Concealed carry firearms are lighter and smaller than full sized carry guns which makes it much more difficult to control the recoil. We’re going to use three very popular Smith & Wesson handguns as examples. 

A Smith & Wesson J-frame revolver, that has a double action trigger, and is hammerless. A Smith & Wesson Bodyguard, chambered in .380, that’s very easy to conceal, and then the popular, also easy to conceal, Smith & Wesson M&P Shield.

A bad grip on any of these guns is not only going to make it difficult to shoot accurately, but also to control the recoil. Now a great way to practice your grip is to do this at home without any ammunition around. 

The first thing you want to do is bring your strong hand into play. You want to get it nice and high along the back of the gun like so, and you want to eliminate any space along the grip with your hand, and that’s going to help you control from the rear.

Now I’m going to switch sides here and show you the rest. You want to bring your support hand into play, and in doing that you want to put the index finger of your support hand, place it along the bottom of the trigger guard, wrap your fingers around like so.  

Now notice where my left hand thumb is. It’s right along the frame of the gun, and that’s for two reasons.

It’s going to help me control recoil and it’s also going to be sure I don’t have my thumb behind the back of the slide, because that could be a bad thing.

The last thing you want to pay attention to is how your hands come together. If you have any space here the gun is going to recoil a lot more. So you want to tighten up and make sure you eliminate any space between your thumb and your hand.

Now let's talk about the revolver. I want to get a good high grip on the back of the revolver just like I would with the semi auto, but the difference is where I’m going to put my thumbs.

With a semi-auto I placed it along the frame just like this, and I don’t want to do that with a revolver because I don’t want to interfere with how the cylinder works, and I could possibly get burned. 

So the technique that I like to use is called a thumb over thumb technique. And I’m going to bring my left hand thumb and wrap it around my right hand thumb just like so. 

Now how hard do you grip the gun?  Well that all depends on how powerful the caliber is. So I like to get a good firm grip with my strong hand, and then I pinch with my left hand so that I have both hands working together.

Now, let's talk about trigger finger placement because that’s something that is often overlooked when we are talking about grip. Ideally, you want to have the full pad of your trigger finger on the face of the trigger.

By only placing the tip of finger on the trigger you may not have enough strength to pull the trigger straight back to the rear. Add a little bit more on the trigger and you can pull it back consistently and smoothly.

You want to practice your grip and your trigger finger placement on the gun at home without any ammunition. Try it over again, make adjustments as necessary and then you’ll be ready to head to the range.