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How to Grip a Pistol and Master Recoil

Image of Bryan Hill, Founder of Pistol Wizard Bryan Hill / April 14 2023

Do you want to control recoil?Do you want to shoot quickly and accurately? Here's how.

Two-Handed Grip on a Pistol

First, some definitions:

Shooting hand: The hand that pulls the trigger on the pistol.
Support hand: The other hand.

On the pistol's grip, we're going to create a 3-way vice:

Left-right vice
Forward-back vice
Up-down vice

Basics

Shooting hand: Get the web between your thumb and index finger is as high on the grip as possible. No gaps!
Support hand: Put your index finger under the trigger guard, then roll the wrist forward 0-20º to get more of your hand on the grip. The best angle is different for everyone and can depend on the gun. It's a trade-off: the more you bend your wrist, the weaker your grip, but the more contact your support hand has on the gun, the more it can manage recoil. Later in the article, you'll have tests with an unloaded gun to figure it out.
Elbows: Turn them out, so they're pointing away from you instead of at the ground. Don't lock them. Some bend is good. Also, don't turn them out enough to break apart the palms of your hands.
Support hand: Bring in your fingers like a vice, from the joints closest to your knuckles, or like you're trying to touch your palm with your fingertips. Flex your forearms.
Both hands: If your grip strength is over 60 lbs per hand, then leave your thumbs up.
Otherwise, bring both thumbs in. Bringing the thumbs in adds more strength, but can reduce accuracy for long-range shots.

If you use a thumbs-in grip, start training your grip strength. More on that, below.
Support hand: Test out gripping so hard that your hand shakes, then back off the tension until the shake goes away. Start there and experiment with less tension in live fire.
Shooting hand: Set the right grip tension. Test this out without a gun by keeping your hand loose and seeing how fast you can move your index finger, then start gripping with your middle finger and see when your index finger starts to slow down. You can either set your whole firing hand tension to just enough before your index finger starts slowing down, or you can grip hard with just your pinky. Again, you can test this out and see if gripping hard with your pinky slows your index finger at all.

Left-Right Vice

Without the left-right vice, your sights might be off left or right when moving the pistol (in the draw, hitting moving targets, etc.). The sights can also return from recoil in an unpredictable way.

Both hands: Turn or press your right hand left, and your left hand right, so it feels like you're pushing the base of your thumbs together. You don't need a ton of pressure here. Experiment to find the minimum pressure needed to get results.

Forward-Back Vice

Without the forward-back vice, your sights might be off up or down when moving the pistol (in the draw, hitting moving targets, etc.). The sights can also return from recoil in an unpredictable way.

Both hands: Pull in and up with the support hand, like your palm is trying to go toward your forehead, and brace against the support hand with the shooting hand, using only your wrists. You should feel the upper forearm muscles in your support arm working hard.

Up-Down Vice

Without the up-down vice, your support hand will break off of the gun in recoil when shooting 9mm and more powerful ammo. You'll be shooting 1-handed, even though to most people it will look like you're shooting 2-handed.

Support hand: Keep constant pressure up towards the trigger guard. One cue for this is pulling with the wrist up towards your hairline.

Follow the grip basics and set the 3-way vice every time before you fire a shot and until you've finished shooting. Some people get lazy and milk the grip like a cow. Keep it firm all the way through your string of fire.

One-Handed Grip on a Pistol

What if you have to fire a pistol one-handed?

Grip with your shooting hand the way you would with a two-hand grip. Get it as high as possible.

Now bring in your thumb. Why? There's no need to make room for your support hand, and bringing in the thumb adds about 17% strength to your grip.

If your pistol has a manual safety, you can try resting your thumb on top of that, instead, and experiment with different thumb pressures. Start with pressing the base of your thumb toward your palm. Make sure your thumb doesn't brush into the slide. While maintaining that pressure, try pressing down into the thumb safety as well.

You may also find that turning the gun 30-45º, like above, is more comfortable and adds some recoil control. That's fine for easy targets, but for any precision shots, keep the gun straight up or else your shots will go slightly off-target.

Grip the gun as hard as you can with your shooting hand. Why? One-handed, the gains in recoil control outweighs the loss of dexterity in your trigger finger.

As with the two-hand grip, turn your elbow out.

Testing Your Grip

Recoil goes up and back. How do we verify our grip is effective?

1. Press Test

This simulates the "up" part of recoil.
Time: A few minutes
What you need: An unloaded pistol and a sturdy surface

Find a sturdy surface, preferably with a little padding. Below, we'll use a table.
Unload your pistol. Put away any loaded magazines or ammo.
If your pistol has a light mounted, you may want to dismount it.
Use your firing grip on the pistol (one-hand or two-hand).
Rotate your arms down from the shoulders so the front of your pistol's frame contacts the table.
Keep rotating, so your pistol's frame presses against the table. Press hard.
If your support hand comes loose, adjust it and try again until it stays firm under pressure.
If your wrists buckle, grip harder and try again. If your grip holds together, and neither your wrists nor elbows buckle, then your grip is at a good starting point to control upward recoil.

2. Racking Test

This simulates the "back" part of recoil.
Time: A few minutes
What you need: An unloaded pistol and a friend

Unload your pistol. Put away any loaded magazines or ammo.
Get your friend to come over and explain to them what this drill is.
Use your firing grip on the pistol (one-hand or two-hand).
Present your pistol in a safe direction.
Have your friend rack the slide on your pistol at least 6 times in a row.
If your support hand comes loose, adjust it and try again until it stays firm against the slide racking.
If your wrists buckle, engage your forearms and try again.
If you find yourself tilting back, put one foot at least a foot ahead of the other and lean forward enough so your shoulders are in front of your hips and your weight is on the front of your feet.

If your grip holds together and your wrists don't buckle, then your grip is at a good starting point to control recoil.

3. Live Fire Test

Now is the real test. Do this after passing the previous two tests.
Start each range session with this test until you get a proper grip every time, at least 10 times in a row.

Time: 1-2 hours (including driving to/from the range)
What you need: A pistol, some range ammo, and an outdoor pistol range

At the range, load a magazine with 2 rounds.
At the firing line, load your pistol.
Aim at the berm, not any targets. Focus on your grip, not your sights.
Use your firing grip on the pistol (one-hand or two-hand).
Fire your pistol 2 times, as fast as you can.
If your support hand comes loose, adjust its angle, position, or angle of pull, and try again until it stays firm on the gun.
If your wrists buckle, engage your forearms and try again.
If you find yourself tilting back, put one foot at least a foot ahead of the other and lean forward enough so your shoulders are in front of your hips and your weight is on the front of your feet.

If your grip holds together and your wrists don't buckle, then repeat the drill with 3 rounds until your grip stays solid. Then repeat with 4, 5, and finally 6 rounds.

Once you can fire 6 shots in a row and maintain a good grip, you have the basics down. Note what it feels like and practice it, as it's easy to lose sense of what a proper grip is.

Find index points on the pistol. When you have a proper grip:

How do your hands touch and press into each other?
Where is your support hand's index finger?
Where is each joint in that finger?
How about your support hand's thumb?
Your shooting hand's thumb?
Are there any parts of the pistol they touch? How are they touching?

The key here is consistency. Use anything you can to make your grip more consistent and help you remember what "right" is for you. Consider having someone use a marker to draw a line from one hand to the other, across where they connect, so you can see the exact point and angle of how they come together.

Everyone has little variances because we all have differently sized hands, but once you're dialed in for a given pistol, you don't have to change your grip until you change pistols.

All that said, this is just the beginning of grip technique. You'll still have to learn to track the sights on recoil, and verify that your pistol is returning to the same spot every time.

Building Your Grip Strength

Top shooters have a grip strength of 120-140 lbs.
The average untrained male has a grip of 80-120 lbs.
The average untrained female has a grip of 60-80 lbs.

Do you need to build grip strength? Yes, if:

You don't have enough grip to do hanging exercises (that build your grip and the rest of your body at the same time).
You've tried everything else and still have grip or trigger issues with a pistol.

If you need more grip strength, here are a few ways to do it.

Your Grip Is under 90 Lbs.

These basic grippers ($10-12) are portable and convenient . They're adjustable, and go from 22-132 lbs.

Start with 3 sets of 6 at 75% of your max. If you're unsure, set a weight where you max out at 8-10 reps.
(Yes, you're going to start with sets of 6 even though you could do 8-10 max. Going to your max all the time will cause injuries.)
Rest 2 min. between sets.
Do 3 workouts per week, or 2 times if you work with your hands.
Doing less than 15 reps per set? Add 1 rep per workout.
At 15 reps, Increase weight by 5 lbs., drop reps down to 6, and repeat the process.

Say you start with your grippers at 50 lb:

In week 1, you do 3 sets of 6, then 3 sets of 7, then 3 sets of 8.
Week 2, you do 3 sets of 9, then 3 sets of 10, and then 3 sets of 11.
Week 3, you do 3 sets of 12, then 3 sets of 13, and then 3 sets of 14.
Week 4, you do 3 sets of 15, then increase the weight to 55 lb., then do 3 sets of 6, and finally 3 sets of 7.
Weeks 5 and onward, you just keep repeating that process.

This is a slower progression (gain around 5 lbs of grip per month), but it's a safer one. Once you can do 60-65 lbs. for 15 reps, your grip strength is around 90 lbs.

Your Grip Is 90 Lbs. or More

At this point, dry practice 3-5 days a week with a proper grip is probably all the grip-specific training you need. Still, here are some great exercises that also build grip strength:

Towel Pullups / chinups (works biceps, lats, mid/lower trapezius, rear delts, and grip)
Towel Hanging knee or leg raises (works core and grip)
Deadlifts (works hamstrings, glutes, entire back, and grip)
Dumbbell Bulgarian split squats (works quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves, core, and grip)
Dumbbell reverse lunges (works hamstrings, glutes, core, and grip)

Preventing Injuries

Muscle imbalances cause injuries. To prevent or treat tennis elbow (or shooter's elbow), here are a some exercises:

Forearm Strengthening

Need some dumbbells? The best deals will be on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, etc. for a used set. Otherwise, get a set from your local sporting goods store, Walmart, etc. Buying dumbell sets online (like from Amazon) can be 3-5x more expensive due to shipping costs.

For something more portable, try resistance bands ($20 for a set). You'll have to wrap one side of the band under your foot and the other side in your hand to do the exercises. Here's a guide with pictures (PDF).

Finger Strengthening

Use these bands:

Rubber bands used on broccoli, asparagus, etc. at a grocery store
No. 89 rubber bands from an office supply store

Either way, while resting in dry practice (or some other downtime), do a set with these bands to strengthen the backs of your hands and prevent injuries.

The Path to Better Pistol Shooting

Top shooters can recover from recoil and fire another accurate shot in 0.20 seconds or less. That's 5 (or more) shots per second!

How do you get there? Work on your grip technique, dry practice, and get training.

Dry practice is a secret all top shooters use, whether they're military, police, or competition shooters.

It's effective, convenient, and free. Learn how to dry practice in this guide.

Start Leveling up with Dry Practice

How to Perfect Your Pistol Trigger Press [for Free]

How to Grip a Pistol and Master Recoil

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