I've always thought about the press contact scenario. If you ever get into a situation where you have to draw and shoot, press contact may be neccessary. This being the case, my main concern is (also) the problem of an auto going out of battery. I actually tested this by loading my CC guns that are auto with snap caps. I pressed them into my bed, into my stomach, into my head, into my thigh, into my buttocks, into my back and into some other parts of my body that replicated areas where I may have to press or wedge the muzzle of the gun if ever needed. All of the places put the gun out of battery even with the slightest push and I wasn't able to fire. I've come to realize that this is a major problem when it comes to the press contact tactic if using an auto as a gun, so I've come up with a slight solution.
My solution was to, instead of pressing the muzzle directly onto the surface, train yourself to blade the muzzle a bit laterally from wherever you draw. What I mean is, instead of practicing drawing, then bringing the muzzle up to wherever your contact point is and pressing, practice drawing and instead of bringing the gun up or to wherever, just practice blading immediately from the point you clear the holster and "point shoot" it from that position. For example, if you carry 3 o'clock or somewhere near the 2-4 o'clock range, practice drawing and shooting with the gun slightly bent to the right from the hip, and vice versa from 8-10 o'clock for south paws. If you ankle carry and draw from a knee-down crouch, practice drawing, bending your wrist from the draw position and point shooting from there. If you ankle carry and preffered method of draw is sitting on your butt, practice drawing and shooting a bit laying down in that same draw position. This tactic trades a guarantee press contact hit ratio for faster draw to fire ratio with less emphasis on guaranteed hit but more on the getting a round off quicker. If your close enough for press contact, point shooting from these immediate draw positions shouldn't be too much more difficult to land hits than press contact, for we are talking about marginal distances of less than a yard here. I would have to post pictures to fully explain what I mean, but when you get the hang of it, you will never have to put too much thought into press contact, for you will already have the jump on drawing and shooting with this technique. Think of it this way: The guy is close enough to grab your clothes or your limbs or put hands on. This is most likely always going to be about a yard or less, because I don't know many people with a reach of more than that. The time it takes to draw, and press the gun's muzzle to the BG's body is going to take a set amount of time, be it not milliseconds. Take that same scenario and instead of drawing and pressing, draw and immediately point shoot from the get go with a wrist bend. With practice, you can learn to bend your wrist into a point shooting position from the immediate draw. Many people who hip carry call this "hip fire." It's not exactly point shooting, excuse me, but it's more of a reaction hip shot.
Try it one day. Go to a range that allows concealed drawing practice shots and practice it. Stand about 1-2 yards away from target, close enough to simulate someone being close enough to grab you. Practice your fastest draw, but instead of raising the gun's sights or bringing any sort of sight picture, instead, practice blading your wrist in the general direction of the biggest part of your target. You WILL be surprised at how accurate you can be at that distance, even when the sights are nowhere near your face. I practice this every time I go to a certain outdoor range and I'm actually able to get some pattern of controlled groups.
I personally think stand off training should be mandatory in all SD classes, because many SD situations do happen to occur at stand off distances.
