The grip angle...does it really matter?

[BushmasterFanBoy]

Grip angle, in my own experience, only matters when changing to and from platforms. If you get used to indexing your sights by feel after the drawstroke, switching to another pistol will, as a result of the grip angle, mean that your sight index by 'feel' will no longer be correct, and thus, you'll have to slow down a smidge to acquire your sights with a more conscious approach. Controlling recoil or otherwise just shooting, it doesn't play hardly any role.

[Surf]

Interesting to see this topic come up again. I actually really began noticing many things as I pumped more rounds through my Glocks. I was confused at how much control I had over the Glocks and how quickly I could be back on target for follow up shots. Since I shoot a lot of video, I began reviewing clips and noted that my primary hand has much more cant, similar to my support hand that creates a lot of control. This is easily seen in the pics that I posted in my first reply. I am now convinced that the Glocks grip angle forces more cant in my primary shooting hand, more closely mimicking my support hand and I get far greater control over the pistol allowing for less recoil and quicker follow up shots with accuracy. So IMO the grip angle of the Glock does help me with better recoil management, which invariably leads to faster follow up shots and overall faster speeds on courses of fire with greater accuracy. I eventually made a video a few months back discussing it.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ssdsurf?.../7/JgKtVDRJuIA

I need to change my position on this grip angle debate a little. Since shooting 2-3k through my Accurate Iron 1911 I can pick up either my G34 or the 1911 and both are pn target with a perfect sight picture. The difference started fading for me after about 2-300 dry fire draws.

I guess the muscle memory in the hands are capable of discerning the two different grip angles and hold the gun according to the way you trained them to.

This is exactly the way things are for myself which I mention in my earlier post. I guess that since I shoot several handgun types with great regularity because I teach them, through repetition of correct training, my body naturally distinguishes what weapon I am holding and I perform accordingly. I don't really even think about it, it just happens. There may be times when my mind might go blank, but I automatically go to a default movement that is generally universal, such as an overhand slide release as an example as opposed to my normal slide stop type of release and again I really don't think about it. If you ever see it happen, it almost looks like I do the movement on purpose as it looks planned and not just an oops. I lose no time thinking over what I need to do, it just happens and again I believe that is just due to correct repetition of training. Granted not everyone gets a lot of time on a range, but I believe that it is easily accomplished by a good shooter provided they have the time and resources to train that way. I am not advocating this and if time and resources are limited, definitely training on one weapon is much more desirable.

Controlling recoil or otherwise just shooting, it doesn't play hardly any role.

Just from my own, non "gamer" frame of reference, I really have to disagree pretty strongly here. It really took me several months, or up to a year and probably 15K rounds through my G17 before I really started noting a difference that I felt that I could actually qualify as being an advantage due to the Glocks grip angle. Now I might be splitting hairs on times and I definitely think shooters who are chasing tenths or hundredths of seconds, such as high level competition shooters, will really be the ones seeing a notable difference. I don't think a normal recreational shooter will make note of time differences as there are just too much variation in their times to begin with. Just my observations however.

[YVK]

that my primary hand has much more cant, similar to my support hand that creates a lot of control.

..It really took me several months, or up to a year and probably 15K rounds through my G17

A question that begs to be asked if more cant to the primary hand actually creates additional control or not. One might think that putting 15,000 rounds through a gun may have helped to improve control because shooting 15,000 rounds is a darn good practice, without regard to strong hand angle. I am not arguing, simply considering various possibilities here.

I have looked at the question of strong hand cant recently. I switched to HK P30 about 5 weeks ago. The pistol has three interchangeable backstraps that progressively increase strong hand cant. I've tried all of them and so far have not detected any difference in perceived control. Of course, I've not spent nearly enough time on this, and I need to change "perceived" to "objective", but this system of same pistol with option of three different strong hand angles seems to be best positioned to answer such question. Even then, though, one won't be able to control for all variables that change with different backstraps.

[TehLlama]

Waxing my car may actually make it go faster too! But I'm not the Stig and won't be able to tell.

I see what you did there...

I have taught myself to modify my draw stroke similarly, and this helps a lot, it's just hard to escape the fact that whenever I draw a 1911 that I'm comfortable with the front and rear sights are already lined up by the time I can focus on the tip of the front sight, and can do this without any dry fire repetition required by any other pistol I've shot.