Holding Your Weapon Sideways

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SmeeAgain

SmeeAgain

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Some time ago the trend was holding handguns horizontal rather than vertical as they were intended.
I haven't seen it in years but never understood it unless maybe some thought it looked cool.
My thought was... if someone were shooting at me, I'd sure want them holding their gun like that! My chances of survival would increase dramatically.
 
NIGHTLORD40K said:
Some guys who run ARs in competition do hold their guns at about a .45° angle- not sure what the reasoning is.

Of course, if you are using a scope and offset sights thats a different story-
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Shooting with an AR rifle or basically any rifle with a pistol grip it is actually more natural to come up to the firing plane with the rifle canted like what was in the picture. Not much different but more natural nonetheless. Shooting traditionally you have to spin your wrist to a vertical hold. Shooting canted you just come up. The pocket on the shoulder works nicely with that style shooting too. I have tried it with good results but I have trained myself to a traditional stance so I never could get used to it. Then I got rid of the AR toys and only kept the precision build.
 
The one with Miculek above isn’t because it’s a natural position.

It is a method for faster up close target acquisition, he is using the red dot, in the photo. If he had to engage other targets at further distances, he would rotate the rifle vertical and use the scope.

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However, if you are getting your shooting positions from movies vs successful competition shooters, you should rethink your reasoning.

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The only legit application for this is firing from retention at extreme close proximity. The pistol is held at hip level in the firing hand, with the mag baseplate set into the firer's hip. The non-firing hand is high and in the opponent's face, eye-gouging, fish-hooking, or whatever else you can think of. The position makes the pistol more difficult to be accessed by the opponent, and gives the slide room to function, as well as it making it more difficult to shoot yourself in the non-firing hand (which is technically downrange of the muzzle) due to the height of the non-firing hand VS the muzzle of the pistol orientation. The desired point of impact of the rounds will be in the opponent's lower torso (hip/pelvic area/crotchal zone/guts/upper thigh). The damage inflicted in the lower body area by the rounds fired from retention will (hopefully) cause the opponent to involuntarily disengage from the attack, and allow the shooter to create space to re-assess and re-engage in a more traditional fashion, if necessary. This is a valid technique to practice, but is moderately dangerous to do without proper instruction. It obviously must be done on paper/cardboard targets vs steel.
 
The sideways handgun draw was just something stupid made up by hiphop-inspired movie producers and directors. It's nothing short of posing, the same as the "whassuuuup??" hand gestures they do in hip-hop music videos. It's for effect and nothing more. It's like women wearing high heels: Serves no practical purpose whatsoever. It's just for looks and in the end is a hindrance to being effective. (Can you tell I've harbored a grudge against Hollywood poser nonsense for some time?) o_O YEAH.
 
Blue Jays said:
SmeeAgain said:
trend was holding handguns horizontal rather than vertical ... never understood it unless maybe some thought it looked cool.
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There is definitely no compelling strategy for holding firearms other than the designed/engineered way!
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Jeff White said:
Is there a point to this that fits in this forum?
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Consider this.

When our defensive shooting instructor who taught local PD/SD SWAT teams (Who was also our USPSA RSO) taught us defensive shooting including unsighted point shooting (He told us he didn't want his SWAT students to break eye contact with their targets who were often moving fast under low light/visibility conditions), we asked about "gangster" grip and shooting two pistols at the same time.

He laughed and showed us all the ways why shooting guns sideways or two guns could be problematic from lack of accuracy, brass to face, brass from left hand hitting right hand/arm, potential for jams, etc. He did say, as he taught us unsighted point shooting and checked us off on fast sighted point shooting at 7 yards with 4"-6" pass/fail criteria, to choose the shooting method/stance/grip that we wanted to use and practice until we reached proficiency to perform with strong/weak hand consistently (Outline of training on this post) - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/flinching-drills.864546/page-2#post-11416785

Few years later when I was shooting USPSA at another range where I was learning stage design and setup, when the guy who did stage design/setup (who also shot IDPA) began to incorporate more and more cover fire shooting situations, shooting prone under cover and shooting one hand (strong and weak) around barricade (Not to mention non-linear sliding targets, bouncing targets behind window opening, waving targets behind cover to all mimic bad guys evading and returning fire).
Speedo66 said:
If you're under fire and hugging the ground, you can get lower if the long magazine is sideways.
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So during our all day practice range sessions using mock/previous week stage set ups, we seriously approached best ways to engage each types of these "hybrid" targets (We were shooting up 1000-2000+ rounds each during these long practice sessions). What we found during single strong/weak hand shooting around barricade was holding hands at more natural canted 10-2 O'clock driving position on steering wheel, especially "torqued" forward better locked the wrist to provide better support. And when we practiced shooting prone under barricade with about 4" opening to not allow traditional vertical shooting, shooting with ejection port down kicked up dirt/dust and ejecting cases would bounce off ground while shooting with ejection port up did not. And for laughs we tried two pistol shooting and holding 10-2 canted shooting positions allowed ejecting brass from left hand pistol to drop towards the ground.

Since then, whenever I saw shooters doing the sideways "ganster" shooting at the range, I use that as an opportunity to show them different shooting methods/positions/grips starting with benefits of 10-2 O'clock canting of single hand shooting to superiority of two handed modified/relaxed isosceles stance ending with fast sighted (Looking past the front sight) point shooting at multiple targets with double-taps on each target as demonstrated at 1:55 minute of video on this post - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/trigger-control.834737/page-2#post-11245649

Everyone of them became fast learners and they invited their family/friends for subsequent range sessions to learn the ways of "Zen" of shooting (Absolutely being able to produce holes anywhere on target at will fast) as broken down analysis of Jerry Miculek in this post with utmost trigger control - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/trigger-control.834737/page-2#post-11245640

I lost count how many people I "shared" defensive point shooting with over the decades but now include demonstration of single hand canted shooting but with added feature of using just thumb and third finger to demonstrate control of firearms (9mm/40S&W/45ACP) even with weak grip but well practiced grip and trigger control can produce accurate shots on multiple target and have them return demonstrate to shatter that notion out of their minds and to give them confidence over their pistols.

Recently, I cut my 100 yard 22LR testing short when father/son new to gun ownership showed up and was waiting for me to finish shooting. They were curious about what I was doing as I had rifles taken apart on the truck tailgate as I was swapping out 10/22 bolts and as we chatted, father wanted to teach his teenage son how to shoot but having taken only one shooting class, father himself was just learning to shoot.

I stopped shooting and pulled out my Glock 22 and swapped out the slide with Advantage Arms 22LR slide and proceeded to teach them 4 hour defensive point shooting to include strong/weak one hand canted shooting (See bottom of post) - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...22lr-on-the-cheap.898035/page-2#post-12183064

By the end of the session, both father and son were shooting fast 4" sighted point shooting groups at multiple targets placed at 7 yards using modified/relaxed isosceles but also practiced shooting strong/weak canted one handed. They couldn't believe what they were able to do in just one session and promised to practice quick draw dry fire (to not move the front sight/muzzle) and magazine change while watching TV until the next range session (To be joined by their family/friends).
 
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I am in no way HSLD tac or match and not the best example, but I tend to shoot SHO vertical and close WHO canted.
If a sadistic MD sets up a Classifier with relatively long or obstructed WHO, I take a vertical presentation.

A really sadistic MD set up one last weekend with barricaded openings and very tight fault lines. The intent was to drive you to shoot SHO right barricade, WHO left barricade. The younger limber shooters could lean far enough to keep both hands on the gun, but I had to shift hands.

Anecdote Alert: One match, we were advised by a Tactical Expert that the only way to go was Glock because you could cant the gun and look down a corner of the square slide instead of taking the time to aim with sights. For some strange reason, he did not attend to demonstrate his technique again.
 
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We've done the sideways hold in training and matches to see how it goes. If you have a strong grip and line up the sights, you can hit close up fairly well. So the OP hoping an opponent does that is just posturing. You never want anything be shot at you.

The origin is debated to be from gang related handsigns and music media. It's signaling like wearing your ball cap backwards in every day life - another sign of silliness.

We wear our caps forward to block the sun and empties out of our eyes. We turn them for specific reasons such as rifle sights. At a match a new stud shows up with his girl friend to show her how he is macho. He has his cap backwards. So does she (she's shooting too). I go tell her to turn it around to keep empties out of your face. She gets it and thanks me. He huffs and puffs that a geezer violated his field of monkey dominance.

This comes up every once is awhile so folks can virtue signal.
 
jmorris said:
However, if you are getting your shooting positions from movies vs successful competition shooters, you should rethink your reasoning.

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Ill occasionally shoot with the opposite hand trigger finger like that with my ruger mkII just to see how fast i can unload the magazine. It is wicked fast, but HIGHLY inaccurate. This is of course on my own property. I have also tried the gangster style holding the gun horizontal. Its awkward and dumb.
 
I seem to recall reading in a gun magazine a looong time ago that one of the Israeli agencies (military, police,etc)? was teaching holding the gun
sideways in close quarters shooting encounters. I could be wrong though, it was a while ago.
 
GEM said:
We wear our caps forward ... I go tell her to turn it around to keep empties out of your face. She gets it and thanks me. He huffs and puffs that a geezer violated his field of monkey dominance.
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One time at the range, a couple came to shoot and obviously the wife was new to shooting and "I know everything about shooting because I am the husband" teased her why she can't shoot and hit the target because she was a woman. Despite her begging to teach her, he ignored and just kept on shooting at his target producing around melon sized group at 7 yards.

When she saw I was getting tight groups at 10-15 yards, she came over to my lane asking if I could show her how to shoot. I did and she was soon getting tight 2" groups at 7 yard target (Husband was oblivious to what we were doing during this time). When she returned to her lane and put her target back and shot tight 2" groups at 7 yards, he looked over at her red faced and immediately packed up and left while the wife smiled and waved as they walked by.
 
BigBlue 94 said:
i can unload the magazine. It is wicked fast, but HIGHLY inaccurate.
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You can train to shoot fast and accurate even with weak hand also.

I use "cadence shooting" technique to shoot fast and accurate. Cadence shooting is explained at 3:05 minute of video below and training drill demonstrated with AR at 5:20 minute and with pistol at 10:10 minute.

 
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