Self-Defense Shooting is NOT Bullseye Shooting

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Have taken multiple classes, been shooting for nearly 40+ years, have had to defend myself twice with my handgun.

I have just a little experience with real life situations.

And if that is not enough "qualification" to comment on these issues, well....you can kiss my ... Glock.

I know I did after it saved my life.

:D
 
Aquiring the sight picture ASAP is what I am after when shooting the targets. I pull out from holster or from at the ready and try to instantly capture the target so I can get off a round without a bunch of time wasted trying to find the front sight. For that reason I don't feel bad about putting a couple hundred rounds a week at the target from 15 - 25 feet. I do switch from 2 handed to left and right several times.

I don't have a place to practice a lot of combat situations and with my age and mobility restrictions I'm not going to be doing a lot of gyrotations to get the shot off. If the BG comes to me I shoot him/her center mass (not a sexist:).I'm not going to leap across an isle, slide into second and do a John Woo firing from both hands. As long as I can capture the sight picture instinctively and instantly I figure muscle memory will do the rest.

We do the best we can with what we have. All correct practice is good practice.
 
Have taken multiple classes, been shooting for nearly 40+ years, have had to defend myself twice with my handgun.

Beyond that, well, Frank, you can kiss my ***.

Have a good day.
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Really you are going to go there...? People are trying to engage you in a meaningful manner offering suggestions and a critique of the info you have posted and this is your reaction? :rolleyes:
 
Hey, WV, if you are going to quote me, at least get it right, ok?
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My quote is accurate to what you originally posted before you edited your post and you know it.

End of conversation.
 
"of time wasted trying to find the front sight. For that reason I don't feel bad about putting a couple hundred rounds a week at the target from 15 - 25 feet. I do switch from 2 handed to left and right several times.

I don't have a place to practice a lot of combat situations and with my age and mobility restrictions I'm not going to be doing a lot of gyrotations to get the shot off. If the BG comes to me I shoot him/her center mass (not a sexist.I'm not going to leap across an isle, slide into second and do a John Woo firing from both hands. As long as I can capture the sight picture instinctively and instantly I figure muscle memory will do the rest.

We do the best we can with what we have. All correct practice is good practice. "



VERY WELL SAID
 
"of time wasted trying to find the front sight. For that reason I don't feel bad about putting a couple hundred rounds a week at the target from 15 - 25 feet. I do switch from 2 handed to left and right several times.

I don't have a place to practice a lot of combat situations and with my age and mobility restrictions I'm not going to be doing a lot of gyrotations to get the shot off. If the BG comes to me I shoot him/her center mass (not a sexist.I'm not going to leap across an isle, slide into second and do a John Woo firing from both hands. As long as I can capture the sight picture instinctively and instantly I figure muscle memory will do the rest.

We do the best we can with what we have. All correct practice is good practice. "



VERY WELL SAID
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Aquiring the sight picture ASAP is what I am after when shooting the targets. I pull out from holster or from at the ready and try to instantly capture the target so I can get off a round without a bunch of time wasted trying to find the front sight. For that reason I don't feel bad about putting a couple hundred rounds a week at the target from 15 - 25 feet. I do switch from 2 handed to left and right several times.

I don't have a place to practice a lot of combat situations and with my age and mobility restrictions I'm not going to be doing a lot of gyrotations to get the shot off. If the BG comes to me I shoot him/her center mass (not a sexist.I'm not going to leap across an isle, slide into second and do a John Woo firing from both hands. As long as I can capture the sight picture instinctively and instantly I figure muscle memory will do the rest.

We do the best we can with what we have. All correct practice is good practice
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Funny is that.
 
I'm guilty of not practicing enough, especially one-handed and L. handed. I mostly concentrate on bullseye shooting at 20+ yards. When you're even moderately proficient at getting 9's on a silhouette at 20, lining up at 15- is 'natural' and easy, for me at least.
Still, I have sucessfully defended myself in a draw and shoot scenario that went down in moments.
I can honestly say that the adrenalin/nerve/panic rush came after each event. The only times nerves kicked in before drawing/shooting is when I could see the event unfolding like a train wreck I knew I coudn't avoid. There is nothing calm about it afterwards, but not too bad in the middle of the storm.
 
True Tinner,

The worst part of a confrontation is waiting. That brings on nerves.

But if the action is sudden and one is trained you tend to get so busy doing what needs to be done you forget to be afraid.

Jim Cirillo, in his first shootout where he wounded all three robbers, he said he rushed to the door and confronted all three of then at once. And he was so busy looking at the front sight of his revolver he could see the stratification on the front sight. And Cirillo was a police shooting instructor for they NYPD, with many trophies, before he entered the NYPD Stakeout Squad.

It's the waiting that gets to people so much, not the action when the fur flies.

Deaf
 
I practice both

When I shoot one of my Self Defense handguns, it is for both the enjoyment of shooting, and also to practice my skill at self defense shooting.

The first shots I take are quick acquisition, rapid fire. I start with 12 rounds in the mag, and a 7 - 10 yard sillouette target. I grip the gun in a low-ready one handed position at my waist at about holster level. After a pause, I bring the weapon up quickly into a two handed grip, get a flash picture, and squeeze off 3 rounds as quickly as I can. I lower the weapon to holster position, and repeat until the mag is empty. I do this to judge my skill from a cold, unpracticed condition.

I then usually shoot about 50 rounds of slow accurate bullseye type shooting, sometimes with a one-handed grip (true bulls-eye stance), sometimes with a two handed grip.

I then start shooting faster, and shoot another 100 rounds just like I shot the first 12... bringing the gun up from waist level and rapidly shooting 3 rounds. My range does not allow drawing from a holster, so I practice that at home when I dry-fire practice. At the range I start with the gun at waist level.

If I am shooting at a 7 yard target, I just use the front sight. at 10 yards, I slow down a bit and get a flash sight picture. I also always shoot a mag full left handed.

Over the years I have found that slow target shooting is a great aid in learning to shoot quickly. If I only practice rapid fire, I actually get worse as the shooting session progresses. By doing bulls-eye first, I gain both accuracy and speed.

This is what I have been doing for 25 years. I have never taken a class, and I have never shot a handgun competitively. Based on what I see at the ranges, I shoot better than 80% of the people there... the folks who shoot better than me usually shoot WAY WAY better then me, and are obviously competitive shooters.

This is what works for me, if someone finds it helpful, great !
 
My quote is accurate to what you originally posted before you edited your post and you know it.

End of conversation.
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I saw it too. It give you a small window to change what you say without it saying it was changed.



10-4 though on all the advice given other than the OP's. Mleake, Frank, Bluestar. etc. Good calls.
 
I want to add one final comment about a logic flaw of the OP. He stated that...

To put it bluntly, putting as many holes in the center mass of an assailant is the BEST WAY to stop a threat.
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While putting many holes center mass might work well against a person without a ballistic vest, the problem here is that it assumes that you will necessarily have the time, marksmanship, target cooperation, functioning gun, etc. to put a lot of holes COM. Unfortunately for many reasons, defenders don't always have the opportunity to do this and often not more than an opportunity for more than one or two shots. For this reason, I assume that that first shot is going to be the most critical and potentially the only opportunity. If you get more shots, then that is fortunate, but like the Hispanic drug house defender in Miami going against the cops, a shot to the chest and leg was the only opportunity afforded for a consider amount of time during the fight until one cop made a longer range precision shot that caught the suspect in the head (going back to MLeake's comment about needing to "thread a shot" between things, in this case, between the "v" of branches of a tree being used for cover). See... http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=524536&highlight=raid+car

Unlike the OP's overly gracious target, you don't always get the benefit of stationary, passive, non-fighting targets to defend against that are standing out in the open, full-on frontal views. You might get that shot, or you might get anything but that shot, but you won't likely get many opportunities at that shot.
 
zincwarrior: Not seeing what the issue is. Do both.
Practice being accurate. Practice being methodically fast.
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This ^^^

Just practice. Close in, far out. Refreshed, winded. While sitting on your bicycle, while carrying groceries. While in an ideal setting at the range with eyes and ears.

Just practice.


Sgt Lumpy
 
Remember to unclip / remove feet from rat traps on the bike, first... unless you want to practice shooting from a rather abruptly prone position.
 
I actually have a anadote to share on this subject, which is what I was refering to in my orginal post.

My shooting history is a little diffrent from most folks I've met.
My Dad has been collecting guns since he turned 21. His main focus has always been SD shooting and combat small arms. He was "self taught" and spent a lot of time, through trial and error, figuring out how to shoot and how to shoot well. His major inflances were writings by Cooper and *brain fart* the other guy who's name starts with an A. He and his buddy would also watch action flixs and actually try (what they could safely) to do stuff they'd seen for funnsies. (so when my Dad tells you you cannot run shooting at the bad guys and have them all dropping, he's not just speaking from hearsay. ;) )

So when his 8 year old little girl learned to shoot, she got taught what he knew how to teach. I got the basics on gun saftey and trigger control with an AR-7 and then it was straight over to semi auto pistols, shooting center mass on man sized targets (he drew creatures from the old monster movies instead of people to keep it sorta PC) at between 10 and 15 feet with rapid fire and double taps.
The biggest diffrence between what he taught and what the OP advocated was that he stress shot placement, and would start slow and then get me to speed up as I gained proficiency.

When I got older, I joined 4H and the local chapter had a shooting club. That's where I learned 3P. A totally diffrent style and not really anything obviously SD shooting related.
The thing was stuff I learned on those ranges had a PROFOUND impact on my orginal disapline and benifited me immensly.

After that, the next big thing was when I got my Model 19, which was the first revolover I ever shot, at 16. With time on my iwn to practice, I did a lot more slow shooting and consentrating on smaller groups and targets at longer distances.
Again, my skills improved drastically when I went back to SD practice.

And it's not just the fundimentals and all practice makes for better shooting. Sometimes it's the weirdest stuff, that you otherwise just wouldn't think about, othertimes it's the little tricks of the trade that you go "hey, if I apply that to SD shooting it might really make a diffrence."

I say that if you want to be REALLY GOOD at one disipline (which I'll admit, I'm not nearly as good as I wish I were) you should experiment with as many diffrent disiplines as you can, because they all have something you havn't tried before and you'll never know what can benifit you until you try it.
 
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