Practice

[willb]

Several months ago a member (a retired LEO I believe) said, and I'm paraphrasing here, You never know how the situation will play out - You may not have the opportunity to establish a classic Weaver/Isosceles stance - You might be sitting down - Or shooting one-handed - Shooting one-handed weak side - etc. I thought these were very sensible comments. After all, life is messy, it often doesn't play out the way we plan.

Does your SD practice reflect this perspective? In addition to your classic stance do you practice one-handed? Both sides? And with magnum loads if that's your carry choice?

 

[Pat Riot]

I used to try to practice in different scenarios, like; sitting, lying down, standing, one handed, two handed, different stances, etc. The ranges where I shoot now aren’t really set up to allow that kind of “real world” practice.
I do shoot in different standing positions and I shoot right and left handed, one and two hand (supported) shooting. Sometimes I will also practice seated shooting.

 

[Bazoo]

I have practiced plenty of times like that, enough to be confident that I can handle shooting from non standard positions. I however don’t enjoy SD training much so I don’t practice it much. I practice my draw and getting first shot hits, transitioning and continued hits. I enjoy simple training much more, and it’s practice for hunting too. Many a times I could have killed multiple deer with a handgun if it’ll been both season and I of the proper inclination.

 

[trackskippy]

I think you need to do a little bit of everything on a pretty regular basis, if you want to stay fresh and at least keep up.

Mixing things up and doing things out of your comfort zone just helps you continue to learn, and be a better shooter.

 

[rabid wombat]

Make sure you practice weak hand shooting….

 

[Jonesy814]

A friend and I have a place to shoot where we can pretty much do what we want. We have shot standing, sitting, laying on the ground, one hand, offhand and more. We've shot through jacket pockets and rigged up a zip line to have a moving target. We also practice shooting while moving. Since there's 2 of us, one can direct the action while the other shoots. One guy walks along and at some point the other yells, "THREAT"! Sometimes the shooter will have his hands full, and has to drop whatever, then go into action. Sometimes we have 2 different colored silhouette targets and one guy yells, THREAT, RED! Makes it a bit harder when you don't know your target unit the last second. We often practice backing away at an angle from a target, while shooting. We have done ultra close range where we grab the upper top corner of a target stand...as if fending off an attacker while then drawing the gun and engaging the target. Anything out of the ordinary gets dry run without a gun, then with an unloaded gun before going live. We discuss what is going to be done and how so no one gets caught by surprise by anything

 

[MedWheeler]

One-handed and "weak-handed" practice are things I've been trying to spend more effort on as of late. I want to make my "weak" hand (which is my right) become my "other strong hand."

Shooting with both eyes open is also something I've been trying..

 

[FL-NC]

I train as realistically as possible, in many different but likely scenarios. That said, doing drills of this type before a shooter has a good grasp of the basics is putting the cart in front of the horse.

 

[murf]

i shoot my bug (back up gun) weak hand (left) all the time. i shoot all my other handguns two and one handed.

That said, doing drills of this type before a shooter has a good grasp of the basics is putting the cart in front of the horse.

this has to be the sentence of the month. build and keep up your shooting foundation first.

murf

 

[rabid wombat]

One guy walks along and at some point the other yells, "THREAT"! Sometimes the shooter will have his hands full, and has to drop whatever, then go into action. Sometimes we have 2 different colored silhouette targets and one guy yells, THREAT, RED!

For a variation - yell a number, for example “2” - that is the number of rounds the target(s) get. If a reload is required, so be it. Periodically yell “0”. Practice presenting without firing - sometimes just as important. Load each other’s mags with a mix of live and dummy rounds, and get to practice clearance drills, too.

That said, doing drills of this type before a shooter has a good grasp of the basics is putting the cart in front of the horse.

Hits the nail on the head!

 

[wiscoaster]

Much ado is made about stance and hold basics by gun instructors, so much so that I think often the primary basic - point - is missed by the student. You can hit where you want from any stance or position and using any hold if the gun is correctly pointed at and lined up with where you want the bullet to hit. And so should be practiced that way once the basics are mastered.

 

[Craig_AR]

I've had advanced classes that included shooting while seated, on the ground prone, on the ground supine. Then I took a package of NRA classes over several days of Personal Protection in the Home, Personal Protection Outside the Home, and Defensive Pistol. In the range work for that set we did all of those positions along with point shooting and one handed while moving. When practicing shooting supine (on your back) BIG caution.. do not shoot yourself in the knee!

 

[PzGren]

I shoot exclusively weak handed now that I am older. The Captains of Crunch grippers no. 3 are too much for me since a few years and the no.2 has become a challenge.