Much ado has been made of the Smith and Wesson’s M&P having a less distinct reset than what many 1911 and Glock shooters are used to. This particularly bothers those who have been trained to “shoot to reset” between shots. This has never particularly bothered me and here is why:

For those who are not familiar (or may need a quick refresher), most basic pistol courses teach shooters to “reset” the trigger between shots as part of the follow through process. I look back to my Basic Academy training way back in the day, which taught shooters to hold the trigger to the rear, realign the sights, and then slowly release the trigger until they feel a distinct click. Then they can begin preparing for the next shot.

I feel this is a good way to teach beginning shooters how the pistol’s disconnector works, and the concept of how the trigger resets. Unfortunately, shooters need to move beyond this technique as problems arise when utilizing the technique under any sort of time pressure. What almost always happens, is the shooter takes way too long to slowly reset the trigger to the reset point and then rushes through the shot when pressing the trigger again. The important part of the process is controlling that trigger such that it is pressed straight to the rear without affecting the alignment of the sights (or position of the gun.) This is also the part that should be getting the most time.

Therefore, it would be much better time management, if you are trying to make multiple accurate shots in a compressed time frame, to reset the trigger as quickly as possible, and take the time you need when pressing the trigger. Not the other way around.

The fastest way I have found to reset the trigger is to do it quickly during the recoil stroke, and not to try to find that exact magic point where the trigger is reset. Instead, I go past the reset point during recoil and then prep the trigger for the next shot by taking all the slack out of the trigger and already beginning to add additional pressure on the trigger. This takes practice, but it will help you treat every shot as an individual event, even under speed.

The video above was seen on our Facebook page, but you can now see how this technique works at speed. With the aid of a high speed camera, and the mad video editing skills of Mike Hughes at Next Level Training, we are able to see how the trigger is pressed, reset and then prepped for then next shot even when shooting at speed. Every one of these shots landed in the A-zone of the IPSC target. I slowed down enough to see a sight picture with every shot and tried to control the trigger enough to get acceptable accuracy for each shot.

Try it on the range and see for your self. Reset fast. Prep the trigger hard, and then control the trigger to the rear.