Shooting style.

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biggins93

Inactive
When did pistol shooting change from one handed to two? I have always seen and used two hands, but I see in old training footage from WWII of soldiers shooting 1911's one handed. So when did this change?
 
Two handed combat/self defense shooting started to become in vogue in the mid 50's, and was widely accepted by the mid 60's.
 
I've seen pictures of police firing range practice as late as the early 70's when they were all still using a one-hand stance. My grandfather retired as chief of a small-town force in '74 and it wasn't long after that when the one-hand stance was pretty much gone in their department.
 
Traditionally the military and the police taught handgun marksmanship by having you stand sideways to the target, place your left hand in your pocket (you're not going to use it anyway) and fire. No one questioned this until Jeff Cooper and Jack Weaver started matches in the 50s where you could use any stance you could think of. You had to draw and fire and use full power ammunition. When Weaver started beating everybody they started watching how he was doing it. About the same time holster designs got real interesting. Steel lined leather rigs with the front cut away so the gun only had to be raised and inch or so to clear leather. I still use a Chapman rig from those days. It's still pretty quick. I still remember the early days of IPSC when almost everybody used crossdraw rigs. Brian Enos has some great photos of those early matches on his website.
 
One of my trainings for point shooting had a full segment on this, (Mike Conte/Saber Group.) It showed OSS point shooting strong hand unsupported during WWII and also showed FBI/Police from that era shooting in a similar fashion until the NRA got involved and then it showed Police target shooting. Now some agencies are starting to go back to the OSS methods.
 
Because they didn't know any better?

Of course it's a good idea to practice shooting with one hand, but for me I'm so much more accurate with two ... If my life was on the line, both hands would be on my gun if at all possible ...
 
My accuracy isn't tremendously different between using one and two hands--particularly if I can take as much time as I want and the trigger on the gun is good. But I can recover from recoil and fire a second accurate shot much more rapidly with two hands than with one. And I can work around a less than ideal trigger much more effectively with a two hand hold.
 
You really need to know how to shoot both ways and with either hand. There's no telling the situation you might find yourself in. I've shot people while using both hands on the gun and then again once had my .357 in one had and my radio mic in the other. You could even wind up flat on your back getting your butt kicked before you get your gun into play.
 
We should all practice shooting with one hand, strong and weak. You never know what will happen. I shoot about as well with one hand as with 2 except rapid fire. I seem to have more control rapid fire with 2 hands especially with the D/A revolver.
 
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