Handgun Fit

Before we get to today’s topic, our second TTrigger winner has failed to claim his prize. If anyone knows where DMF13 is, please let him know that he won and to contact me. If I don’t hear by next week, I suppose I will run the numbers again and pick another winner. Onward!

“This gun feels great in my hand!” This is often said by newer shooters. TLG frequently mentioned how unimportant feel is. What matters, is fit. How do you know if your gun fits you? The most common method of the past was to see if your forearm was more or less in line with the gun while your trigger finger was sitting “correctly” on the trigger. If you can do that, and grip the gun pretty well with your other fingers, then the gun fits well enough.

With revolvers, you could get custom-made stocks to better fit your hand, but with auto pistols, you generally got what you got. 1911s offered different trigger lengths or mainspring housings. Thinner grips became an option, some needing slim bushings to work properly. Occasionally you would see a lowered thumb safety, but that modification never really caught on, even though Jeff Cooper thought it a good idea for smaller-handed people.

Any gun that is too small for you can be made bigger fairly easily, but the reverse is much less true. Today though, we have adjustable back straps, replaceable grips (side panels or entire grip modules), and even some guns that can be adjusted multiple ways in multiple directions.

None of the above has to do with how the gun’s controls work for you, we are simply talking about fitting the gun to your hand in order to shoot it at some acceptable level. As I’ve said before, I don’t think you should be able to reach things like the magazine release or slide stop from the shooting position. Thumb safety access is obviously important but other than that, I want the other controls out of my way when shooting. Maybe we will talk more about that again in the future.

So, with all these options today, do guns fit people better than they used to? Hopefully, they do, but I’m not sure that is always the case. There are obvious examples where someone is simply not using the correct “gun adjustment” to fit their hand. Shooters often add backstraps or other accessories that make the gun too big for them, though sometimes the gun is set up to be too small as well. In discussing fit though, I’m not really talking about adjusting the gun you already have. There are simply some guns that fit you better than others.

I have used Glocks for my entire professional career and as a civilian before that. The Gen5 guns with no backstrap fit me better than any other Glock ever has. Unfortunately, the guns still don’t fit me as well as they could. The grip angle is all wrong for most people, but the grip itself is also too squared off. A lot of shooters prefer a grip with flatter sides. That’s fine and useful, but a squared-off front strap is not ideal. The 1911, Browning Hi-Power, and my current favorite, the modern HK pistols, are all much better contoured to the human hand. There are certainly others out there as well.

The squared-off front strap makes it too easy to push your muzzle in the wrong direction. Your fingers naturally wrap around and when you clench your hand, the corner of the grip makes a nice leverage point to push the gun off target with. If you are among the few who actually grip the gun front to rear with your strong hand, you may not notice this issue as much, but at some point, it will affect almost everyone.

A more “humanly” contoured front strap (I won’t say ergonomic) gives your fingers a gentle transition from front strap to side panel and this aids in not pulling or pushing the gun with your strong hand fingers. You still need to grip front to rear though.

When you get a shotgun or double rifle fitted to you, or even a precision rifle these days, they don’t swap a couple of parts and call it good. You can have every part of the gun that matters fitted and adjusted to you and your needs. Shorter neck than usual? Length of pull and comb adjustment can fix that. Shorter fingers? Change the pistol grip and trigger (traditional or modern) so that it actually fits your unique contours and dimensions. I could go on but I’m sure you get the point. On the other hand, we are spending $500 to $3000 on our handguns, not the $6,000-$100,000 on a custom rifle or shotgun. Yes, some pistols today cost much more than $3,000 but they are no more adjustable than the less expensive versions.

In addition to a front strap that fits the human hand well, you have to have the correct trigger reach. Sometimes using the factory-supplied grip options will affect this, but sometimes not. This is one reason single-action guns like 1911s are so popular at higher levels of shooting. Most shooters have no idea if the gun fits them, but the single-action trigger allows for some wiggle room with regard to fit. This also points to the fact that very good shooting can be done with an ill-fitting gun. In all fairness, the 1911 does a remarkable job of fitting a lot of people.

What’s my point with all this? Find a gun that actually fits you, either through intelligent engineering, modular grip options, or both, and you will shoot better. You may think your current gun FITS you, and by most definitions, it may. But when you find a gun that actually fits YOU, your results down range will let you know. I can force a gun to perform as I want, almost regardless of fit. Proper fit allows the gun to work for me and not against me.

Unlike bespoke shotguns though, there is no set of measurements that anyone can take to fit a pistol to you. You have to try different guns and see what fits you best through intelligent experimentation. That can be a time-consuming and costly process, made harder by the fact that your current skill level may mask some aspects of fit. If you don’t know how to shoot a double action trigger correctly, you are at a disadvantage as there are many guns you won’t be able to properly evaluate. If you are a really good shot, you may get similar results from different platforms. However, the time and effort are well worth it for the serious practitioner. It’s almost like discovering your natural point of aim. You may have been able to get pretty good results before, but once you discover your NPA, you will never willingly go back to muscling your position.