Roll or crisp trigger discusion

First topic message reminder :

Many have talked about what they prefer, a roll trigger or a crisp trigger.... How about a discussion on how the style you use works for you, what you feel is the advantage of how it works over the other. Zins clinics push the roll as the best.. maybe someone who has attended his clinic can tell us why he feels this way is best.

Liking 2 stage triggers my 45 trigger is set up like a 2 stage trigger. I would love it if I could play with weight of each stage.  I have my eye on a GT45.

DavidR wrote:Im sure we all will be looking forward to that post Jerry!

Dave
I have to apologize at this point, I am unable to find that document...
Thought I had a hard copy, but can't put my hands on it... I saved it from Brian Zin's very early website/forum. About 8/10 years ago... It was titled "His Armorer" or something like that.. I recently threw out a bunch of old CD's.. I am beginning to think it was down loaded on one of those.. I have converted to thumb drives and never use a CD.. Duh ..Wish I had checked closer before discarding those old ones.. I'll keep looking..

Here is a collection of Zins' stuff on trigger control

"
Trigger movement has got to start prior to obtaining perfect sight picture.


….I had the luxury of being taught by the right people and understood what the trigger was for and how it works in relationship to sight alignment. Trigger control in bullseye is by far the most important of the fundamentals, without it you got nothing. Exercise wise, gonna hate this, but dry firing. I hated myself but when you get better and understand trigger control then and only then can you truly appreciate dry firing.




Prior to seeing perfect sight alignment and perfect sight picture start pressure on the trigger. Same as in short line. In short line as the gun begins to go back on target is when you want to start applying pressure on the trigger. You never want to wait until you see perfect sight alignment and perfect sight picture because as soon as you put pressure on the trigger it all goes away. So use the pressure on the trigger to bring the sights to where you want them so that the shot and the desired sight picture occur simultaneously.




I have had a few questions already about the trigger I shoot. For those who were not at Perry to hear the Panel discussion or have ever heard my take on trigger control here it is. Yes I shoot with a long rolling trigger. Am I saying that is the best way to shoot. NO It is the best way for me to shoot. The biggest problem with a long roll on a trigger is keeping a long roll on your trigger. Not a problem for the gunplumber, but a problem for the trigger puller. If you cannot pull the trigger without stopping and creeping you will lose the roll faster than someone who can pull smooth from start to shot. The main reason I like a long roll is the basis of shooting for me. I am a trigger control shooter. I am a firm believer that trigger control is by far the most importrant of all the fundamentals. Dare I say the only fundamental when it comes to pistol shooting. The sights on the gun are always aligned are they not and surely one can hold sight picture forever and a day until we pull the trigger. Hence that is why I pull the trigger before the eye sees what it wants to see. I use the pressure being applied to the trigger to steady the gun/sights. This is where I came up with the phrase using the trigger to align the sights. This can be done with a crisp trigger however I find it to be much easier if the trigger is actually moving to the rear. Looking forward to hearing some other takes on trigger control.




Quotes from Shooting Sports USA, May 2004.
From Champion GySgt Zins:


“”Trigger control is the most important skill you can develop. All other shooting skills are pretty much useless without proper trigger technique.””


“”You have to keep that trigger moving at all costs. As long as you keep it moving you’ll be okay. The constant movement on the trigger is crucial. Once you stop the rearward pressure on your trigger; that’s when all sorts of bad things start to happen.””


“Thinking too much about sight alignment” is to be avoided, the magazine states also of GySgt Zins.


“”Whenever I’m shooting, my sights are moving to some degree the entire time, but as long as I keep that trigger moving and my sights are on the target, I know my shot will break where I want it to,” said Zins. Confidence in shot placement comes with practice says Zins. “You can hold perfect sight alignment all day long, but if you don’t execute proper trigger control, it really doesn’t matter – who knows where the shot will fall?””


“Zins typically starts his trigger moving rearward before the sights are aligned. “I’ll actually use my trigger pull to align my sights,” says Zins, who added that he shoots a long-roll trigger.”






Many valid points brought up in this lengthy discussion on Dry Fire TRAINING, and lets call it training not practice. As we are not practicing to become better at dry firing, we are conducting a training exercise to get better at putting holes in the center of the target.


The one thing to keep in mind when conducting any training exercise is: What do we want to accomplish from this drill? That has to be a goal in every training exercise or you are wasting your time and spinning your wheels. When it comes to dry firing with the arm extended or in your
lap, both need to be done. There is no reason that the trigger would feel different because the arm is in your lap or in the air. When you dry fire with the gun in your lap all you are doing is learning what the trigger really feels like. When you bring the gun up you need to imitate the exact same feel of the trigger. If the trigger feels different than you need to evaluate what is going on with your grip and position. The gun in your lap takes out all the other variables that
come into play. Blank target/wall or target. Both are equally important and both need to be done. Blank wall allows one to see the sights without any other distraction. I.e.: the target. It allows you to really concentrate on what the sights are doing when the hammer falls. When using a target it allows you to evaluate your hold. On a blank wall you can not really tell if the whole gun is staying within your wobble area or not.




Once pressure is put on the trigger it cannot be allowed to stop until after the shot breaks. If you do stop you need to abort the shot, reset the trigger and start over from the beginning.






BZ The relationship between sight alignment and trigger control
Often when the fundamentals are explained these two are explained as two different acts. Well truth be told, it’s really kind of hard to accomplish one without the other. They have a symbiotic relationship. In order to truly settle the movement in the dot or sights you need a smooth steady trigger squeeze. Trigger control is merely a reaction to what the eye sees.
What? One can hold perfect sight alignment / sight picture for a long time. Now apply pressure to the trigger, what happens? Something moves right? So if this happens in a slow fire shot what typically happens? We stop squeezing until everything settles down again and we start the trigger. It moves. We stop the trigger. It settles. We start the trigger. It moves and so on and so on and so on. So from this we can see how the finger already acts to what the eye sees. We do not have to train the eye to accomplish this it already does it. We need to make it work for us and get the finger to react at a more opportune time. BEFORE we have obtained perfect sight alignment / sight picture. Yes I just said to start squeezing the trigger before you have obtained a perfect sight alignment / sight picture. Your sight alignment should be pretty close to perfect since we have mastered a perfect grip and the sights are aligned, not just to each other but also to the our eye, as soon as we raise the gun. Or we will master that soon. So before the sights or dot have settled into the center of the target we should start our trigger squeeze taking advantage of the pressure that is being applied to the trigger to help stabilize the sight. Continue to squeeze the trigger uninterrupted using that pressure to help move toward and stay center and allow the shot to break.
Said nothing about a surprise break. Not a big believer in the surprise break. Just being honest. I know when my gun is going to shoot. I know what it feels like right up until it shoots. I really know my trigger. I have done lots of dry firing without looking at the sights just to know what it feels like.
It has been called steering the sights with the trigger, but I don’t like the connotation that carries. More of a sight alignment/sight picture through trigger control concept.




When I took the clinic from Zins we talked about cadence. He said it was not a consideration. The important thing was hold, sights, and uninterrupted trigger pull.


You need to first understand what the trigger is for. The trigger is not there to merely make the gun go BANG. The trigger is there to help stabilize the sights. The 2 most important fundamentals
are sight aiming and trigger control. Not in that order. Aiming includes Sight Alignment and Sight Picture. The key to trigger control is that the trigger has to be moving to the rear before perfect sight PICTURE is acquired. If you have perfect sight picture and the trigger is not moving you will not want to move the trigger: hence chicken finger, because we know that if we start to squeeze the trigger now it will ruin the pretty picture you are looking at. Must be moving the trigger prior
to sight picture. Brian H. Zins


If you don't have perfect sight alignment, iron sight or dot, it is nearly impossible to ever be able to call your shot. You have to look at the whole sight picture and where the sights were when the shot broke.
Keeping in mind that if done properly the trigger finger was reacting to what the eye was seeing and thus allowing for a clean break. Don't confuse that with the old thought of "align the sights in the middle then squeeze the trigger."If you saw perfect sight picture then the trigger moved in response to that there is a real good chance that you pulled the shot out of the center of the aiming area. The trigger has got to have pressure building on it before you ever get close to having perfect sight picture.
Don't get wrapped up in calling your shots until you have developed excellent trigger control. If you are not moving the trigger to the rear before you get to the point of perfect sight picture than you are WAY behind on the trigger squeeze and will jerk the trigger.
Remember just about all of us can hold perfect sight picture for a long time. It's when try to hold perfect sight picture and apply pressure to the trigger that we screw things up. Trigger control is way more important than sight alignment. Use the pressure building on the trigger to stabilize the movement as you settle in the middle of your aiming area and allow the pressure to continue to build until the shot breaks. Being able to call your shots will come in time once you master trigger control.

BZ 2/11

Jerry Keefer wrote:

DavidR wrote:Im sure we all will be looking forward to that post Jerry!

Dave
I have to apologize at this point, I am unable to find that document...
Thought I had a hard copy, but can't put my hands on it... I saved it from Brian Zin's very early website/forum. About 8/10 years ago... It was titled "His Armorer"  or something  like that.. I recently threw out a bunch of old CD's.. I am beginning to think it was down loaded on one of those.. I have converted to thumb drives and never use a CD.. Duh ..Wish I had checked closer before discarding those old ones.. I'll keep looking..

No problem Jerry, thanks for looking.

I've talked to Brain a few times at Perry but why he liked "roll" never came up. I have talked to a number of top shooters and they feel the same as I that the roll trigger takes your mind off the trigger. In my case squeezing a crisp trigger from time to time seemed harder that it should have been (in my mind I'm sure) but thinking it's harder to pull than normal probably made if feel harder than it actually was! In timed or rapid fire there's not much time to waste thinking about trigger pull. When I use the "roll" trigger I feel it moving at that point my mind if off the the trigger and I concentrate on keeping the dot in the center of the black as best as I can. Yes my slow fire score went down when I first used the "roll" trigger but being that slow fire is only 1/3 of the total score the increase in points gained in timed and rapid (especially rapid) was far greater than the points lost in slow. After a while my slow fire score returned to where it was before switching to the "roll" trigger.

DavidR wrote:Many have talked about what they prefer, a roll trigger or a crisp trigger.... How about a discussion on how the style you use works for you, what you feel is the advantage of how it works over the other. Zins clinics push the roll as the best.. maybe someone who has attended his clinic can tell us why he feels this way is best.

I think a lot has to do with what a shooter becomes accustom to.. In the early days of PPC, ( back in the 70's) rubber pencil erasers were glued to either the back of the trigger, or the trigger guard. When the distance between the two was correctly adjusted, this afforded a very crude, two stage trigger feel. This modification, became spring loaded set screws or intricate set screws modified with neoprene inserts, so quick adjustments could be made.. I used these in various forms on my own guns, and guns for customers.. One thing I learned while shooting these configurations, was how I wanted my trigger, AND my finger to feel. I became very aware of how much the flesh on my finger would "compress" as an indication of the amount of force that was being applied to the trigger. The brain soon became "programmed" to "Flesh Compression", as I call it, and was very important, as all classes were not permitted the luxury of the elastic trigger stops.. Therefore, I am a proponent of the crisp trigger..focusing awareness on constantly increasing the compression on the meaty part of the finger..

Ahh, the pencil erasers. Man, was that old school!

james r chapman wrote:Ahh, the pencil erasers. Man, was that old school!

Old skool is using them for hearing protection. Knew a guy who used to do that, even into the '90s.

HUH???

john bickar wrote:

james r chapman wrote:Ahh, the pencil erasers. Man, was that old school!

Old skool is using them for hearing protection. Knew a guy who used to do that, even into the '90s.

HUH???

Yep: and don't cigarette filters...

Remember?

Oh yes... They also had a Des Moines, Iowa T-shirt with the shooter stretched out perpendicular to the barricade, hanging on with one arm, shooting with the other.. The winds at Des Moines made Perry winds look like a spring breeze. Those winds fostered the creation of Bill Davis' Wind Master revolver...Iowa can have some rough weather..

Well I learned a few more things along this topic this weekend, again I tried a very nice longer roll, I shot so many x's with it the week before in dry firing I must have used them all up
cause once I lined up on the target and started to pull the nice smooth roll turned into a game of riding the coaster till the shot broke, it seemed like it took forever! So im officially done with rolling triggers, im going back to what works for me, the crisp break. Also learned arched main springs are not my friend, they are gone too.

DavidR asked:maybe someone who has attended his clinic can tell us why he feels this way is best. 

I attended a Zins/Moody clinic a few years ago and this is from my notes from what Brian Zins said:

"Crisp/roll trigger – a roll trigger reduces gun movement during trigger break – think of moving a refrigerator,  you push and push harder till the refrigerator moves abruptly and everything on top of the fridge goes flying off.  Now put those slide pads under each corner of the fridge and push; it moves smoothly and everything on top of the fridge stays put."


I have roll triggers on all my 1911 bullseye guns (thanks Chuck Warner's TR jig)  and after a few years of shooting medium roll triggers I definitely  prefer them to a crisp trigger.  The Zins clinic or the roll trigger or alignment of the planets have resulted in 20 additional points shooting my Marvel.

Jerry Keefer wrote:

DavidR wrote:Im sure we all will be looking forward to that post Jerry!

Dave
I have to apologize at this point, I am unable to find that document...
Thought I had a hard copy, but can't put my hands on it... I saved it from Brian Zin's very early website/forum. About 8/10 years ago... It was titled "His Armorer"  or something  like that.. I recently threw out a bunch of old CD's.. I am beginning to think it was down loaded on one of those.. I have converted to thumb drives and never use a CD.. Duh ..Wish I had checked closer before discarding those old ones.. I'll keep looking..

FOUND IT..!!!!   Ran across it by accident... Written by a  marine armorer that did many of Brian's triggers..Even a standard crisp trigger can be challenging without the instruments to accurately gage and measure.. The 1911 is a very poor excuse for a match trigger system to begin with. If one studies the geometry,  there are several issues that are hard to overcome..

thanks
jerry, very informative!

My previous gun had a crisp trigger.  After a year break and new pistol I just purchased the KC trigger group.  So far my slow fires are suffering... not sure if its the fact that the trigger moves before the shot breaks... or because the trigger is shorter before it breaks due to the roll ( I have small hands and small fingers so trigger placement is a pain).  My timed and rapid scores are on par, score wise but the groups are tighter.  I'll will give the trigger a few more months, but I look into shortening the roll.

In my experience you have to have an incredibly good hold to shoot a longer roll. You'll tend to 2 group; centered group and low group. I like short roll. I can't feel it when squeezing confidently but feel it when I'm not as aggressive. It lets me know I'm really still squeezing the trigger.
Jon

I disagree that you need a good hold to shoot a long roll.  I have a terrible hold, but the roll helps me not try to yank a ten.  I just keep rolling while holding as still as I can.

I still think I can make master, even with my poor hold.  Crisp trigger for me is not good for proper trigger control.  When I put pressure on a crisp trigger, for me, the dot zooms in bad directions...I think it's because I can't feel it move until it breaks.

Just like Jon says, I need to feel the movement so I know I'm squeezing.

After just 100 rounds of 22 through my Nelson Conv. atop my Range Officer, I can definitely agree that a bit of roll helps prevent snatching shots.  Just had mine done by Dave Salyer.

I have been liking the roll trigger from KC more and more lately.  It almost feels like a 2 stage to me.  I can take up some of LBs and progress through the rest of the pull.

For me the best trigger is a very short roll, minimal over travel, minimal reset.
Thanks to all my Pardini's for having extremely adjustable triggers that let me find that out.

Yeah mine I would say is a medium roll?  I'm looking for a trigger shoe cause I think it will help with the travel.

Check eBay, Froneck makes nice ones.

Christopher Miceli wrote:Yeah mine I would say is a medium roll?  I'm looking for a trigger shoe cause I think it will help with the travel.

To give an idea of one method..
6061 Aluminum
I make a lot of trigger shoes, but not for general sales.. I cut the trigger face flat.. No curve.  That allows a flat straight groove in the back of the shoe for solid tight contact.. No rocking forces from the old style Ace type shoes. It also allows for a solid simple zero base line. Some shooters want several shoes to use for different lengths.  This shooter has exceptionally long fingers. This is the initial prototype which was later reduce by .060 .. He will shoot it for a while to see how it works.. Change is simple with the flat groove in the back.. The three screws mate with countersinks in the main shoe for a very secure fit. The radius is approx. .610 for the shoe face..

Froneck's are the best.  On eBay he goes by http://myworld.ebay.com/frank9647/. But as soon as he posts any he sells out.  Best bet is to look him up on this forum and contact him that way.  He is not the fastest but his are the best ones.  Worth the wait.

Chip