Glock trigger guard?

[Knightshift]

Kinda new to handguns so I wonder why Glocks have that shape on the front of the trigger guard. It looks to me like it's meant to rest the index finger there but never see anyone with a grip like that. Well I happen to put my index there on my M&Ps. I morphed to this grip when learning to shoot my Shield. It just seemed to help the muzzle flip for me. I press back to oppose the web of my strong hand that is pressing forward. I now use that grip on my full size too. Or is it shaped that way to accommodate lasers or lights etc. Trying to learn something new every day.

[dkf]

I don't know officially what the thinking is. The curve and texture in front of the trigger guard seems to indicate it is to wrap a finger from the support hand around it. Some guys do that, some don't. I don't myself. Some guys smooth the trigger guard down and round it.

[27hand]

It was a design used by a Smith that built custom 1911's.
In order to differentiate his pistols from others, he made his trigger guard in a squared off design as opposed to a rounded, curved guard.
I don't remember the details of whose actual design it was nor do I remember the how or why Glock incorporated it.

A professional trainer I took a class from enlightened the class on why Glock had this design.
It was never intended to be used to grip the pistol during firing. The strong hand should wrap around the grip.
The support hand should be angled down on a 45 degree angle and meld into the grip giving as much contact to the grip as possible to stabilize the pistol during firing.

Other techniques are taught but most trainers I've had generally teach the same basic grip varying a bit on thumb placement.

[Ricochet]

Ive only used the curved and textured trigger-guard on the Glock (Sig has it too) when training in extremely close quarter shooting.
If the target is almost up against you and you draw and fire, you want to make sure the off hand is nowhere near the muzzle.
So I just made it a habit of shooting that way ONLY in CQB training.

But that's just a personal preference that works for me and keeping all my fingers intact.

[Knightshift]

Thanks for info 27hand. It does make distinctive.

[JDA58]

it was needed to make Glocks Perfecter

[Noah_Zark]

Thanks for info 27hand. It does make distinctive.

Distinctive, maybe. But not exclusive.

Back in the day (late 1970s and through the 1980s into the 90s), there was a belief that the front of the triggerguard was the place to put the offhand index finger for stability. This was way before the current "weak hand wraps strong hand" which is all the rage (and it works, too). So the list of semiauto pistols with "finger rest" triggerguards includes:

Glocks
CZ75/85
Beretta 92F, 92FS and 96FS
Some S&Ws and Rugers
SIG P220, P225/P6, P229

Read firearm magazine articles from the 1980s and you'll see most if not all of the gun writers putting the weak index finger on the serrated rest on the front of the triggerguard. Some writers would bemoan the lack of a triggerguard finger rest if a particular handgun lacked that feature. The few writers who did not employ the triggerguard finger rest were solidly in the Weaver stance camp, and the magazine article photos showed it.

Noah

[Carnes]

It's not intended as a place for the support hand index finger when firing. Or, if it was, that practice was not found to be among the best practices.

I'd say that as a combat/self-defense weapon the additional knurled surface on the face of a concave trigger guard provides a more fire-ready secure purchase on the weapon when picking it up off a flat surface with the firing hand after recovering from an oh-shit moment where the weapon is the best option available after it departed from positive operator control and it is most redily re-accessed by the firing hand under duress.

Or, mebby it was aesthetic choice that led a lot of tacticool folks to wrap rationality around it.

The curve of the fender on your car is there because it looks cool, or because the focus group suggested that you would think it is more economical due to the appearance of sophisticated aerodynamics or some such thing.

I'm guessing that if, by this time, no one has arrived at the definitive answer to why the trigger guard is like that, then it was aesthetics. Someone gave the engineering team specs, and they came back with a variety of options, some of which looked cooler than others.

But then again, it could be for any proposed reason above. The world may never know.

Part of the absurd inflation of the selling price of many art objects is a direct result of uncertainty about the artists intent, combined with the debate among the 'experts' regarding the same.

[27hand]

It's not intended as a place for the support hand index finger when firing. Or, if it was, that practice was not found to be among the best practices.

I'd say that as a combat/self-defense weapon the additional knurled surface on the face of a concave trigger guard provides a more fire-ready secure purchase on the weapon when picking it up off a flat surface with the firing hand after recovering from an oh-shit moment where the weapon is the best option available after it departed from positive operator control and it is most redily re-accessed by the firing hand under duress.

Or, mebby it was aesthetic choice that led a lot of tacticool folks to wrap rationality around it.

The curve of the fender on your car is there because it looks cool, or because the focus group suggested that you would think it is more economical due to the appearance of sophisticated aerodynamics or some such thing.

I'm guessing that if, by this time, no one has arrived at the definitive answer to why the trigger guard is like that, then it was aesthetics. Someone gave the engineering team specs, and they came back with a variety of options, some of which looked cooler than others.

But then again, it could be for any proposed reason above. The world may never know.

Part of the absurd inflation of the selling price of many art objects is a direct result of uncertainty about the artists intent, combined with the debate among the 'experts' regarding the same.

Here is a copy and paste from another forum posted by a user named AJohnston on ar15.com.
It falls in line with what my trainer told us but I can not definitively say how correct or knowledgeable this poster was.


[quote] I’d be very interested in seeing the gun too. The squared trigger guard was very in vogue during the ’60, ’70, and most of the ’80. The modification originated out of the competitions that Jeff Cooper used to organize in Big Bear California. These same competitions being the preface to what is now IPSC. Many shooters used to place their index finger of the support hand on the trigger guard (a practice that is now recognized mostly as bad from) and the squared and often checkered trigger guard was a modification preformed to enhance ones grip on that area. As far as I know Swenson was one of the first (if not the first) pistolsmiths to due this on a wide scale. One will also find them on other makers guns of that era..... Pachmayer Combat Specials, Hoag, early Heinie guns, etc [quote]

[TooBigToFit]

I could be wrong about this, because I couldn't find an exact source for it, but I remember hearing it or reading it somewhere. But there may be a number of features on the Glock and many other foreign imported handguns that are added simply to add "points" to the gun to allow it for import. The trigger guard shape and texturing may or may not be one of those (maybe they count as a part of "target grips" that adds 5 points). I am fairly certain that this is one of the reasons why the Springfield XDS came with the sights that it did, and many people point to the Glock's thumb scoop for the same reason.

For those of you who don't know, pistols imported into the US must meet certain criteria to be considered importable. These criteria are given by the ATF as a point system. Basically you need to have 75 or more points to be able to import the gun (which is why some Glocks haven't been imported into the US). I believe it arose as a part of the Gun Control Act of 1968 in response to concealable evil guns like the Walther PPK (which I believe fails by one point, and hence the existence of the PPK/S). It's kinda neat, and more importantly, a reminder of how silly our gun laws are in the US...

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/fo...apons/download