Thumb cocking

[Teancum]

When shooting a pistol with two hands and engaging multiple targets an a stage, is there a method that is more preferred/efficient/fast when thumb cocking? Do most use their gun hand or support hand thumb to cock? It feels a bit more comfortable for me to use my support hand, but it causes my grip to seem a bit akward. Comments?

Thanks

[Doc Shapiro]

The quick answer is that you are basically supporting and squeezing the trigger with your strong hand, then providing minimal support and cocking the gun with your off hand.

[hellgate]

It is SSSOOOOoooooo much faster & more accurate to use the "weak" thumb to cock and hold the gun firmly with the strong (regular) hand. I normally shoot duelist but if I have/need/or am allowed to use two hands the strong hand thumb just hangs on and the weak/support hand does the cocking. Watch a few videos or photos of CAS matches and you'll see that virtually all two handed shooters use the "off" hand to do the thumbing.

I only know of one guy who does NOT use the supporting hand to thumb to cock his gun: he uses the supporting hand INDEX FINGER 'cause the thumb got blown off!

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

Interesting question.

When I bought my first Double Action revolvers, back around 1975 or so, when shooting two handed, I always used my strong hand thumb to cock the hammer, not my weak hand thumb. That's just the way I did it. I didn't read it anywhere, and I didn't have any formal pistol training, it's just the way I started doing it. At this time, speed was not an issue at all, I was just cocking the hammer for another single action shot, and it seemed logical to me to use the strong hand to do most of the work of holding the gun, pulling the trigger, and cocking the hammer. Again, no logic, it's just what I started doing.

Fast forward about 20 years and imagine my surprise when I start shooting Cowboy and I see all these guys cocking the hammer with the other thumb!

Now in truth, the only time I've ever fired a pistol 2 handed in CAS was my very first match. I've always shot duelist ever since, so it doesn't really matter to me. But old habits are hard to break, and to this day, when I'm shooting my Smiths at the range, just for recreation, sometimes it's one thumb that does the work, sometimes it's the other.

[Marshal Will Wingam]

I agree with Doc S & Hellgate. I've tried both ways and the way they recommend is much faster & more accurate. It seemed awkward to me for a very short time (maybe a couple matches) but now I wouldn't do it any other way, even with a DA.