Single-handed shooting

[BCRider]

For myself I've found that when matches or practice call for strong or weak hand shooting I've gotten my best results from using the following changes from my preffered isoscelles triangle stance;

• Opposite leg drops back slightly so my torso and hips are inclined at about a 45'ish angle to the line of fire instead of straight across.
• The unused hand forms a fist and presses against my sternum. The teaching I got suggested that tensioning one arm aids in tensioning the other for a firmer hold and faster recoil recovery.
• As mentioned already the gun is canted inwards by about 10 to 15 degrees. This seems to aid in the recoil being more in line with the natural flex of the arm and aids in the gun recoiling more in line with the vertical axis of the frame for a faster and more "inline" recover from recoil.

I did note that if I didn't cant the gun slightly that the gun tended to recoil with the sights having some odd dynamics during the recoil recovery. The slight cant angle seems to avoid this by aligning the recoil with the natural wrist and elbow flexing or with the natural axis of resistance in the arm. Either way getting the cant angle to match with the arm will result in a recoil reaction of the sights which is mostly in a simple straight line which seems to settle and allow aiming of the next shot that much sooner.

But if I conciously turn my elbow in under the gun it does the same thing. It's just not as natural to do as canting the gun and leaving my elbow in it's otherwise usual two handed shooting position. But either seems to work.

This arranging your body and hold so that the gun recoils as much as practical in one plane seems to be a key element to a faster recovery and rediness for a second shot. Or to allow effective double taps when shooting with one hand. Ideally when we get it right the sights should jump in a vertical line with as little side to side oscillation as possible. That way the gun settles down for the next shot all that much quicker.

 

[Blackstone]

BCRider, you mentioned how tensioning the non-shooting hand into a fist and pressing it against your body increases tension in the shooting hand. I was wondering if other people could shed some light on this. Why is the hand on the body in handgun shooting, when in ISSF olympic-style shooting, the hand is always either on the belt buckle or in the pocket?

 

[Strykervet]

I do it the old fashioned way where you stand sideways to the target, left hand on hip, and pistol straight out in front. I think the army taught this way back when. I've seen them do it in old footage. Not sure why the left hand goes on hip, maybe to accentuate posture, maybe because it has to go somewhere (but it seems to make the back straighter).

I've shot targets at 300m using a 686 6" revolver (5 out of 7 in a sillhouette) and last week, I shot head size target at 100m using a G27 (I fired ten rounds, one went to the "head" the rest went COM).

And yeah, it isn't fast. It didn't look fast in those clips either. The recoil is sufficient to require re-aiming. Seldom will you come right back on target because of muzzle flip. But it is fun to do and impress people that don't think you can accurately fire a handgun one handed at rifle ranges.

 

[brickeyee]

10 seconds for 5 rounds is not exactly slow.

 

[Blackstone]

Ah, I didn't realise bullseye shooting was very similar to ISSF standard pistol with "rapid fire" as well!

 

[BCRider]

Angryhan, the fist tensioned and pressing into the sternum is what the guy doing our IPSC Black Bladge course suggested. The BB course is unique to Canada as far as I know so consider it as a holster and safety qualifier course specificaly oriented to IPSC shooting and handling procedures and you won't be far wrong. Anyhow, it was the instructor in that course that when we shot strong and weak hand suggested it. And later on I found that it did seem to help when I tried some bullseye shooting with a .22 one day..... well, it helped as much as could be expected when I'm fighting with old guy eyes and nerves which are shakey at the best of times.... All I can say is that the groups did seem a touch tighter and more consistent when I did the fist in the sternum thing. But even if you press your hand against your hip it'll help as well. It doesn't seem to matter in what position you hold your free arm as long as you tension it up and push against some area of yourself compared to just letting the spare arm hang in a relaxed manner. I found I could see the difference in the amount of sight wobble right away. I don't even need to shoot to see the effect.

I noticed that the classic one hand bullseye shooters do that as well. Or put the hand in a pocket or whatever. But if you want specific shooters they do the same thing every time. The idea being to present as close to an identical posture as possible each time they shoot. This includes where they position their spare hand. One fella that I've seen shoot stupidly accurate bullseye groups hooks his thumb in his belt just beside his forward hip bone. And again he does it the same every time.

 

[FIVETWOSEVEN]

Most handguns I believe, I think the upper power limit is 45acp. Although the limit isn't explicitly set in law, I haven't seen any 44mags or 50ae's because you have to justify why you need such a gun. Buying one (especially a specific model you want) is rather difficult, there are only a few gun shops in Northern Ireland, and importing one has its own challenges.

I thought you could only own either a long barreled single action revolver or a Buckmark with a long barrel and a metal rod that sticks out the back. That is great to hear that one part of that island still has more common sense then others.

 

[Blackstone]

That's on mainland Britain (England, Scotland and Wales). Northern Ireland which is part of the UK has handguns. Some of the islands around the area like Jersey and Isle of Man which aren't strictly part of the UK allow handguns as well as they each have some independence in their legislation

 

[Pete D.]

One

AngryHan:

I didn't realise bullseye shooting was very similar to ISSF standard pistol with "rapid fire" as well!

Very similar in many ways. Slow (Precision), Timed, Rapid fire stages. Similar timing. Same number of shots on target. Must be fired one hand unsupported.
The differences are striking; Bullseye aka Conventional pistol allows "any sight", except lasers. SP requires irons. Bullseye strings are begun from the high position, gun pointed at the target. SP, iirc, requires the gun be pointed down at a 45 deg angle.
Targets are different. Bullseye uses different targets for slow fire and for timed and rapid. Outdoors the slow fire targets are shot at 50 yards, the others at 25. SP uses one target and shoots all stages at 25 meters.Scoring rings are different. In a sense, this creates a reversal in general difficulty. In Bullseye, many shooters find the slow fire stage the most challenging. I have always found that the sustained fire stages in Standard Pistol harder to shoot well.
Pete

 

[RedAlert]

I haven't seen it mentioned yet but I'd have to say that strength plays a part. Strong muscles that support the wrist help tame recoil.

Ever notice the forearms on the major competitive shooters? Not wimps for sure.