Stance

[Doc_Glock]

I wanted to open up a discussion about stance, particularly how you place your feet and upper body when shooting.

I find, that often I focus on grip, sight alignment, and trigger manipulation while being rather sloppy or neglectful of my stance while shooting the pistol. I believe this is leaving a lot of performance on the table as far as recoil control goes. I believe TPC teaches stance as the main source of recoil control. I also see many skilled shooters using varied stances and I am sure there is individual variation as to what "works best," but there must be commonalities as well.

Do you keep feet even or one aggressively forward?
Bend forward aggressively at the waist and turtle or more upright?
Do you use a different stance for slow bullseye vs practical shooting?
How do you ingrain good stance habits?
How does your stance change with a rifle or shotgun?

As with most things shooting, I don't know what I don't know, and mainly want to solicit the thoughts and discussion from the forum. The questions above are just to get the discussion started.

[HopetonBrown]

You already know how to stand, so just keep doing that while shooting. The importance of stance is overrated.

[Inspector71]

Over a 37 year career, I was initially trained isosceles, then they trained me in Weaver, then about 2008 isosceles came back into favor. As a retired FI, I could literally date my people as to when they went through the Academy just based on their stance and how they “ran the pistol”. I used to work with a fellow instructor that began day one with shooting the pistol upside down using his pinky on the trigger just to demonstrate that pure marksmanship was basically sights/trigger. Everything else he considered secondary. To your question, these days I’m isosceles, weight forward on balls of feet, elbows extended but not locked. For long gun, I’m leaning in to it and moderately bladed.

[MGW]

TPC has several good videos on putting it all together. I think it’s going to be a little different for everyone.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCru...n0KOzRj9TfebHg

[GJM]

You need to be able to shoot from a variety of stances, but if you watch world class shooters shoot classifiers or Steel Challenge, you will see that they are very particular about their stance.

[45dotACP]

You need to be able to shoot from a variety of stances, but if you watch world class shooters shoot classifiers or Steel Challenge, you will see that they are very particular about their stance.

Is that because they want their index to be as close to the first target as possible? I know if I stand a certain way, driving the gun to the target is far easier. There was some sort of article about natural point of aim that I read forever ago and or seemed to say something similar

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[Doc_Glock]

You need to be able to shoot from a variety of stances, but if you watch world class shooters shoot classifiers or Steel Challenge, you will see that they are very particular about their stance.

This is probably more what I am getting at. Certainly with practical shooting there is shooting on the move in many places.

But when it is time to stand and deliver what is important, and what isn’t?

[snow white]

for me its squared to the target knees slightly bent with one foot forward of the other about half a foots length and my weight being on the front balls of my feet. this helps my body absorb recoil and not be "pushed" by the gun. this position also allows for faster more explosive movement when necessary. I believe stance is absolutely important, that's driven home for me when I teach new shooters and I see poor stance. the gun will push them backwards and all over the place. once I get their head wrapped around a solid shooting stance their groups will tighten up a bit. Id bet its part because of the mechanical advantage of a good stance but also because the gun is just that much easier to control so mentally they can focus on the other fundamentals of the shot process without having to deal with the recoil moving their body on every shot. I also believe the particular flavor of your stance will change depending on (a). the circumstance in which you are shooting (b). your own unique physiology. my stance works for me...it may not for you, but my good stance and your good stance will still be built on the foundation of proper and effective control of the firearm.

[GJM]

Is that because they want their index to be as close to the first target as possible? I know if I stand a certain way, driving the gun to the target is far easier. There was some sort of article about natural point of aim that I read forever ago and or seemed to say something similar

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Stance is different from where you face.

TPC does a drill, where the shooter shoots multiple shots, and they watch the spine. This makes it real easy to see whether each successive shot pushes the shooter back, indicating the need for more weight forward.

[P30]

I used to work with a fellow instructor that began day one with shooting the pistol upside down using his pinky on the trigger just to demonstrate that pure marksmanship was basically sights/trigger.

For precision, trigger press and sight alignment is all that counts. For power and speed, grip and stance matter, too.

I mean Jeff Cooper's DVC.

If only precision counts (e.g. bull's eye shooting at 25 m), I stand quite upright. If the gun has power and I need speed and multiple shots, I bend the knees and lean a bit forward. Most weight on the balls of the feet, a little bit like a boxer but not bladed. This increases stability. The elbows are a bit bent and point quite to the outside acting as shock absorbers.

Great instructional videos:
Jerry Miculek on pistol shooting
Bob Vogel on grip
Bob Vogel on "gun control"