[shafter]

One unusual example that comes to mind is Jelly Bryce. He was self-taught and always shot by drawing a double-action revolver from a holster and firing. When he was recruited by law enforcement it was in part to be on their target shooting team, and he said he would compete for them only if he was allowed to draw and shoot from the hip, which he did and won matches that way. I have no idea what targets they were using in the 1930s police matches, but that's what he fired on. He survived 19 gunfights, IIRC, and apparently was constantly in fear of being ambushed in revenge, which motivated a lot his shooting practice. When he was recruited by the FBI it was in part to see if he could train other agents to shoot the way he did and to draw and shoot as fast as he did, which was in a fraction of a second. He used the crouch position for point shooting, but never could train others to do it as well as he could. In later years he admitted he had a natural advantage that others didn't, which was that he could see the streak of his bullets in flight (he favored the .44 Special, probably in part because it was easier to see than some others), and, like shooting tracers, that had enabled him to correct his aim. He also practiced almost incessantly. He was SAC for one FBI office for awhile (Oaklahoma City?), but was later put on other duty at least in part because he would spend much of every day in his office in front of a full-length mirror practicing dry firing by drawing and shooting so that he could always see straight into the guns muzzle (head shot shooting), rather than getting paperwork done.

I've read the same about Jelly Bryce. I've found that by using a SIRT pistol outside on a foggy night you can get the same effect by seeing the exact path from muzzle to target. With enough practice with one of those you can get suprisingly good at point shooting at close range.