Somebody explain this to me , please.

Point Shooting is not the most important handgun skill. Its not even a necessary one.

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How so?

Tomorrow I'm stating to teach a couple neighbor ladies to shoot.
I'll teach them point shooting, laser shooting, light shooting, long range pistol shooting, etc, AFTER they can shoot accurately and fast using the iron sights.

sqlbullet said:

They were interviewing an IPSC top dawg. If I recall correctly he was quoted to the effect that you can teach accuracy to a fast shooter, but not speed to an accurate shooter.

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I suspect he was misquoted or you misremembered. Shooting for speed without first mastering accuracy leads to missing very fast. It's not a very useful skill. Brian Enos, probably the top thinker in IPSC, places great emphasis on shooting for accuracy. Bullseye type accuracy.

At the distances where point shooting would help gain you that extra 1/10 or MAYBE 2/10s on the first shot, you don't need to train to do it. Most people have the kinesthetic awareness necesary for COM shots that close. Untrained criminals shoot people all the time that close up without using the sights.

The quickest way to put mupltiple rounds ON TARGET (because no handgun is a proven one shot stopper) is use of the sights. You MAY get that first shot off 1-2 tenths of a second quicker by only bringing the gun up 1/2 to 3/4 of the way and point shooting the first round, but I'd rather practice always bringing it up to my eyes and KNOW my rounds are hitting their intended target rather than hoping they are because its pointed in the right direction. By using the sights, you can dump a whole magazine at speed and KNOW if your rounds are hitting center of mass, extremities, or missing...and make corrections.

+1 on Brian Enos. He has done more useful experimentation and thinking about how to shoot fast effective rounds than anyone.

In my experience both point shooting and sighted shooting have their places in the combat-type shooting arena, depending on the size, distance and speed of movement of your target. That having been said, I am a strong advocate of learning fundamentals before moving on to the high speed drills. I found that by practicing sighted shooting, you develop the muscle memory that allows you to put your weapon on target accurately without relying on your sights at close ranges. Point shooting develops a different skill set, but I believe my shot groupings benefit greatly by practicing aimed shooting.

Besides, if your wounded BG runs away 25 yds then turns, seeks cover and tries to start up the firefight again, the importance of the fundamentals those aimed shooting sessions developed suddenly becomes VERY apparent!

We have different definitions and understanding of point shooting.

My understanding of point shooting is to always bring the weapon up to my line of sight and always to extend my arms as though I am lining up the sights. Even if I don't have the ability/time to get a full sight picture.

As far as not needing to practice, that isn't something I'm willing to buy into. Humans are not going to rise to the occasion. We are known to fall back onto our most rudimentary training. The more training I have, the more support I have to fall back on. If I haven't practiced it, my body won't automatically know how to do it.

I can say that I use both aimed fire and point shooting when I shoot USPSA. Anything closer than 5 yards is point shot, anything beyond is aimed fire.

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Don't shoot USPSA but do a lot of "close quarters drill" practice when I can. No time for sights when the target is at contact distance. Out past 15 ft or so, THEN I have time for the sights.

We have different definitions and understanding of point shooting.

My understanding of point shooting is to always bring the weapon up to my line of sight and always to extend my arms as though I am lining up the sights. Even if I don't have the ability/time to get a full sight picture.

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This too is my definition of point shooting. If you are discussing shooting from a low retention position (2) or partial extension (3) as point shooting, then I don't use that method in competition. Up close and personal within grappling distance, yes, emphatically.

RMD

Yes, low retention is very useful when distances close to within a few feet / contact.

By HM2PAC and your definition, rduckwor, point shooting offers little to no advantage over a "flash sight picture", which by my definition is an awareness of the alignment of the sights without the traditional focus on the front sight, with a more general focus, even a target focus THROUGH the sights.

I never have gotten the entire point shootin thing. There are sights on the gun for a reason. And of course if the gun is pointed in the right direction then its pointed but back to a little seriousness I totally agree you have to learn to use the sights first.

Ultimately, you do what works for you. During dog-training exercises, my right-handed father tosses live pigeons with his left hand and drops them on the same spot on the ground to ensure that each dog gets the same test, time after time, with a shotgun braced on his right hip. I can do just about that well by bringing the shotgun up to my shoulder, but I occasionally miss. My dad doesn't, but he has also done this several times per week for years, putting a hundred rounds or more through his shotgun every month, while I do it once in a blue moon. He does what works for him, I do what works for me. I wish I could do what he does, but in the meantime I'll need to continue doing what I can actually achieve.

Same thing goes for handguns. There are folks on this forum who can probably circumcise a gnat with a .44 at 50 yards, but I'm not one of them. I can drop a quail on the wing at 30 yards with a 20-gauge in about a second, but I'm still working on putting 2 rounds of .38 Special into center-mass at 5 yards in 2 seconds. I'm a lot better than I was six months ago, but in the combat simulation room I don't remember seeing the sights at all. I did hit the bad guy several times -- maybe that was point shooting, but I'm more inclined to think it was dumb luck. Luck in stress situations is generally prefaced by "bad," and Murphy always shows up, so I'm working on phasing out the luck component. I may get to the point, several thousand rounds from now, where the sights are less important, but for now they're my only effective guide to where that tiny chunk of lead will end up, so I have to shoot more slowly than I'd like in order to achieve the desired goal.

I suspect he was misquoted or you misremembered.

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March/April '06 American Handgunner pg. 32 Department "Better Shooting" working title "Fast First" quotes Max Michel of the United States Army Markmanship Unit as follows:

“The first quality I look for is speed, I don’t mind if a newcomer [to the USAMU] is a bit out of control, shooting Ds and misses. It’s much easier to teach accuracy to a fast shooter than to get a slow shooter to speed up.”

In that column, author Dave Anderson also self-references the same column in the May/June 1998 edition of American Handgunner:

“the best practical shooters are those who started out shooting fast. The young shooters to watch are the classic ‘first place or no place’ types, the ones who start out going faster than anyone else, often with a lot of misses. [When they] learn accuracy and discipline ... you get one of the great champions.”

It is important to note that Max also is quoted later as teaching that "sights are like a speedometer. You shoot as fast as you can see an acceptable sight picture.” and that your accuracy goal should be "between 90- and 95-percent A-zone hits. Misses and D-zone hits are unacceptable."

While looking for this reference to defend my memory, I also ran in to a comment about Doug Koenig being all speed when he came to IPSC. Now he is one of the most accurate shooters in the sport, "and he is still fast".

It appears that these pro's advocate learning to shoot fast first, then adding in skill and discipline with sight picture to regulate absolute speed. I am not sure how I feel about that, but it is hard to argue with the success of Max Michel and Doug Koenig.

I'm curioius to know if they were "all speed" just coming into IPSC, or if they were all speed from the first time they picked up a gun. I find it hard to believe they didn't learn basic shooting doing bullseye and instead skipped straight to run-and-gun courses. I think they probably WORKED on their accuracy alot AFTER getting fast, but still started their basic shooting life with slow fire.

No idea, and the article really doesn't say.

However, these types of articles would certainly induce the novice to engage in speed shooting/point shooting before and above learning fundamentals like trigger control and sight picture.

I think there is a big difference between NOT being able to teach speed to slow shooters, which is what you stated, versus fast shooters being easier to teach, which is what Max Michel said. Still, you are correct that he appears to favor speedy shooters and he has a lot of success to back him up.

I think speed versus accuracy is a false choice though. As Brian Enos would say, all shooting is lining up the sights and pulling the trigger. Nothing more. If you let the sights dictate your shots, you will naturally speed up as you progress. I suspect fast shooters might be easier to teach because they are always pushing, where the slow shooters are often stuck... they are slow because they are shooting by rote, not letting the sights dictate their shots.

Why has point shooting become seen as another way to use a handgun?

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Because a similar (possibly the same) group of people were yelling for years prior that point-shooting was dead and absolutely, utterly, unequivocally useless in every situation anyone could ever encounter at any time in human history now and forevermore. People like that switch from one extreme to another. Now, point shooting is the only way to go, only sissies use sights, real men use blindfolds to shoot... etc. Ray Charles may be their newest patron saint of handgunnery.
Such people are best left to their own devices, where they may very likely kill themselves with their own fireworks.