Aim small, hit small. It works. I've tested this with handguns, bows, even blowguns. The smaller your point of aim, the tighter your groups will be. In a high stress situation, the best trained marksman will shoot half as well as his best day on the range. Are you willing to trust 16" groups to save your life? I'm not.

I fully agree with this. When the stress enters the factor, many of the things people have been taught goes out the window.

Practice is a good thing. Everyone ought to do it more than they do now.

However no amount of practice can prepare a person for the unexpected, unusual circumstances and the emotional stress.

We have to remember that being faced with a life or death experience is not a daily occurance to many of us and our minds and bodies do not react in a normal manner.

Police officers train for weeks to use their firearms on others. Then we see videos of them missing their intended targets from less than 20 feet. If it happens to trained officers, think how it will effect a person without all the formal training of an officer or one that switches guns as often as they switch their shoes.

It is fantastic to be able to shoot the face off a playing card at 50 feet and the shooter will certainly impress their friends. Yet when a man in a parking lot puts a gun to your child's head and demands your wallet and your car keys, then all bets are off. Or when three punks jump you as you walk to your car after work and they each have a gun and you do not have to take out one but rather three. Or as I was trained for and hope it never happens, have one with a knife, one with a shotgun, one with a handgun and each is in a home and at varying distances.

Practice is good but training is better. Consistency is even better. Use the same gun each time. Changing guns decreases accuracy and makes you less famillar with the gun in your hand or on your side. Practice different shooting positions. Use different hands. Shoot at different distances and from different angles (I assure you that in most instances you will not be shooting straight on). Practice point shooting. If you have time to take a careful aim, you may not have the critical situation you feel you do.

Most will never be faced with a deadly force situation so be happy about it. For those that will be, just do your best and let all the preparation you have done for those few seconds pay off.

Always......The natural instinct from my days using clothes pins for pistols and how the eyes-body-hands all are in harmony....I don't see kids playing like that anymore, must not be socially correct....

Oldman,
I've heard this brass in the pocket story many times. Recently I tried to locate the actual story online. (The Internet wasn't around when I was told the story.). I've been unable to locate an actual incident where the cops were killed and found with brass in their pockets. Do you or anyone else on here happen to know if the story is true? And possibly a link to the article? Even if it's not true, it makes a valid point about proper training. Sorry to resurrect an old post, but stumbled across it.

I'm not Oldman, but I believe it happened somewhere in Calif. in the late 60's or early 70's. Memory is working overtime here. I also believe an armed civilian ended the incident by shooting the bad guy. I may have my stories mixed up. One of the old time Lawmen will be along soon.

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James L. "Jim" Rhiner

Shooting any paper target is great for target practice but in a fight the target is going to be moving, a lot, and likely shooting back.
That's a game changer and with that in mind hitting the bad guy at all is going to be IMHO a good shot and I would argue the equivalent of hitting a pie plate.
Just look at some real police shootings. Good guys, no doubt, well trained and sad to say as many missed as hits.

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Back to back World War Champs.

The incident I was remembering was the "Newhall Incident". Part of a wiki article below;


Overall, none of the four CHP officers who were killed had more than two years of experience on the job. Gore and Frago were both 23 years old, while Pence and Alleyn were both 24. None of them were wearing ballistic vests, which were not commonly issued to police officers at the time. Three of them died from wounds that a standard ballistic vest might have prevented.[10]
The three officers who fired their handguns were using .357 Magnum rounds, even though they had only been trained and certified with .38 Special ammunition, which has less recoil. Soon after the shootout, the CHP standardized their ammunition on the .38 caliber round, ensuring all officers trained with the same ammunition they would use on duty. Lack of familiarity with their service shotguns was also cited as a problem during the shootout, as evidenced by Frago's mistake of approaching with the gun at "port arms" and Alleyn's error of ejecting a live round.[11]
An issue brought up by the Newhall massacre was the difficulty in reloading revolvers under fire without a speedloader, something that may have cost Pence his life. Shortly afterward, the CHP became the first major state police department to approve and issue speedloaders. A backup gun also might have aided Pence when his primary revolver ran dry.[12]
The incident was later documented by firearms instructor Massad Ayoob in his 1995 book The Ayoob Files: The Book. In addition to the other issues mentioned above, Ayoob brought up the issue of California's policy of strictly limiting the number of CCW permits issued to private citizens. Ayoob claimed that if citizens such as Gary Kness had been able to intervene with their own weapons instead of relying on the dropped weapons of the fallen CHP officers, they might have made a far more positive impact.[5]
In 2008, a stretch of Interstate 5 in Santa Clarita, California was named after the four slain officers. Kness, then aged 69, attended the ceremony and was congratulated as a hero.[13]
While there were a number of lessons learned in the aftermath of this tragedy, a rumor that Officer Pence took the time to put his spent brass casings in his pocket while reloading during the shooting - because of a habit developed on the police shooting range - was determined to be untrue. The rumor arose soon after the shooting, during the time that the CHP made improvements to their training. While the CHP did modify their training to eliminate the practice of "pocketing brass" on the range in the aftermath of the Newhall shooting, this was not based on the actions of any officer involved in the incident. A number of witnesses, including officers who responded to aid these four officers, have made it clear that no brass was found in Officer Pence's pants or jacket pockets. CHP Sergeant Harry Ingold (retired) was one of these first cover officers to arrive on the scene that night. Ingold found six brass casings on the ground next to the driver's door of Pence's and Allyn's cruiser. Prior to being murdered, Officer Pence had in fact dumped his brass on the ground before partially reloading his revolver.
This information has been confirmed by Chief John Anderson, author of "The Newhall Incident: America's Worst Cop Massacre" and was documented in a May 2011 article authored by Sergeant Mark Schraer (retired) in PoliceOne.com[14]

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James L. "Jim" Rhiner

I don't have a online link, nor do I know their source of information, but on page 222 of the book "Street Survival; Tactics for an Armed Encounters" they write "Let all the brass fall directly onto the ground. Some officers have been killed because they took extra time to catch the ejected cases and put them in their pockets, as they'd done when shooting targets on the range."

And if I remember correctly that was stated at one or more of the Calibre Press training seminars I attended over my LE career.

TMI dude TMI

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Retired Career Security Guard

I didn't read all the post, but several.

15 yards is a pretty good distance - not unreasonable but our house is 48' long and I don't think I would encounter a perp at that distance. If you practice and are good, then anything less you should be better

I feel my needs will likely be the perp holding/hiding behind a hostage. I think about if that were to occur my accuracy would need to be hitting the perp in the arm or hand in attempt to get them to drop a gun or knife.

So my thoughts would be to draw two profiles and overlap leaving 4-6" and try not to hit the front silhouette (being a loved one or hostage).

I am not taking that shot unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. (Hostage bleeding out and not having time to wait for a better opening). I don't care how accurate I am in practice, I am not risking a loved ones life with that small of an opening. Real world with adrenaline is not the same as the range.

I think you have been watching too much TV and movies.


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This situation is a shot nobody wants to take think of it like this that loved one is your child, do you really believe you are that good? A couple of inches off and you just put a round through your childs face. I think a laser would be good here as an intimidation factor as put it on him so he can see you have him locked, but i definately wouldn't want to take that shot unless there was no other way out and i mean absolutely all avenues have been tried and failed

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Using Tapatalk

Wish I could disagree OM, but you're spot on.

I see someone already answered the CHP Shooting question (brass) so I'll move on.

As one of the primary Tactics Instructors for LAPD no training did better for us till we added "Simunition". No matter how much the Firearms Section taught, a few minutes with Force on Force training sent everything to Sh&^.

After we "perfected" the training we found that our hit ratio's exploded upward and OIS injuries went down.

Together with that we implemented the 2x4 target.
If you really want to work on your gross motor skills under stress, just shoot 2x4s. It simulates the CNS and with the proper ammo (16"18" penetration) it will stop the aggressors action. If you don't have access to a 2x4, some tape on cardboard works...

Mike

Attached Images

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If you think the possibility exists that you may have to take that kind shot, you need a better home defense plan.

If it comes down to having to make that kind of shot, you already lost.

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Life Is A Gift. Defend it!

This topic is subjective and is entirely "...what if..." There isn't a full set of details and the question is about practice at a range.

The whole issue about carrying is having the need as no other option exists. Otherwise, why do you carry and/or why did you draw your gun in the first place?

I'm not talking about a 15 yard shot but something less.

Doesn't have to be at home - it could be anywhere.

I have confidence in my skills (you may call me a BSer if you wish). Could I take a shot with my love one's in danger? I don't know...but when I practice that is just one of the things I think about.

If I felt the shot was necessary - I know good and well I could take it.

5 inches at 45' is pretty good shooting. Hard to do with a 2 inch barrel.

If you have a laser why not just lase the guy in the eyes ?

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Retired Career Security Guard

Very, very few people could make the shot under stress in low light. Very few. And those few would not put themselves in a situation where they had too.

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Life Is A Gift. Defend it!

OP, I wish we could all put 10 shots through a single hole without ruffling the edges, but at my age and with my shaky hands, pie-plate accurate is as good as it gets, and I'm a long way from irresponsible.

I'm getting there myself sarge. Front sight awful fuzzy these days.

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Life Is A Gift. Defend it!

What sights?

We had nay-sayers at our gun-club that laughed at those of us that used the pie-plate for defensive practice. One of those advocating target-shooting precision was asked to take on one of our older shooters in a side-by-side match. He with his target-shooter mind-set and old Doc with his pie-plate mind-set. Guess who fared better?

The gent shooting his precision-shots took nearly double the time to place his aimed shots. Doc hit his pie-plate with all of his shots, twice, after a reload, in the same amount of time as Mr. Precision. After it was over, Doc walked up to the targets, took his off the frame and held it on Mr. Precision's chest and said,"Not aimed well enough, huh?"......

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GA Carry member
Vietnam Vet