Instinctive shooting.

[Leibster]

sanchezero,

You can check any readily available medical resource. Guyton’s Medical Textbook is one source where I've seen it. I've also consulted with vision specialists about this, and they've concurred.

Even if you're really fast with shifting focus, 1/4 of a second is still a substantial amount of time in a gunfight. It's long enough for the average person to fire at least one round at you with a relatively slow double action revolver. (See Massad Ayoob in his Cop Talk column, American Handgunner, September/October, 1998, page 28 for details. He claims there that in one full second a double action revolver can be fired 4 times on average.)

Hope that helps.

--Leibster

 

[Ryder]

Learned relexes are not instict but it is instinct to depend on that learned ability.

I think this is why you see a majority of people resorting to unaimed fire when tacychardia syndrome sets in. This happens to even highly trained people. No matter no matter how much target shooting they've been trained to do with sights you almost never see it happen in real life in up close situations. They don't consciously decide to experiment with unaimed fire at such a crucial time, it just happens because of their survival instinct and an imperative need for speed.

IF that is going to happen anyway whether you want it to or not because of instinct taking over then wouldn't it be better to have practiced that style previously with an eye towards assessing the results and improvement of that performance over time? In other words head down that road to make it a learned reflex.

I've been experimenting with unaimed fire a recently as regards SD techniques. I do this this from arm's length to 3 steps further back and have progressed to moving to either put distance between myself and the target or traversing to one side. About half of my life threatening incidents have occurred with multiple attackers at these ranges. The other half were at those ranges with single attackers.

Any further away and I'd hope to be using sights. Sights work just fine for me. Aimed fire puts the gun out at arm's length and I feel a need to minimize a grab or a rush to get behind my muzzle. I don't perceive that as a problem beyond 10-12 feet. Unaimed fire is darn fast if nothing else.

Using unaimed shots I have found no problem hitting the target. What I can not do (yet?) is place my bullet exactly where I want it on that target. For instance I may hit 6 inches low of my desired placement with one magazine and 3 inches left the next. Sometimes it's in the bull but I can't attribute that to anything but random luck at this point in my training.

What's encouraging to me is that I do get groups. Aimed fire at that range should have anyone getting a ragged hole and obviously I am not talking about those kind of groups but 3-5 inch unaimed groups are a pleasant suprise which I can only attribute to my first sentence.

 

[TheMariner]

TaxPhd,

With air pistol, whether I am an anomoly or not, I don't know. I've been using them for nearly 12 years and competition air pistols are flat shooters out to about 10m or so... the competition distance... Makes it alot easier to just put the weapon up and pull. Where its poitned is where it'll go since the distance is always the same...

I guess my anomoly/not anomoly status depends on how many people out there trained on combat shooting with a air pistol before moving to weapons with recoil... I know just about EVERY time I round out a two or three shot string, thanks to all those single shot air pistols I used, the first shot is right on the money, with the others trailing in elsewhere around the center.

I would say most focus on their sights... I use them only to tell me during competition that I'm pointed in the area, them teh sights just go blurry and all I see is the target... then pop! off goes a round... for a nice 10.9, as the scoring computers tell you at nationals..

 

[GitSome45]

I know that this is gonna bring some "fire" down on me, but I think that one should bring the weapon atleast into the "cone of view" and AGGRESS (move towards) the target/hobgoblin with determination and conviction... (Point / Semi-Aimed Shooting...but close the distance)

REMEMBER, You WILL BE SHOT!

Accept it and prepare for it, OVERCOME YOUR OPPONENT "Improvise Adapt Overcome, BUT ABOVE ALL, SUCCEED..."

Entering into a gunfight with the expectation that you will go "UN-SHOT" is like entering into a Fistfight with the expectation that you will go "UN-TOUCHED"...

Kinda UNREALISTIC !

PLUS, it sets up the shooters mind to fail, (disbelief and shock) at the crucial time and moment when you need to "DRIVE ON"- "MAKE IT HAPPEN" & "SUCCEED", You need to be as "mentally ready" for a gunfight as you do "physically ready"...

JMHO,

Howard

 

[TheMariner]

interesting thought.... must ponder a while... certainly taeks more of the view of the soldier than the civilian...

 

[VictorLouis]

GitSome, I VEHEMENTLY disagree with closing the gap!

First of all, the same gunfight footage in which see 'point-fire' from otherwise trained LEOs, we also see them RETREATING from the threat. Why on earth you would want to train against this is beyond me!

In the absence of hard cover, distance is your friend. It gives the bad-guy a harder time hitting you. It allows you to catch your breath, and maybe allow your sighted-fire training to kick-in.

As to accepting you WILL BE shot, no Sir! My mental conditioning was always this.
"I will NOT be shot or stabbed. IF I am shot/stabbed, I will NOT die. I WILL stop my attacker."

 

[themic]

if you haven't, i seriously recommend trying paintball once. it's relatively cheap, easy, safe, and you can do it almost anywhere. go out as a walk-on on a course. pick a course that has both urban and woodsy settings. you will learn a variety of things the first time,

1) it's easy to get shot.
2) it's easy to get shot quickly.
3) when you round a tight corner and stumble upon some dude, "coarse aiming" isn't really accurate. I have to say you really are pointing the entire marker, but it's likely held within the cone of vision, somewhere round head level.
4) it's easy to shoot where you want it to go, even when under stress.
5) it is HARD to hit anyone, even if you're shooting where you want it to go. people move, they move fast, and they move well.

and of course a variety of other things that are probably individual. anyways, i recommend everyone try it out, cause it's different from competition shooting, and IDPA, and IPSC, because there are people out there, who don't want to be shot, but who want to shoot you.

 

[caz223]

In the paintball arena, when you're playing your first game, the first thing you learn is how quickly you get shot.
Later, you learn how to not get shot, and how to get shot at and not get hit.
Also, recognizing good cover, and moving to cover without attracting attention are good skills, too.
If you haven't tried it yet, the money you spend may be your cheapest education.
As for dodging, avoiding a 275 FPS .68 cal projectile is pretty easy.
Evading a .355 projectile at better than 1100 FPS is not gonna happen without some religion...

 

[TheMariner]

So, if God is with us, than who can be against us?

 

[E357]

For point shooting, I don't think you can get better than practicing with a GOOD QUALITY Airsoft gas blowback pistol that exactly matches your carry weapon. You can shoot in the house, throw cans up in the air, shoot and hit dragon flys, Palmetto bugs in the garage. These guns won't last a lifetime, but they are realistic, recoil and noise are at a muted 22 short level.

Elliot

 

[Navy joe]

Something that isn't said enough is the need for sameness of equipment. I am a fairly new competitor and am pretty much mid level in IPSC and what little IDPA I've tried. The past year of competing markedly improved my competition skills. I own a good number of pistols, but about 8 months ago I switched from my 1911s in competition to a pair of Glocks. I also switched to them for carry. Other guns go to the range now only because I feel sorry for them. I have found out that I can still target shoot my 1911s just fine, but fast and fancy is out, the Glock feel, point, and shot reaction are too wired into my head. In that time I've seen over 10K rounds of 9mm go bye-bye and managed to maintain a fairly active match schedule thru trying winter weather.

The results are that at closer ranges out to 7-10 yds I find myself looking overtop of my gun after all shots are fired. I hold it in a centered isosceles stance, just not quite at eye level. Sights? What sights? I get good hits, and any points I do drop are from too fast a cadence if anything. I certainly don't miss. The thing is I certainly don't mean to do it, I could probably scream "Front Sight!" out loud and still do it. I figure that means if I'm ever prompted for close range speedy action that's how I'll end up shooting. Definitely target focused shooting. Sometimes I am watching the front sight, but looking from overtop of it. The alignment I see there is the whole slide, front sight to the point of impact on the target, I usually see the hits. So basically laterally aligning while focusing on the target. Darn weird.

I could not do it if the Glock did not point well for me. As a point of interest, I use the G34 mainly for 25 yd plinking and the G17 for everything else. The difference is the 17 is second Gen with no stupid finger grooves. I have grip taped it to death and it suits my hand. I could not do it if I switched guns from match to match. When I decide to play with the G34 again it will be exclusive. When I go back to 1911s same thing, both Glocks will take a season off. Heaven help me if I decide I need to shoot BHPs in IDPA, then I can have more moneypit guns.

 

[355sigfan]

The only time you should not be using the sights is at contact range where you can literally touch your target. Past that sights rule.

Now at close range you don't need a great sight picture in fact being able to just see the front sight and the target blurred around it is usually close enough.
PAT

 

[TheMariner]

Whatever trips your trigger man... everybody is different.