The Firing Line Forums

Go Back   The Firing Line Forums > Hogan's Alley > Tactics and Training

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old October 9, 2002, 01:48 PM   #1
Gomez
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 26, 2002
Location: Baton Rouge, LA
Posts: 297
"Half Sabrina" as a Valid CQC Position

The bulk of this post was in response to an old "Full Sabrina" thread in General Discussion. Unfortunately, it was a dead thread so not much comment was generated.

"Full Sabrina" refers to the classic Charlie's Angels "gun in the headshot" pose, where both hands are on the gun and it is pointed straight up alongside Sabrina's head. "Half Sabrina" uses the gun hand only.

I've grown to appreciate the Half Sabrina (well, a modified Half Sabrina) as a valid and useful gun manipluation position.

Here's why:

Good guys don't point guns at other good guys. If I don't need to be pointing my gun at you, the muzzle needs to be oriented either up or down. For down I use Position Sul, or a variation of Sul. That is my default, gun out of holster, not pointing at someone position. However, Sul is a terrible gun manipulation position. Try and reload, reduce a stoppage, etc from Sul. Doesn't work very well, does it? Well, you can point your gun "downrange" if you're on a range, but in the real world where are you going to point it.

Now, if I retract my pistol from Point to the Half Sabrina, or Norte, position (gun muzzle is up, mag well is rolled inboard. knuckles of my gun hand are at about cheekbone level.) The magwell of the gun, is right in my periphreal vision, to aid in my reload, and to decrease the liklihood of my looking down, at the gun. If my head ducks down to look at the gun during the reload, my situational awareness is decreased and my body language looks a lot more passive than I'd like in the middle of a fight for my life. The gun is cocked for a weapon strike, if need be. The gun and forearm are offering protection to my head and neck.

I can, and will, adjust the angle on Norte as the situation dictates. Sometimes it will be straight up (90* up from parallel), sometimes it might be as low as 45* up from parallel.

I guess the gun manipulation position that I use is not quite a "Full Sabrina" but it does share a surprising number of chartacteristics with it.


Just to clarify, "Norte" or the "half sabrina" doesn't replace Position Sul or Retention Position or Contact Ready or a conventional "extended ready". It is a seperate position which has attributes that the aforementioned positions do not.

Anyway, those are my contrary thoughts on the matter.


*NOTE* "Norte" is sort of a joking reference to the opposite of "Sul". Sul=South in Portugeuse. Gun down.
Norte=North. Gun up.
__________________
"Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it."
--Kruger & Dunning
Gomez is offline  
Old October 9, 2002, 09:17 PM   #2
tommygun45
Member
 
Join Date: April 29, 2002
Location: Upstate New York
Posts: 55
SUL

I generaly use the Sul for post shooting down and scan. I also use it alot in cornering and clearing. It has never been a problem to clear a stoppage or perform a reload. I like the Sul when working with partners because of the muzzle control it allows. In case of a stress induced ND the bullet and muzzle blast is traveling down in to the deck, not up past my face and ears in to the atmosphere where it will return to earth with the same velocity it left with.
The Sabrina or half Sabrina in particular, can be very useful for reloading at a full sprint. In the instance you find yourself at slide lock while out in the open, reloading while running as fast as you can is highly recomended.
The other problem that I see with Half Sabrina is the unsupported nature of holding a gun head high. If an adversary goes hands on and tries for a gun grab he will have a two on one hand advantage. While we are much stronger pulling toward our centerline I can foresee it turning in to a Polish arm wrestling contest (like when you get someone pulling as hard as they can toward themselves and suddenly let go, Whack they punch themselves right in the chops.)only with a weighty piece of steel, aluminium and polymer the results tend to be worse.
tommygun45 is offline  
Old October 9, 2002, 10:37 PM   #3
Gomez
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 26, 2002
Location: Baton Rouge, LA
Posts: 297
tommygun45:

Could you explain how you are reloading or reducing a stoppage while keeping the gun in Sul? Ifind it mighty awkward to get the mag out/mag in to the gun while it's in Sul. Are you reaching over, under or around the gun to do it? Or are you bringing the back up to a more horizontal position?



Erick:

It's not used as a "shooting position". Wait, that sounds dumb. Of course, it's not a "shooting position" with the gun muzzle pointed up. Let me start over. It's used when you no longer have a known threat to point the gun at and you need to manipulate the gun (reload or stoppage reduction, primarily) If you keep the gun in a low ready or even retention ready (my #2 and yours are the same), the muzzle is pointing towards someone, particulalry when you start moving around 360-degrees. The H.S. allows you to do the manipulations without muzzle sweeping all the bystanders who don't need to have a gun pointed at them.

Also, when the gun is in the H.S., it's basically out of commision (ie, it needs more bullets or it has a stoppage). If someone attempts to go for a gungrab, it's a hands-on sort of situation. I maintain the gun, may strike with it, if the opportunity presents itself, and bring my other assets into play. I think a lot of people fixate on "weapon retention" as being more than what it is (namely, a fight, with a gun involved. Kind of like , well, a fight.) I will work some more scenarios on gun grab attempts from the H.S. at the next Wednesday Night Session (they're on Monday nights now, but I just couldn't bring myself to change the name.)

Now, the H.S. is not a place where I want to spend a lot of time, particularly if I've got BGINS, but for an exceptable position to bring the gun back into the fight while I'm moving around and not trying to muzzle sweep the nuns and the little kiddies, I've been pleased with it.

In the real world, your gunhandling has got to account for where you point your muzzle at all times. This was really hammered home a few months back when I was watching video footage of a training class in which the instructor, working in concert with another person, engaged multiple targets at approx 3M and then began a series of bounds, moving back to cover. After one shooter was done firing, the other would turn around and haul butt to the next piece of cover and reengage the targets, allowing his partner to move. Except they had no concept of 360-degree gunhandling, they just turned around (facing uprange) and ran with there guns pointing off to their left sides. When they needed to reload, they just pointed the guns in whatever direction then felt like and reloaded on the run. When the camera panned back, the entire student body was on the left side of the range, where the gun muzzles had been pointing whenever the shooters had been moving. When the camera panned "uprange" (the direction the shooters had been moving, all of their vehicles were parked right there. And this was from a semi-prominant instructor in the law enforcement community.
__________________
"Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it."
--Kruger & Dunning
Gomez is offline  
Old October 10, 2002, 01:12 PM   #4
tommygun45
Member
 
Join Date: April 29, 2002
Location: Upstate New York
Posts: 55
Sul reload

As is the case with most physical skills it is alot easier to show than tell. To change mags fom Sul I will eject the empty mag from the traditional Sul ( muzzle down palm facing inboard). I then roll to a palm out muzzle down position to insert the fresh mag. Then quickly roll back to traditional Sul to rack the slide.
tommygun45 is offline  
Old October 10, 2002, 01:17 PM   #5
BigG
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 19, 1999
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posts: 4,334
I'm not a combat instructor, but think about this: If you point your weapon Sul, then stumble as you move, you automatically throw your hands up pointing your weapon in an unsafe (for your buddies) direction. The Sabrina position will not do the same as the Sul position. So I prefer the Sabrina to the ready or whatever they call the pistol pointed at ground roughly at 45 deg angle.

FWIW
__________________
o "The Earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching." Assyrian tablet, c. 2800 BC

o "In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." Mark Twain

o "They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here?" Paul Harvey

o TODAY WE CARVE OUT OUR OWN OMENS! Leonidas, Thermopylae, 480 BC
BigG is offline  
Old October 10, 2002, 09:04 PM   #6
Gomez
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 26, 2002
Location: Baton Rouge, LA
Posts: 297
TommyGun45:

That is an interesting use of Sul. If I could manipulate the controls of my gun from that position, I might consider it. As it is, that might work for me with some guns and not with others, I'd rather stick with a "one size fits all" set of gunhandling skills. The other issue I see is the same old one; if the gun is below eye level during manipulations the odds are good that the shooters head will dip down to look at the gun. And that will affect situational awareness and project less aggressive body language than a heads-up position.

BigG:

I'm not sure I follow you. Do you mean that if you stumble in Sul, you'll bring the gun up as you try to catch yourself? If so, wouldn't you do the opposite (bring the gun down) if the gun were in "Sabrina"? Either way the gun moves through roughly the same, albiet opposite, arcs.

For a general purpose "ready position" I use a centerline ready. It's known by about a zillion different names, but imagine the gun is in a shooting posture from an isocelles stance, next draw the gun back in to the centerline. The gun should wind up in the middle of your upper chest, muzzle parallel to the deck. From there you can push straight out to Point or fold over into Sul or raise up into Norte/MHS or retract further into Retention. About the only time that I use something that is sort of like Low Ready is when I'm assessing a target that has been shot and it has fallen off of my front sight, so to speak. I'll track down to the threat, to assess. As I continue my movement, the gun will draw back to my centerline ready position, which I usually refer to as Contact Ready.
__________________
"Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it."
--Kruger & Dunning
Gomez is offline  
Old October 14, 2002, 04:17 PM   #7
Gunter
Senior Member
 
Join Date: February 5, 2000
Location: Vienna, Austria
Posts: 279
Norte is also IMHO better than Sul for stoppage clearing in that gravity is assisting in removing the cartridge/case from the gun instead of resisting.

While malfunction clearance is supposed to be gross motor skill based and non diagnostic (therefore not requiring to look at the gun to determine the cause), the tendency is to look anyway. Better to keep the head up than move your attention all the way down to a Sul or Low Ready position.

I have heard that while many trainers do not teach Norte, they will use it without realizing while teaching a class because it is so very useful for gun manipulation in a 360 degree environment. You can't go round pointing a gun at your students after you lecture them on rule #2, can you?
Gunter is offline  
Old October 16, 2002, 01:50 PM   #8
Gomez
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 26, 2002
Location: Baton Rouge, LA
Posts: 297
After Erick and Tommygun voiced weapon retention concerns with the "modified half sabrina", I decided to work through some weapon retention ideas from MHS with some of my guys over this last week.

The most likely direction for a gungrab attempt with a gun in MHS will be from the gunhand side between three and five o'clock. This is because that is your most likely blindspot with the gun in Norte and your focus towards the last known threat. If someone is approaching from head-on, retract to retention position & engage as normal. If someone is approaching from your non-gun side to attempt a gun grab with your gun in Norte, they are completely open and you may handle them accordingly. Given the body posture that you're in with the gun in Norte, it's not very practical for someone to attempt to grab the gun from behind your back.

Having said the foregoing, what do we do when someone has gotten hands on the gun? The most functional thing that I've found is simply to move into the person, rather than try to stand your ground and take the gun away. For instance, bad guy rushes up from your 4 o'clock and gets two hands on your pistol, which is in Norte. Immediately, step into him leading with the gunside shoulder. What you've got going on is a "shoulder bump". Simultaneously, violently retract the gun into Retention position as the off-side foot steps into him and the off-side elbow raises into its'place in retention position . You've just reoriented on him as your primary threat and you're in your standard "close quarter firing/retention position."

I haven't found it any more or less difficult to maintain control of my pistol in Norte than any other position. The concepts are the same and the technique is almost identical, with a little more movement. But the "familiar task transfer" seems to be there so there isn't much of a learning curve.
__________________
"Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it."
--Kruger & Dunning
Gomez is offline  
Old October 16, 2002, 02:35 PM   #9
M1911
Senior Member
 
Join Date: March 28, 2000
Posts: 4,055
One issue with Half Sabrina is that many safety-nazi range officers (like yours truly), do not want to see an elevated muzzle on their range. An ND from the sul position does not result in an escaped round. An ND in the Half Sabrina position likely results in an escaped round. One escaped round from our range could get us shut down.
M1911 is offline  
Old October 16, 2002, 02:41 PM   #10
BigG
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 19, 1999
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posts: 4,334
I think M1911 stated the real issue behind the range safety nazi's hatred of the modified half sabrina, not that it doesn't work better.

You can't move with your muzzle pointed at the ground in front of you like you can with the mhs. Try it for yourself.
__________________
o "The Earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching." Assyrian tablet, c. 2800 BC

o "In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." Mark Twain

o "They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here?" Paul Harvey

o TODAY WE CARVE OUT OUR OWN OMENS! Leonidas, Thermopylae, 480 BC
BigG is offline  
Old October 16, 2002, 02:58 PM   #11
Gomez
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 26, 2002
Location: Baton Rouge, LA
Posts: 297
Yep, a muzzle up orientation is scary on a range. Of course, a muzzle down (Sul) orientation is scary on a lot of ranges, too. On a range you have a designated or known safe area. In the real world, you are not so lucky.

And that's yet another reason to do "dry fire" practice and take professional training (where you can work such skills live). A lot things which are better suited for "real world" use are not going to be welcome on most ranges. Verbalizing, moving, guns up and guns down, closing with the targets, striking the targets, firing from retention positions, even drawing from the holster and shooting on "humaniond" targets are verbotten on a lot of ranges, but we still need to do them.
__________________
"Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it."
--Kruger & Dunning
Gomez is offline  
Old October 16, 2002, 03:05 PM   #12
BigG
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 19, 1999
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posts: 4,334
I think we are reading off the same page, Gomez.
__________________
o "The Earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching." Assyrian tablet, c. 2800 BC

o "In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." Mark Twain

o "They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here?" Paul Harvey

o TODAY WE CARVE OUT OUR OWN OMENS! Leonidas, Thermopylae, 480 BC
BigG is offline  
Old October 16, 2002, 04:48 PM   #13
Gomez
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 26, 2002
Location: Baton Rouge, LA
Posts: 297
BigG,

It's a book that I'm enjoying, hopefully, I'll never make it to the end.

I think that as soon as I think I've gotten to the end, I've lost all credibility (with myself, at any rate.)
__________________
"Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it."
--Kruger & Dunning
Gomez is offline  
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 06:06 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
This site and contents, including all posts, Copyright © 1998-2021 S.W.A.T. Magazine
Copyright Complaints: Please direct DMCA Takedown Notices to the registered agent: thefiringline.com
Page generated in 0.06895 seconds with 8 queries