Owen
Moderator Emeritus
Point Shooting
This weekend I drove up to Knoxville to take an introductory point shooting class with Robin Brown, aka Brownie. The class was ITFS 1.
I went because I am a sighted shooter. I have always trained to shoot with the sights, and I have a lot invested in using them, between trips to shooting schools, and hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of practice. Because of this background, my knee-jerk reaction to point shooters is that they are crazy. of course, I've never received any point-shooting instruction, so I've kept my mouth shut.
A couple months ago, hso, a moderator on The High Road, asked me if I wanted to come to this point shooting class. Point shooting classes aren't the easiest thing to find, so I jumped on the opportunity.
The Techniques:
The first technique we learned was called Elbow Up Elbow Down (EUED). This a hip shooting technique, that uses body mechanics to get a steel on target asap. Basically, the gun is removed from the holster, and while maintained the arm's geometry, the elbow is slammed into the point of the hip. The contact with the hip is the signal to mash the trigger. At typical gunfight distances, this is a sure hit at belly button level. The challenge with this one isn't hitting the target, but performing the tech as fast and as aggressively as possible.
The next technique is The Zipper. The shooter begins with elbow up elbow down. After the first shot the arm is extended, while the shooter mashes the trigger, resulting in 4 shots or so being strung up the center line of the target.
Following The Zipper, we practiced The Hammer or the Bump. I am going to call it The Bump, because The Hammer is already used for another technique. With The Bump, the shooter begins with EUED. Then the hip is pushed forward a bit, and a second shot is fired. Bumping the hip forward causes the second shot to land at neck or head level.
After this we did this weird behind the back kind of thing where we curl up to the weak side, and shoot behind us. This was later combined with a spin out, where we transitioned from this curled up shooting position, to rolling out and stepping offline from the target.
The next technique is called Quick Kill Hip. Quick Kill is a point shooting system developed by the military sometime in the sixties or seventies. The difference here is that the elbow is placed in front of the hip rather than next to it. This technique is used to address multiple targets, something that EUED is not good at. EUED is faster, but QK Hip can address multiples.
After this we studied a technique called a sprint and hits. This is a technique Brownie invented. This technique we would draw, bring the gun to nipple level, turn out shoulders and run away at 45 degrees while hosing the target.
The last skill we worked on was the Quick Kill method with two hands. Basically the shooter focuses on the target. This means that the gun is only seen in peripheral vision. The shooter overlays the shadow of the gun on the correct location on the target. This position is learned by shooting a metric buttload of ammo.
The Critique:
EUED: Love it. It is now added to my practice regime.
The Bump: added. I don't find the head shot totally reliable but I'll work on hitting the neck region.
Zipper: Like it. I'm adding it. It flows from EUED, and will be devastating. 4 or 5 center line shots at 3 feet are nothing to sniff at. If anything I'm addressing the problem while getting the gun up to eye level.
QK Hip: I dunno. I need to play with it. The whole point of shooting from the hip is speed with which the gun is put into action. QK Hip is slower than the EUED. It does allow the shooter to engage multiples fairly quickly. We didn't cover moving. I don't care how fast I can shoot, if I have to deal with multiples I can't stand there. I have the idea down, so some time on the range while shooting and moving won't hurt.
Behind the Back and the spin out: Fun, but I'm not sure it was appropriate for this class.
Sprint and Hits: I like 'em, mainly because it's fun. I'm not sure how useful it is. I don't like the idea of moving quickly over terrain I can't see. I'd rather move laterally where I can see the ground in my peripheral vision. Moving exactly opposite from the direction you are looking in seems like a real good way to fall down. The range we were shooting on had a rough surface, and I was very worried about tripping and falling while doing these. In addition, knowing that criminals like to work in pairs, I would rather try to advance past #1, to get both bad guys on the same side of me, rather than stepping back towards #2, whom I haven't seen yet. The lateral aspect of this technique seemed to give most of the students a hard time. I would have liked to do this dry 10 or 20 times to get all the monkey-motion coordinated before shooting, perhaps with chalk lines drawn on the ground so people could see the where they were supposed to be vs. where they ended up. Even at the end of the class people were retreating straight back. A straight back retreat, against a gun wielding opponent gets you absolutely
nothing.
QK Two Hands: This seems to be almost exactly like modern isosceles technique, except the gun is lowered a few inches, and the shooter is looking over the gun. For this method, we started backing up going out as far as 40 feet. At 15 feet I could easily punch the center out of the target. While I was happy at this performance, I can do the same thing, at a similar speed using the sights. In some ways this is not a fair comparison, because I have thousands and thousands of rounds downrange using the sights.
Some of the students had a heap of trouble with this skill, to the point that they weren't hitting the paper much at all. Watching them showed that they had very poor trigger control. I asked Brownie how an instructor would fix trigger control issues with the point shooting mindset, considering that the traditional method was to have the student dry fire on a blank wall, without moving the sights. He sorta grinned. If you know Brownie, you know the grin I am talking about. He said that this was an advanced skill, and that you had to already be able to address the target to use it. Basically, once you can reliably hit a target using the sights, the sights are a crutch, and Brownie is kicking your crutches out from under you to prove that you can actually walk. Hmm, I said.
I'd also like to point out that Brownie has some very nice, fiber/tritium sights on his Glock.
This weekend I drove up to Knoxville to take an introductory point shooting class with Robin Brown, aka Brownie. The class was ITFS 1.
I went because I am a sighted shooter. I have always trained to shoot with the sights, and I have a lot invested in using them, between trips to shooting schools, and hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of practice. Because of this background, my knee-jerk reaction to point shooters is that they are crazy. of course, I've never received any point-shooting instruction, so I've kept my mouth shut.
A couple months ago, hso, a moderator on The High Road, asked me if I wanted to come to this point shooting class. Point shooting classes aren't the easiest thing to find, so I jumped on the opportunity.
The Techniques:
The first technique we learned was called Elbow Up Elbow Down (EUED). This a hip shooting technique, that uses body mechanics to get a steel on target asap. Basically, the gun is removed from the holster, and while maintained the arm's geometry, the elbow is slammed into the point of the hip. The contact with the hip is the signal to mash the trigger. At typical gunfight distances, this is a sure hit at belly button level. The challenge with this one isn't hitting the target, but performing the tech as fast and as aggressively as possible.
The next technique is The Zipper. The shooter begins with elbow up elbow down. After the first shot the arm is extended, while the shooter mashes the trigger, resulting in 4 shots or so being strung up the center line of the target.
Following The Zipper, we practiced The Hammer or the Bump. I am going to call it The Bump, because The Hammer is already used for another technique. With The Bump, the shooter begins with EUED. Then the hip is pushed forward a bit, and a second shot is fired. Bumping the hip forward causes the second shot to land at neck or head level.
After this we did this weird behind the back kind of thing where we curl up to the weak side, and shoot behind us. This was later combined with a spin out, where we transitioned from this curled up shooting position, to rolling out and stepping offline from the target.
The next technique is called Quick Kill Hip. Quick Kill is a point shooting system developed by the military sometime in the sixties or seventies. The difference here is that the elbow is placed in front of the hip rather than next to it. This technique is used to address multiple targets, something that EUED is not good at. EUED is faster, but QK Hip can address multiples.
After this we studied a technique called a sprint and hits. This is a technique Brownie invented. This technique we would draw, bring the gun to nipple level, turn out shoulders and run away at 45 degrees while hosing the target.
The last skill we worked on was the Quick Kill method with two hands. Basically the shooter focuses on the target. This means that the gun is only seen in peripheral vision. The shooter overlays the shadow of the gun on the correct location on the target. This position is learned by shooting a metric buttload of ammo.
The Critique:
EUED: Love it. It is now added to my practice regime.
The Bump: added. I don't find the head shot totally reliable but I'll work on hitting the neck region.
Zipper: Like it. I'm adding it. It flows from EUED, and will be devastating. 4 or 5 center line shots at 3 feet are nothing to sniff at. If anything I'm addressing the problem while getting the gun up to eye level.
QK Hip: I dunno. I need to play with it. The whole point of shooting from the hip is speed with which the gun is put into action. QK Hip is slower than the EUED. It does allow the shooter to engage multiples fairly quickly. We didn't cover moving. I don't care how fast I can shoot, if I have to deal with multiples I can't stand there. I have the idea down, so some time on the range while shooting and moving won't hurt.
Behind the Back and the spin out: Fun, but I'm not sure it was appropriate for this class.
Sprint and Hits: I like 'em, mainly because it's fun. I'm not sure how useful it is. I don't like the idea of moving quickly over terrain I can't see. I'd rather move laterally where I can see the ground in my peripheral vision. Moving exactly opposite from the direction you are looking in seems like a real good way to fall down. The range we were shooting on had a rough surface, and I was very worried about tripping and falling while doing these. In addition, knowing that criminals like to work in pairs, I would rather try to advance past #1, to get both bad guys on the same side of me, rather than stepping back towards #2, whom I haven't seen yet. The lateral aspect of this technique seemed to give most of the students a hard time. I would have liked to do this dry 10 or 20 times to get all the monkey-motion coordinated before shooting, perhaps with chalk lines drawn on the ground so people could see the where they were supposed to be vs. where they ended up. Even at the end of the class people were retreating straight back. A straight back retreat, against a gun wielding opponent gets you absolutely
nothing.
QK Two Hands: This seems to be almost exactly like modern isosceles technique, except the gun is lowered a few inches, and the shooter is looking over the gun. For this method, we started backing up going out as far as 40 feet. At 15 feet I could easily punch the center out of the target. While I was happy at this performance, I can do the same thing, at a similar speed using the sights. In some ways this is not a fair comparison, because I have thousands and thousands of rounds downrange using the sights.
Some of the students had a heap of trouble with this skill, to the point that they weren't hitting the paper much at all. Watching them showed that they had very poor trigger control. I asked Brownie how an instructor would fix trigger control issues with the point shooting mindset, considering that the traditional method was to have the student dry fire on a blank wall, without moving the sights. He sorta grinned. If you know Brownie, you know the grin I am talking about. He said that this was an advanced skill, and that you had to already be able to address the target to use it. Basically, once you can reliably hit a target using the sights, the sights are a crutch, and Brownie is kicking your crutches out from under you to prove that you can actually walk. Hmm, I said.
I'd also like to point out that Brownie has some very nice, fiber/tritium sights on his Glock.
) He was easily the most accurate person on the line. This isn't usually the case with someone who is an excellent front sight/rear sight shooter since there's a lot of well established muscle memory to work through that's different from the PS technique. He was so good with 2-hand we taped his front sights just in case he was aquiring them out of habit. He still ate a big hole in the middle of the target. Over and over again.
) with what they learned.
