Jeff Cooper on Point Shooting

[Hondo11]

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[bds32]

Good discussion.

It's interesting how alot of officers involved in close quarter pistol fights will say they never saw their sights. I know one personally and he trains all the time to use his sights, many times a year. Is sighted fire best? I think it is. But, I also believe that even after many thousands of rounds of using my sights on the range, in a gunfight at distances under 10 yards, I'm not very likely to use the sights. This has been confirmed on many occassions using Simunitions in Force on Force training. This is not a conscious choice on my part because I would prefer to use my sights, I just don't. For those of you who don't think you would ever point shoot in a gunfight, get a buddy with a paintball gun with projectiles moving at about 300 FPS, then simulate a gunfight at about ten yards. This will give you a better idea what you'd do. It could go either way.

This seems to be the one exception to "you fight like you train" for some individuals. For some, the brain just won't let you take the eyes off of an immediate lethal threat. I envy those individuals who can stay on the sights in such a deadly situation.

 

[matthew temkin]

Nate 45--you may define up close as 0-3 yards, but Cooper defines it as 30 feet.
Which is 10 yards.
And ten yards--heck, even 3 yards--will encompass 90% of armed encounters involving both law enforcement and armed citizens.
So, why not embrace "pointer fire" along with methods for the occasional long shot?
Unless, of course, it is no longer "murderously effective" and easy to learn.

 

[nate45]

...."It's an axiom that hitting your target is your main concern, and the best way to hit is to use your sights, but circumstances do arise in which the need for speed is so great, and the range so short, that you must hit by pointing alone, without seeing your gun at all.
...Pointer fire is not as hard to learn as sighting, once you realize it's range limitations. using the 1911 auto-pistol I have found that I can teach the avjerage infantryman to stay on a silhouette at 10 yards--using pointer fire in two shot bursts--more easily that I can get him into that 25 yard bullseye using slow fire and sights.
Of course this sort of shooting is strictly a way of obtaining body hits at essentially indoor ranges ( 30 feet and under)..
..But up close pointer fire can be murderously effective, and it's mastery is often the difference between life and death."( pg 97-98)

He never calls 10 yards 'up close' in the text you provide.

Remember he said all that at least 50 years ago and the sights on the issue 1911 were pretty bad. Notice he never says it is superior to sighted fire and he says it was just away of obtaining body hits at 30 feet and under.

You may think that firing a two shot burst and obtaining a hit 'somewhere' on the body is great, but I think it is mediocre at best.

 

[David Armstrong]

Well, I'm convinced, I'm going to abandon the Modern Technique, the Weaver stance, the flash sight picture and all the rest of it. All these years the teachings of Cooper, Taylor, Smith and the rest of them were wrong. They tried a system and it failed.

Strange, nobody has said that anywhere, or even suggested it AFAIK, so why you would be convinced to do that seems rather strange.

 

[matthew temkin]

Actually he says that it is "murderously effective" out to 30 feet and can be trained in a fraction of the time that it would take to make even a fair target shot.
Which is exactly what Fairbairn discovered in post WW1 Shangahi.
And since most gunfights happen within 10 feet ( as Chuck Taylor mentions in the current issue of CH) the question is why not master pointer fire along with longer range skills?
And no--I do not consider a two round burst anywhere in the body good enough.
I consider shooting the SOB to the ground while rapidly closing in with rapid fire multiple hits to be the objective when the range is close and cover is not an option.

 

[David Armstrong]

I thougt it was 'natural'. Swamp, if it's that natural why so many rounds?

Much of that depends on what level you want to use. To engage a man-sized target at 10 feet doesn't take many rounds. To engage a popcan tossed on the ground 10 feet away takes more development.

Walk before you run. Learn the basics, that is sighted fire first.

Those are the basics if you want to be a competition shooter. If you just want to survive a shootout, target-focus seems the proper basics. easier and faster to learn to achieve the desired goal.

 

[David Armstrong]

For some, the brain just won't let you take the eyes off of an immediate lethal threat.

Thta is the real issue, IMO. The more we learn about stress, reactions, and the body the more we realize that that training needs to utilize natural responses rather than go against them for the typical person. Yes, if you train a whole lot you might reduce the level of response, or you might delay it, but it will come and it will come fast for most. Might as well deal with that issue first, then move on to the less likely.

 

[matthew temkin]

Dave..pretty soon we will be debating what Cooper meant by "murderously effective"
Strange how so many are angry that I began this thread.
To me knowledge is power and the past should be known.

 

[nate45]

Actually he says that it is "murderously effective" out to 30 feet and can be trained in a fraction of the time that it would take to make even a fair target shot.

Not in the text you provided.

 

[David Armstrong]

Strange how so many are angry that I began this thread.
To me knowledge is power and the past should be known.

Equally strange, IMO, is the number who consistently (and intentionally in some cases, IMO) twist and distort the position of the target focus camp to try to make it something nobody on that side has said.

 

[Bogie]

Guys, time spent aiming can be time spent ensuring a hit, or it can be time spent letting the other guy wing a lucky one at you.

I'll take administering a fast random torso shot before the bad guy can manage one himself any day.

Face it - it is NOT that hard to hit a 12x18 target without a lot of conscious thought at under 10 yards.

And if I remember correctly, a few years back, the average "gunfight" was something like 1.1 rounds fired... Which means that there were a LOT of cases where one guy managed to shoot first.

I suspect that it is rather distracting to the bad guy when he finds himself with a sucking chest wound.

This is NOT a method that can be used to shoot tiny little groups. What it is is a method that is used to sling a lot of lead into a specific general area, in hopes that you'll get there firstest with the mostest.

But you're not going to like it if you try it with a gun that doesn't point naturally to you.

TRY IT. It won't hurt. And it can be beneficial.

BTW, I also shoot Weaver, etc., etc... Whatever works. I try to be flexible.

And, FWIW, the Weaver stance, and most of what some folks seem to think is the perfect tradition, was really looked down upon when it was introduced... A man was supposed to hold the pistol out at arm's length, and sight along his arm...

 

[Deaf Smith]

I consider shooting the SOB to the ground while rapidly closing in with rapid fire multiple hits to be the objective when the range is close and cover is not an option.

Matt,

Not everone will have a 17 shooter and only one opponent.

You know, even Cirillo did have a 'silhouette point' method he developed as an alternative. You ended up having to sort of 'see' the back of the slide to get the index.

But even then, he said alternative, not as the only way to do the same thing at the same range.

Then again, hasn't D.R. Middlebrooks won a lot of competitive events with point shooting?

Not at first Matt. What he did was become so good he could index and not rely so much on the sights. Everything became a sort of type 1 focus for him.

Practice for a time and you can do that, which is one of the things Cooper's presentation was to develope. The abilty for an automatic index. The 'flash sight picture' was to verify that alighment.

Those are the basics if you want to be a competition shooter. If you just want to survive a shootout, target-focus seems the proper basics. easier and faster to learn to achieve the desired goal.

What david? You get this from some dictionary you pulled of the air? Basics not part of suvival of a shootout? Tell that to the military.Tell that to the police. Tell that to.. oh, to your dictionary.

 

[David Armstrong]

What david? You get this from some dictionary you pulled of the air? Basics not part of suvival of a shootout?

Huh?? Deaf, in a long history of posts that are absolutely un-related to what is being discussed or what was said, that has to be at the top. I haven't the faintest idea what "basics not part of suvival of a shootout" is supposed to mean, much less what is in reference to.

 

[Bogie]

I think it's more important to focus on your target (and see what they're about to do) than to focus on your sights... You can bring the sights to the target, but you cannot bring the target to the sights.

 

[Deaf Smith]

No doubt you don't david. No doubt at all.

 

[David Armstrong]

OK, you apparently can't explain it even when you wrote it. That's cool.

 

[Bogie]

I think that someone needs some range time.

BOTH of y'all.

One of you needs to hang some targets out at 25 yards, and work on your bullseye accuracy skills, and the other needs to stick some pie plates up at 7 yards, and work on your "broad side of a bad guy" skills.

Okay?

Can we agree to that?

Do NOT make me let the whoopass fairy out of her cage.

 

[andrewskaggs]

Do NOT make me let the whoopass fairy out of her cage.

You owe me a new keyboard. I spewed coke on this one.

 

[David Armstrong]

One of you needs to hang some targets out at 25 yards, and work on your bullseye accuracy skills, and the other needs to stick some pie plates up at 7 yards, and work on your "broad side of a bad guy" skills.

Well, given that deaf says he works on point shooting regularly, and I regularly practice at the 25 yard line, I don't think you've got it quite right!