Shooting a pistol one-handed

[David E]

I do not see in any of the previous posts that anyone is advocating one-handed shooting as "a primary technique" in the sense of the first choice under any circumstance.

Except that the OP did in his first post:

However, how well do the "armchair commandos" here think (one-handed shooting would) work as a primary technique, for someone who does not have the time, motivation, or cashola to practice very often?

He lists the negatives of two handed shooting:

Properly pulling off a two-handed hold under stress can be difficult. Pull too hard with your support hand, or push too hard with your strong hand, etc. Just using one hand totally eliminates that. but there is still room for error which can't happen with only one hand.

The main problem is recoil management, ....may never learn how to manage recoil with two hands more than marginally better than they can with just one.
And you could accidentally shoot your support hand. With revolvers, an improper two-hand hold can result in powder burns or even the loss of a finger, or could tie up the cylinder. With autos, an improper hold can induce a jam.

Then he listed the "advantages" of one hand over two hand shooting:

But the benefits of one-hand use? It's easier and may be more natural under stress. The possibility of screwing up your aim with your support hand hold is almost eliminated. The possibility of impairing the weapon's function with your support hand is almost eliminated.

Emphasis added.

After 5 pages, I think it's been pretty established that one handed shooting as a primary technique is NOT superior to a two handed technique, nor is it easier or faster to learn, which were among his assertions.

 

[Mr_Rogers]

DavidE,
The OP certainly did not advocate one-handed shooting as a primary technique. Although he clearly hoped for confirmation of his own theory he actually only requested opinions concerning the use of one-handed shooting as a primary technique - a very different matter.

It is most likely that I would draw and fire one-handed if under time pressure at a range less than five yards. Probably I would make a two handed shot outside of seven yards. What I would do between five and seven yards would depend entirely on my gut reaction to the circumstances. And to this I would add there is never a predictable circumstance in combat so having suggested what I might do, all bets are off. You will note I have no preconceived ideas and any man that does stands a 50% chance of doing the wrong thing.

From actual live fire practice against turning targets connected to a shot timer I know I can hit CoM, one-handed, at less than 5 yards with a one second target exposure. The electronics and the hole in the target do not lie. Could I make the same shot in reality - who the heck knows - there are just too many variables to consider. I do know that I am half a second faster using one hand than two at the close range. I also know I need 2.5 seconds exposure and the use of two hands to make the same shot from 7 yards.

 

[nitetrane98]

Ditto the many opinions that one style cannot fit all scenarios.

To try to stay as close to the OP question as possible, if I had to train for a specific scenario for 0-5 yds it would be anchor point shooting for the first 3 yds and run it one handed out and pull the trigger (point and shoot) for the other 2 yds. (assuming SD situation , of course)
My LE training is all I really know. For years it was all about putting holes in the target. Thankfully they later begain to think about tactics/cover/movement etc.

 

[Oyeboten]

If one is skilled at shooting fairly well one-handed with either hand...and on short notice, and under differing conditions, positions, compromises, close-in, full extend out, laying down, etc...and with alacrity...then, clearly, one will enjoy an advanage over others who can not.

That much ought to be obvious to anyone.

 

[MICHAEL T]

The problem here is we are all gun people and shooters. We can agree or disagree. But every day people in this courty of all ages defend them self with a hand gun . I will bet majority used 1 handed shooting . Remember people buy a gun for SD many load and put in a drawer. It time to use they point and pull trigger. They are not worried about what stance or 2 hands or anything else except staying alive. Guess what they see to be doing a pretty good job of hitting the BG with a whole lot less rounds than the police. 1 hand or 2 we can practice and choose. I started in late 50's I learned 1 handed I still use close and 2 hands as distance increases. But here again we fire more rounds in a year than many do in a life time.
So what we think or belive doesn't matter to JQ Public at 2am in morning who just shot the BG in his house 1 handed with no hearing protection or safety glasses. He pointed fired and by golly hit the BG . What he did was defend him self How doesn't really matter except here on gun board We will nick pick and thing to death. Remember the 2 hand hold came from game shooting Weaver and Cooper and others against the clock . Many of the old real gunfighters some use 1 some 2 hands They wern't shooting paper and did what they had learned. from others or taught themselves. Wasn't no games or gunfighting schools Kinda on the job training.
1 handed is another tool in the box .
We put to much time into what ifs and what works best . Fact of matter people been shooting each for a couple hundred years both 1 and 2 handed . Think one of these days will have it figured out.

 

[David E]

The OP certainly did not advocate one-handed shooting as a primary technique.

It certainly read that way to me. altho he did ask for input regarding his take on the matter.

From actual live fire practice against turning targets connected to a shot timer I know I can hit CoM, one-handed, at less than 5 yards with a one second target exposure. The electronics and the hole in the target do not lie. I also know I need 2.5 seconds exposure and the use of two hands to make the same shot from 7 yards.

I know a cop that honestly thinks he has a sub-one second reload. I've seen him shoot and knew there was no way he could do that, so I asked some questions. It turns out that on his Dept's range, there is a sequence where the target faces you for 2 seconds, faces away for ONE second (during which you're required to do a reload) and fire again when the target refaces.

I've watched this range in action (altho I never saw this particular officer shoot this particulare CoF) and they allow you to start with your hand ON the gun. You can hear the pneumatics fire up a 1/2 second or so prior to the targets actually turning. As a result, they already have their gun out waiting for the target to fully face. They fire and begin their reload before the targets even begin to turn back He has probably 3 seconds or more for his reload, but since the target was programmed to face away for only ONE second, he thinks he has a sub-one second reload, since he's waiting on the target to complete the second facing.

Does this apply to you? I cannot say, of course, but I would encourage you to take your shot timer and do the same thing, reacting to the "beep" of the timer, THEN looking at your raw time. If your shot timer does not allow this, then it sounds like it is the same system where the target facing time is programmed into the system. Better than nothing, obviously, but this is a rough measure at best.

If it takes you 2.5 seconds at 7 yds for two hands, then it points to your technique or execution of same.

I don't mean to come across as a 'know-it-all' here, but I do know a bit about this kind of thing. I have had students not be able to break 2.5 seconds for 2 shots @ 7 yds (hands at sides, reacting to beep) at the beginning of the class, to where no one exceeded 1.5 seconds for the same drill at the end of the class.

It's not that hard when you know how.

 

[David E]

But every day people in this courty of all ages defend them self with a hand gun . Remember people buy a gun for SD many load and put in a drawer. Guess what they see to be doing a pretty good job of hitting the BG with a whole lot less rounds than the police.

I agree that sometimes we make it more difficult than may be necessary, but the citizen usually deals with a different dynamic than the cops. They are in their own house (per your gun in the drawer comment) are often within contact distance or are behind cover holding the gun on the door. They fire without thought when the door gets kicked in.

Cops have to deal with bystanders, department policy (yeah, it matters!) unfamiliar surroundings, etc, etc, etc.

As for me, I like shooting too much to limit myself to only 4 feet and closer, even tho that may be the more probable scenario. That's not to say I ignore it, but I also choose to go beyond that. The better stocked the tool box, the better chance I'll have the right tool when I need it.

 

[Mr_Rogers]

As for me, I like shooting too much to limit myself to only 4 feet and closer, even tho that may be the more probable scenario. That's not to say I ignore it, but I also choose to go beyond that. The better stocked the tool box, the better chance I'll have the right tool when I need it.

David, as well as the time training we also use stairs made from deck steps, mazes made from concrete blocks and 2x4s and a short cross-country running course so that we can get people out-of-breath before they shoot. We are not a training organization, just a few interested individuals on a private range, some of whom qualify for the description "senior".

The inspiration for our project is the description of the range and training programs described in "Shooting to Live".

I would invite you to visit us if you are in the North West anytime.

 

[David E]

Thanks for the invite. I need to go visit family in Oregon sometime....

 

[5whiskey]

Haven't read the entire 5 pages, but I'm sure almost every professional that uses their firearm as a tool will tell they started out the very same way.

You don't run before you crawl. You can crawl after you learn to run, but you gotta learn to crawl before you can run.

With that said, you should NEVER start out shooting one handed. If expense of ammo is THAT big of an issue, then invest in a cheap airsoft pistol. You can also dry-fire your carry pistol. And Yes, you need to fire your carry pistol and become a proficient marksman FIRST before you try to be an adequate marksman with one hand.

 

[Oyeboten]

Untill fairly recently, no one shot two-Handed...and no one ever bothered worrying about it.

The FBI or other at-the-time, self-embarassed and publically shamed and laughed at by criminals and lay alike, for really bad, and reliably bad Markmanship, began trying to save face, by using "two" hands. ...which till then, would have been the recourse of invalids, children, or possibly very weak women.

After seventy years or so, the public is well enough educated now, to have forgotten that.


I've seen enough examples of people who never shot other than one-Handed, who do vastly better, than 99 percent of two-Handed shooters, Double-Action, fast fire etc.

Why bother worrying?


If you can generally hit roughly where you are aiming, within say a spread able to be covered by a Pack of Cigaretes, and on short notice, one-Handed or 'two', you are already well ahead of 99 percent of all LEO, G-men, and everyone else.


Oye...

 

[LAK]

It is funny that so many folk are hung up on "one is better than the other" rather than "one might be better in some circumstances than the other [or perhaps for some persons]"

 

[sacp81170a]

It is funny that so many folk are hung up on "one is better than the other" rather than "one might be better in some circumstances than the other [or perhaps for some persons]"

Or rather that both are tools in the toolbox. If a carpenter came to work on my house with only a hammer and pointed out the advantages of a hammer over a screwdriver or a saw, I wouldn't think much of his skills as a carpenter. Same here. You've got to be able to do both well enough to stay alive, strong side, weak side, upside down, in the dark, rain or shine. How hard is that to understand?

 

[RyanM]

Or rather that both are tools in the toolbox. If a carpenter came to work on my house with only a hammer and pointed out the advantages of a hammer over a screwdriver or a saw, I wouldn't think much of his skills as a carpenter. Same here. You've got to be able to do both well enough to stay alive, strong side, weak side, upside down, in the dark, rain or shine. How hard is that to understand?

But the main point, which some people get and many people refuse to, is there is a huge difference between an actual professional carpenter, and someone who just wants to make a doghouse and that's about it.

Can you make a doghouse using a table saw, whatchamacallit angle, screwdriver, and screws? Yes.

Could you also make a doghouse for about 1/10th as much money, time, and effort using only a hand saw, hammer, and nails?

There will always be people who say that self defense is a serious enough concern that nothing but the (multi-thousand dollar, multi entire working weeks worth of hours) best training will do. Being a gun forum, we're probably predisposed to have that type contribute.

But if someone just plain doesn't have the disposable income, or "spare" time, or even the dedication necessary to be the best of the best, then what? Should we just tell them to go screw themselves because they have no business being effective at defending themselves and their families, unless they're willing to put in the time and money to go beyond mere effectiveness? Is it actually "irresponsible" to be merely competent, to only be able to deal with 90% of the situations a "civilian" may have to face, rather than having super-ultra-ninja training that allows them to shoot 1" groups on moving targets at 100 yards while standing on their head and reciting the Gettysburgh address?

Less than 3 shots, less than 3 yards, less than 3 seconds. That's what it boils down to the vast majority of the time. If you would rather build skill above and beyond what is required the majority of the time, that's fine. If you want to prepare for statistically improbable scenarios, that's fine. It's a free country.

However, some people are going to be happy with being ready for what's 90% likely, and there is almost no training available that could get someone ready for even the old 3-3-3, in a single afternoon, with less than a box of ammo, and less than a $50 investment (to use some arbitrary figures).

Everything's either free basic safety training, cheap basic target marksmanship, or prohibitively expensive ultra-mall-tactical. Except of course for ancient, outdated training, which is completely irrelevant in this day and age because criminals in Shanghai in the 1940s were much easier to kill than the criminals we have now. Sort of like modern deer, which require a .338 win mag at the absolute minimum.

 

[Mr_Rogers]

Ryan.
There are two truths you need to face here.

The first truth is that the officers who learned to shoot in Shanghai (in the 1920s) were being taught by skilled, experienced, instructors who had worked out a theory of tuition that, although it may seem simple on the surface, contains many very subtle concepts. Their advanced training was carried out at what, for its time, was a very advanced training facility. They did not teach themselves.

The second truth is that, although an individual may complete the assembly of a doghouse with either screws or nails, there is fair amount of skilled work required to prepare the materials before assembly starts. You cannot ignore the basic preparatory skills required to learn to shoot any more than you can ignore the skills required to measure, mark and cut the doghouse material.

However, please keep trying to come up with new ideas since such activities prevent firearms training from fossilizing. As Oyeboten pointed out, two generations ago nobody had heard of two-handed shooting - now many consider one-handed shooting as heresy.

 

[RyanM]

The first truth is that the officers who learned to shoot in Shanghai (in the 1920s) were being taught by skilled, experienced, instructors who had worked out a theory of tuition that, although it may seem simple on the surface, contains many very subtle concepts. Their advanced training was carried out at what, for its time, was a very advanced training facility. They did not teach themselves.

Which is part of the problem. Like I said, unless you live near one of the very few people who teach point shooting, all you're really going to find are free safety training, cheap target marksmanship training, or expensive "tactical" training, none of which (other than the safety training just to start with) are usually particularly suitable for someone who wants to use a handgun for self defense, who is extremely constrained by time and/or money.

And if, due to circumstances, someone absolutely did have to try and learn shooting from a book or video, would they be better off with a battered old copy of Shooting to Live, or some kinda new "tactical" training video?

And on the other hand, there probably are many ways to improve the old Shooting to Live method. That was also something I was hoping to get out of this thread. People say Shooting to Live is "outdated" and "antiquated," but never say why. They never have any ways to improve on it, other than "throw it out and spend a bajillion bucks on new stuff."

Yet, I find it very hard to believe that, for centuries, men who shot almost exclusively with one hand were merely ignorant, uneducated savages who knew no better, and that it's nothing short of a miracle that handguns ever saved a single life before this Weaver guy popularized two-handed shooting.

Modern iso is a pretty good system. It eliminates many of the flaws of original Weaver and original Iso, etc. I'd consider modern iso with the 4-step draw to be a truly modernized (i.e., improved) version of the old two-handed techniques.

How about a modernized one-handed system, rather than insisting on throwing out the baby with the bathwater?

The second truth is that, although an individual may complete the assembly of a doghouse with either screws or nails, there is fair amount of skilled work required to prepare the materials before assembly starts. You cannot ignore the basic preparatory skills required to learn to shoot any more than you can ignore the skills required to measure, mark and cut the doghouse material.

Right. It's just that, to extend the metaphor further, a lot of people say that absolutely nothing less than a table saw, all kinds of guides and jigs and other apparati to get the cuts perfectly straight, a really big micrometer to measure every board to within 0.0001", etc., will do (and of course you need to use screws, and drill pilot holes for them first!).

Will that result in a better doghouse than someone using a tape measure, hand saw, hammer, nails, and a folded piece of paper as an angle guide? Yes, definitely. I'm not trying to dispute that, despite people misrepresenting my words. I say "an untrained person is less likely to chop off their thumb with a hand saw than a table saw," they read that as "a hand saw is inherently superior a table saw in every way, shape, and form, under all circumstances ever!"

But are there mistakes that could happen with a two-handed grip which are absolutely impossible with one hand? Yes! You cannot drag your off-hand thumb on the slide or cylinder. You can't slice your hand open with the cylinder gap blast. You can't accidentally get your thumb behind the slide or behind the hammer (and now people will completely skip the next two sentences). Good training will prevent those mistakes. Obviously the best solution is to train so that those mistakes don't happen. But that is the most expensive and time-consuming solution, in addition to being the best. My problem is the people who say that if you aren't going to train up to master level, you shouldn't use a gun at all. So essentially, they're saying that if you cannot safely use a powered saw, you have no business using any saw whatsoever. Using a hand saw solely because there's less possibility for injurious error (it also happens to be cheaper)? Insanity! Heresy! Don't you know that hand saws are harder to actually use, resulting in much sloppier cuts, especially when you're untrained? Until you can afford to buy, and are trained to use, the exact make and model of table saw I like, you have no business cutting wood whatsoever because the results will be less than perfect!

Having to settle for less than perfection is just a fact of life. Everyone hates to face it. Especially the people with enough disposable income to surround themselves with enough toys and certificates that they can believe they've got "enough." But not everyone has that luxury.

And then there's the people who insist that training that's not up to their high standards is irresponsible. Come on. Quit being a closet anti. In this world, the majority of people who buy a gun for self defense will attend a free NRA safety class at the most (I wouldn't be surprised if over half of gun owners don't even have that much), and will then hit the range once and put a couple magazines/cylinders through the gun to see if it works, and then that's about it. And yet there isn't blood running in the streets, there aren't untrained morons shooting 8 bystanders before they hit the criminal, and there aren't huge quantities of people shooting their children while cleaning their gun.

The inaccessibility of defensive training is why almost no one (statistically speaking) gets it. Yet somehow, a cheaper training which is less than the best, is somehow less "responsible" than having nothing available but the very expensive best, thus forcing most people to go without any. That is anti logic. A gun is either of sufficient quality (read: expensive) that only rich people can afford it, or it's a "saturday night special" and should be banned.

Training, practice, and mentality either do allow you to make solid center-mass hits at close range under stress, or they don't. There absolutely are many ways to get an adequate amount of the first two by expending a large amount of money and time. But it doesn't logically follow from that, that it cannot be done cheaply and quickly.

Would a modernized one-handed system accomplish that? I genuinely don't know. I can think of advantages and disadvantages of such a system (and of course, people like to focus on the advantages which they disagree with and ignore absolutely all other content, just for the sake of arguing with a viewpoint that doesn't exist).

But until someone comes up with something like that, trains up some unskilled volunteers, and puts them head-to-head against equivalently trained two-handers (in an arena match to the death! ), we'll never know what the real benefits and drawbacks are.

Regardless of whether one hand or two hand is better for it, there is a huge gaping hole in the training market for realistic, no-nonsense self defense training which is cheap (say $20-50 a head) and takes up only one afternoon.

 

[David E]

Nobody said one hand shooting was never useful for any application whatsoever, so you can stop saying that.

But you seem to keep insisting how one hand is better/superior/more accurate than two hands, which just ain't so when a time factor is included.

I've read where some of the Old West folks DID use two hands.......when they really wanted to hit the target, that is.

I don't know where you get the "3 shots, 3 yds, 3 seconds" stat. The "shots fired" stat everyone uses is wrong, because it includes AD's, suicides, warning shots, animal put-downs, etc. This is far different than shots fired in an armed encounter.

Many don't agree that 3 shots in 3 seconds at 3 yds qualifies as "competent." Remember, the closer the badguy is to you, the easier it is for him to hit/disable you.

Yet, 3 yds doesn't require a high level of skill to hit a man-size target. I also suspect that most folks could do better than 3 shots in 3 seconds at that distance.

No one said you have to have a $3000 gun coupled with umpteen Uber Tactical gun classes, either. A good solid gun, .38 spl or larger, loaded with the best ammo you can control. (we'll define very basic "control" as 6 shots in the "A" zone of an IPSC target set at 5 yds in 4 seconds, gun in hand.) Seriously, this is not that hard.

One reason why Shooting to Live is antiquated is because it fails to address recoil control for rapid fire shots. When there are multiple badguys, it's a good idea to shoot them all quickly.

I gained a lot of skill simply by dryfiring. And it's free ! If you were interested enough in improving your skill, you could do the same, but it does require at least a 10 minute a week time investment.