Meaning of "getting behind the gun"?

[rdtompki]

Wife and I shoot steel challenge and we've had one instructor refer to getting behind the gun. Now, I'm going to see him on Saturday and discuss, but I'd like to hear what others have to say.

Googling is useless - mostly rifle related and it seems a bit more literal as in get your weight behind the gun.

A Max Michel video talks about high grip and left hand cocked down at 45 degrees, but I don't believe that's the context to which I'm referring.

My own visualization, such as it is, is more akin to "getting ahead of the gun": process faster than I can manipulate the gun. Accelerate the gun, acquire the (next) target, decelerate, refine sight alignment picture, squeeze trigger. Ideally, some of this happens at a subconscious level, sight alignment is being refined during transitions, etc.

But if I can do anything else to "get behind the gun" I'm all over it.

[Tom Givens]

It has been said that your grip style controls muzzle flip, but your stance controls recoil. This is typically what is meant by "getting behind the gun". Shoulders forward, upper body weight forward. Drive the gun, don't ride it.

[Clusterfrack]

Like "slow is smooth and smooth is fast", "get behind your gun" is another of those phrases that never made sense to me. What's the alternative? Get in front of your gun?

I prefer to think about shooting with "forward intention".

[YVK]

^^^Yes.

[45dotACP]

The idea is a forward weight bias. Controlling recoil instead of letting it push you backwards.

[rdtompki]

.... I prefer to think about shooting with "forward intention".

Brief and to the point. BTW, shooting a 9mm 1911 with soft loads I don't have recoil to worry about, but there is a tiny bit of sight muzzle flip, let's call it micro-flip.

We shoot on a scaled-down range using small targets, our smallest now 6" at a max of 15 yards (it's a Cowboy range). The hardest thing to process in real time is the transition from a high speed, wide transition to the quality of sight picture and trigger required to hit a small target. It's easy if you modulate the transition speed according to target size, but that's not where you want to be. I want the gun completely under control as I arrive at the target so I can break the shot without needing sight picture refinement. For a small target this (for me) requires decelerating the gun a bit sooner. For Smoke and Hope not so much (24"x18" plates at 7 yards).

[rwa]

Getting behind the gun refers to your shooting platform from head to toe, and to your mental game. Drive the gun with intent and purpose, other wise you shooting will just become one big cluster...

[GJM]

"Getting behind the gun" is the shooting method used by those following "big boy safety rules."

[Lomshek]

I always took it as meaning get more mass behind the gun (less blading, more leaned forward).

[rdtompki]

Getting behind the gun refers to your shooting platform from head to toe, and to your mental game. Drive the gun with intent and purpose, other wise you shooting will just become one big cluster...

I just wanted to follow-up my original post with a "learning moment" I experienced yesterday. Shooting both my 9mm H&K P2000 and 9mm 1911, practicing for steel challenge, it finally occurred to me how sloppy I had gotten with the 1911 (see your text which I bolded). I was actually hitting better with the H&K than the 1911 and I realized that the additional focus necessary to work the longer, much heavier (LEM) trigger coupled with having to maintain the sight picture for a few extra tenths increased my concentration enormously. I had to drive the gun to the target while preparing the trigger with a stronger support hand grip needed to help with trigger management.

By comparison I had been "waving" the light triggered, light recoiling 1911 at the target particularly for close-spaced targets where I would force a shot with inadequate attention to trigger control. I've been reluctant to shoot both guns in the same practice session, the HK being my HD/SD handgun, but I now realize the benefit of shooting something that demands more concentration.

I switched back to the 1911 that same session and applied that same focus with an immediate improvement in results. It is all too easy to get sloppy.