Thugs hold their pistols sideways?

It only really works with a machine pistol - Mauser 712, for example. With that hold, you could spray a room pretty well.
As for facial injuries from brass - I've been hit with a few hot .45 cases in the head, doesn't hurt much more than getting gravel thrown up at you or sticks and acorns from a lawnmower.

The thug method works just fine for any scumbag trying to shoot at me! I prefer that they hold it that way!

Hope they don't catch on....

Brass in the face is unpleasant, but not damaging.

Im glad they dont know how to shoot, just like the muslims in the middle-east.

I think "works best" is a bit positive. I think "sucks the least" is probably more accurate.

I've tried gangsta style shooting just for fun/ curiosity... I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn door.

RE Thugs hold their pistols sideways

I does depend on the weapon. Most weapons will be ineffective. However that depends alot on distance. If you are 10ft away this may work. Also it depends on the shooters skill. I have witnessed an LA County Sherrif do this at 20 yards with an M1911.

I guess holding the gun sideways is "viewed" as "phat" kinda like wearing a hat tilted to the side like or wearing baggy bants or saying "izzle".

Talking about brass to the face:

I was instructing my brother to shoot my .45 from a weaver stance. He hadn't had much experience shooting a handgun. It might have been his first time. The very first shot he took, he limp wristed. The brass came back and hit him right between the eyes. He paused and had this bewildered look on his face. Later he said that for a brief moment he thought the brass was the bullet ricocheting back and hitting him in the head. He paused, because for a few milliseconds he thought his brain had exited the back of his skull and that he was dead. He was waiting blackness to overtake him. Or maybe the light or something. Brass to the face can happen in weaver as well as gangsta.

BRASS HAPPENS.

medula, ive heard this story before. the way i heard it was that some militaries see americans doing this in film and on tv and think that its a newer way to shoot and it works so well for us or we wouldnt be doing it.

might have been a joke, i donno. its just what ive heard.

yup!

Geronimo 45

Where did you learn that you can hold a Mauser Pistol that way and be more effective? Would it not then work with any type of pistol? Is this some sort of Metal Gear thing?

The simple fact of the matter is if you align the sights properly you can shoot upside down and hit your target. Obviously range will come into play eventually but for short ranges say up to 25 yards as long as your sights are aligned the cant of the pistol shouldnt matter.

Tecumseh - The Mauser 712 is/was a full-auto variant of the C96, or Broomhandle Mauser. Holding it sideways reputedly caused the recoil to pull it to the side rather than up. The technique would in theory work with any machine pistol, but the Mauser is one of the few such guns used much in warfare, and it has a high bore axis, which magnifies the effect.

"Medula Oblongata I attended a civilian firearms training class in Israel a few years ago where the instructors where showing women and old people an easy way to rack the slide on a pistol, by holding it sideways in the gang banger fashion.

Since they already had it there, the instructor had them fire from that position. He told me that is the way Israeli citizens are taught to shoot a pistol for self-defence.

Call me a liar if you want, but I saw it with my own two eyes."


I believe you, well as much as I believe anything on the internet... In my class the instructor explained that the origins were from the Russians. As you probably know the Russians took olympic pistol shooting seriously, and every 4 years they would invent a new pistol or technique. and win, and the olympics would ban that pistol. So they'd then invent another new thing, and another.

Well I was told that one olympics the Russians come and they all hold their pistols canted slightly off vertical. It seems that it's more ergonomic for the wrist to sit that way. Our teacher suspected hollywood saw that, and then with usual exaggeration ran with it.

However another guy told me that in Austria (internet...) they teach aircrew to fire their Glocks canted off vertical 1-handed, to recover from recoil faster.

Plus is you're doing the Israeli draw, why not start firing asap? Part of racking the slide is pushing the muzzle towards the target anyway, right?

1911's, held properly, have often hit my head with ejected brass, I heve even had a couple of crescent shaped cuts that bled a good bit.

I was waiting for a Metal Gear Solid 3 reference and the Birdman thing the moment I saw the title of this thread.

Sigint: "Snake, you said EVA said her Mauser was a Type 17, right?"
Snake: "Yeah. What about it?"
Sigint: "That model was produced in the 1920's in a weapons lab in the Shanxi
Province in China. The cartridge part sticks out lower than the
original to accommodate .45 caliber rounds. The barrel and chamber are
a little bit thicker, too. But most of all, it's got Chinese characters
engraved on both sides of the frame, like you saw. And that firing
stance EVA was talking about where you hold the gun horizontally -
that's a trademark of the Chinese. Just like you were saying, when
you're firing in full-auto mode, the muzzle-jump effect gives you a
horizontal strafing motion. They say it's especially deadly in indoor
and close range mop-up actions. The Japanese call it 'Bandit Shooting'
and used to dread it. Makes you wonder where she learned to shoot like
that."

Click to expand...

On the brass front, I have a P22 that's sort of becoming notorious for throwing brass everywhere. I've had brass go two feet to the right, ten feet to the right, flip over the gun and land on the left, go over my head, hit me in the face, and once it went backwards far enough to hit the RO square between the eyes. Meanwhile, if you held the same stance you could probably get all of my PX4's brass to land in a strategically placed Dixie cup on the ground.

I agree. Brass happens.

My take on the "thug hold" is that it makes you appear that you are just pointing a stick at someone rather than a gun. If you see it from a distance.
Thus, it confuses eyewitnesses say in a shooting.
If you hold a handgun the proper way, it is unmistakable what you are holding. But the "thug hold", observed from a distance, you are unsure what is being pointed.

Medula, I believe that may have grown from the Israeli method of racking the slide by canting the gun 90 degrees to the left (ala gansta style) and pushing the grips forward with strong arm while pull back slide with weak-side hand.

I don't, however, believe they do any training with the gun fired from this same position. It just provides increased leverage for racking the slide.

Also works very well for those with weaker hands - many times we are instructed to 'pull back the slide' but rarely to 'push foward with strong-side' at the same time.

David.

Well, *I* heard that the gangsta hold-it-sideways stance was because if you're carjacking someone, holding the pistol that way makes it easier to get in through a partially-rolled-up window.

It is easyer to take an auto pistol from condition 3 to condition 1 while holding the pistol sideways.

However it is harder to hit somthing with the pistol held that way during firing.

I think the gangsters picked it up indapendantly from the Issy tecnique, just because it is perceived as cool.

I've heard from several places that the Israelis carry thier pistol with a chamber empty - and the "gangsta hold" helps them rack the slide. I heard this before the "technique" became fashionable so I believe it.
I don't know if they shoot in this position.
Maybe the gangs want people to believe they are trained by Mossad?


For those of you who have tried this, how does it recoil? My guess would be still up for a revolver, and up and to the side for the semi? I can't see the recoil going sideways, no matter which way it is held, but I may be wrong.

SWAT entry men who carry impact shields usually hold their handgun sideways. I guess for them it is easier to hold out and control. Otherwise I have no idea why they would do that...

Lucky, it really is more ergonomic. If you hold your had rotated vertically (Accepted Method) the bones of the forearm are not in natural alignment. Somewhere between vertical and horizontal is most natural. Not necessarily better for shooting, but more comfortable.

Last thug that pointed a loaded gun at me , was not holding it sideways.
In fact he was even using both hands.

Sideways? Since I do not own a TV and have not Seen a Movie in sometime, this must be a new "GeeWhiz" Fad.


Now I DO test my Firearms and Myself , as I was taught to do by persons qualified to instruct, and had been shot at, shot back and killed enemies and all.

Firearms and Me tested by shooting with both hands, both hands strong, both hands weak, strong hand only, weak hand only, laying on back and having to shoot in front, to both sides, and back over my head and thru all this the gun is shot with port up, port down, upside down and just about any angle you can think of.

One may find themselves on the ground, shot, cut and having to defend in all sorts of postitions, and the gun had better feed, extract in all these positions too.

TVs are just something to take up room, and have to bedusted and vacuumed under and around anyway...

--

Oh I have to give the thug credit that was trying to shoot me. He at least knew to rack the slide, clear a jam and try again...
...witnesses said he kept doing that...
...I was kinda busy doing my thing. Evading , surviving without engaging and some other stuff to see him actually keep doing this thing.

Maybe this thug and his friends do not have a TV, have a computer, or go to movies, Maybe they learned to shoot with instruction, on the street or in Cell College, or both.

Cemetaries are full of dead heros.
Cemetaries are full of folks that think Reality & The Streets are just like TV, Movies and Internet Scuttlebutt.

Cemetaries have plenty of openings still...
The downpayment is pretty steep I hear, and the daily payments to families and friends are painful for a long long time...

Arcane origin of the "gangsta hold".

The origins go back to early 1970's when emerging Rap music and old Chinese Kung Fu movies were 'fused' in cheapo New York City movie theaters. Early Chinese Kung Fu movies included versions of Horse Westerns where Heros roamed the badlands of post-1911's China armed with swords and Broomhandle Mausers saving villagers in distress. The typical firing of a Broomhandle was "gangsta style" in order to: 1. allow a horizontal spread of bullets on full auto, and 2) to prevent brass ejection into one's head. (If anyone gets a chance, they're quite entertaining.)

Kung Fu movies had a great influence on emerging Rap musicians in NYC, emulation of the Gangsta hold slowly spread underground until it made it's way to Hollywood.

Those with time and inclination should look into original emergence of Rap music scene in NYC and influence of Kung Fu movies on the rappers.