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Thread: Spot Shooting

  1. #11
    banana republican blues's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by HCM View Post
    Coming from the same "pool" you do, there is a difference between choosing to give up some accuracy in favor of speed and the inability to be accurate. IME 99% of those who talk about "spreading the pain" are blowing smoke to cover the fact that they can't shoot.

    I've shot many different LE agency quals, none of them are particularly challenging to max out.
    I don't disagree with you, H and I'm sure that I can't hold a candle to you in terms of proficiency...and I say that with all due respect and modesty, not to blow smoke.

    In the instance I was referencing, the reason that the discussion with the instructor got heated was because he felt I could have shot a max or near max score if I had taken the time allotted. However, my thing during my years on the job was always to be the first one to break leather and put rounds on the target. And for most years of my career I was always that guy. When the scores were tallied I was never the top score but I didn't care. I only cared that if it was a gunfight I won because I shot first and got my rounds on target in vital areas if not in a particularly small group.

    I don't have any illusions about being anything special in terms of my current, (or even past), abilities but I'm working on getting back to something closer to where I was in years past.
    Last edited by blues; 05-30-2017 at 08:49 PM.
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  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by ShooterM9 View Post
    The real problem here is that folks think that the goal in defensive/combat shooting is to put rounds through the same hole. Wrong. The goal is to stop the threat. That is most usually done by making either the coroner's job or the trauma center doctor's job very hard. That means you put multiple hits into the vitals. The vast majority of handgun fights in the real world are in close ranges and the guy who gets his handgun into action the fastest wins. To do so effectively requires a lot of practice, but you get that Gat on the bad guy's center mass ASAP and work at getting three or four rounds into his chest and he ain't going nowhere.

    Everything else is just gun forum drama and the stuff of myth.
    Did you read the article ?

    You are missing the point entirely. The idea of "spot shooting", for example picking an opponents third shirt button as. "Spot" is not that you are going to put all your rounds through the button, but rather it is a mechanism to increase your odds if of keeping all your rounds within a 6" or 8" circle around it instead of "somewhere" center mass or missing entirely.

    To stop opponents, particularly with a handgun, requires you to hit something vital. The vitals on people tend to be ..., 6" to 8". As former professional hunter Finn Aagard said " shot placement is 90% of killing power."

    Fire as many shots as necessary but keep in mind, in a CONUS LE or civilian CCW shooting, getting the job done with fewer rounds is an advantage in the investigative and legal aftermath.
    Last edited by HCM; 05-30-2017 at 09:28 PM.

  3. #13
    banana republican blues's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by HCM View Post
    You are missing the point entirely. The idea of "spot shooting", for example picking an opponents third shirt button as. "Spot" is not that you are going to put all your rounds through the button, but rather it is a mechanism to increase your odds of keeping all your rounds within a 6" or 8" circle around it.

    To stop opponents, particularly with a handgun, requires you to hit something vital. The vitals on people tend to be ....about six to eight inches in size.
    That's an excellent, succinct summation, H.
    Last edited by blues; 05-30-2017 at 09:26 PM.
    There's nothing civil about this war.

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  4. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Chuteur View Post
    I had Bill Rogers telling us as a class about Ed McGivern and his shooting. It prompted me to get and try to read Ed's book, still not done it, sooooo dry. But the point Bill made was to aim at a small part of the target and not the target as a whole, the same as Ed McGivern when he used to shoot at glass marbles - don't aim at the marble, aim at a point on the marble.

    I find if my targets are 3 inch discs, or 3x5 cards I aim to hit them, whereas if my target is somewhat larger with legs I have to concentrate to not just aim at that as a whole, rather find a point on that target and aim for it.
    About the first 30% of Fast & Fancy Revolver Shooting is tough going because McGivern was educated in the late 19th century and he wrote in that florid style. The rest of the book is a lot easier to get through, and there's a ton of good info there.


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  5. #15
    Huge fan of spot shooting. A lot of people call it "Aim Small, Miss Small" but I call it "Aim Small, Hit Small". I know, minor semantics but I think there is a difference. I see a huge difference with people that come from spot shooting training systems, from those that do not when it comes to FoF. The guys that are used to aiming at a larger target, and aiming "center of mass" generally do worse than someone that drives the gun to a spot on their opponent and burns that spot down. So-So hits become misses or really poor hits.

    The "spread you hits out" thing is a non-issue in my book. My opponent is moving, I'm moving, the hits aren't going through the same hole. But, I can strive to.

  6. #16
    Any good tips for achieving spot shooting when forced (by agency standards, match rules, etc.) to shoot a big, blank target?

    Yesterday I shot a bunch of Drills of the Week. Coincidentally, they included a B-8 drill at 20 yards, followed immediately by one on an IDPA target at the same distance. I was always at least on the paper with the B-8, but on the IDPA target I got this:

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  7. #17
    Well, anatomically speaking, that is not so bad. Now if you are shooting for score...
    Code Name: JET STREAM

  8. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Watson View Post
    Well, anatomically speaking, that is not so bad. Now if you are shooting for score...
    I know ... but I was. This was the 10-20-30 drill. I took plenty of time (7.5 seconds par for 3 shots from the draw), let my sights settle, and never called one high. And yet, here I am with 11/30 hits.

  9. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by ShooterM9 View Post
    I have made it a point to count the shots taken by folks in such a high stress situation (at static targets, in a shoot house, doesn't matter).

    Want to know how many shots about 98% of them take?

    SEVEN.

    I can't explain it, but it is most alway seven shots.

    Could it be that the time it takes for (a) the bad guy to respond and (b) the response to be noted by the good guy is also about the time it takes to make seven shots? We're probably talking about a 2 second window, here.

  10. #20
    My start in LE shooting was in college. Our instructor had been the head of firearms training for Spokane PD, then for Oregon or Washington Highway Patrol (can't remember) and he and his wife had been upper level PPC competitors on the national level. Once he got all of the students up to qualifying level on the 60 round course he pulled us all in and said, "you have to realize that this course is just a standard and in reality, you're trying to be first into action and your target is the second button down from the collar."

    He then took a small aluminum trash can lid and drew a circle around it with the bottom of the lid with the bottom of the lid resting on the "X" of the B27 target (typing that, I still remember the smell of those stinky, striped markers) with an X marked in white-out and had us shoot the course with the standard times cut in half -except at the 50yd line. I've always thought we were lucky to have Mr. Mac as our instructor.

    Thread Drift: The kids that were in the LE program had commission cards from the local sheriff during the school year and worked as uniformed "campus police." He took the top shooters on school funded trips to matches in Dallas, OKC, New Mexico and Arizona.

    It was pretty heady stuff being age 18 and on the firing line with team shooters from the Border Patrol, USSS and USMS and going out for dinner riding in the back of a Secret Service "war wagon" chock full of radios and rifle racks.
    -All views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect those of the author's employer-

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