Best way to teach techniques

[Striker1]

I have two questions.

1. What do the instructors here advise on teaching left and right barricade shooting for pistol?

2. We recently changed our qualification course on M-4 and I would like to know the correct stance for firing at close quarters. This is on a static firing line.

Thanks

[USNavy_233]

1) Pistol shooting around barricades.

When shooting with your strong side, take your normal stance but have about 6-10 inches distance from the end of your barrel to the barricade. Shift your body weight to the strong leg and lean your upper torso out just far enough to sight in the target and fire your shots.

When shooting with your weak side, follow the same procedure accept shift your weight to your weak leg and lean your upper torso out.

One point is to ensure you keep the weapon properly leveled as some have a tendency to let the pistol cant to the side and their torso cants to the side.

2) For a practical shooting qual the correct stance should be (assuming your standing) feet approx. shoulder width apart with strong side foot about 6-8 inches behind the weak side foot. Imagine having the toes of your strong foot in line with the heel of your weak foot. This is about the right distance. Knees slightly flexed, upper torso leaning slightly forward.

Hope that helps.

[Striker1]

Thanks USN

With the M-4 we have to start with muzzle depressed and using the CCO, bring the weapon up and fire two at 25M into the 10" vital zone. What's your advice on where the elbows go. Also we have the KAC installed as well as 3 pt. slings.

Thanks again

[BreacherUp!]

Striker, keep the elbows tucked in and pointing down. This causes the shooter to pull the weapon into his shoulder tighter. The stance should be the same for close quarter shooting out to 100 yds (unsupported). Barricade shooting allows different techniques (i.e. C-clamp) to be used. Bottom line is to get away from the "KD" (known distance) stance commonly seen in comp shooting and military entry-level courses.

[USNavy_233]

I concur with breacher. Elbows tucked. This has many benefits. First, which was already mentioned, is assists the shooter in bringing the weapon in tight to the shoulder. Another benenfit, although you may not need to concern yourself with it, is that it creates a smaller profile and lessons the chance of you tagging your elbow into an obstacle while moving through a ship, house, bussines, etc etc. It will also aid in recoil management which will help you those multiple shots off faster.

[Erick Gelhaus]

- Rolling the elbows down as mentioned is a good thing.

- Are you using VFGs on the KAC RIS/RAS? Or using the front of the mag well?

- One issue with barricades is that folks have a bad tendency to hug them, suck in tight on them. Get the shooters off the barricades some. It'll actually provide better cover and they'll expose less of themselves.

- I posted the following in the Weaver vs Isoceles thread. Its why we have one stance across the board.
Trooper-
We've gone to a more universal stance, which amazingly enough we call the Universal stance.

The idea behind it was melding an FI stance, shooting stance, DT stance into one. It is designed to allow the officer to deliver force, regardless of the tool. And quite frankly, that & the employment of our armor to best effect are the issue. It's all about fighting, and doing it effectively.

The upper body can be either Isoceles or in a position much closer to Jack Weaver's actual stance than many commonly end up in. The head is kept up, not sunk or dropped down.

For the lower body ... Toes are pointed forward, towards the threat - remember, this is about delivering force; feet are roughly shoulder width apart; the toes of the shooting foot are even with the heel to instep of the non-shooting foot (this part is waited pretty heavily to user comfort / preference, some drop even farther back while others edge up a bit); weight distribution is dependant on the weapon system but goes from 55% to 75% of ones weight on the support leg - use of the shotgun accounts for the high end.

Again, we teach this across the board. It's working on the street - most importantly.

Erick

- While I do lean the upper body a wee bit when going to weak side, I don't weight shift generally. The fun part is that it'll never be as clean & pretty as it is on a square range.

- Might i suggest getting away from the two rd drills or at least including drills / strings with more rounds. Pat Rogers has written an article in SWAT on NSRs - Non Standard Responses - and training for that. Some years back we had a Deputy stabbed by a suspect. The suspect was hit 2x center mass & the deputy holstered. The suspect responded by stabbing the deputy again. And the deputy shot again, 2x & holstered. The second pair resolved the issue but we really hammer on NSRs / shooting til the threat is gone now.

[Striker1]

Thanks all,

Erick...we are using the RAS with VFG ( I mistakenly said KAC before).

I cited the two shot drills as an example, we also fire up to 10 rounds rapid fire standing as well as failure to stop strings. This is a mil qualification course and so they are somewhat inflexible, but with the events of the last 3 years, we are seeing some major changes to our way of thinking as far as small arms training.

For pistol and lt/rt barricade, I do cant the weapon a little when firing to the weak side, but haven't noticed much effect on POI out to 15M. The hard part for me is keeping my legs behind cover.

Really wish we could practice movement but alas with very few exceptions we don't have the realestate for the type ranges required.

My own personal take is I threw out Weaver/Iso a long time ago and learned to shoot from both. I use what ever fits the cover available.

We also just switched to the 6004 holster, which I really like. It looks bulky but I was actually surprised by how light it is when worn.


As an aside, I hope you/we can generate more discussion of the basic techniques on this forum so we all might expand our knowledge.

Thanks again to all who answered

[matthew temkin]

I still use the old school method for use of cover with the pistol.
Right side cover...
Left toe touching the cover, then bend the left knee until it too touches the cover.
Grip the handgun with the thumb curled down and place the thumb against the cover for a brace.
Now cup your right wrist with your left hand..thumb up..for support.
For weak side cover I teach the same technique but with the pistol in the weak hand.
Bracing the shooting thumb against the barracide means that the pistol will not contact any hard surfaces, and makes canting the firearm unnecessary.

[Striker1]

Hello again Mr. Temkin,

I last spoke to you on that other forum where you ran the point shooting section. You gave me lots of good info on the techniques. Glad you showed up here.

I will give that old style a try.

Any good sites for WWII combatives?

[matthew temkin]

Can't do better than this

http://p223.ezboard.com/battlefieldforum

If you have Kill or get Killed turn to page 147 for an illustration of the cover position that I described.
PS..hello again.