do you plan for a "dead" arm?

[frogomatic]

somthing occured to me the other day when I woke up and my arm had "gone dead" from the way I was sleeping on it. What if I woke up to the sound of someone breaking into my home only to find my shooting arm had "gone dead". It usually takes a minute or two for the arm to recover, and become useful again. A lot of bad can happen in that minute or two. Has anyone else considered this, and have a plan for just such an occurance?

Thinking about this has made me glad I'm ambidextrous, and that I practice one-hand shooting, and off-hand shooting enough to be proficient at it. Think that's enough, or would another plan be in order? I'm not paranoid about this happening, but I do believe that fortune favors the prepared. What are your thoughts on it?

 

[wyocarp]

Do some shooting one handed and with either hand when you go shooting.

 

[mljdeckard]

Yes. You should train to draw, fire, reload, and clear stoppages one-handed, with both hands. You are not being paranoid. When you are using a handgun to defend yourself, it means pretty much everything else has gone wrong. One cannot take for granted that they will have the use of both arms. Your other arm might be held, wounded, or most likely, holding off an attacker while you draw.

 

[BADUNAME37]

Whatever you do,

don't shoot your numb arm!
You might not feel it at first, but as it wakes up, you will MOST CERTAINLY be in AGONY!

 

[louie19]

I'm curious if anyone trains to rack their semi-auto pistol's slide one-handed too like you see all the time now in the ads for Valkryie. I hear you can do it off of your belt/holster too. Now that I think about it, I will try this with an unloaded pistol.

I do practice shooting with my off-hand too with one hand. I find shooting with my off-hand with two hands to be really weird for some reason and got my strong-hand caught in the slide recoil once. That was not fun.

 

[BADUNAME37]

Hey, I wonder if you could use your teeth!

(spits out four broken teeth afterward)

Well, I guess that won't work too many times.

 

[Claude Clay]

as fast as someone who is practicing to carry is up to speed on safety and two hand shooting it is time to mix it up; both hands mostly and than equal strong and weak only. when one is competent at all 3 than start on failour drills--again, 3 ways.
know that as you cannot practice for EVERY possible situation you should vary your practice as much as possible such that you are adaptable. and if you can act on a instinctive level you stand the best chance of surviving. and if you do have time to think that may be because you are ahead of the curve cause you were paying attention. more so that you can thank your training.

martial arts--take at least 6 months
you may never be as fast or as dangerous with your hands as a master but you will gain insight into how amazing a 'unarmed' person can be.
it will also teach you balance, movement, falling and that you can work through pain and even continue to fight.

 

[Treo]

I don't train for a dead arm as such because I truly am ambidextrous I don't care which hand I use. I do , however, train W/out my glasses, after running 50 yards and starting W/ the gun un loaded. basically as Claude said you really should train for a variety of problems that could arise

 

[arjppj]

every time I go to the range, I always shoot a mag full with my left hand. Ya never know...

 

[Eightball]

I practice one-handed shooting with both hands, but with my weak arm, I almost only shoot with the one hand--because I figure that if I'm using my weak hand, the other one's down for the count. This along with all the usual stuff for the strong arm, of course.

 

[hatchetbearer]

yeah I just broke my wrist about 3 DEC, and as luck would have it, it would be my right(main) hand. had to shoot 10 rounds through my M16 like that. My solution? duct tape my hand to the pistol grip and bite on a stick.

now i do have a concern of rebreaking it since it has been reset by a doc and had some pieces of an erector set thrown in there for good measure. kinda sketchy of shooting some full house .357's tommorow

 

[possum]

i do alot of extensive shooting/ training and such shooting weak and strong hand only. not just standing there, but everything and every drill that i do with 2 hands i will do with strong hand only and weak hand only.

 

[younggun85]

Yup i do it with pistols regularly. Today i finally got out with my 12.5" barrel 870 and did one handed shooting strong side. It was quite a workout.

 

[Floppy_D]

My solution? duct tape my hand to the pistol grip and bite on a stick.

Sounds about like a Marine fix.

 

[wyocarp]

I'm curious if anyone trains to rack their semi-auto pistol's slide one-handed too like you see all the time now in the ads for Valkryie. I hear you can do it off of your belt/holster too. Now that I think about it, I will try this with an unloaded pistol.

It's rather easy to rack the slide by holding the slide and pushing the grip against your leg, arm, really anyplace that's handy on your body. I just chuckle when guys that insist everyone carry their gun in condition one, bring up the "what if you only have one arm that is functioning argument." They must not practice racking the slide with one hand.

 

[hatchetbearer]

Sounds about like a Marine fix

hey it worked. not saying you will have time to tell mr. bad guy please hold this weapon while i tape it to my hand, but i had time to prepare. case by case scenario, but one of those fancy rear sights like on the kimber sis that lets you charge it off a table would be convenient.

 

[conserv1]

A trip to a competent chiropractor may take care of that "dead arm". It is probably why you woke up and many things can cause that, but a good chiropractor can fix it.
I used to have that problem, and would NEVER go to a chiro, but my GF at the time convinced me to try it. Was I ever surprised!
They don't cost too much and can tell you things that would amaze you.
Good Luck

 

[notorious]

That's a common training scenario. Drawing and firing and reholstering with your off-hand with your EDC rig. It gained momentum after the 1986 FBI shootout in Miami when the agents got shot in the gun hand and 1 agent had to cock and shoot his Rem870 with his off-hand and only his off-hand.

 

[jorb]

I was trained to do that back in 1977. Its part of WI Police training, or it was back then. Don't know if they still do it but it sure makes sense.

 

[notorious]

Not sure about WI police but we incorporate off-hand shooting everytime we qualify.

 

[yooper_sjd]

in the service, being a smal arms instructor, i need to qualify on a combat course with a side arm, shooting weaver, two handed, single handed strong side and weak side. If you carry a weapon with mag, but don't have a round in the chamber, you can rack the slide in your, jacket or pants if forced to shoot weak side. may want to practice (but wear old jacket or pants) the corners on that rear sight can be alittle rough on the clothing. Hope that helps

scott

 

[The Deer Hunter]

I dunno, you always have two hands. I have woken up with two dead arms. Those things are big meat clubs, though. Use them to your advantage if worse come to worse.

 

[Thin Black Line]

I'm curious if anyone trains to rack their semi-auto pistol's slide one-handed too like you see all the time now in the ads for Valkryie. I hear you can do it off of your belt/holster too. Now that I think about it, I will try this with an unloaded pistol.

Kneel down, hook rear sight over back heel of combat boot, rack slide, done.

The muzzle will be pointed away from you when you do this. I'm not sure
how to imagine you doing this off your belt/holster, but I would wonder
what part of your body this might leave the pistol pointed at? I also wonder
how much slip and bend the holster/belt is going to have when attempting
to do this. Sounds like you might end up fumbling around as such things
give way.

This will work with any military-quality pistol with a fixed rear metal sight
like the M9, 226, etc. I don't know how the old-style plastic adjustable rear
sight on a Glock would handle this, but in the real situation it wouldn't matter
at long as it worked at least once.

The one-handed de-cocking feature on the sigs will come in handy when
the gun fight is over

 

[notorious]

The good part about our job is that we have a 2" duty belt to hook the sights on and that belt is pretty dang rigid so it won't bend under the force of a gun racking.

If that doesn't work, the boot thing above works, as does using your feet to clamp the slide as you push the frame forward while pushing the slide. This is the scenario like when the FBI agents were mostly sitting down after being shot.

Get the slide serrations to catch on the inside boot edge of the ball of your foot on either side and clamp inwards and push the frame. It will look semi-silly but at least it beats looking good and dead because you have a non-functioning gun.

I wonder how much of this "no-snag tactical melting" of all the sights and edges on a firearm trend reduced the ease of the off-hand single handed racking of a semi-auto pistol.

 

[Thin Black Line]

The good part about our job is that we have a 2" duty belt to hook the sights on and that belt is pretty dang rigid so it won't bend under the force of a gun racking.

I can imagine that working with a police leather belt, but not the Army web
stuff or most drop leg rigs. However, this just now brought to mind possibly
using the molle on the side of body armor. Never tried it. Someone else is
welcome to try. If that's a really bad idea, let us know...lol...

I'll just stick with the heel like I was trained.