I have fairly large hands and sometimes my thumb will hit the slide release on recoil. Not a big deal unless it is your last round. Anyone else have this issue and what did you do?
Thumbs on a 1911
- Thread starter BigFoot
- Start date
Strong hand (R) thumb on (wide) safety, support hand (L) thumb wrapped over right thumb, pulling both downward. I have average sized hands with short thumbs? I find the popular "thumbs forward" grip unnatural and of little benefit, YMMV greatly.
- Thread starter
- #3
I am actually trying to teach myself that, John. It feels very awkward but with all things I am sure it will feel natural eventually.
If you are using thumb over thumb, your left thumb should actually be pressing the side of the dust cover.
This, YES.
This, NO. (Shooting Illustrated, I'm not even sure what they are trying to depict here, no surprise. It looks like he's trying to show the controls to the camera without touching anything.)
This is a badly executed #1, and probably following the instructions he read in #2:
#1 is a pretty radical forward angle and I have some difficulty with that, firearm-dependent, but your thumb should always be hitting that dustcover on a 1911.
This, YES.
This, NO. (Shooting Illustrated, I'm not even sure what they are trying to depict here, no surprise. It looks like he's trying to show the controls to the camera without touching anything.)
This is a badly executed #1, and probably following the instructions he read in #2:
#1 is a pretty radical forward angle and I have some difficulty with that, firearm-dependent, but your thumb should always be hitting that dustcover on a 1911.
- Thread starter
- #5
It does but its fat enough to occasionally hit the slide release.
Finally figured out what I was doing wrong with my thumbs ...j/k. I hate that thumb over thumb grip.
AA
It does but its fat enough to occasionally hit the slide release.
Ok! I have been known to get a Wilson's Extended Slide Release and do a bit of reprofiling:They used to be 2-3mm wider than the current ones, but I still use a thin Dremel cut-off wheel to cut off that outer band(referring to the section of metal on the pad closest and facing you immediately in front of the closest serration cut), then grind & blend. I like a functional slide release for several reasons, and the Wilson profile lends itself about the best to reprofiling in several dimensions, and still providing a nice ridge to hit. Stainless is so much easier than blued, but if you go blued, Mark Lee's "stove top" hot blue is fantastic!
Better to show, I suppose. I sometimes shave off the circled edge at the serration cut, if it is too wide after profiling:
So my thumb over thumb is not what is shown above. The “correct “ thumb forward touching the dust cover doesn’t work for me, my thumb is too short. More than one way to skin a cat.
It does but its fat enough to occasionally hit the slide release.
Can big breasted; uhm I mean, big thumbed people get a thumb reduction from a plastic surgeon?
Just take up wood working with power tools while drunk......Can big breasted; uhm I mean, big thumbed people get a thumb reduction from a plastic surgeon?
That is a fact. Every shop teacher and most printers are missing a digit ... my friend Bob bought a printing press. Within a month he was missing a finger ... mighta been a thumb. Or both!
AA
Talk about dedication!
How I do it right or wrong. In the last pic you can see neither thumb is near the slide release. I have seen some "flag" the left-hand thumb straight up rather than wrap it down over the right-hand thumb.
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Bomar sights, Wilson barrel and is that a Videki trigger...? Class act!
Actually it’s a Witchita sight, same thing but different.Bomar sights, Wilson barrel and is that a Videki trigger...? Class act!
As for the thumb forward on the dust cover, that is a relatively new construct by modern competition shooters. It certainly was not taught by Col. Cooper at Gunsite when I attended nor is it seen in the book "The Modern Technique Of the Pistol" by Morrison.
A further observation on the support hand thumb position. Cooper and his contemporaries taught the Weaver stance back in the day. So that's how I was taught. Modern competition oriented shooters tend to use the Isosceles stance. The thumb forward on the dust cover requires an unnatural (to me) forward rotation of the support hand in order to get the thumb forward. That can't be done by most folks if using the traditional Weaver stance, YMMV. The Weaver stance is a fighting stance developed back in the day when law enforcement carried magnum pistols. The Isosceles stance was developed as a competition stance used with relatively soft recoiling race guns. The art of pistol craft is ever evolving and Iso has found it's way into tactical applications as well.
This sounds like multiple twentiesWichita Arms, considered premium compared to Bomars by the cognoscenti back in the day.
Damn, how do I know that?! I'm only twenty-ahhh, twenty-... Ouch.
The Weaver was also created at a time when officers weren’t wearing ballistic vests and the bladed stance of the Weaver made for a lesser backstop for adversaries bullets.
Once ballistic vests were more mainstream, officers taking hits from incoming rounds during gunfights while in the Weaver stance, had higher percentages of rounds slipping in between the sides of the vests and under the armpits.
The initiative of the Isosceles which presented more of the front panels and hard plates, brought these percentages way down. In a civilian carry where ballistic protection isn’t being used, I can still see the logic of a Weaver stance which presents a smaller target profile, being a viable shooting position.
Once ballistic vests were more mainstream, officers taking hits from incoming rounds during gunfights while in the Weaver stance, had higher percentages of rounds slipping in between the sides of the vests and under the armpits.
The initiative of the Isosceles which presented more of the front panels and hard plates, brought these percentages way down. In a civilian carry where ballistic protection isn’t being used, I can still see the logic of a Weaver stance which presents a smaller target profile, being a viable shooting position.
