Also, in the competitive arena, no one is going to be trying to take the gun away from you. This is a distinct possibility on the street. If your hands are sweaty in a match, or you get clumsy and drop your gun, the worst that will happen is that you will have to suffer the humiliation of being disqualified. No one is going to pick the gun up and shoot you with it.
Anyone who has spent any time on the street understands how important it is to keep control of all of your equipment, particularly your gun. The funny thing is that having the correct grip on your gun not only helps with keeping it under your control, it also helps you be more accurate.In today's combat oriented competitions, you do need to shoot quickly and control the recoil of the gun if you expect to score well. You will certainly have to shoot quickly if your life is on the line. That is one reason such competitions are a good training venue, even if they aren't as realistic as we would sometimes like. When I watch successful competitors, I see good grip technique. But among shooters who don't get much trigger time, such as cops going to infrequent qualifications, some bad habits seem to hang on tenaciously. For example, the old 'cup and saucer' grip.
That's the one where one hand grips the gun and rests in the upturned support hand, like a cup in a saucer. The main problem with this is that no matter how hard you grip with the support hand, the gun recoil will separate your hands and you will have to continually re-establish your support hand grip.
Not good in a gunfight. Then there are the folks who still grip auto pistols as if they were revolvers, with their thumb around the back of the slide and over the 'drumstick' of the strong hand. This is usually a self-resolving problem, but a painful lesson, nonetheless. And, easily avoidable. I won't even comment here about the old method of grasping your strong hand at the wrist with your support hand. The people behind 'Dirty Harry' must have thought that it looked cool when using 'the most powerful handgun in the world.' So what's the answer?
Some call it 'gorilla grip.' My friend and colleague, Mas Ayoob, dubs it 'high hand and crush grip,' two of his five key components of successful handgun shooting. Whatever you call it, you should be gripping the gun hard enough that the checkering or markings on the grip are impressed into your hand. You should be gripping it hard enough that your fingers cannot tighten any more, so that there isn't any sympathetic movement of your other fingers as you run your trigger finger. It's called 'milking,' and it throws your shots low and to the left if you are right handed.
If your fingers are already gripping as hard as they can, you won't have that problem. If you're shooting one-handed, or your hands are slippery, you will certainly need a maximum crush grip on your gun. Hopefully you will have the use of your support hand. It needs to be gripping just as hard.
The middle knuckle of your support hand index finger should be right up against the underside of the trigger guard and the other fingers should be right together. Don't allow your hand to slip down the back of your gun-hand fingers, toward that cup and saucer grip. If you crush grip with both hands, they will stay together-and so will your shots.
Your gun and your hands should be like they are welded together. This will provide the best control of the recoil, the best rapid fire recovery from shot to shot and the best resistance to an attempt to take the gun away from you. And, by the way, your support hand will be far enough forward that you won't be able to accidentally get your thumb behind the slide.And what about your thumbs? Oh brother, do folks get in a tizzy about this one! Let's try to be logical.
The strongest grip is going to be for your thumbs to curl down, with your support thumb 'pad' on top of your gun hand thumbnail. Thumbprint over thumbnail, if you will. Some pretty heated arguments have started over whether the thumbs should curl down, point forward, or the thumbs should point up.
Some of my colleagues have made a career of advocating one method or another. How about this: do what you need to do to maintain a firm grip. Everyone's hands are different, the grips on the guns are different and the best method is whatever gives you the best control of the gun.
For example, some folks who shoot with their thumbs forward do very well. Some, however, constantly hit the slide release (or slide stop, if you prefer) during recoil, locking the slide back. Thumbs forward may be a bad choice for them.
Some people with long fingers, or even some medium-sized fingers on small guns (like the J-frame sized revolvers), can't achieve full trigger travel without their support hand thumb impeding the rearward movement of their trigger finger. Again, thumbs forward may not be a good technique in that case.
Some people have actually advocated using the thumbs forward as a way of assisting with accuracy, pointing at the target with the thumbs, as it were. Well folks, the little bumpy things on top of the gun are for indexing it on target. And when was the last time you saw anyone naturally point at something with their thumbs? That seems to be a task for your index fingers. Simply put, whatever you do with your thumbs, they need to be supporting your best control of the gun.Finally, the web of your hand needs to be as high on the back of the grip as you can get it. There should be a little ripple of flesh in the web of your thumb and forefinger as it presses up against the grip tang. This gets the pistol as low in your hand as possible, giving the best alignment of the axis of the bore with the axis of your forearm.
This is the firm support an auto-loader needs to function most efficiently. It also minimizes the felt recoil. If you let your hand slide down on the grip, even a little, it acts as a fulcrum to allow the gun to 'whipsaw' upward as it recoils and the slide reciprocates.
I can't even count the number of people I see do this and then complain about the 'nasty recoil.' Recoil is what it is. It is how we manage it that determines how it feels. If you have a high, strong grip on the gun, it will function better (you will not have to worry about so-called 'limp-wristing'), you will have better shot-to-shot recovery and you will be more accurate. That sounds like a pretty good combination to me.
A good firing grip is important for several reasons.First and foremost, a good grip means that you are holding the gun in the safest possible manner. It’s important to put your hands in the right places on the handgun so that you are not damaged by the slide activity of a semi-automatic, or by the hot gases coming out of the cylinder area of a revolver. It’s also important to hold the gun firmly so that it does not twist in your hand, causing unexpected strain to your hands or wrists.A good grip helps you shoot accurately, while a poor one can prevent accuracy even if you are doing everything else right.If you are firing a semi-automatic handgun, a good, solid grip allows the firearm to function at its best. Because semi-automatic parts move while firing, the pistol’s best reliability depends upon having a solid, nearly immobile platform for it to work from. You provide that platform with your solid grip and.The exact definition of “good grip” will vary according to the shooting discipline you participate in.
A good self-defense grip is extremely strong and very secure, so that if an attacker is very close he will be unable to wrest the handgun away from you while you are firing. This grip must allow you to shoot quickly and to rapidly re-align your sights after shooting. It must enable you to fire at moving targets, possibly while you are also moving. And it must be flexible enough to allow you to do all of these things without stopping or readjusting your hands in any way in between shots.In contrast to this, a good target shooting grip needs only to hold the firearm securely enough for safety and reliable function, so that the shooter may shoot as accurately as possible. Neither intensive speed nor extreme security are needed for target shooting. In fact, a too-firm grip is one thing that can prevent really precise accuracy.
While target shooting, you’ll have enough time to readjust your grip and your between shots, although you may not want to do this since consistent accuracy really requires doing the same thing the same way every time.The photos below illustrate some do’s and don’t’s of grips appropriate to self defense shooting. If you are interested only in target shooting, especially in any of the high-accuracy, high-concentration distant target, you will be better served looking elsewhere for information about how to hold the firearm.
A good, solid gripwith thumbs locked downThe photo above shows one good, solid grip. Note that both wrists are straight rather than bent, allowing the gun’s recoil to be absorbed by the bones rather than by muscles or tendons. The thumbs are locked downward, one over the other, which is the natural way a human hand makes a fist to hold stuff most securely. The shooter uses the crease of her finger, rather than the pad, to pull the trigger, because doing so gives her finger an additional measure of strength so that it will be able to fire quickly and repeatedly if needed.Both hands provide equal tension in holding the firearm securely, and the muscles are quite tense rather than relaxed while firing. This mimics the muscle tension one may expect to experience when using the gun for self defense during a stress-filled encounter. A thumbs locked down gripon a revolverThe grip in the photo above is the same as the one in the first photo, but this time the shooter is holding a revolver. The fingers of her left hand are all touching each other, and her left index finger is jammed right up underneath the trigger guard.
She is using the “power crease” of her trigger finger to fire the gun, an especially important point while firing rapidly in double action. Her wrists are straight, so that the energy from the fired shot will be cushioned by her arm bones and will not wrench her wrists. A good, solid gripwith thumbs forwardIn the photo above, the shooter is resting one thumb on top of the pistol’s thumb safety. This is beneficial for several reasons. Doing so enables her to flick the safety off very quickly as she raises the gun to fire.
Cup And Saucer Cookies
It also guarantees that the safety cannot be bumped on unintentionally while she is firing.Note that the shooter’s wrists are still straight, and that her hands are still clenched firmly enough that she has a very solid grip on the gun. Although the thumbs-forward grip does not allow quite as much security as a thumbs-locked-down grip, it is nearly as secure and can be very beneficial to the shooter whose firearm is equipped with a thumb safety. A not-so-secure way to hold the gun, the teacup grip is not recommendedAbove is an example of an insecure hold, the teacup grip (sometimes called the cup-and-saucer grip). From a defense shooter’s perspective, the chief problem with this hold is that the non-dominant hand provides no assistance in recoil control for rapid shots, and little assistance in retaining the gun if necessary.The sole advantage of the teacup grip is that the non-dominant hand does give additional support to the lifting muscles in the dominant arm. This means that if you ever need to hold someone at gunpoint for an extended period of time, you may want to bring your arms closer to your body, relax your elbows slightly, and allow your hands to fall into the teacup grip. Just remember it isn’t best for shooting or for hanging onto the gun if you are in a fight for your life.
A wrist brace?Sometimes you will see an old-time revolver shooter using the wrist-brace grip. It really isn’t necessary to reinforce the wrist in this fashion, and doing so prevents your non-shooting hand from doing other good stuff like helping to hold the gun securely.More important: getting into the habit of holding a firearm in this way can be very dangerous.
If you try it with a semi-automatic, either deliberately or out of thoughtless habit, you’ll painfully discover why it’s such a bad idea (see next entry.). Do not allow the thumb to rest behind the slide!It is important never to allow your thumb to rest behind the slide of a semi-automatic. When a shot is fired, the slide moves very quickly toward the rear, and then is driven forward again by a powerful spring.
If your thumb is in the way of this movement, injury is very likely.After you become more proficient with the gun, you might try to fire with your non-dominant hand sometimes. If you do so, please remember that your dominant hand thumb is likely to slip behind the slide out of habit when you are not paying attention. Don’t let this happen — it hurts! Notes:.
This is very different from a target shooter’s grip even though it may look similar to a casual observer. Most target shooters will relax the shooting hand almost entirely, allowing the non-shooting hand to do most of the work of holding the gun. Their muscles will be relaxed rather than tense while firing; this allows greater precision, but sacrifices security. If your wrists hurt while shooting, there’s a good chance that you are not holding them straight but are instead crooking them while firing. The solution isn’t to put your other hand up to hold your crooked wrist still. Instead, learn to learn to fire with your wrist straight.
Except where otherwise noted, all articles and images on this web site are ©2006-2015 by Kathy Jackson. For permission to quote, please send an email to [email protected]: The author of this site assumes that you are an adult human being capable of making your own choices and taking responsibility for same. If you are not an adult, or are not capable of taking responsibility for your own choices, STOP. Do not read anything else on this site.
The author has made a reasonable, good-faith effort to assure that the articles herein are accurate and contain good advice, but hereby advises the reader that the author is a normal human being who makes the normal number of human mistakes. Deal with it. If it sounds stupid to you, don't do it. The author accepts absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for anything you might say or do as a result of reading any material on this site. Live your own [email protected].
In many of our previous posts, we have looked at various good stances to use when shooting firearms. In the next few posts, we will look at some of the bad shooting stances. Most of these bad stances are because of the influence of the movie industry and music videos.The first bad shooting stance we will look at is the infamous ' cup-and-saucer grip', also known as the ' teacup grip'. This one shows up in a lot of movies and TV shows. In this, the shooter holds (cups) the pistol in his dominant hand and then rests the bottom of his handgun magazine in the off hand (the saucer). Click on image to enlargeAnd finally, the Alice character (played by actress Milla Jovovich) from the Resident Evil series of movies, also using the cup-and-saucer grip, this time with a revolver.
You may see this grip used in a lot of other movies as well.This technique was once actually taught to revolver shooters in the Wild West (and sometimes called the 'palm supported grip'). The main reason it is bad with modern firearms is that the off hand provides almost no support against the recoil, which forces the user to aim the target again for each of the subsequent shots.
Also, no matter how strong the user is, the recoil will make the user's hands separate and the off-hand needs to be reapplied after every shot. Additionally, if a cartridge is overloaded, the additional pressure has to be released somewhere, and in the case of handguns, it may forcefully eject the magazine out. If the user is using a cup and saucer grip, the off-hand will get a pretty nasty smack.We will look at more bad stances in subsequent posts.
This is fromWhen I was new to handguns I was told to use this method, it did not feel right to me.I moved to the two hand grip.We’re starting a new weekly column here at and we’ll be covering a variety of shooting-related topics including how-tos, industry observations, and some occasional commentary about shooting and Second Amendment issues. I thought it might be fun to start with a how-to series on what I consider the Seven Deadly Sins of Handgun Shooting.One of my very favorite things is to take new shooters to the range. My second favorite thing is simply seeing new shooters at the range. My least favorite thing is to see folks launch into their shooting career without any instruction, thereby developing a bunch of bad, and sometimes unsafe, habits.
To help them along, I’ve put together some tips that will help improve anyone’s handgun shooting skills. After all, it’s much cooler to look like a pro on the range, even when you’re brand new to the sport.I have scientific proof that the “cup and saucer” handgun grip is bad and bordering on evil. Check this out. Open source scan converter. If you rearrange the letters in “cup and saucer” you get the following secret phrases:Arcane Cud PusUncaused CrapRude Caca PunsFreaky isn’t it? Who knew that “cup and saucer” was some type of satanic code?Now that we can agree that a cup and saucer grip is bad form and just plain spooky, what exactly is it? More importantly, how does one go about exorcising that demon? The cup and saucer gripThe cup and saucer grip simply refers to a handgun grip style where your support hand acts more like a tea set saucer than a support.
The butt of your handgun simply rests on top of your open support hand palm.Let’s face it, if you’re having tea with Prince Harry, you’ve got a tea cup on one hand and a saucer in the other. The cup holds the tea, so what purpose does the saucer underneath serve? Obviously it drives up the stock price for Royal Doulton China and adds complexity to the job description of footmen. Other than that, the saucer only serves to catch things that spill.
It’s a waste of a perfectly good hand that could be used to eat scones.It’s exactly the same with shooting. While your dominant shooting hand will be a little stronger, why waste all those nearly-as-strong muscles in the non-dominant hand? If you’re simply resting your dominant hand and gun on top of a wimpy-looking hand-saucer, you’re not getting any benefit from the support hand, are you?Other sports figured this out a long time ago. Ever see a golfer use a cup and saucer grip? Or a designated hitter in Major League Baseball?
Even fishermen figured out the value of using two hands. Apparently we shooters can be a little slow on the uptake. Performing the exorcismWell, for starters, we can blame the guy who invented the term “handgun.” After all, if the best way to shoot them is with two hands, so shouldn’t they be called “hands-guns?” If the name were more intuitive, that would certainly help people think about using both hands effectively. Just saying.Since that’s not likely to happen, let’s focus on some things we can do.
Here’s how to achieve a solid and proper handgun grip. Here’s a cup and saucer grip being used for golf. Don’t see this much on the PGA tour do you?With your primary shooting hand, open your thumb and index finger.
Push the web of your hand as high as it will comfortably go on the handgun grip, making sure that the barrel of the gun lines up with the bones in your forearm. Wrap your fingers around the front of the grip, making sure to keep your index finger out of the trigger.Do you see some free space on the inside grip panel of your handgun? Good, that’s where the bottom part of your support hand palm is going to go.
Smack it on there and don’t worry if there’s not enough room to get your whole palm on the inside grip panel. There won’t be and that’s OK.Now wrap your support hand fingers around the front of your dominant hand fingers. Your support hand fingers should be high–to the point of pressing against the bottom of the trigger guard.You’ll know you’ve got it right if both of your thumbs are somewhere near parallel to each other and touching.Next time you shoot, notice how much less your muzzle jumps. Your support hand can do wonders to help control recoil when you actually put it to work! Plus, a proper handgun grip looks really cool–you’ll be a hit at the range. And those forward-facing thumbs?
They naturally help you aim. Things tend to go where you point.If you have trouble shaking the cup and saucer grip habit, try these emergency counter measures:. Bag the tea and drink coffee.
Next time you go fishing with a buddy, use a cup and saucer grip with your fishing rod. The tsunami of taunting and hazing will break your cup and saucer habit almost instantly. Smear a dab of crazy glue on the bottom of your handgun butt.
You’ll only make the cup and saucer mistake once! On second thought, using Crazy Glue may not be the wisest idea. Perhaps some lard?Happy (and safe) shooting folks! See you next week!Images by Tom McHale.
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