Shooting with thumb blocking back plate and other non-best practice items

[JCN]

Okay, so these aren't really in the style of Pistol Forum and I made them for a different forum.

But I am interested in discussing them from theory and training standpoint.
And wanted to share what I noticed doing them.

I do these "experiments" to broaden my experience and knowledge. Because you don't know what you don't know.

When I was car racing, my primary competition was dry asphalt... but I found that training on mud, ice, snow and rain helped me develop skills that were very useful for dry asphalt racing.
That's kind of my thought with doing some of these ridiculous things. Because it's DIFFERENT than what I would normally do on a square range indoors.

I admit that they are ridiculous if you take them at face value, but keep an open mind.

1. Collateral scene: Vickers thinks it's the best shooting scene from a technical standpoint so I wanted to try it. It was tough to not fully press out like I was used to. For the second target, it's supposed to be a triple dropper that didn't drop.
2. Thumb on back plate was suggested by a LEO friend who does that drill with his team. I had never shot like that before and don't know when I would use that technique but if a police dept uses it for training, I thought I would add it to the repertoire. It was interesting having to program racking the slide in my head and I'm going to add induced malfunction drills more to my practice.
3. The punch and draw drill was also suggested by a LEO friend. In reviewing video afterwards, I tried to clear my garment with my non-punching hand... adding time and not having purpose. I am going to practice doing other things with my hands right before concealed drawing to mix it up. Maybe set up a very extended delayed timer and do some woodworking or something until it goes off.
4. Triple nickel, but with varying heights and shapes of targets. Transitioning at speed when it's not just in one transition axis like normal drills... wanted to see if I could do it.

And the video that's likely going to raise some hackles.


Parlor trick? Sure, but I think it underscores the importance of training with weak hand (not like this, though!) and having index so rock solid that you can recoil control and stay on target, even when your brain is doing something else. In order to recoil control and point both guns at the same time... it really has to be automatic.

I could feel both sides of my brain working as I was using both hands, it was very interesting.

[YVK]

I thought your Israeli draw video was more entertaining.

Comments on some of content.
Thumb behind the slide. I've heard/seen this before, have explored that and filed it under "inapplicable to me, also total contrived tactical ninja shit".
Inapplicable because I carry Glocks with SCD Gadgets, which I consider superior option for AIWB to manual safeties on strikers but they will prevent gun from firing if slide is thumbed forward.
Contrived because, after doing some experiments, I found that pushing slide out of battery on service pistols with normal recoil springs through a muzzle contact requires quite a bit of work. Such as neary perfect square muzzle position and direction of the push.
I also figured that I would rather train not to contact or back the gun out 3 mm than induce a stoppage.

Punch and draw. I had to do it in some classes. I thought it was dumb. The idea behind it is to create some time so you can create safer space to draw. Doing it myself and seeing others do it, I didn't think it was reliable enough. Especially when people punched while stepping back, bleeding all energy outta that hit. I myself decided that if I am gonna start punching, I am gonna do it for real, both arms, weight transfer etc, as opposed to some superfluous bitch slap, and avoid drawing too soon. There are a lot of people who are much more qualified on this subject than I am though.

Parlor trick? Sure, but I think it underscores the importance of training with weak hand

If you need to come to this conclusion by point shooting two G20, I am not gonna argue. Everyone has their own ways. I use USPSA classifiers and standards stages that call for SHO as my yard sticks and motivation.

I could feel both sides of my brain working as I was using both hands, it was very interesting.

I can't feel any part of my brain working, ever. I wonder if what you felt was just a recoil and conclusion from 10 mm pistols in both of your hands.

[Casual Friday]

Yeah I don't get it either.

[JCN]

I thought your Israeli draw video was more entertaining.

Comments on some of content.
Thumb behind the slide. I've heard/seen this before, have explored that and filed it under "inapplicable to me, also total contrived tactical ninja shit".
Inapplicable because I carry Glocks with SCD Gadgets, which I consider superior option for AIWB to manual safeties on strikers but they will prevent gun from firing if slide is thumbed forward.
Contrived because, after doing some experiments, I found that pushing slide out of battery on service pistols with normal recoil springs through a muzzle contact requires quite a bit of work. Such as neary perfect square muzzle position and direction of the push.
I also figured that I would rather train not to contact or back the gun out 3 mm than induce a stoppage.

Punch and draw. I had to do it in some classes. I thought it was dumb. The idea behind it is to create some time so you can create safer space to draw. Doing it myself and seeing others do it, I didn't think it was reliable enough. Especially when people punched while stepping back, bleeding all energy outta that hit. I myself decided that if I am gonna start punching, I am gonna do it for real, both arms, weight transfer etc, as opposed to some superfluous bitch slap, and avoid drawing too soon. There are a lot of people who are much more qualified on this subject than I am though.


If you need to come to this conclusion by point shooting two G20, I am not gonna argue. Everyone has their own ways. I use USPSA classifiers and standards stages that call for SHO as my yard sticks and motivation.


I can't feel any part of my brain working, ever. I wonder if what you felt was just a recoil and conclusion from 10 mm pistols in both of your hands.

Totally agree with you. If I’m going contact, I would rather have a revolver or a rail mounted flashlight as a stand off device.

Also agree with the punching thing. I didn’t want to affect my shooting hand.

Both things after trying them, I thought “I’m never going to use these.”
But I’ve tried them and can better appreciate why I won’t.

If in that situation, I think I would go for a front kick to create space and have both hands free for the draw.

I’m a big fan of SCDs, I own a few for Glocks that don’t have manual safety options. They help in reholstering. They don’t help in a situation where you grab the trigger on the draw accidentally (shouldn’t happen with good trigger control, but it does to “professionals” sometimes).

Re USPSA classifiers, I’m only “M” and not a GM but I’m pretty strong on my classifiers. There are no classifiers or standards that I’ve ever shot (except Can You Count, but that’s freestyle) that use WHO point shooting. They’re all sighted shots.

I didn’t know if getting good with sighted WHO shots would help with point shooting to that degree.

You really can’t feel your brain working? Really?

[YVK]

Re USPSA classifiers, I’m only “M” and not a GM but I’m pretty strong on my classifiers. There are no classifiers or standards that I’ve ever shot (except Can You Count, but that’s freestyle) that use WHO point shooting. They’re all sighted shots.

I didn’t know if getting good with sighted WHO shots would help with point shooting to that degree.

You really can’t feel your brain working? Really?

Nope. I know it's working although others may disagree but I don't feel much.

If I can extend my arms, I do whatever I can not to point shoot. Personal decision. Besides, as an A class, I've enough issues with SHO sighted fire that practicing anything else doesn't seem too smart.

[BehindBlueI's]

Other then contact shots, the only other justification I've heard for the thumb on the backplate is to purposefully cause a malfunction if you're losing your gun in an entangled gunfight. This is the same school of thought that advocated for having a magazine disconnect and dropping the magazine if you thought you were going to lose your primary. The theory is the bad guy will then concentrate on the gun he just took from you, get stuck in the OODA loop when it doesn't fire, and you've used that time to access a BUG or make space and...'tactically gain distance' until help arrives. I know of one real world incident where the magazine disconnect thing worked, but I don't know anyone who trains for that any longer and the prevalence of magazine disconnects probably peaked what, 20 years ago?

[JCN]

Nope. I know it's working although others may disagree but I don't feel much.

If I can extend my arms, I do whatever I can not to point shoot. Personal decision. Besides, as an A class, I've enough issues with SHO sighted fire that practicing anything else doesn't seem too smart.

Since it’s just a discussion and we can drift it anywhere we like:

Moving from “A” to “M” took me about six months, but I noticed a LOT of changes in that time.

See if this makes sense to you.

When you present weak hand, your index gets it close and your vision refines to get on target.
The better you get at presenting and index, the less refinement it takes to get on target.

To the point where if you get good enough, you can hit a reasonably sized target without the visual refinement.

But if you’re relying primarily on vision, you’ll always be slow.

Getting the index to minute of man without vision helps in obstructed view, getting punched in the face, blinded by sweat or blood.

If you can’t do it sighted, you can’t do it on index alone because vision is built on the index.

As for the brain working, think of how the tension feels when you have an unintended malfunction. The feeling of block and release when you figure out and clear it. And the ease of flow when you execute plans.

You can feel your brain if you listen to and for it. At the “A” level I would imagine you’d feel many processing blocks and slowdowns where you can feel the extra thought creep in. Getting past that to unconscious competence takes more work.

Adding in odd drills or weird stuff, I can totally feel the difference between flow shooting.

[JCN]

Also regarding your brain, try this if you have a friend or spouse that can humor you for 5 min.

Put a target on the wall in front of you and close your eyes. Point at the target with both hands.

Keep your eyes closed and have your friend bat and swat each hand away from the target and you try and bring it back to target as fast as you can.

Have them alternate hands for you and then add in combinations of batting both at different times or the same times faster and faster.

You will feel your brain processing the inputs separately and making the corrections separately and independently.

[Ronin.45]

I've always figured "contact shots" were one of those things "operators" like to worry about that don't actually happen in real life. If my gun is out and pointed at the bad guy, it's already gone off at least once before it could possibly make contact enough to be out of battery.
It is nice to see some of these obscure shooting situations put on video. I'll never be in a situation requiring John Woo style guns akimbo, but it's interesting to know it could be done at close range.

[JCN]

Other then contact shots, the only other justification I've heard for the thumb on the backplate is to purposefully cause a malfunction if you're losing your gun in an entangled gunfight. This is the same school of thought that advocated for having a magazine disconnect and dropping the magazine if you thought you were going to lose your primary. The theory is the bad guy will then concentrate on the gun he just took from you, get stuck in the OODA loop when it doesn't fire, and you've used that time to access a BUG or make space and...'tactically gain distance' until help arrives. I know of one real world incident where the magazine disconnect thing worked, but I don't know anyone who trains for that any longer and the prevalence of magazine disconnects probably peaked what, 20 years ago?

I've always figured "contact shots" were one of those things "operators" like to worry about that don't actually happen in real life. If my gun is out and pointed at the bad guy, it's already gone off at least once before it could possibly make contact enough to be out of battery.
It is nice to see some of these obscure shooting situations put on video. I'll never be in a situation requiring John Woo style guns akimbo, but it's interesting to know it could be done at close range.

In kind of thinking about it, I have another potential scenario for the backplate blocking.

If I were in a pocket or a bag, I could see blocking the back plate to prevent snagging if I shot from a pocket.

I think that would be a more reasonable situation of use.

Gun in pocket. Thumb on backplate. Shoot, draw and rack and shoot again. The element of bad guy WTF from a pocket shot gun could give enough time to withdraw from pocket. And not have to worry about getting tangled in the slide.