HD stance

[LuckyATB]

Being totally new to shotguns, I visited the range with a friend who grew up with them...he'd been a competitive shooter most of his life. When I took my first couple of shots in the lane, I took a natural stance where I was standing sideways with one foot behind the other, kinda like I was on a surfboard.

My friend kindly corrected me and showed me "proper" form, totally facing forwards in a semi-crouch, like I'd done with handguns in the past. Made sense to me, especially when he was explaining about tracking clays across my field of vision and such.

So yesterday I was carrying my gun around the house, envisioning various HD scenarios and where I'd want to be...and I was thinking, this stance can't be right. If someone's trying to shoot me, the last thing I'd want to do is make my torso as wide open as possible.

Thoughts?

 

[Preacherman]

Think of the position you'd take up for a Weaver stance with a pistol or revolver. This is exactly what you want to control the recoil from a defensive shotgun. Your rear foot pushes you forward: your shoulders are forward, so that your nose is level with or a bit ahead of the toes on your leading foot: and your body and arms are braced to control recoil. Use this position with the shotgun, and heavy loads like buckshot or slug are a piece of cake.

 

[DougW]

I agree. The stance facing straight ahead is fine for a low recoil weapon like a pistol of carbine, but you will be moving backwards and unbalanced if you use that stance with a shotgun.

 

[Firehand]

I believe the 'square-facing' stance came from SWAT and tactical team work where they're using body armor. The idea is to keep the thin or open spots under the arms and along the sides of the body from facing the bad guys.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Best stance for HD is no stance at all. Standing up/moving around gives your opponent the advantages, not what you want to do if you want to stay alive. Old saying among Special Forces guys- if you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'. Don't fight fair.

Barricade position stance, if you want to call it that. Set up yourself a saferoom, a place in the dark with a physical barrier(s) between you and the door, friendly wall (no doors no windows) behind you, barricade to provide both concealment and cover in front of you. Mattress of the bed you sleep in maybe the best thing to use. Cover plus concealment, you being still and making target move to come to you so you can ambush- advantage yours.

Light down the hall or otherwise outside the door, either remote switchable lights or always on nightlights, so anything coming to the door of that room is backlit. Hard for opponent to see from light into dark, easy for you to see from dark into light, advantage yours.

You have prepositioned your cover, communications (landline AND cellphone if you are smart, they cut the phone lines sometimes before they break in), weapon or weapons, have a place and a plan to secure all the family with you hiding in the dark. All advantages, all yours.

If you go wandering around the house looking for trouble you give up lots of advantages. You want something to wander around the house looking for what went bump, get a dog. So some scumweasel runs off with your DVD player while you are hiding behind the bed calling the police, no big deal. Nobody hurt you and you didn't have to shoot anyone, win/win all around.

Some bipedal piece of trash wants to come through your saferoom door after you've warned them away (tell them you called the cops, NOT that you've got a gun aimed at the door), then it's another story entirely... then illuminate, identify, eliminate in that order.

lpl/nc