Master The Trigger Press
How to become safer and more accurate when using a pistol with my friend and firearms instructor, Jon Dufresne.
Today I introduce you to a friend of mine, Jon Dufresne, who is the firearms instructor I train with. He is a retired Army Ranger who had four combat deployments. He absolutely loves guns, loves pistol shooting, loves shooting with a rifle, he does CQB, (close quarters battle), and night vision tactics. Most of his clients are federal agencies, law enforcement, and he trains a lot of SWAT teams across the United States.
This video is on mastering the trigger press, which is one of the things I work with him on at the gun range, and he’s an absolute master of the gun. If you’re like me, and you want to become a better shooter, a safer shooter, if you’re in law enforcement, or you’d like to have Jon fly out and work with your SWAT team, he does training and classes all over the country. If you’re passionate about firearms and the Second Amendment like I am, and as I talk about in my book “Mastering Yourself,” then go follow Jon, because he posts a lot of great content. He’s a great teacher and a fun guy to train with who doesn’t take himself, or life, too seriously!
Go to Kinetic-Consulting.net and signup for his free newsletter and to gain access to his private blog which is full of free pistol and rifle tips, downloadable target aids and training materials. Give Jon a follow on Instagram at: @MochaBear_Actual and tell him that @CoachCoreyWayne sent you! He posts a lot of great tips, news, videos and information to help you get better and safer with firearms. You can subscribe to his YouTube channel by clicking here: Kinetic Consulting. Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/user/Homa2000
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ABOUT JON DUFRESNE
Jon served with 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, deploying multiple times in various capacities. The Ranger Battalion also provided Jon with training and first hand experience in small unit tactics, airborne operations, field medicine, breaching, foreign languages, counter terrorism and small arms.
Upon leaving the Army, Jon worked in executive protection and acted as a law enforcement consultant, molding his military experience into a contextual view of the threats faced outside of combat environments. Jon comes to the firearms industry with an ideal blend of military and citizen, shaping his courses to apply to Military, Law Enforcement and citizen students alike.
JON ON MASTERING THE TRIGGER PRESS:
One of the things that ails a lot of people in their shooting abilities is their trigger. And the way they manipulate their trigger affects a lot of things that happen. There’s a school of thought that says if I grip hard enough and I just go at it with this finger, it’s not going to affect me. Now, that’s true to a certain distance, not to the overall aspect of shooting, because there are things your finger needs to do correctly to get your rounds where you want them, or where they should be going, versus what you think or hope for when it comes to shooting. So let’s go over a little trick I was taught.
When I took my first class from Frank Proctor, from “The Way of the Gun,” we did a little dry practice, which was a little weird to me. I was like, why are we dry firing in a live fire class? That’s never been a thing in at least my military time. I was like, well I guess this guy has something he needs to teach, so let me go along with it because it is a class, and I came here to learn something new. So I jumped right in.
He also mentioned part of the class tuition was a free Frank Proctor dry fire device, and I was like, oh cool! But what he was talking about, when he handed me mine, I saw it was a zip tie he called the “Frank Proctor dry fire device” as a joke. So he explained what to do with it, and that’s what I’m going to show you guys today.
Like I was saying, the “Frank Proctor dry fire device” is essentially just a zip tie that you clip. You put it down your barrel, and you leave that little square end, the side that has a little tooth that hangs on to all the little notches hanging out in the ejection port. One of the things he showed us was what your finger does to the gun. It’s important to understand what the finger is doing because it really moves this thing [the trigger]. Now because our fingers kind of move in conjunction, you can see it’s really hard to isolate my whole finger from the rest of my hand. There’s natural movement that happens in all of it. So, if I have to have natural movement in this, I need to control certain parts of this while controlling certain parts of this, [see video].
Now, with this little device, one of the cool things about it was, when you put it in, it made the trigger smooshy. It wasn’t a dead trigger, it was just a smooshy trigger, so I can get multiple dry fire shots. What you can see with this, not only having the ability to get multiple shots, but now having the ability to see what your finger is doing in conjunction with the site to the gun.
Let’s say I grab my grip, I loosen it up, and I just go at it, I go jamming on it with my finger, hard, hard presses — very difficult and very harsh when it comes to this. Now, at the proximity I’m at with this target, it’s a no-brainer and yeah, all those shots and no matter how wild I shoot this thing and go crazy with it, I’m probably getting those, because I’m about a yard and a half away from this thing [the target]. But if we were talking about just the sticker [on the target], and we put our dot on there and we start going at it, there may be some misses in there, because of my loose grip and my crazy finger.
What if we calm the finger, but don’t change anything with the grip? If we calm the finger and go nice and easy with it, nice steady presses, still using my loose grip, nothing too crazy, and I can get away with it. If I tighten up the grip and still jam on it, I can really stay in there pretty well, [see video demonstration]. On that sticker I do really good when I go crazy jamming on it, as long as I have a decent grip.
What if I slow my finger and shoot a little better? There’s a little less movement in the dot. What this tells me and what this is all for is, you can find your limit as to how hard your press needs to be to do what needs to happen. If I have a good grip and I press really harsh, it still moves things, but not as much. But if I pay attention, I get a good grip, and then I press it nice and evenly, then I get better sites or site movement on the actual target.
So overall, we’re getting a little better by seeing and doing this stuff. Just by using little zip tie, you can find your limits a little bit. Now, this doesn’t replace actually shooting with recoil or anything like that, but it does give you an idea without having to worry about recoil, and a bang, and movement in the gun, its natural explosive movement that it does and the reciprocation in the slide. You don’t have to worry about that when you’re trying to practice with it, because now you can kind of see it, see what your finger is doing in conjunction with what your eyes are seeing, and maybe make yourself a little bit better.
I hope this helps. Try it when you dry practice. Find your limits. Kind of play with it a little bit, and see what your finger may be doing that’s causing the gun to move, which is causing your shots to go in a certain direction that you don’t want, and you’re still kind of lost as to why it’s doing that. So pay attention to that, play with it a little bit. It’s something to try if you’ve never tried it before.
I hope this helps everybody that actually cares about getting better. If you know somebody that has a problem with this kind of stuff or may benefit from this video, go ahead and share it with them. Also, please visit my blog on my website. If you go on my website and become a member, you can go onto the blog, and the membership is free. On there is tons of information, as well as access to all my targets.
Have a good time guys. Play with this, download some stuff, enjoy yourselves. Go fucking train.
