Strong-hand shooting: It’s the grip baby

[Lyonsgrid]

Starting to notice some things recently about strong-hand only shooting. Ran a drill with some other shooters where we had to draw from holster and get a hit center mass from 5 yds as quickly as possible. Goal was to mimic surprise shooting techniques when confronted with an ambush type attack. No rules, just get it out and get a hit. What I noticed was every shooter went strong-hand only, myself included.

Statistics appear to support many gunfights go one handed. Not sure why, but I’ve seen enough footage showing the same. Hackathorn touched on this in a recent class I attended. Summed it up saying that the lizard brain likes to take over when attacked and the stress rises. He put a lot of weight in one hand drills.

Keeping this in mind, I’ve noted the importance of the pistol selected for carry, more specifically, the grip shape. I’ve always carried a Glock 19/17 or Beretta 92 AIWB. The double stack semi-autos lay flat enough but I find it’s hard to establish a solid initial grip consistently.

I’m late to the revolver party but recently I’ve been practicing with a couple of round butt K frames (2.5 in). With the right grips they can really shine over the semi-autos. I get a solid quick master grip and they seem to be natural when pointing strong-hand only.



Not saying they rule the street but revolvers carried in this manner are worth a serious look. Chances are it will be close and over in a few rounds. For me, the ability to get a solid grip and hit one-handed may be faster with this model 64. The new JMCK rig is much better than my last set-up.



...now the reload...that's another story.

[joshs]

I don't notice much of a difference in time to acquire a grip between full sized semi autos and the only revolver I ever carry, a 442. If anything, I'm faster at getting a grip with the full-sized gun, but this may be due to the many more dry and live repetitions I do with a semi-auto versus the 442. For AIWB, especially with a holster with a good amount of tuck like the JMCK, I find it's very important to make contact with the 3 fingers that comprise the strong hand grip on the side grip panel slightly lower than where they will end up once indexed under the trigger guard. The 3 fingers then follow the front strap around and wedge up under the trigger guard while I drive my thumb between the gun and my body. For me, this method works much better than coming straight down on top of the gun and trying to hook my fingers under the grip without indexing on the outboard grip panel.