The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - Some questions on point-shooting

Jim March · May 7, 2010, 10:14 AM

First, define your term.

There's three main classes of "iron sight use" that I pay attention to:

1) True classic use of sights, focused on the front sight.

2) A "flash sight picture" that brings the gun to eye level but you focus on the target and use the whole outline of the gun (works better with most autos) as a big crude blurry sight. It's possible to get VERY good and VERY fast with this and it does show up in iron-sight classes of IPSC and IDPA shooting. Takes a while to learn.

3) "Real" point shooting of the sort Jelly Bryce and Bill Jordan were into:

Jordan is the bigger guy, Bryce is considered the most dangerous combat shooter America has ever produced and thank God he was a good guy. Photo is hosted at Stephen Wenger's site on point-shooting, highly recommended: http://www.spw-duf.info/point.html

If the latter happens to work for you naturally, great. If it has to be ingrained with major levels of practice, it'll come unglued in a fight. Bryce tried to teach his "FBI Crouch" technique as seen in that pic and many others and it turned out to be a massive failure.

Now. Referring to type two, there's two ways to cheat. One is a glass/electronic sight, generally involving a red dot with no magnification. This lets you focus on the target instead of the front sight and basically speeds up the process of getting to where those IDPA/IPSC guys are with basic black iron sights.

The other way to do target focus with something that fits in standard holsters and is still considered an "iron sight" is the Goshen Hexsite:

http://www.goshen-hexsite.com/pdf/Handguns_2008June.pdf

Yes, it works. In some ways it's actually better than a red dot because there's no actual "red dot" in the way. Hexsites work even when both the front and rear are blurry. They give you "flash sight picture" speed with accuracy very close to classic iron sight usage (type 1 above).

May 7, 2010, 10:14 AM	#13
Jim March Senior Member Join Date: February 14, 1999 Location: Pittsburg, CA, USA Posts: 7,417	First, define your term. There's three main classes of "iron sight use" that I pay attention to: 1) True classic use of sights, focused on the front sight. 2) A "flash sight picture" that brings the gun to eye level but you focus on the target and use the whole outline of the gun (works better with most autos) as a big crude blurry sight. It's possible to get VERY good and VERY fast with this and it does show up in iron-sight classes of IPSC and IDPA shooting. Takes a while to learn. 3) "Real" point shooting of the sort Jelly Bryce and Bill Jordan were into: Jordan is the bigger guy, Bryce is considered the most dangerous combat shooter America has ever produced and thank God he was a good guy. Photo is hosted at Stephen Wenger's site on point-shooting, highly recommended: http://www.spw-duf.info/point.html If the latter happens to work for you naturally, great. If it has to be ingrained with major levels of practice, it'll come unglued in a fight. Bryce tried to teach his "FBI Crouch" technique as seen in that pic and many others and it turned out to be a massive failure. Now. Referring to type two, there's two ways to cheat. One is a glass/electronic sight, generally involving a red dot with no magnification. This lets you focus on the target instead of the front sight and basically speeds up the process of getting to where those IDPA/IPSC guys are with basic black iron sights. The other way to do target focus with something that fits in standard holsters and is still considered an "iron sight" is the Goshen Hexsite: http://www.goshen-hexsite.com/pdf/Handguns_2008June.pdf Yes, it works. In some ways it's actually better than a red dot because there's no actual "red dot" in the way. Hexsites work even when both the front and rear are blurry. They give you "flash sight picture" speed with accuracy very close to classic iron sight usage (type 1 above). __________________ Jim March Last edited by Jim March; May 7, 2010 at 10:22 AM.