Tight grip or loose grip?

Hold it tight, but you've seen my shots

Good thread

Pretty tight, always with two hands.. dunno why, but seems to work.

It depends on the the throw wt of the arrow and the power on it. I have guns with little recoil and others that are a small car accident when they fire.
I'll post some pic this weekend....hangin all that stuff on the noble tree.;)

Cheers, Don

I do hold my right hand in the handle in relax style while my left hand hold at butt tight to control recoil and as well control aiming.

Quote from Nate

Pretty tight, always with two hands.. dunno why, but seems to work.

Im with Nate. I instinctively shoot my speargun weaver stance like its a pistol.

I try to do it one handed like everyone else seems to, but I cant break the habit. I only use one hand when Im holding onto the bottom.

Pretty relaxed. I know exactly how my guns kick and I only brace against that force. Less energy used.

A Greek speargun maker studied this and showed that a super tight grip is more accurate. I saw his presentation at The Blue Wild a few years back.

His data showed that right handers miss to the left, and lefties miss to the right. They attributed this to wrist flexion from recoil. The firmer grip decreased the extent of the lateral inaccuracy.

I believe this was with rail guns shot with one hand only.

C

Another roller gun advantage.

Quote from Dan

I don't agree but I like that someone else put thought into this.

You don't agree with the Greek scientific data?
C

Quote from Dan

I don't believe this can be studied "scientifically", there are too many variables. The least of which are how the gun is powered and balanced, never mind angle of shot and how much tracking was necessary to get there. When you watch professionally produced spearfishing videos, of all the very experienced guys, you never see anyone gripping the gun with two hands. Of course it's hard to state confidently from just watching how much tension is in the guy's hand, but they all appear very relaxed. And the handling of the gun after the shot looks familiar to me, so I must conclude they're doing what I'm doing. But to each their own.

GR uses two hands, one on the handle and one on the butt. And I don't know a better shooter than him. Anywhere.

The Greek gunmaker did extensive tank testing with multiple variables. I guess they found the discrepancy between lefties and righties and researched it further with grip pressure. He showed the improved precision with a tighter grip.

It was the most extensive research on all the multiple variables there are.

C

The data that the Greek study provided correlates with what is known about shooting firearms. When a right handed shooter shooting with only their right hand fires a pistol the recoil will cause the gun to move up and to the left because this is the path of least resistance. When gripping with only one hand the weakness of the grip is towards the fingers hence the the left recoil in a right handed shooter and the right recoil in a left handed shooter. Shooting with two hands can prevent this by supporting both sides of the pistol. The best way to prevent the muzzle jump is to bring the top of the hand as close to inline with the bore axis. This is seen in a lot of speargun designs as well. In "tactical" pistol shooting a tight grip is recommended for a couple reasons. The first is trigger control. When using a soft grip flexing ONLY the index finger can be tricky. The hand has a tendency to flex all of the fingers slightly. In pistol shooting this can throw off the shot ever so slightly. A tight grip can help this. If you dont believe me take your off hand and act as if you were gripping a gun. Now move your index finger as if you were pulling a trigger. Notice how your other fingers flinch. Now curl your middle, ring and pinky fingers tightly into your palm and repeat and notice the differences. The other big advantage of the tight grip is it prevents the pistol from being knocked out of your hand in a combat scenario. Obviously you wont be worried about someone knocking the gun out of your hand but a firm grip can also steady your aim to some degree.

Now the above is in regards to pistol shooting but I believe that it has some impact on a speargun. Controlling muzzle flip and recoil on some spearguns is very important. Others have a very smooth recoil and arent as wild. I personally have noticed that if I dont make an effort to really control the recoil of one of my guns I have a tendency to hit a little high. Now in a speargun you have a much longer barrel and a much more viscous medium so the tiniest of movements arent as detrimental but on long shots it may be the difference in a solid hit and a tear out.

Another variation from pistol shooting is the variety of shot scenarios that will be performed while spearfishing. To me this is the biggest factor of how I grip the weapon. If I am holding onto the bottom I will obviously be shooting with one hand. How firm my grip is depends on what I am shooting at. On long shots or in open water (not shooting into a hole) I prefer a firm grip to limit recoil. If I am shooting into a hole I will use a looser grip. The reason being that I dont want to injure my wrist if the gun kicks back when the shaft hits a rock. This is especially true for an enclosed track gun where you almost have to pull the gun back as you shoot to prevent ripping up the track.

Another scenario involves a mid-water shot where both hands are free. I prefer the two handed grip because thats how I shoot a pistol and it is very instinctive as I have lots of practice doing this and it works. Sometimes depending on the gun or the angle I might have one hand on the grip and the other on the back of the gun to prevent getting smacked in the face.

In general I would say it boils down more to preference and the scenario than it does to which one is ultimately most accurate. I would say there are many more influential factors that grip as long as you know how your gun performs with different grips. I also hadnt considered how "aggressive" the two handed approach might seem.

And just for clarification what I am describing as firm is a little harder than a normal handshake, with loose being how you would shake a woman's hand and tight being trying to break your buddies fingers. Sorry this got kinda lengthy.

You guys are killing me. How will I ever relax in the water with all this to think about.. there goes my breath-hold:laughing:

Good thing you have about two minutes to spare before your in the normal range.

:laughing:

9 out of 10 orthodontist recommend a tight grip.

Haha. Really depends on the gun ....