P&S #292 "The Applicability of Small Caliber Pistols"

[HCM]

One of the topics they mention that I'd really love a deep dive into is why to so many service pistols that can run thousands of rounds in testing and in our range work without a malf . . . be seen to foul on dashcam and body cam when someone gets into a "startle" gunfight? I have a hard time believing this just limp wristing. I'd tend to believe it might be a jacked up grip that literally ends up impeding the slide. But I'd love more info on that phenom.

The podcast does give one a big warm fuzzy about small snubbies carried judiciously.

I see this as a multipart issue but it’s not that complicated.

While there are some instances of the grip, particularly the support side thumb, literally blocking the slide that is relatively uncommon in OIS videos. I can only think of two within the last year or two, one was in a hospital emergency room in Ohio and the other, possibly from Arizona involving a P320.

Let’s start with your basic premise: an officer involved in a “startle” gun fight. In studying these type of OIS videos we see three basic reactions. At one end of the bell curve are officers who get startled and stay in that mode throughout the encounter, these are the guys going “full retard” dumping mags to no effect, not assessing etc. They are training goes out the window.

In the middle of the bell curve we see the majority who have an initial startle response including a burst of (usually) ineffective fire followed by their training kicking in resulting in moving / getting to cover and /or assessing their effectiveness. If the threat doesn’t flee they regain emotional control, default to their training and get effective hits. At the other end of the Bellcurve are what I call the “nerd assassins,” usually those with high levels of training. They either maintain emotional control or regain it quickly and immediately apply their training resulting in effective hits.

Most of the “mystery malfunctions” occur in the startle response period of group 1 and 2. There appear to be several factors at play. First their emotional and motor control is impaired due to the natural startle response. Second, in most of these encounters one of both (usually both) parties are moving.

Most cops are not highly trained in grip and draw techniques. Unless they seek out additional training on their own they are trained just well enough to pass their agency qualification which is usually not very challenging. So the odds of them getting a good grip while going so fast they “outrun their headlights” under stress are low. The fact that they are trying to do so while moving laterally or backwards when the majority of their grip and draw training and practice is done while stationary aggravates the situation.

Let’s come back to the fact that all this is happening while moving. Scott JedLinsky does an exercise with students in the early part of his class where he has them flex their whole body like Hans and Franz from Saturday night live and then try to do a jumping jack while under tension. The result is you can’t without relaxing. Scott is usually talking about the body being faster when relaxed but it does make the point that the body needs to be relaxed in order to move especially to move efficiently.

Many law-enforcement pistol qualifications include a stage where officers shoot from standing and then transition to kneeling. For years I would see officers shoot well in the standing position and then completely fall apart sometimes missing the entire target from kneeling. They were shooting from the same place at the same distance so what changed?

For me, the lightbulb on this came on during the Spencer keepers class. The answer is they had to move to go from standing to kneeling and even for this minimal movement, they went from the firm grip and isometric tension in their body to relaxed state in order to move to kneeling. If they did not either maintain their grip for re-grip the gun in the kneeling position there accuracy would degrade. I’ve seen and experienced the same thing in USPSA and IDPA. Shooters do well in their initial shooting position but suffer degraded accuracy or malfunctions as they try to shoot on the move or while getting in and out of subsequent positions as quickly as possible. And that’s just relaxation movement under competition stress.

So you have officers whose grip and draw is ok at best, who only practice that skill while stationary who are now suddenly trying to perform this skill while startled and moving. They are either moving in a jerky spazzy fashion due to stress or they relax allowing them to move more effectively. While effective for movement, relaxing is contrary to the majority of their training and experience shooting while stationary.

[Duelist]

I see this as a multipart issue but it’s not that complicated.

While there are some instances of the grip, particularly the support side thumb, literally blocking the slide that is relatively uncommon in OIS videos. I can only think of two within the last year or two, one was in a hospital emergency room in Ohio and the other, possibly from Arizona involving a P320.

Let’s start with your basic premise: an officer involved in a “startle” gun fight. In studying these type of OIS videos we see three basic reactions. At one end of the bell curve are officers who get startled and stay in that mode throughout the encounter, these are the guys going “full retard” dumping mags to no effect, not assessing etc. They are training goes out the window.

In the middle of the bell curve we see the majority who have an initial startle response including a burst of (usually) ineffective fire followed by their training kicking in resulting in moving / getting to cover and /or assessing their effectiveness. If the threat doesn’t flee they regain emotional control, default to their training and get effective hits. At the other end of the Bellcurve are what I call the “nerd assassins,” usually those with high levels of training. They either maintain emotional control or regain it quickly and immediately apply their training resulting in effective hits.

Most of the “mystery malfunctions” occur in the startle response period of group 1 and 2. There appear to be several factors at play. First their emotional and motor control is impaired due to the natural startle response. Second, in most of these encounters one of both (usually both) parties are moving.

Most cops are not highly trained in grip and draw techniques. Unless they seek out additional training on their own they are trained just well enough to pass their agency qualification which is usually not very challenging. So the odds of them getting a good grip while going so fast they “outrun their headlights” under stress are low. The fact that they are trying to do so while moving laterally or backwards when the majority of their grip and draw training and practice is done while stationary aggravates the situation.

Let’s come back to the fact that all this is happening while moving. Scott JedLinsky does an exercise with students in the early part of his class where he has them flex their whole body like Hans and Franz from Saturday night live and then try to do a jumping jack while under tension. The result is you can’t without relaxing. Scott is usually talking about the body being faster when relaxed but it does make the point that the body needs to be relaxed in order to move especially to move efficiently.

Many law-enforcement pistol qualifications include a stage where officers shoot from standing and then transition to kneeling. For years I would see officers shoot well in the standing position and then completely fall apart sometimes missing the entire target from kneeling. They were shooting from the same place at the same distance so what changed?

For me, the lightbulb on this came on during the Spencer keepers class. The answer is they had to move to go from standing to kneeling and even for this minimal movement, they went from the firm grip and isometric tension in their body to relaxed state in order to move to kneeling. If they did not either maintain their grip for re-grip the gun in the kneeling position there accuracy would degrade. I’ve seen and experienced the same thing in USPSA and IDPA. Shooters do well in their initial shooting position but suffer degraded accuracy or malfunctions as they try to shoot on the move or while getting in and out of subsequent positions as quickly as possible. And that’s just relaxation movement under competition stress.

So you have officers whose grip and draw is ok at best, who only practice that skill while stationary who are now suddenly trying to perform this skill while startled and moving. They are either moving in a jerky spazzy fashion due to stress or they relax allowing them to move more effectively. While effective for movement, relaxing is contrary to the majority of their training and experience shooting while stationary.

Solid stuff, HCM. I see the same thing in new tennis players: kids who can relax to swing struggle to put enough grip on the racquet to hit effectively, and kids who have good grip strength struggle to relax enough to put a good swing together.

The transition has to become automatic under pressure, back and forth, or there won’t be significant success at matches.

[wvincent]

I can’t speak to your theory regarding the ulnar nerve in relation to the index and middle fingers or the psychological component but I can tell you that the thimb is the weakest part of the grip and it should not be a factor unless shooting one-handed. If it (thumb) is a factor a two handed grip that is a fundamental deficiency in grip technique.

This might sound dumb, but do you think a thumb safety, like a 1911 ledge might give the thumb a place to be and a job to be doing, thus lending to a better overall grip?

[HCM]

This might sound dumb, but do you think a thumb safety, like a 1911 ledge might give the thumb a place to be and a job to be doing, thus lending to a better overall grip?

Not IME. The thumb is the weakest part of the grip. In two handed shooting I’m thumbs neutral. IME pressing down on thumb safeties, “gas pedal” slide stops etc has little positive benefit and can cause the shooter to push shots low.

There are multiple ways to grip for one handed shooting but pressing on the safety is using thumb pressure in the wrong direction I.e. down instead of lateral support or forward.

[Thy.Will.Be.Done]

@HCM

I'm not following how what you've said explains the failures to function but it can certainly explain the poor shooting performance.

[HCM]

@HCM

I'm not following how what you've said explains the failures to function but it can certainly explain the poor shooting performance.

They are all contributing to poor grip / stance/ support of the pistol’s cycle of operation.

Semi auto pistols are recoil operated. As such they need a reasonably solid base (grip/stance) to recoil against.

It’s difficult to truly replicate the stress and dynamic nature of actual mortal danger. Thousands of prior reliable rounds fired while stationary under lower stress may not be relevant to firing while moving dynamically under high stress.

The fact this manifests under competitive stress in both practical shooting competition and as Duelist noted, tennis competition indicates this is a human issue not necessarily a gun issue.

@Wayne Dobbs and DB have talked about their 2 second gunfight standards and how those 2 second “competitions” in OIS videos parallel similar dynamics in athletics which is consistent with the USPSA / Tennis analogies above.

[GJM]

I wonder if the same number of malfs would occur in Gen 5 pistols, given how much more robust their ejection/extraction is?

I chuckled at the title of this thread, because for decades I was led to believe that the 9 mm was a small caliber pistol.

[Thy.Will.Be.Done]

They are all contributing to poor grip / stance/ support of the pistol’s cycle of operation.

Semi auto pistols are recoil operated. As such they need a reasonably solid base (grip/stance) to recoil against.

It’s difficult to truly replicate the stress and dynamic nature of actual mortal danger. Thousands of prior reliable rounds fired while stationary under lower stress may not be relevant to firing while moving dynamically under high stress.

The fact this manifests under competitive stress in both practical shooting competition and as Duelist noted, tennis competition indicates this is a human issue not necessarily a gun issue.

@Wayne Dobbs and DB have talked about their 2 second gunfight standards and how those 2 second “competitions” in OIS videos parallel similar dynamics in athletics which is consistent with the USPSA / Tennis analogies above.

That makes more sense but it's somewhat at odds with an earlier comment that these 'limp wrist test' videos are irrelevant? I mean it is literally doing exactly that, not giving the gun a solid platform to use the recoil energy to drive the slide to the rear forcefully.

[Rex G]

Regarding one-handed and two-handed shooting, I worked night shift patrol, my entire career, so, almost always had something for my left hand to be doing, other than being the support hand for the primary duty handgun. (Hand-held light, baton, Taser, etc.) Part of having a family is the possibility of having to shove or pull a family member to a safer position. I reckoned that I needed to be able to shoot one-handed, and that my pistol needed to function reliably with a one-handed grip.

It is, however, true that the one defensive shot that I have fired was two-handed, as it happened in a well-lit parking lot, and there was substantial warning, so, I had achieved a strong two-handed grip, and ideal stance. No worries about the slide cycling, as I was using a GP100, having reverted to a duty revolver, only two weeks earlier. (I did make a final switch, back to auto-loaders for duty, four years later.)

[frozentundra]

On the topic of 'The Applicability of Small Caliber Pistols', lately I've been thinking about repetitive stress injury and other chronic health problems associated with posture and daily activities over the course of years and decades.

I'm only in my early 40's. A life of hard manual labor in the trades, combined with various acute injuries, is already starting to exact a toll on my health, physical capability, and probably my longevity. I failed to intelligently consider the long term consequences of my decisions. Ergonomics, PPE, avoiding injury, and limiting exposure to chemicals/particulate were not appropriately prioritized. There's a certain laconic fatalism prevalent in the trades that seems to encourage this idiot behavior.

I don't think toting around a compact service style pistol for over a decade did me any real favors in this regard either. It was kind of like growing a 2+ pound metal tumor on my hip. That's not very ergonomic.

The answer to "Why am I carrying a gun?" seems to be "for protection". If I'm being honest, I have probably exposed myself to a not insignificant amount of actual harm in order to protect myself from potential harm. Am I trying to be maximally dangerous to theoretical bag guys, or am I trying to maximize my health, safety and quality of life? What exactly does that look like for me?

I really enjoyed that podcast.