The Draw: Building consistancy with support hand

[Ptrlcop]

Hey guys,

Recently I have been working on improving my speed on the draw (Safariland 6360 duty holster). Cold I am drawing around 2-2.20 to a 3X5 at 7yds, Warmed up I can get down to about 1.7 before I start falling apart. I can get down to 1.5/1.6 but my hit percentage drops to about 50/50. I feel like where the wheels start to come off is getting a consistant placement of the support hand. I think I need to find some sort of index for my support hand while my strong hand moves to the gun, I'm just not sure where.

So far I've played with locking my support elbow strait down and my forearm comming across just under my pectoral muscle. I have also tried having my fingers pointing at the target with my thumb pointing strait up, almost touching my chin. Maybe I should be moving my support hand to the gun sooner, before it reaches the center line.

So what says the group? Am I on the right track, or way off?

[SLG]

Video.

[98z28]

One method is to use the index finger on your support hand as an index.

Take a solid two hand grip and notice where the index finger of your support contacts the underside of the trigger guard and the second knuckle of your strong hand. Use those two points as your index. The idea is to make contact with your index finger under the trigger guard and in front of your strong hand social finger in the same way every time and then you rotate the support hand into place at the beginning of the press out. The consistent starting point helps put the support hand in the same spot each time.

Just like any new technique, go slow and get it perfect over many reps before speeding. Going fast before you have the technique down just reinforces poor technique.

By the way, reliably hitting a 3x5 at 7yds from a 6360 in under two seconds is smoking. If you are mortal, you are past the point of shaving larges chunks of time off of the first shot.

[DonovanM]

Over the course of learning to shoot, my support hand has naturally gravitated towards indexing below my right pectoral on the draw. If I grip the gun with my master grip and pull it all the way down into my stomach, then remove my strong hand with the gun in it, my support hand looks about like that before it meets the gun. If I were you, I wouldn't worry about what my elbow was doing, and only concentrate on where my palm was. I even found it helpful to slap exactly where I wanted to index my support hand before it met the gun. Nice way to build consistency, and after some practice I didn't have to do it for long.

[Ptrlcop]

By the way, reliably hitting a 3x5 at 7yds from a 6360 in under two seconds is smoking. If you are mortal, you are past the point of shaving larges chunks of time off of the first shot.

Just trying to work on the reliably part.

[98z28]

Wow did I misread your original post...

My support hand (left) goes just under my left peck as the strong hand moves toward the gun.

[Al T.]

Couple of good videos from Paul Gomez:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Gomez8136#p/u/3/7OZfgutNufU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NKngkVXMGg

I slap my weak hand flat right below my breast bone. My chosen start position for my hands is the "interview" position.