WARNING: Book-length diatribe.Remember, what works well for target practice, or competition, with 10" barrels, and optics, is not Concealed Carry, or a typical day with a Glock pulled from a holster. Glock shooting, is about safely shooting center mass, and stopping a threat. If you can do that, thumbs as they are, is that a bad thing?
Right, right, because competition shooting is all about guns with 10" barrels and optics. We don't pull Glocks from holsters at all.
Oh wait....yes we do. Matter of fact, we pull Glocks from holsters that resemble quite well the guns that people carry concealed. And M&Ps, and XDMs, and occasionally even a regular ole Colt .45.
(Who the heck uses a 10" barrel in any pistol competition that requires speed? Seriously?)
Repeating:
Glock shooting, is about safely shooting center mass, and stopping a threat.
----right, because in competition people don't try to be accurate, and practicing to stop a threat by shooting center mass is a function that only works when people practice shooting a gun
outside of competition.
Oh wait, that isn't right either. (Especially since center-mass isn't an optimal aiming point, because it is too low.)
If you want to be able to most effectively defend yourself, then one assumes that you want to be able to put accurate rounds on target as quickly as possible . While there is no One True Way that works most optimally for all, it is CERTAINLY true that there
are a number of ways that are demonstrably bad choices.
So no, I don't agree with: "If you can do that, thumbs as they are, is that a bad thing?"
....because since most people won't know if their "as they are" grip will work until they
need it most, going with grips that are known to be non-optimal, or even more empirically, going with a grip that you haven't tested for speed/accuracy versus other grips, is NOT an optimal way to learn to defend yourself.
And most people really do NOT know what "good enough" is.
*From my perspective:
Putting the weak-hand thumb over the strong-hand thumb does several things. 1) It takes your weak hand and creates a gap between it and much of the grip. 2) It changes the angle of the weak-hand wrist such that it creates less pressure forward to counteract muzzle flip, and 3) it often makes the person holding the gun attempt to "steer" it with that hand, where pressure downward does nothing to help control the handgun, and pressure inwards at that point is less consistent than if the hand was along the grip under the strong-hand thumb.
Every single person I know who shoots both quickly and accurately with a semi-auto pistol (note: my comments above are for semi-autos, not revolvers) either already shoots with the weak-hand thumb under the strong-hand thumb, or when switching from another grip, found that they could be both faster and more accurate due to increased recoil control with the thumbs forward grip.
I will say that is based on people attempting to be accurate at speed. For people doing slow fire(effectively, anything slower than roughly 1 shot per second), any grip that allows you to stabilize the grip works, including the weak-hand thumb being on top. (Since anything but minimal recoil control at that speed really doesn't matter.)
YMMV.
I'd also say that learning speed and accuracy from Pincus, who doesn't ever run a diagnostic on his students, doesn't track changes in their speed and accuracy, has no actual data backing his teaching methods, and has said for the record that he doesn't care how well his instructors shoot, is not an optimal choice. Even if he says something that seems to make sense, checking it with a competent instructor first would be a good idea. Matter of fact, I hope that the the thumbnail picture on his video is supposed to be an example of a
poor grip, because it certainly
is one.
*What is "good enough"? Well, that depends. Are you just wanting to be able to be safe? Hold the gun however you like, it isn't particularly relevant. Do you just want to be accurate? You should be practicing bullseye shooting. Do you want to be effective at self-defense? Then you'd better be learning how to be efficient, which means finding the easiest way to be both fast and accurate.
Want to find out if you are fast and accurate? Come shoot the Man vs Man match at ENGC in two weeks.
(Info here:
http://nebraskafirearms.org/forum/index.php/topic,11716.0.html )
You can find out right away. It is all about getting accurate shots on target faster than the other guy. That's it---can you hit what you need to hit faster than the guy trying to beat you. (Other than actually being harmed, how much more like self-defense can you get in terms of skills?)
Before anyone says "It won't be fair because they'll be using RACE GUNS!" people should probably know that most of us shoot Production, and the guns we use really are pretty much like our carry guns. That excuse simply won't hold up. Especially since the Open pistols shoot separately from the rest of us.
Back to the original point: For slow fire, hold it however you like. For accurate rapid fire---grip matters in a significant way.
For the record, a couple of years ago I went to the Rogers Shooting School, known for being one of the most difficult military and law enforcement shooting skills schools in the nation, with one of the most difficult skills tests in the world, including using cover, SHO, WHO, draws, reloading (including reloading using only one hand), to test my shooting skills in a known law enforcement/military/tactical setting.
At Rogers, each student takes the qualification test 6 times throughout the week-long class. A Basic rating is achieved at 70 points (out of 125). The Advanced rating is achieved at 110 points. The average for most classes for the first classifier test attempt is
37---and I scored
109 on my first attempt. I then scored Advanced on all five further attempts during the course. I also had the high score for the course.
I'm not mentioning this for advertising purposes, I'm mentioning this because I'm tired of people pulling the "that's competition only" card, which is nonsense. Bill Rogers has trained more high-level military and law enforcement folks than pretty much anyone else in the nation. (As part of that, he explains why he teaches what he does, and he also teaches the thumbs-forward grip.) Amazingly enough, the shooting skills I use in competition work perfectly well as shooting skills (for fast, accurate shooting) in every other aspect, too.
Grip DOES make a difference, if you want to be fast and accurate. Is a standardized thumbs-forward grip optimal for everyone? No---but is a
version of a thumbs-forward grip the best choice for most people?
IMO, demonstrably yes.
If someone says differently, something to ask is: What do you consider fast, accurate shooting?
