Weak side shotgun shooting, in the dark, on fire, naked.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

So I occasionally go to a local training function that's pretty worthwhile. The guy who runs it is a committed organizer of shooting events for whom I have a ton of respect; he's made a lot of serious training available here (e.g. Southnarc) and he runs monthly 3-gun training for local guys and puts a ton of work into it, so that's all awesome.

Here's where I start to differ from him a little, though: I have no real love for the shotgun and as such I don't really know enough to relate to the training I'm getting. He's a shotgun guy through and through so I go in part just to get time in on guns I otherwise wouldn't use.

But we do a LOT of weak-side shooting. We shoot the 9-hole wall weak side, with empty guns, sideloading the whole way through.

It is pure clusterf##k.

On top of this, personally I run a Valtro PM-5. Sideloading makes no sense to me because if I run dry I just put 7 more rounds in, and also sideloading sucks because I have a magwell and either the gun is oriented a bit upside down, or the shell falls out of the magwell.

So for me, this has limited value. The instructor's position is that if I set my gear up to include shotgun strips on a chest rig, I could sideload better, which is true but really misses the point of a PM-5 in my opinion. If I'm running a bunch of rounds on a chest rig, it's going to be in the form of more mags.

I also kind of question the value of stacking the deck so thoroughly against yourself with an empty gun, a 9-hole wall, and shooting it all support side. I mean maybe I'm just getting old (I am getting old) but I am having a hard time with the idea that I am maximizing my training time by dealing with everything sucking at once. The theory I'm hearing is that if I wake up at three a.m. to a home invasion everything is going to suck out loud so I need to deal with this and I get that, and I get that conceivably I could run out of mags or all my mags could fail or whatever, but at the same time, that could theoretically happen with an AR and NOBODY trains to shoot an AR one round at a time without mags.


I guess I'm wondering at what point compounding problems becomes counterproductive to learning and improvement?I'm currently feeling a bit like I'd have gotten more out of running the morning drills with full mags, or even partial mags and more frequent reloads.

Or maybe a couple of runs where everything is f##kulated, but a larger number of runs in which fundamentals play a greater role.

Or have I just slacked off to the point that I need to work the fundamentals (totally possible) and can't handle the weird stuff anymore?

[GJM]

I view reloading drills, and stuff like that support side shooting as a way of cramming one day of material into two or three days.

I think you are in Canada, where there may be handgun restrictions, but my shotgun reload, absent admin loading, is to draw my handgun. I will take 12 rounds of Super, or a bunch of 9mm over one or two shotgun loads any time you have something trying to hurt you.

[Dagga Boy]

Did he move there from SoCal? We had a bunch of LE 3 gun organizers run support side shotgun regularly enough that we had a ringer on our 3 gun team just for this (shoots handgun right, shotgun left). I think it got popular with the Miami shootout as to this being a critical skill. I also have a different take. Shoot the shotgun like you are likely to really use it, and shoot wounded drills like wounded drills. That means you run it with one hand only...period. I ll put my time running a 12 Ga. operationally for real against anyone and I cannot remember a single time I switched shoulders. Essentially, I think you are wasting training time and trigger time on silliness.

[nycnoob]

I actually enjoy shooting the shotgun and I take shotgun classes when ever I hear of them. I will say that I find that ALL of them do not teach with a particular scenario in mind. To me it would make the most sense to think about a gun as cruiser/closet ready (full tube, empty chamber) and teach the class from there. Almost always the class is taught as a mix of shotgun manipulation skills with heavy focus on loading through the ejection port. I feel that learning to reload the tube is more important than reloading the ejection port and one should focus on "shoot then top off" drills, because if you do this right then the gun might never go dry.

Also I find that the instructors all teach the same skills they were taught 30 years ago. It seems like the 3 gunners have some innovative methods which could prove practical: turning the gun ejection port up when reloading through the ejection port so that the shell will fall in and stay in the lifter, or moving the butt-stock to your shoulder to reload the tube, or even holding the receiver with the reloading port up so that the gun is carried in your hand and you can watch the shells go in. I always get called a "gamer" for trying these methods in a shotgun class. However the methods appear to me to be fast and to be less likely to flub then traditional methods.

I will say that I took two female friends to Tom Givens class, they got very confused performing the reloading drills and they were given extra help and informed "one in the top hole many in the bottom hole" seems like there is a great dirty joke in there somewhere . . .

[Maple Syrup Actual]

I view reloading drills, and stuff like that support side shooting as a way of cramming one day of material into two or three days.

I think you are in Canada, where there may be handgun restrictions, but my shotgun reload, absent admin loading, is to draw my handgun. I will take 12 rounds of Super, or a bunch of 9mm over one or two shotgun loads any time you have something trying to hurt you.

You know, that makes a lot of sense to me as far as the reloads go, but also the cramming analogy. That's why I'll tolerate weird drills: I only get so much training time so they'll cover the out-there stuff. But I don't feel like I need the out-there stuff.

And anywhere I'd be likely to have a shotgun, I'd definitely also be likely to have a handgun so your point about a full pistol vs 2 rounds out of a shotgun is well taken. Although with the Valtro, reloads are pretty slick.


Did he move there from SoCal? We had a bunch of LE 3 gun organizers run support side shotgun regularly enough that we had a ringer on our 3 gun team just for this (shoots handgun right, shotgun left). I think it got popular with the Miami shootout as to this being a critical skill. I also have a different take. Shoot the shotgun like you are likely to really use it, and shoot wounded drills like wounded drills. That means you run it with one hand only...period. I ll put my time running a 12 Ga. operationally for real against anyone and I cannot remember a single time I switched shoulders. Essentially, I think you are wasting training time and trigger time on silliness.

This is how I feel but I have no credentials at all and have never used a shotgun operationally, or really anything beyond casually, so I'm totally open to being right, but I'm prepared to be wrong. I just can't see myself running a shotgun lefthanded to reduce my target profile when I come out from behind cover...knowing that it'll likely be harder to operate and therefore I'll probably increase my exposure time, so what's the point of reducing my target area? And if I had enough cover that the 9-hole wall was a realistic analogue to anything I have a hard time imagining that I'd be incapable of shooting right handed. I feel like I'd probably be better served by setting myself up to perform well. I mean I get that you don't always get to pick your conditions, I just find the "everything sucking at once" model a little questionable.


I actually enjoy shooting the shotgun and I take shotgun classes when ever I hear of them. I will say that I find that ALL of them do not teach with a particular scenario in mind. To me it would make the most sense to think about a gun as cruiser/closet ready (full tube, empty chamber) and teach the class from there. Almost always the class is taught as a mix of shotgun manipulation skills with heavy focus on loading through the ejection port. I feel that learning to reload the tube is more important than reloading the ejection port and one should focus on "shoot then top off" drills, because if you do this right then the gun might never go dry.

Also I find that the instructors all teach the same skills they were taught 30 years ago. It seems like the 3 gunners have some innovative methods which could prove practical: turning the gun ejection port up when reloading through the ejection port so that the shell will fall in and stay in the lifter, or moving the butt-stock to your shoulder to reload the tube, or even holding the receiver with the reloading port up so that the gun is carried in your hand and you can watch the shells go in. I always get called a "gamer" for trying these methods in a shotgun class. However the methods appear to me to be fast and to be less likely to flub then traditional methods.

I will say that I took two female friends to Tom Givens class, they got very confused performing the reloading drills and they were given extra help and informed "one in the top hole many in the bottom hole" seems like there is a great dirty joke in there somewhere . . .

There's too much stuff to like in this post to go into all of it. But I really lean towards both adult humour and 3-gun reloading styles.

[Clobbersaurus]

But we do a LOT of weak-side shooting. We shoot the 9-hole wall weak side, with empty guns, sideloading the whole way through.

It is pure clusterf##k.



I tend to think I get more out of the pain in the ass drills than others. Used properly it's a valid way to induce social stress into a training routine that would feel pretty mundane to someone that has as much training as you have.

To do that, you make the drill as f##kulated (yeah, I am totally using that term now thanks) as possible and get the students to perform it in front of everyone. With eyes on you, you hope to look like a Boss, but the f##kulation of the drill totally deny's any semblance of cool you may have had, which induces stress. At least it always feels that way for me, but I'm a pretty self conscious guy.

Example: Yesterday I shot a match with a stage that had some lower ports. Most people wanted to take a knee. I decided to do a kinda Sumo squat which I thought would work pretty well and allow me to navigate the ports faster.

I ended up blowing the ass out of my shorts just before my run was to start. I mean total blow out. Ripped basically from my belt line down to the thigh.

I had to do the whole stage with my underwear flapping in the cool September breeze. Talk about inducing stress to a stage! I ended up with three misses on that stage, all basically due to social stress.

[LittleLebowski]

on top of this, personally i run a valtro pm-5.

busy googling

[JHC]

but my shotgun reload, absent admin loading, is to draw my handgun. I will take 12 rounds of Super, or a bunch of 9mm over one or two shotgun loads any time you have something trying to hurt you.

I'm newly re-swooning over my simple bead sighted 870 and to this and Nyeti's point above I set it up and practice like I'll use it. When it's empty, I'm pitching it and going to the pistol. My application is only HD.

[GJM]

My favorite social shotguns, like the Benelli M2 field, look like hunting shotguns not an AR clone.

[JAD]

I don't know anything, but I've taken a couple of shotgun courses and would probably like to take more sometime.

The whole advantage of the shotgun, to me, beyond blowing people's arms off, is the ability to top it off. I think an empty gun reload with a shotgun would be an indication that I've done something horribly wrong.

I don't know that I would sit out a support-side drill with a shotgun, but I would think bad things. My shotgun technique, which is great when it works, would be almost impossible for me to pull off support side, and I would beat the hell out of myself trying to hang on to the gun.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

busy googling
80s proto-tactical for guys with 2-tone 1911s and aviator glasses.




I think I'm too dense for social stress to apply because I mainly just think about whether the thing I'm doing is working for me or not. I don't mind having stress applied, I just don't want it applied in such a way that I'm practising dumb things instead of smart things. And I am pretty skeptical that shooting the 9-hole wall lefthanded while side-loading a mag fed gun the whole way is smart. I was thinking, as I was doing it, that for the time I'm taking to run it wrong-handed with one shell at a time out of my pocket, I could be getting pretty damn fast shooting it with mags and my right shoulder. I wouldn't have been fast to start with, because I never use shotguns, but I could have been fast, I think, with a couple of hours of practise.

And that's my objection: practising weak hand only shooting on a carnival ride while somebody spills coffee on you isn't really going to make you better. Or maybe it is, but I feel like it isn't. It's so specific that I think you're introducing too many simultaneous failure points. That might be wrong but I felt 2% better at the end of four hours than I did at the start, and looking around everybody else looked equally inept because honestly, how smooth can you make the bottom row of ports on a 9-hole while loading one at a time? It's just inherently screwed up, and I had the thought that doing it fifteen or twenty times wasn't really making me better. Each step was too long, and too dependent on weird issues like cargo pockets with enough shells left at a conveniently accessible angle, and so on.



I don't know, maybe it's useful but I'm pretty skeptical.


Those of you who don't bother with support-side shotgunning, what are your thoughts about shooting around barriers? Do you switch shoulders with ARs but not with shotguns?

[JAD]

Those of you who don't bother with support-side shotgunning, what are your thoughts about shooting around barriers? Do you switch shoulders with ARs but not with shotguns?

I roll out. I do not switch sides with handguns, shotguns, or carbines. I do switch sides when driving in England and Singapore, but I resent it.

[Chuck Haggard]

I am an advocate of switching shoulders to maximize cover, but this is taking that idea way into full potato areas, so nope, I don't get it either.

[JHC]

I roll out. I do not switch sides with handguns, shotguns, or carbines. I do switch sides when driving in England and Singapore, but I resent it.

Same. And since my application is inside my home; there is precious little actual cover provided by corners or furniture so it doesn't seem worth the investment to me.

[psalms144.1]

I understand the value of shooting off-shoulder with a long gun, I really do. There are plenty of times when that application offers advantages, IF YOU TRAIN IT SUFFICIENTLY. I sure as snot wouldn't do it with a pump action shotgun, unless I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours training to do. Frankly, I get little enough training time as it is, and so I doubt that I'd ever get around to this skill set.

I have spent a fair amount of time training to switch shoulder with a rifle, and to switch hand with a pistol. Frankly, my performance with support-hand-supported pistol shooting is so much worse than my strong hand supported or SHO, I don't see it as a viable option, either.

And, Misanthropist, you have my vote for winning the internet this week with the title of this thread...

[LSP552]

Add me to the list of folks who don't see the benefits of switching sides with a HD shotgun.

[Cookie Monster]

I like the idea of it and I train it because is it new and a challenge but I never have the thought I would actually use it.

Also as an instructor it helps me think about and experience how things go for left handed folks.

[JHC]

And, Misanthropist, you have my vote for winning the internet this week with the title of this thread...

+1 as well as some of his quips in commentary. Perfectly accentuates the nth degree worst case scenario implicit in the weak hand 9 hole training with a shottie. :D

[Mr_White]

misanthropist, I am no shotgun guy, so my comments are more general. I agree with you though. I think there is value in getting a little familiarity with outlying, difficult stuff like shooting upside down, backwards, weak hand only, in a ditch, and needing to clear a difficult malfunction, but it's nowhere near the value of improving what can be identified as likely, core skills. When I've seen that kind of stuff presented in 'advanced pistol classes', I have sometimes seen it as something that is done when none of the instructors possess the skill to work with the students on making their core skills better. Because that requires the instructor have the skill in the first place and then deal with endless subtlety in helping students refine and improve their technique. Weak hand only doublefeed clearance and weirdo positional shooting can be done as 'do step 1, do step 2, do step 3, wow, good job, you did it!' and is a lot easier in that respect. Doesn't mean that stuff has no value. The unfortunate bro who actually has to clear a doublefeed weak hand only or else die would do well to have done it before. But spending a lot of time on it? No way, not compared to what one judges as the core skills.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Thanks for the input (and appreciation/tolerance for my rather glib humour).

I don't know that I'd say I feel "vindicated" as there wasn't really an argument per se, but I now feel my assessment of the training as "focused on skills I am unlikely to utilize" is pretty accurate.

I'm very interested to hear that so many of you wouldn't run a shotgun on your off side - and particularly a pump gun. I find it fairly challenging to do efficiently and I can't see myself putting in the time to get good at it; there's other stuff I'd rather spend my time on. I do switch shoulders and hands quite comfortably on ARs and AKs (well, VZs) and I'm pretty sharp on WHO pistol, but pump guns just introduce too much physical activity for me to feel comfortable with it. Or, maybe more accurately, for me to do it with the kind of speed and precision I can do it strong side.

I found it a bit humourous when we were doing weak side shotgun, but WHO handgun. I was kind of looking around like, we've chosen to do this with awkward side just to get around cover, but are simultaneously shooting a pistol WHO because what, our right arm is shot? But not when we transition back to the shotgun?

Meanwhile we're hearing this lecture about how inside 25m, if we run dry on the AR, we need to go straight to a handgun. But with shotgun we're f##kulating around loading one and shooting one from our pockets, rather than going to the pistol each one of us is carrying? And I can't go for mags with my left hand if I'm shooting my shotgun on the weak side, because then I'll "learn" to do that in an emergency with my right hand...what? I think if I always go for mags with my left, under stress, I think I'll go for mags with my left.


Anyway the guy who runs the training group is a person for whom I do have quite a bit of respect, just on account of the amount of work he puts in for the local firearms community. But he and I do see things a bit differently in terms of high- and low-value training.


And to be fair I think that Clobb and Cookie do make points which support at least occasional training with this stuff. So I'll probably occasionally participate, and more frequently work on my foundational skills elsewhere.



Oh, and I appreciate everyone's take on this precisely because I didn't think I necessarily had the chops to critique it, but there's some people in here I think unquestionably have the chops and so getting everyone's feedback has been very instructive.

[nalesq]

To better utilize cover I'll sometimes switch shoulders with a carbine, usually simply by just moving the buttstock to the other side, rather than actually changing hands. My arms aren't long enough to do this well with a pump shotgun, though. With a pump, I had to switch hands to shoot off of the non dominant shoulder. Also, after some further experimentation, I quickly discovered that manipulating the safety of a Remington 870 efficiently became a major issue with the non dominant side. Based on these experiences, I decided that it wasn't worth the trouble of putting in the effort to be able to switch shoulders with a pump shotgun.

[Dagga Boy]

" I don't mind having stress applied, I just don't want it applied in such a way that I'm practising dumb things instead of smart things."

Here is the thread gold in a sentence. This is where I have evolved to. Combine this with the Pat Rogersism of "Practice makes permanent" and we are in the realm of "let's not make stupid things permanent".

Also....switch shouldering the 870/590 type guns is a super-awesome way to short stroke them causing a far greater issue than rolling out........just an observation from the peanut gallery.

[Clobbersaurus]

Missanthropist, in my bleary eyed state early this morning, reading your original post, I thought perhaps what you experienced was only one or two drills weak-hand. What you describe sounds like 4 hours of torture.

I have to admit I don't have a lot of time on a shotgun, only a one day course with Earl. Which I think I got a lot out of. We didn't do any weak hand stuff at all, which I was particularly grateful for. I don't really see the point to it outside of one or two drills, because as you said, there is just too much stuff going on with a pump gun to ever make it feel comfortable to operate from the support side.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

It's not my first round of this particular torture either, it's actually my third with a pump gun so I may just be a slow learner. I did one with a Dagger SAP6 and two with the Valtro. Now I actually wish I had the SAP6 back to try it again, because I think my frame of reference is a little broader.

I can appreciate what the instructor is doing in the sense that he is intentionally hammering everyone with miserable drills over and over so that the basic stuff will seem easy...but I think the basic stuff only seems easy if you practise it a lot, not if you practise different, worse things.

The guy who was running the show would be the first to admit that it's basically 4 hours of misery, so maybe a lot of my critique is just coming from a headspace where I want it to be something that it's not.



I just thought of this now and I just had a double Irish whiskey so everyone will have to forgive me if this doesn't work but:

This training session is maybe sort of like Crossfit games, and I keep wanting everything to be a weightlifting class. I'm suddenly having to do power cleans with 135 lbs until failure when I don't really oly lift, and I feel like I'd get more out of having someone just coach me on my form with front squats. It looks like a sack of cats because I'm not clear on what I'm doing and I haven't really put in the enormous amount of training to do it well, and as such I'd rather just take a few simple concrete steps towards improving my strength.

But that doesn't mean there's no place for the Crossfit Games necessarily. I just don't think it's an ideal training environment.

[John Hearne]

I've trained with the VTAC guys and asked about this. Their assumption is that you are capable of delivering 75-90% of your strong side performance with the support side. Given their standards for strong side work, that is a pretty high standard. Odds are that very few people will be that good with their support side shooting a shotgun - the weapon with arguably the most complicated manual of arms used in self-defense.

[SLG]

Unless I'm injured, I'm not a believer in switching shoulders or hands with any gun. No real need, ime. Injured, with a shotgun and a pistol? The shotgun is probably going to get ditched, barring some specific circumstances and severity of the injury.

I'd call that a clue.*




*Doesn't really apply, but I've been dying to throw that in here.

Also, between the social media/SSD post, and the comment above, I wonder how many people commenting have actually done crossfit for any length of time/level of ability. Just a rhetorical question.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

I'd call that a clue


God damn it, Leroy!

For the record I really have no issue with crossfit, but the local games result in some pretty sketchy lifts simply because of the format of the competition. I think it's valid...depending on the context, like the freak drills I got stuck with.

I'm really interested in the divided opinion on switching shoulders and hands. I can do it because I was trained to do that, but I have never really had an opinion on whether it makes sense. I'm sure I'm faster just leaning out, although I've had good performance switching shoulders but not hands.

But I'm interested to see divided opinion among experts.

Sent from my SGH-I317M using Tapatalk

[GJM]

After "enduring" (her word) shotgun training with Gunsite, Randy Cain and Louis A, my wife said I can take a 870 and shove it. She said "get me a shoulder fired Glock," which we did with the Benelli. All is well in shotgun world with her now.

[Chuck Haggard]

I've trained with the VTAC guys and asked about this. Their assumption is that you are capable of delivering 75-90% of your strong side performance with the support side. Given their standards for strong side work, that is a pretty high standard. Odds are that very few people will be that good with their support side shooting a shotgun - the weapon with arguably the most complicated manual of arms used in self-defense.

Some of the lessons learned in Mogadishu are obviously part of the VTAC curriculum.

[Lomshek]

Practicing weak side shooting once in a while seems valid. Single loading a magazine fed weapon just because the rounds are bigger seems pointless.

I don't spend a lot of time practicing how to single load 9mm or 5.56 rounds and don't think I'm shortchanging myself much at all. That specific manual of arms (single loading) is for awkward, slow to reload tube fed guns. If you're not using a tube fed gun why practice it? I guess if you have a mag full of buckshot and need a slug that you just happen to have on a chest rig loop instead of in a mag.

[farscott]

Also....switch shouldering the 870/590 type guns is a super-awesome way to short stroke them causing a far greater issue than rolling out........just an observation from the peanut gallery.

Yup, I have done this one myself as I am right-handed and left-eye dominant. Learning to run an 870 from my left shoulder was not fun. It made me REALLY appreciate the Flexitab feature that Remington added to the 870. And that was after who knows how many rounds from the left shoulder on the trap range with my 870TB just to get the basics. Nothing like a little stress to show where the issues are, such as my left thumb being appreciably shorter than my right thumb means reloading is a wee bit different.