Tuner: Please expand on Jordan Method

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rjk2475

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Tuner said: ...if the hand moves on the gun from underneath and scoops it up
as it passes...as with the Jordan method...it makes a very distinct difference. This is my preferred method because it's smoother.

What type of holster must be used? My concern would be missing or fumbling the gun. Can you please be more discriptive? ron
 
Bill Jordan method I'll wager

As described in No Second Place Winner with photographs.

Hence works well with the Jordan Holster, often made by Don Hume among others,

- see e.g. the rig Hume made from the skin of an elephant taken by Jordan (I think they used hide from the ears to get a full grain leather that was nevertheless thin enough to work) -

which I take to be a modified Tom Threepersons, pouch type weight on the trigger guard if you will, so far as the holster proper but typically worn with a little more drop extension from a duty belt. Jordan emphasized a continuous circular motion, sort of Oriental martial art style, (not completely unlike the way I read Paul Weston on presentation - full circle not a speed rock) rather than a down and up which might be described as accelerate downward, slow to a stop and reverse accelerating back up and slowing again to a stop.

Jordan also experimented with angle - FBI 15 degree cant - and decided that for a duty rig that was well exposed the angle made little difference.

The heavily boned behind the body concealment holster is a little different I suppose.

I can't see missing or fumbling the gun myself - as somebody wiser than I said: the amateur practices until he gets it right, the professional practices until he can't get it wrong. I only saw Bill Jordan's show once in Austin when he was on the circuit - I was a mere babe of course - but the man was practiced.
 
Others had made holsters roughly similar to the one previously described. But what made Bill's holster unique was a leather wedge that was sewn into the pouch just below the trigger guard. This twisted the revolver slightly so that it squarely faced to the front, and the gun was truly horizontal. When the belt and holster were properly adjusted the gun's butt was away from the body, not slanted inward and there was plenty of room to wrap ones fingers around the butt. A metal reinforced shank insured the holster wouldn't flop or lift when the gun was drawn, and as the revolver rode lower a draw could be made without going into any kind of a crouch.

Jordan authorized three companies to make his holster, S.D. Myers, who made the first ones, Don Hume, and Steve Herrett who was perhaps more famous for his custom grips. These of course included the Jordan design.

Other companies made unauthorized copies, but they uaually left out that all-important wedge.
 
Jordan

Clark nailed it.

It works on a continuous motion, with the hand moving in a semi-circle,
and it allows a very smooth, fast presentation because you don't have to
accelerate the weight of the gun upward from a dead standstill...The hand is already moving as it scoops the gun up and out of the holster, and uses
the hand's momentum to overcome the gun's weight.

It's also a very dangerous method unless practiced religiously. Slow-motion
at first, with speed increasing only when the move can be done perfectly..
or as near perfectly as you can manage. Begin practice every day in slow motion, gradually building to about half-speed...No ammo yet.

The other part of the action involves timing the trigger pull to fire the gun
at the same instant that it's on target. This requires starting the trigger pull almost as soon as the gun clears the holster. With a 1911, the safety is wiped off just as the gun clears. The finger touches the trigger when the muzzle is pointed in front of the shooter's foot, and pressure on the trigger begins at that point, with the gun moving upward toward the target...gradually increasing until the gun fires at the instant that the
muzzle covers the target.

I saw a slow-motion sequence of Jordan executing his draw...The trigger was being pulled even before the muzzle was completely clear of the holster. You could see the hammer arcing back almost as soon as he had the gun in his hand. This is why endless hours of dry practice are necessary...and many more required to maintain it. Jordan could execute the move and hit aspirin tablets on a table from the hip 10 feet away about as fast as the eye could follow...and if you blinked at the right instant, you'd never see his hand move. His best time was 27/100ths of a second from signal to shot with a double-action revolver.(Model 19 Smith & Wesson)

Another one of his tricks was balancing a ping-pong ball on the back of his
gun hand at shoulder level, and pulling the gun in time for the ball to fall into the holster...or poking the ball with the muzzle at hip level.

Although the rig is an important part of the speed, any open-topped holster will do. It just won't be quite as fast as with a rig designed for it.
The higher it rides, the slower it will be.

The move also has the advantage of not telegraphing the draw until the gun is in hand. When you reach over the top to get your grip with a high-ride holster, the shoulder hunches before you get your hand on the gun. With the circular scoop, only the lower arm moves at first, and your shoulder doesn't give you away until the gun is half-way to the target.

I'm not as fast as Jordan...:D
 
The Flaw

Now for the downside of the "Jordan Fast-Draw"...(There's always a downside) Some may have already thought it through and noticed the
one major flaw in the technique...and so here is the caveat.

The method is a completely reactive move that is used when somebody else has moved first, the object being that it enables you to "Beat the Drop" and fire first...even though HE moved first. It's not a threat management technique. It's not used to hold a bad guy at gunpoint while you control the situation. It's a killing stroke, pure and simple.

If you've practiced the move through many hundreds or thousands of
repetitions, it becomes subject to the "Autopilot" phenomenon, just like
the police officer who tried to drop his empty brass into the range bucket
that wasn't there for the firefight, and once the sequence has started, it
generally won't stop until you've fired the shot(s)...unless you teach yourself to stand down in mid-stroke if you need to.

Because the trigger pull is an integral part of the whole sequence, it's hard to stop it once it's started, and it takes a concious effort of will to keep from pulling the trigger. Since the move can be executed in less than 3/4ths of a second from concealment from signal to shot...and the trigger pull is started at about the halfway point... you don't have a lot of time to decide that the situation doesn't warrant killing your man. If your reaction time is just average...about 2/5ths of a second... your hammer will fall before you can assess and react to his surrender signal. Too late.

I strongly suggest that as you become more proficient with it, that you
use a training partner to provide a visual signal to draw and fire. It
can be a tennis ball thrown from behind you, or an electronic camera flash.
As long as the signal is visual, rather than verbal. I also suggest that, sometime during the course of the practice session, that the range partner provide the visual signal, and give you a "STOP" command as soon as he sees your hand move so that you can learn to turn off the autoresponse
quickly...A better command may be "NO" to simulate an antagonist's
natural response to seeing that you've decided to shoot him. Once in
25 presentations...at random..is a good frequency. Don't be surprised though, if you can't stop on a dime the first few tries.
 
I have a question.

Since the police officer who turned to drop his brass into the bucket died as a result, how, exactly, do we know that's what happened, and if we do know that's what he did, how do we know why he did it?

Wasn't the only person who knew what he was doing and why (the officer in question) shot to death?

:confused:
 
Can't speak for any particular example but

There are certainly cases of survivors saving their brass - in fact Bill Jordan uses it as an example of fighting as you train -

Along those lines, there is the step left to clear a coat (like the Queen of England's skirt hems the jacket hem may be weighted) draw and fire which is said to have resulted in at least one unintended discharge - step left without intent draw and fire - pure Pavlov.

There are tales out of the sandbox of policing up the firefight so the weight of brass turned in will match just as it must on the range. I suppose the brass will be tea services and cricket cages soon enough?
 
How?

Jammer asked:

Wasn't the only person who knew what he was doing and why (the officer in question) shot to death?
______________________

There were eyewitnesses to the event. I read the story several years ago in a law enforcement journal, right before the story about an Illinois State
Trooper who died because his revolver misfired 6 times. it was determined that he was in the habit of spraying it down with WD40 every day after his
shift.

I may have the book around here somewhere. (It's over 20 years old) It didn't give names, but it did provide the state that it happened in.

Edited:

There was another story in the same chapter of an officer who was found
with an empty revolver after trying to stuff his car keys and pocket change into the cylinder...presumably because he was in the habit of carrying his
speedloader in his front pocket and reloading from there when he was on the practice range...other examples of the autopilot response will come to
mind.
 
Since the police officer who turned to drop his brass into the bucket died as a result, how, exactly, do we know that's what happened, and if we do know that's what he did, how do we know why he did it?
Click to expand...
I've heard one instance of an officer who was found dead with spent brass in his pocket. Kind of self-explanatory. (Though, come to think of it, perhaps he had moved to cover and was trying to not telegraph his position by dropping brass ... hard to tell.)
 
Well, that's my point.

An eyewitness would know what he saw, (or what he thought he saw, anyway) but he wouldn't know why the dead officer turned to the left unless the officer survived and told him.

Now, before everyone empties their magazines at me, I'm not arguing about fighting as you train. I'm a true believer in that. In fact, it's why I never reload from a table, only from my magazine carrier, and it's why I reload after I finish a course of fire.

But I believe there's also another principle here, and I believe it's an important principle.

We need The Truth.

The cold, unvarnished, ugly, un-sophisticated facts.

If we are to base the way we're going to fight for our lives on anything, let us base those methods on reality.

Not impressions. Not heresay. Not urban legends, or what we wish happened.

The truth, regardless of how it looks or sounds. A death in the line of duty is a death in the line of duty, and outside of training, can't look bad, anyway. If the truth is unavailable, we must whittle at what we "know" until we know that what we have left is true, and then proceed from there.

If you have a statement from the officer that says he was looking for his brass bucket, I'll take that. Otherwise, it is my opinion, as unpopular as it will be, that what we have is what eyewitnesses thought they saw, and no one knows why he turned to the right.

My only objection is to any attempt to draw lessons that aren't there, and to basing future actions on a misinterpretation of an event.

I've witnessed this same phenomenon in diving fatalities, and I'm sensitive to it. Every time someone dies under water, everybody and their bloody brother steps forward with what they "know" happened, in spite of the fact that they were in another state at the time.

When you're done separating fact from theory, speculation and downright hogwash, very often the truth is that no one knows, and I've become convinced that it's better to draw a much smaller lesson that's true from an event than a large, all encompassing philosophical lesson that may or may not be true, depending on the tide.

Very often, the diver's buddy, who was with him the whole time, witnessed the event, and attempted a rescue doesn't know what happened, or reports a sequence of events that can't possibly be true given the other facts that can be verified scientifically. In those cases, I always believe the facts.

Look at this case. What we have today is you telling us about an article that you read several years ago that was in either a journal or a book and was written by a writer between some and twenty years ago. This writer quoted an eyewitness who saw a shooting and, while under fire, watched an officer who was being shot to death turn to the right after emptying his weapon, and had the presence of mind to observe this without throwing up, put it together with what he knew of the officer, and concluded that the officer was looking for a bucket to put his brass into.

Why the officer turned to the right is filtered through an eyewitness who was under fire at the time, a writer and twice through you, once when you read it and once when you wrote about it, minimum.

Forgive me my lack of manners, but at this point I'm skeptical. I will admit, however, that I'd like to read the article.
 
There are pictures of that Officer in a Book called "Street Survival" I still have the hat, but lent the book out many years ago and don't remember who borrowed it. He did what he was trained to do at the police range. It was fatal. I went to that seminar in 1983 in Wyoming. It was for LEO's only and I have no up to date information on it now. Back then, there was very little tactical training for LEO's. They qualified at the range with their Model 10's by shooting a box of bullets once a year and knew very little about living through a gunfight. Before the advent of Gun Laws, they didn't get in many gunfights because we did not have the people we have today who are junkies and whacked out on Progressive Pall Malls. We have changed and the law enforcement community is still way behind the curve because people want the laws enforced, but they do not want to pay the costs. They are in much better shape now than ever, but still lack proper training in the art of gunfighting. I know many will argue that point, and that is their right to do so. Good training is costly and the PC Chiefs know that Cops are cheap and easy to get. Most Chiefs will throw cops to the dawgs in a heartbeat if they create bad PR. I will pass on the Bill Jordon draw, thankyouverymuch. It violates my belief system as friend Tuner so clearly pointed out. I do not drop the thumb safety until I am 45 degrees out and my left hand is coming out to grab the gun. I do not touch the trigger until I have a sight picture and my trigger finger is on the slide stop pin (The Safety Button) and then it comes off and makes a nice clean sweep to the trigger. Takes about 1.3 seconds in the old days. Probably about 2 minutes now...........................I would rather be dead than wrong but I do not expect any of you to act that way or think that way. It just what it's like to be me! I do not like thumb breaks and my holsters are custom made for me by Gordon Davis and ride right behind my right hip. So far , so good! He knows what I like and how to make 'em! I think pistol matches have value in that they will teach you good gunhandling and safety habits. You will learn to draw and fire and do it often. You will learn to get on a target and hit it. You will be in the company of fine men and women who will help you get better and safer. Try it! You may like it!
 
Truth

Wellllllllll....

I can't tell you any more about the cited events than what I read,
but I could go into what I've seen firsthand...a little.

How about a young guy from Joisey who, on having a malfunction
with his M-16, raised his hand for a range officer to come and clear it, as per SOP...and took a round through his wrist.

Or another one who, after firing his rifle until the bolt locked back empty,
stood up and started policing up his brass. I nearly broke him in half when I clipped him. He got lucky.

Or the one who, after having slapped his bolt release so hard that it broke, couldn't remember how to put his rifle in battery with the charge handle ...because he had always used the bolt release and forgot the alternative techniques. Somebody reached up and slapped the butt of his rifle and released the bolt. The guy who did that deserved a Bronze Star,
because he had to expose himself to heavy fire in order to do it.

I won't go into the ones who died as a result of not being careful of their habits when the targets didn't shoot back. Every one mentioned above
had earned "Expert" badges...on the qualifying range. Above 230 shooters, every one.

My point is to be aware of what you make a habit of doing during practice.
I won't promise that you'll do it automatically under stress, but there's a very good chance of it. Believe it...or not.
 
My IWB holster for the M1911 and similar pistols is designed to use the Jordan Draw, with modifications.

The hand locates the holster through the cloth and comes uip the rear edge of the holster, using it as a guide. The covered trigger guard means the trigger finger is alongside the pistol as you draw. The "button" or cam prevents disengagement of the safety until the pistol is actually moving.

With practice, you can bring the gun to the present with finger outside the guard and safety locked. You fire by simply closing the shooting hand, wiping off the safety as you touch the trigger.

This overcomes some of the objections to the Jordan draw -- specifically that it's an automatic shoot sequence.
 
Jordan advocated an EXPOSED trigger

guard,which is crazy,and he also advocated starting the trigger pull with the revolver STILL in the holster,which is completely insane. It also requires a holster that is COMPLETELY insecure,since it has to let the cylinder begin to turn, with the gun still in the rig, in order to let you start the trigger pull in the rig. Forget such bs. Bill, in the heyday of the 38 lrn, advocated aiming at the GUTS, ferchrissakes. He also shot his partner, in a claimed "accidental" shooting, and he thought a 40 gr .22 mag hp, 1200 fps from a 2" barrel, was somehow superior to an 80 gr .38 hp, at 1400 fps from a 2" barrel. He also didn't even know that the grip safety on the 1911 doesn't block the sear or the hammer,and thought a 1911 speed safety was unsafe. We have millions of hours of ccw carry with same, today, by thousands of people, that proves otherwise.
 
Tuner and Dave & other old geezers....

It's clear these guys never met or saw Bill Jordan...:)

Nor did they live in the times and circmustances that existed then.
I'm not saying they were tougher then. I don't think they were, but they were different.

He lived in a time when a lawman fought to stay alive and not to avoid a court battle.

Security, retention, and liability be dammed!

An old timer I worked with back then said, "If I was meant to fight like a dog, the Lord woulda given me fangs and claws!"

When you had to draw a gun back then, the negotiations and conversation were over, somebody was gonna die!!

It's a different world today, things are not as clear as they were then.

Bill taught me a lot. It may have been all wrong, unsafe, and politically incorrect , but I'm still here.

I will now quietly zig-zag out of range and out of the room!! :D
 
Last edited:
At the time Bill Jordan designed his holster exposed trigger guards were common, and many Police officers - both uniformed and in plainclothes - used rigs along the Threepersons design, or of course the Jordan holster or copies thereof. With double-action revolvers this seldom caused any problems if the user was properly trained.

The Jordan holster fit the gun so tightly that the common practice was to carry with the safety strap unlatched and only use it when necessary. Consequently Bill never started to pull the trigger before the cylinder was clear of leather, but then it didn't take him a whole lot of time too do that.

At the beginning of World War Two, Bill enlisted in the Marines as a buck private, and retired with the rank of Major. He spent the war years in the Pacific island-hopping, and I can assure any who might be interested that he understood how a 1911-A1 .45 pistol worked - grip safety and all. In later years he wore a DCM Master’s gold badge in both service rifle and pistol.

He was interested in .22 Magnum LIGHTWEIGHT revolvers over larger calibers because of quick recovery from recoil, and in his hands one of these was truly deadly because he would place that little slug exactly where it would do the most good.

He was a good friend, an interesting man to have known, and if necessary a gunfighter of the "old school." He was cool under fire, both as a Border Patrolman and a Marine, and no - he wasn't crazy by any means.
 
Old Fuff reminded me of something
- that Jordan spoke of the .22 Magnum Revolver as a viable defensive tool.
Interesting because I know of a ( now retired) LEO that bought his mom a .22 mag revolver for her HD gun , her age and some health problems caused her to put the Model 19 aside.

When this LEO was doing some "really scruffy" undercover - he used a J frame in .22 lr.

" Good enough for Jordan for - Good enough for mom" [ the 22 mag]
"Well the Long Rifle ain't a Magnum , this crowd I'm running with won't suspect a pop gun being used by cop....guess that is why I pull a "Jordan" every chance I get". [ referring to drawing and shooting that J frame"shot placement and being first" ...we ran through a brick many a weekend].

:)
 
and had the presence of mind to observe this without throwing up, put it together with what he knew of the officer, and concluded that the officer was looking for a bucket to put his brass into.
Click to expand...
Well, I'm kinda skeptical too, but your post and objections take as many liberties and has as many assumptions as what you complain of.:rolleyes:

The believeable and fairly well-documented case I know of was the CA Newhall Massacre, in which at least one cop was found dead with empty brass in his pocket. Marksmanship issues aside, the common assumption is that stowing his brass slowed the reload enough to get him killed.

Not exactly proven _if_ I have the truly observed facts correct, but certainly possible.

However,ut there *was* a civilian eyewitness providing assistance in that (Dennys?) parking lot. Don't remember what he had to say about it, if he even was in a position to observe... Anyway, LEs and security types were encouraged after that to dump brass on the ground and instead concentrate on their speedloaders. Probably a good thing.

As far as what WE should do TODAY, I think the full Jordan technique should go the way of the FBI teaching its Special Agents to "prep" the trigger on their pistols through the first stage when at the "ready" or holding suspects (was that the S&W 10mms?). That is not mentioned any more now, is it?
 
Skeptics

Following this thread, I can understand the skepticism from a few of the readers. For those who have never experienced the phenomenon, it's difficult to understand how a man can lose his grasp on the situation and do something that is seemingly contrary to his will to survive...and if they do happen to survive the experience, they often have no memory of what they did when asked.

To expand a little further, I gave the condensed version of the events that were cited in the journal. The eyewitnesses were watching from a distance, and reported that the officer fiddled with his revolver, made that
quarter-turn, and stood there looking at the ground for several seconds before he was hit. A puzzling and seemingly suicidal thing for a man to do
when under fire ("Why the hell did he do THAT?")...and it stood out.

Responding officers took this and other accounts from several witnesses...found some of the brass still clutched in his hand...and from what they remembered of him AND their department's firing range procedures, drew the logical conclusion. Logic is very often the first step in solving crimes, and cops are pretty adept at this.

As hard as it is to grasp for those who haven't seen it happen, it does
happen. I've seen it. I've even experienced it, but was lucky enough to come to my senses in time...which is largely why I began to study it in-depth. Be careful of what you program yourself to do. It can be something as simple as reloading your pistol by picking up a magazine off a table,
or catching the empty mag before it hits the ground.

I'll relate another event that I witnessed, just for the sake of showing how
training becomes part of our autoresponse.

I saw an experienced deer hunter draw a bead on a nice buck in the
woods off of Flat Shoals Road. The man never fails to fill his limit, and has
been taking Whitetail Deer for nearly 50 years with his M-94 Winchester.
Because he had noticed that he sometimes needed a follow-up shot, he began practicing working the action of the rifle quickly and getting back on target. The flaw was, that he practiced it without pulling the trigger, concentrating instead on keeping his rifle tight to his shoulder and working
the lever smoothly.

When the time came to take his deer, he sat there and worked the action,
ejecting 6 live rounds without firing a shot while the buck stood there looking at him. I wasn't in position to take a shot, so what was possibly a
Boone & Crockett Whitetail trotted off into the brush...chuckling, no doubt.
The guy couldn't understand how he had missed the deer 6 times at that range...until I pointed to the live rounds on the ground. It took him about
3 minutes to draw the only logical conclusion.

It happens. Yessir it does...and nobody is immune.

Cheers all!

Tuner
 
When your heart is pounding and tunnel vision starts to exclude everything but what you perceive to be the immediate threat, it takes a conscious effort to "keep your head" and continue to think things through, as opposed to instant action. The phrase "swimming through molasses" is the best description I can come up with. People with training and experience will default to whatever response seems appropriate for the situation they perceive. People with no training or experience will search for the closest match in their mind and use that, often with strange results. Sorry if that further confuses things.
 
Confusion Reigns!

NM Shooter said:

People with no training or experience will search for the closest match in their mind and use that, often with strange results.
____________________

Exactly! You may want to add incorrect training to that as well.
Incorrect as in, programming themselves to get themselves killed.
A classic example is standing in the open and raising their hands into
the surrender position to await the signal to begin the "stage" and go for their gun, instead of drawing it on the run as they head for cover.

I heard of that actually happening once, though I can't remember where, when, or from whom...so I can't offer documentation to the skeptical. It was an officer who had been a top competitor in the games, and carried the habit over when the lead flew in his direction.

Funny thing, stress...
_____________________

Sorry if that further confuses things.

Not at all. It's crystal clear for those who've lived it.

Cheers!
 
Interesting comments. I am familiar with the Border Patrol. Also Fish and Game. Bill Jordon was a killer diller type guy who went home every night , which is what you strive for in that line of work. The assumtion that others can use the tools like he did, is wrong. I have heard the BS all of my life and am not impressed. I have no desire to be like him or any other gunman of his time on the planet. I am a Certified Colorado Peace Officer and I did what worked for me. I still like my ways and would not change them for all the world because they have served me well for 72 years, 50 + with a 45 ACP on my right hip. I do not teach the Dave Sample/Captain Eagle theory of gunfighting because it is not PC. I will give the perp the first shot and if he kills me, my problems are over and his have just begun. If he doesn't kill me on that first shot, then his troubles will soon end. I can beat that in any court in the world and walk away without giving what little I have left to the Law Dawgs and Courts. If they shoot first there is no doubt about self defense. I like to "Take my time fast" when I draw and put that first shot right where I want it. I have done that thousands of times and while I was deputy sheriff in Trinidad, CO I loaded and shot 1000 full house loads every week. I shot a lot of night shoots, also so I am familiar with that big ball of fire about the size of a basketball that comes out of that muzzle and relieves you of your night vision. When it hits the fan, you will go on auto pilot and do what you have practiced and if you haven't done your home work, you will probably lose. It really helps you be a gunfighter if you have no fear of dying. That could be why I am still around writing this nonsense.
 
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