Whether you own a pistol for recreation, competition, or personal defense, proper recoil management significantly improves your accuracy.
Recoil management is often a major challenge for new pistol shooters. If not handled properly, you won’t be able to effectively control your pistol, and your accuracy will suffer as a result. Though shooting and recoil go hand-in-hand, there are some ways a pistol’s recoil can be mitigated. Below, we’re looking what recoil is, and some pistol shooting tips to help you manage recoil.
What is Recoil?
Simply put, recoil on a gun is the rearward movement of the firearm after firing a round. As you fire a round, the propellant (gunpowder) is ignited, creating a small explosion within the pistol’s chamber. The blast and gases are channeled into the barrel to propel the projectile, and this forward propulsion causes the pistol to move backwards. On many modern pistols, this recoil is used to cycle the pistol, ejecting spent casings and loading new ones in their place.
Pistols tend to have more perceived recoil than other firearm platforms due to their smaller size and limited grip space. Unlike rifles which have three points of contact and full stock, handguns are much more compact and only have the grip for contact. For these reasons, pistols are often one of the most difficult platforms to shoot accurately with, especially if you’re new to owning firearms.
However, with practice and proper technique, shooting pistols will get much easier and your accuracy will greatly improve.
Techniques for Managing Recoil
If you’re having trouble managing the recoil of your pistol, there are a few techniques and tips that can help improve your results when you’re shooting for accuracy. Primarily, you’ll need to focus on your grip and stance.
Grip
An improper grip is a major factor that plays into poor recoil management. If your grip is too loose, you won’t be able to control your pistol as much when firing, making it difficult to stay on target. If it’s too tight, your hands and arms will quickly become fatigued. Ideally, both hands should grip with equal force. It’s common for new pistol owners to either use one hand to grip the pistol with the other holding onto the wrist, or they may teacup the pistol by placing their offhand below the magazine well. Neither of these grips are good for recoil control.
There are a lot of ways you can effectively grip a pistol, but ideally, your grip should be kept simple so it can be easily replicated. With your dominant hand, grip the pistol firmly. Your support hand should primarily grab and clamp onto the open space on the other side of the grip. For optimal grip, wrap your support hand’s fingers around your dominant ones, with your palm making contact on the other side of the grip; It’s crucial that you apply adequate pressure on both sides of the pistol’s grip. Also, you may feel inclined to use your thumbs for added support, but this isn’t entirely necessary and can make it difficult to have adequate pressure on both sides of the pistol.
For semi-auto pistols, you can rest your thumbs forward for a better grip. For revolvers, though, it’s better to wrap your thumb over the dominant knuckle to keep it out of the way of the hammer. Additionally, you can also just point them out to the side, which works for either pistol set up. Either way, so long as proper pressure is applied to the grip, you’ll be able to easily stabilize the pistol when shooting, and the recoil will be much easier to control. Like we said before, the end goal is to have a grip that’s simple and effective. With consistent practice, your grip will be committed to muscle memory, allowing you to easily replicate it whenever firing your pistol.
Stance
A good pistol shooting stance is crucial for control and accuracy. There are a few stances you can use when shooting, such as the weaver, isosceles, and retention stances. All three of these are highlighted in-depth in our basic pistol shooting stances guide, and we highly recommend checking it out to get a better understanding of the different stances you can use.
Regardless of which stance you opt for, they provide stability which is paramount to ensuring accuracy when shooting. If you don’t have a solid stance, you’ll get pushed around by the recoil, and you may stumble or lose your footing when shooting. Proper stances provide you with the better balance and structure needed for accurate shooting. At the end of the day, so long as your stance is solid and gives you the best control and comfort, it’s a good one.
Importance of Training
Regular training is the best way to reinforce good fundamentals. Though it may be uncomfortable at first, you’ll get used to a proper grip and stance eventually, with them becoming committed to muscle memory. Time at the range will get you the hands-on experience needed to best develop your skills, but we know that routine range time isn’t always possible. There are some ways you can train at home.
Dry fire training is the one of the best free training methods around. Dry fire training is when you use an unloaded pistol to simulate the act of firing a loaded one to get a better understanding of the how your pistol feels and runs, getting you used to the trigger pull and grip without using ammunition.
When training, you can practice different grips and stances to find which one is more comfortable for you. You can also try out different drills to reduce your likelihood of flinching when pulling the trigger, as well as becoming more maneuverable when handling a pistol, which is great if you use a pistol defensively.
As beneficial as dry fire training is, we cannot stress the importance of safety enough. If you’re dry firing, it’s crucial to make sure that you have checked your pistol, both visibly and physically, to ensure that it’s unloaded. Remember, firearm safety rules apply whenever you are handling a gun, regardless of whether it’s loaded or not.
Tools for Recoil Management
With your grip and stance taken care of, you should start getting better results whenever you’re out at the range. If you’re still wanting to take your recoil reduction even further, you can do so by adding muzzle devices to your pistol. A muzzle device is an accessory that threads onto the end of your barrel, such as a pistol compensator or a suppressor.
Pistol compensators are an incredibly common upgrade enthusiasts add to their pistols. To run one, your pistol needs to have a threaded barrel, which like compensators, is commonly produced by aftermarket manufacturers. Still, it’s important to keep in mind that threaded barrels and compensators aren’t always available for every pistol model. Many of the popular handguns available today have options, though, with some even coming equipped with them from the factory.
Compensators divert the gases out of the top of the muzzle, like how muzzle brakes divert gas out to the sides. This reduces the snap and muzzle flip that often comes with pistol shooting. If you’re thinking about adding a compensator to your pistol, our guide on compensators on carry guns goes in-depth about what you’ll need to know when shopping for one.
Suppressors can also be used to dampen recoil, but their main purpose is to reduce the sound signature put off by your rifle. Whereas compensators divert gases, suppressors capture them. Inside of suppressor are several baffles that capture gas, reducing muzzle flash and dampening the pistol’s sound signature. Something to note is that suppressors can be heavy depending on the model. All their weight sits in front of the barrel, shifting the balance forward. The added weight can reduce recoil, but this isn’t their main purpose.
Unlike compensators, which can be bought online and shipped to your house, suppressors can’t. Suppressors are an NFA regulated item that requires approval from the ATF, and a tax stamp, to own one. In addition to this, the background check process can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months. So, if you’re planning to get a suppressor, it’s important to consider all your options before pulling the trigger on one.
Conclusion
Proper recoil management is essential for maximizing pistol accuracy. By developing proper grip and stance techniques, your shooting accuracy and overall experience with a pistol will greatly improve.
While researching different techniques and accessories can certainly help, the best way to improve when shooting pistols is to regularly practice. Heading out to the range to practice recoil management and implementing a dry-firing routine at home will reinforce the fundamentals of pistol shooting, committing the proper grip, stance, and trigger pull to muscle memory.
With the right tools and practice, your pistol handling skills will improve in no time. If you’re looking for more ways to improve accuracy, our top 5 accuracy upgrades article highlights an assortment of accessories you can add to your pistol.
