Why we are trained to shoot center mass

[Gun Runnerz]

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Why do we shoot center mass?

Like a lot of you I grew up shooting. Every instructor I came across taught me to aim for the center of the target. There are a lot of new shooters out there that may wonder why we aim for the chest. This is in no way meant to encompass all of the reasons behind our training. I hope to give a general overview on the subject.

Shooting to incapacitate

In a self defense situation in which deadly force is authorized, the defender is shooting to incapacitate his attacker. According to the "FBI Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness" Immediate incapacitation is "the sudden physical or mental inability to pose any further risk or injury to others". In other words if you take away a person's physical ability or mental will to fight, they have been incapacitated.

What is the fastest way to incapacitate an attacker?

There are several ways to incapacitate an attacker, but the fastest way is to disrupt the Central Nervous System (CNS). The CNS is comprised of the brain and spinal cord. It controls the body's motor functions among many other things. This system is also incredibly sensitive. Damage to the CNS will more than likely incapacitate an attacker regardless of their will power to continue the fight (Handgun Wounding Factors 6).


Why not aim for the head?

At this point you may be wondering why we do not aim for the brain. If damaging the CNS is the fastest way to stop an attacker shouldn't we aim for the largest portion? Logic says yes, but the answer is no.

We don't aim for the brain because it is both highly mobile and protected by the skull. If you take a look at (Spider man ballin it up:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7D-67xqwYE) you can see that with every movement, his head twists and bobs. On the other hand his torso stays somewhat stationary allowing for a much easier shot. Although the skull provides inadequate protection from bullets, it is still an obstacle that can potentially deflect rounds. As the skulls turns it can produce shallow angles that might protect the brain. This is makes the brain unappealing as a realistic target.

We aim for the chest because as humans we are not perfect. The CNS is a small target that the average shooter will miss under stress. Instead we aim for the chest, because it is much larger and gives us an opportunity to miss our mark but still damage the attacker. A stray round that is placed in the chest of an attacker can still deal an incapacitating blow. Luckily the chest is full of vital organs to destroy. A bullet that is just a few inches off target can strike the heart, lungs, liver, or other systems that are vital to bodily function.

Other advantages of aiming center mass?

There are many other advantages to aiming center mass. Under stress the defending shooter may flinch. By aiming center mass he allows himself a good amount of vertical leeway. A few inches high and his round strikes the brain, a few inches low and it damages the pelvis. In either case his "missed" shot is still effective.

By training to aim for center mass, we reinforce a natural defensive instinct. When faced with a life threatening situation, it is natural to focus directly on the perceived threat. In most instances this threat is represented by a knife, gun or other weapon. Most attackers will hold that weapon near their center mass. Training to aim for center mass will help the defender maintain visual contact on the weapon while dealing with the attacker.

Finally, we aim for the chest because it is the most universal way to stop an attacker of any kind. Defensive shootings are not limited to human attackers. Dogs, bears, and other potential attackers hold most of their vital organs in their center mass regions. By training to aim for center mass we are training to deal with all possible threats.

 

[ku4hx]

The way I see it, for the same reason I was taught heart/lung shots in game animals: that's where the vitals are and that's where you'll have the greatest statistical advantage when it come to rapid incapacitation. Strictly speaking, I wasn't taught only center mass. I was taught body, body, head.

Brain and spine shots are fine, but under high stress and very short periods of time, you need every advantage you can muster. And for me, that's a center mass shot: where you find the largest cross section of vitals. But then, local law enforcement taught us just recently to shoot until the threat of death is abated. And it's likely not all of those 17 shots from your favorite Glock 17 or CZ75B or whatever will be perfectly place.

Shoot to wound? Not in my state. If you have the time and presence of mind to shoot to just hurt, you likely could get away to safety. If you feel your are about to die; you shoot to kill. Otherwise you're just maiming and that's a crime. You state may differ, but if I ever brandish a weapon, it'll be because I feel my life is in danger and I don't plan on shooting nicely.

 

[strambo]

You're conflating "center of mass" with the "chest" and they are two different things.

 

[Gun Runnerz]

The way I see it, for the same reason I was taught heart/lung shots in game animals: that's where the vitals are and that's where you'll have the greatest statistical advantage when it come to rapid incapacitation. Strictly speaking, I wasn't taught only center mass. I was taught body, body, head.

Brain and spine shots are fine, but under high stress and very short periods of time, you need every advantage you can muster. And for me, that's a center mass shot: where you find the largest cross section of vitals. But then, local law enforcement taught us just recently to shoot until the threat of death is abated. And it's likely not all of those 17 shots from your favorite Glock 17 or CZ75B or whatever will be perfectly place.

Shoot to wound? Not in my state. If you have the time and presence of mind to shoot to just hurt, you likely could get away to safety. If you feel your are about to die; you shoot to kill. Otherwise you're just maiming and that's a crime. You state may differ, but if I ever brandish a weapon, it'll be because I feel my life is in danger and I don't plan on shooting nicely.

I dee what you mean, but shooting to stop the threat is the same as incapacitation.

 

[leadcounsel]

Seems like a long explanation to say -

It's the biggest target, coincidentally filled with a lot of vital organs (heart, lungs, kidney, liver, most of the spine, etc.), and luckily the most stationary... All of that equals the best chance to stop a threat.

What I find a more useful discussion is where to aim if your attacker(s) are wearing armor.

Head, of course. But I've also read that the hip is a good target because it is highly incapacitating and painful to shatter a hip bone to immobilize one's attacker and prone him out with a goal to make follow up shots easier, and make his attack harder.

 

[M-Cameron]

yeah, i always thought COM was pretty self explanatory....biggest areas with the highest density of vital organs..

What I find a more useful discussion is where to aim if your attacker(s) are wearing armor.

Head, of course. But I've also read that the hip is a good target because it is highly incapacitating and painful to shatter a hip bone to immobilize one's attacker and prone him out.

the problem with shooting for the hip is it doesnt incapacitate an armed threat...

it may put you on the ground, and hurt like hell, but no vital organs are hit, hand and arms still work....meaning if they have a gun they can still return fire.

 

[Deaf Smith]

One shoots for the hip, or head, only if the target is armored or concealed so that portion of their anatomy is what is exposed.

My wife, once being a ER nurse, saw several people shot in the head where the bullet went under the skin, arced over the cranium, and came to rest under the skin on the opposite side.

The hip, bring bigger, is easier to hit and break. Yes mobility is what one is trying to destroy.

Or as Baby Face Nelson said to the Feds in a shootout, "I know you blank-blank are wearing bulletproof vests so I’ll give it to you high and low."

Deaf

 

[Gun Runnerz]

One shoots for the hip, or head, only if the target is armored or concealed so that portion of their anatomy is what is exposed.

My wife, once being a ER nurse, saw several people shot in the head where the bullet went under the skin, arced over the cranium, and came to rest under the skin on the opposite side.

The hip, bring bigger, is easier to hit and break. Yes mobility is what one is trying to destroy.

Or as Baby Face Nelson said to the Feds in a shootout, "I know you blank-blank are wearing bulletproof vests so I’ll give it to you high and low."

Deaf

There was a portion of the video that i cut for times sake that discussed this. The hips are an outstanding target. Rounds can also be delfected by the hips into the stomach.

 

[wgp]

In various training classes I have taken, what they usually have called the "failure-to-stop" drill is two to the body, pause to assess, one to the head if the threat has not stopped. What are the experiences of others in this regard?

 

[TomJ]

In various training classes I have taken, what they usually have called the "failure-to-stop" drill is two to the body, pause to assess, one to the head if the threat has not stopped. What are the experiences of others in this regard?

In my LEO training we were taught two to the body and one to the head, without a pause. If the threat continues, repeat, again without pause. If it's obvious they're wearing a vest, you then target the pelvis and head. The thinking was that you kept firing until the threat was stopped. The question I have is whether a pause gives the attacker the opportunity to get a shot off.

 

[strambo]

The hip, bring bigger, is easier to hit and break. Yes mobility is what one is trying to destroy.

Just where exactly does one aim for a hip shot and how does a small pistol bullet hole on a large flat bone structure break it?

To touch base on the center mass concept again...the heart is not located center mass in the torso. Aiming for torso center mass is not ideal in a self-defense shooting and is not the same as aiming in the chest area.

Torso center mass is at, or just below, the solar plexus which is below the sternum. The only things here are bottom of lungs, top of liver, top of stomach. Spine is waayyyy in the back and the descending aorta and vena cava are deep inside.

Center chest is the area mid-sternum. A good aiming reference for the actual vital area you should be aiming for is draw a horizontal line nipple to nipple and complete the triangle going up from the nipples to the throat. Center of this triangle lies the heart (on centerline slightly offset to the target's left).

Hitting the spine would be almost pure luck. It is at the back of the body and our punt handgun bullet has to go through various meat and bone and both get deep enough and not deviate path in the body. That is just the 2D aiming issue!

In reality, unless the person is perfectly square to our muzzle, that the entry is theoretically in front of the spine means nothing, the bullet path has to be angled to intersect the spine in the back of the body...then it has to get there through various meat and bone and still not be deflected.

Aim center chest and shoot them to the ground. If you feel it isn't working, transition to the head but you don't have to pause and assess, just keep squeezing the trigger so long as the threat is still in your sights and shift focus to the tip of the nose.

 

[buck460XVR]

In my LEO training we were taught two to the body and one to the head, without a pause.

The infamous "Mozambique Drill".

What is so surprising in the latest "SD/HD for beginners" craze is that everything old is new again and the simplest techniques of basic shooting are now considered "tactical". Everyone and their brother is now on YouTube exclaiming they have discovered a new way of SD/HD, when in fact it is just old wisdom from the late Jeff Cooper, or from a 1960s Popular Mechanics. My dad taught me to aim for the chest on big game 60 years ago. He also taught me that where you went first on a man. The reasons were quite simple and self explanatory to folks with half a brain or more. Nowadays folks want to charge you $300 for the weekend to tell you..........

 

[Vern Humphrey]

The reason we aim for center of mass is because that gives us the greatest chance of getting a hit. My experience (admittedly in combat, not street shootings) is you can expect a 90% degradation in performance under stress -- so shoot where he's biggest and console yourself with the thought that a hit, any hit at all, is better than a miss.

 

[Delford]

wgp
That's my experience. On a post somewhere I saw low and high may hit the stomach or manly parts if you miss COM and high would hit the head or throat unless you can't aim and shoot over the target. Incapacitation and stopping the threat is why you pull the trigger in a defense situation. Thank OP for posting.

 

[TomJ]

The infamous "Mozambique Drill".

What is so surprising in the latest "SD/HD for beginners" craze is that everything old is new again and the simplest techniques of basic shooting are now considered "tactical". Everyone and their brother is now on YouTube exclaiming they have discovered a new way of SD/HD, when in fact it is just old wisdom from the late Jeff Cooper, or from a 1960s Popular Mechanics. My dad taught me to aim for the chest on big game 60 years ago. He also taught me that where you went first on a man. The reasons were quite simple and self explanatory to folks with half a brain or more. Nowadays folks want to charge you $300 for the weekend to tell you..........

I'll do it for $200

 

[Deaf Smith]

Just where exactly does one aim for a hip shot and how does a small pistol bullet hole on a large flat bone structure break it?

'Small' bullet breaks the large bone along fracture lines, that is how it breaks it.

Just aim for the hip from wherever you are standing and how ever they are standing. Just aim strait through the middle of it.

Us it if you can't shoot COM. Reserve head shots for when you have a good frontal shot about just below the nose and the path of the bullet goes strait through to the brain stem.

Ghoulish but that's were one aims.

Deaf

 

[M-Cameron]

Us it if you can't shoot COM. Reserve head shots for when you have a good frontal shot about just below the nose and the path of the bullet goes strait through to the brain stem.

why? a bullet to the side of the head is not effective?

i still dont see how a hip shot is better than a head shot.......shooting someone in the hip will put them on the ground, but it doesnt prevent them from returning fire.

a head is approx. the same size as the area of the hip youd be shooting at, and it is closer to COM making adjusting aim faster, and more inline with youre normal training.

 

[1911 guy]

Center mass means just that. It's the canter of what I can see. If Billy the Bad Guy is hiding behind a telephone pole and all I can see is his left butt cheek, I'm putting a bullet in the center of that cheek.

Pelvic girdle shots are very unpredictable but far better than nothing.

And Deaf Smith is right, the target for a head shot is a "T" shape. The vertical line is from the upper lip to the bottom of the forehead and the horizontal from one eye to the other.

 

[Deaf Smith]

why? a bullet to the side of the head is not effective?

i still dont see how a hip shot is better than a head shot.......shooting someone in the hip will put them on the ground, but it doesnt prevent them from returning fire.

a head is approx. the same size as the area of the hip youd be shooting at, and it is closer to COM making adjusting aim faster, and more inline with youre normal training.

The skull, being round, tends to defect bullets.

Quite often they skid around the skull and not penetrate.

Deaf

 

[M-Cameron]

The skull, being round, tends to defect bullets.

Quite often they skid around the skull and not penetrate.

Deaf

yeah, i dont care how hard of a head you have....no ones skull is going to reliably deflect a .357

the stories you have of people being shot in the head and having the bullet "wrap around" under the skin and exit leaving the victim unharmed are what i would call freak accidents and should not dictate your training.

 

[strambo]

To be fair, if a bullets deflects around the skull it was a miss. That shot was way outside the "T" from the front or where the brainstem and mid-brain would be at any angle.

The better one's understanding of anatomy, the better you'll know where to place shots at different angles. The biggest problem with the video in the OP and the "center mass" concept is it is not based on proper anatomical knowledge. Even in the military where the center mass concept originated and is the most useful (for general combat)...we don't aim for COM in CQB, we aim center chest or head.

I was searching for a link but couldn't find it. It was a presentation from a trauma doc talking about how poor of an idea it was to aim for the hip as a failure drill. The gist was, slow handgun bullets are very unlikely to fracture the living tissue of the pelvic girdle, it is just gonna make a hole, yet maintain structural integrity. How many real-world handgun hip-shot stops are there? Any? Or is it just theory?

That is why I train to aim center of chest (mid-sternum) and brain stem/mid-brain (top of lip to below eye brow). I train with plastic 3D clothed targets and to hit from different angles.

 

[Hangingrock]

Vern Humphrey:

The reason we aim for center of mass is because that gives us the greatest chance of getting a hit. My experience (admittedly in combat, not street shootings) is you can expect a 90% degradation in performance under stress -- so shoot where he's biggest and console yourself with the thought that a hit, any hit at all, is better than a miss.

I agree.

 

[RunninLate]

Never had any LEO or military training but under stress I would think that you want the biggest target possible. If you are off by 6 inches, you are more likely to hit the target than someone down range. Also, your gun is going to me more on a level plane aiming center mass to upper chest.

If the target keeps coming, the head shots (area) gets bigger and bigger. Just make sure you do not run out of bullets.

 

[Deaf Smith]

yeah, i dont care how hard of a head you have....no ones skull is going to reliably deflect a .357

the stories you have of people being shot in the head and having the bullet "wrap around" under the skin and exit leaving the victim unharmed are what i would call freak accidents and should not dictate your training.

M-Cameron,

They had such happen even with rifle bullets in WW2.

My wife, who worked in the ER for years, has seen such deflections.

Yes it does dictate ones training. That is why you have to aim for such as just below the nose. Forehead shots, if not perfectly centered, can deflect.

Deaf

 

[Saddlebag Preacher]

From experience, the adrenalin dump from a sudden calm situation to confrontation makes everything hard to hit. Center mass is the best option, and you are shooting to stop the threat, not kill. And you will be asked that in court afterwards. If the attacker hits the ground and is still breathing, you still did it correctly. Oh, and better be prepared to try to save that life afterwards and call 911 yourself.