Having the ability and being able to shoot (quickly) while using your pistol’s sights is VERY IMPORTANT!
I’ve had extensive experience with this type of shooting; and, quite frankly, I’m very good at it. I’m going to offer you several important observations about combat pistol shooting:
(1) If you don’t regularly practice, or haven’t been regularly practicing, point shooting, and aren't already possessed of well trained proprioceptive reflexes then my suggestion would be for you NOT to attempt to rely upon point shooting, successfully, the next time (the first time?) you ‘
go up to bat ’.
(2) I’ve done this a great many times in a wide variety of different pistol competitions and practice sessions: IDPA, IPSC, PPC — Whatever! My experience and personal observations have been that at 3.5 yards' distance most pistoleros are able to point shoot successfully, and put all of their shots into a target’s -0/-1 zones.
(3) At 5 yards' distance those who can start to become separated from those who cannot. At 5 yards many shooters will either look, or start to look at their pistol sights.
(4) At 7-8 yards' distance very few, even well-practiced, pistol shooters will NOT look at their sights.
(5) At 10-12 yards' distance, I’d say, 85% to 90% of the people who shoot pistols are unable to point shoot successfully, and need to use their pistol sights.
Because your own emphasis seems to be on self-defense, I’m going to suggest you keep the following advice in mind: The closer you are to the target, then, the closer the target is going to be to you. (Profound, huh!) CONSEQUENTLY, the sooner you’re able to confidently move your gun hand, and the farther you are away from the target when you begin to make accurate hits, then, the greater your own chances of personal survival are going to be.
Trust me on this! You don’t want to be ‘
duking it out’, toe-to-toe, while attempting to rely upon your unpracticed (or only infrequently practiced) point shooting skills. I’m an older man, too. If you think you need new glasses then, do what I do, and have your eyes checked once a year. If you’ve got cataracts or, maybe, ‘
incipient cataracts’ then make arrangements to have them removed.
As I said: I’ve done a lot of this. You’re going to need to pay attention, stay alert, and don’t allow yourself to become snookered, or to walk into a possible CQB ambush. If you think you should draw sooner rather than later then, maybe, you should!
As for adrenalin rushes? I have friends and associates who’ve had them; and I’ve been able to study their reactions; but I, myself, have never experienced this phenomenon. Then again, my initial reaction has always been to fight rather than to flee; and, with over 40 years of martial arts training, I’ve learned how to fight with a perfectly ‘
cold mind ’ and to shoot with what Israeli Mossad instructors are now calling ‘
third eye aiming’ techniques.
(‘
Third eye aiming’ is, kind ‘a like, what Americans think of as traditional point shooting, but, on steroids; and the only way you’re going to learn the technique is to, first, be aware that it exists and, then, to practice, practice, practice!)
