Practice Drawing to low ready as a deterrent?!

[JohnO]

Here’s a scenario that, I think, will apply to the subject matter of this tread. While it is a ‘what if,’ it could happen (and has). After reading, think about what you would do, or should do. Feel free to post your answer.

We’ll assume you (the person in the scenario) are an honorable person, legally (of course) carrying a concealed handgun (LEO or otherwise). You’re well trained and experienced in its use.

The scenario: You are the right front passenger in a car traveling down a four lane boulevard in the middle of the night in a big city. Traffic is light to non-existent. The car you’re in is in the #1 lane (next to the center line). There are dim streetlights and trees, creating shadows and an unreliable ability to visually discern details, such as a gun in somebody’s hand. Your driver, the only other person in the car, is not trained and is oblivious.

As you are approaching a red light you notice two men on the sidewalk to your right as you pass by them. As your driver brings the car to a stop at the red light, you realize that the two men, now behind you, have left the sidewalk and are walking briskly towards your car. As they walk, it is apparent that one of them is heading towards the driver’s side of your car while the other one is heading towards the passenger side, from the right rear.

In the moment, you can’t see their hands. It is happening too quickly for you to check for cross traffic and instruct your driver to run the red light NOW!

What would you do?

Cars have wheels, use them!

Couple points:

A 4000 Lb projectile beats pistol bullets any day.

Never stop where you can’t maneuver out of a bad situation. Always see the rear tires touching the pavement on the car you are stopping behind. That’s the minimum room you need to escape.

Fighting from inside a vehicle is a fools errand. Your vision, mobility and situational awareness are all restricted. Vehicles are bullet magnets. Vehicles are not Cover. Even pistol bullets zip through most parts of a car.

[JCN]

Excellent post about the technical aspects @JCN. I’ll play around with this dry later and see how close I can get the times between the start positions.

Interesting thoughts and demonstration. I’m hoping I can put the hand on grip to first shot vs from low ready to the test on a timer this weekend.

The one additional thing I would ask you both to keep your eyes on is the muzzle/sight stability when you get there. Basically, could you put two shots in the same fist size group once you get there without wobbling or pulling off target in over transition?

It’s not just the time that you are trying to make, it’s the muzzle stability. IMO as a pure technical drill, it wouldn’t just be the timing of a single shot on target, it would be the timing of a pair to be able to judge your stability once you got there.

So if going to play around with that dry and live, try it with a pair of shots.

I am still on vacation, but I did bring my strike clicker with me. If you listen with audio, you can hear the click of the trigger. Watch my hands at the click, there’s no bounce with the press out whereas there’s a little bounce as I’m trying to stop the transition from the low ready start.



Note that if your draw doesn’t have a horizontal press out at the end, you won’t get much of the benefit from this. For people who do a full extension rise up at the end of their draw or a fishing, casting wave from above, this won’t help (and the low ready will be superior).

But I also think "stitching someone up" as I present the gun works also. There are a lot of different ways to win a fight, mostly hitting them in upper a zone or the t-box in the head but starting to shoot someone in the pelvis as I move up to those zones probably doesn't hurt.

Agreed, and I wasn’t implying tactics just technical commenting. The analogy to shooting while zippering would be shooting before starting pressing out from a compressed high ready. I estimate that I could probably still get thoracic shots on target from compressed high ready during the same time that somebody would be shooting legs or pelvis in a zipper. Either way would work in reality. Philosophically I kind of like being muzzle on intended target early.

EDIT: thought a video might help explain the compressed analogy to zipper. Listen with audio to hear the “shots.”



Would it change the calculus if there was a table or chair in between you and the target and zippering might not have the intended effect? Yes, no, maybe? Again, I am not a tactician and I don’t mean to imply anything to that regard. Just technical thoughts.

[jandbj]

Related if somewhat unrelated I just got one of these from Demonstrated Concepts aka dcon training, the cheekweld trainer.

https://demonstratedconcepts.com/pro...m-dcon-hoodie/

Very nice lightweight hoody with the center pocket opened up. Virtually a pocket carry from the AIWB holster. I'm diggin' it.

Thanks for the reminder about these! Just placed an order for one.

[DacoRoman]

Cars have wheels, use them!

Couple points:

A 4000 Lb projectile beats pistol bullets any day.

Never stop where you can’t maneuver out of a bad situation. Always see the rear tires touching the pavement on the car you are stopping behind. That’s the minimum room you need to escape.

Fighting from inside a vehicle is a fools errand. Your vision, mobility and situational awareness are all restricted. Vehicles are bullet magnets. Vehicles are not Cover. Even pistol bullets zip through most parts of a car.

I’m just a regular dude with only one vehicle tactics class under his belt, but I fully and totally and utterly agree with this <thumbs up>.

[UNM1136]

I have not fully read all the responses...but most of them I did read had great points.

Since cars were brought up...

Which is easier....pinning the accelerator (or brake pedal) to the floor, or taking the decision to brake and accelerate at the best moment.? EVOC spends a lot of time teaching proper breaking, steering input and acceleration to get the desired results. Shifting vehicle weight, loading tire traction patches, etc. And a lot of students end up off the track until they learn to process information and respond at speed.

Therefore, what situations require the most training?

Draw to a shot can be vital. Draw to a low ready and assess can be just as vital. One of Paul Howe's books mentioned having a decisional shooting string in every class. Take a deck of cards to the range. Shuffle, hit the timer random countdown, and on the beep flip the top card and take action- one color or suit or number shoot. Another draw challenge and don't shoot. You can be binary (colors-go/no-go) or choose two suits for action, one for shots and one for draw and challenge- and two for no draw. Set up a die the same way...even/odd-( binary shoot/no-shoot)...shoot or draw and challenge on specific numbers, and no draw on everything else. You will be building speed and decision making at the same time.

Take the same deck, and pull two cards at random and tape them to the target. On the timer flip a card and make a decision. Same number or suit, shoot. Same color, draw and challenge. Anything else, stay holstered. To stress accuracy at speed, shoot the cards taped to the target.

Just a couple of thoughts. I try to put decisional shooting drills in every course I design.

pat

[JCN]

Take the same deck, and pull two cards at random and tape them to the target. On the timer flip a card and make a decision. Same number or suit, shoot. Same color, draw and challenge. Anything else, stay holstered. To stress accuracy at speed, shoot the cards taped to the target.

Just a couple of thoughts. I try to put decisional shooting drills in every course I design.

pat

Question since I don’t know.

Is there an upper limit to the time on the judgment drills?

[DacoRoman]

The one additional thing I would ask you both to keep your eyes on is the muzzle/sight stability when you get there. Basically, could you put two shots in the same fist size group once you get there without wobbling or pulling off target in over transition?

It’s not just the time that you are trying to make, it’s the muzzle stability. IMO as a pure technical drill, it wouldn’t just be the timing of a single shot on target, it would be the timing of a pair to be able to judge your stability once you got there.

So if going to play around with that dry and live, try it with a pair of shots.

I am still on vacation, but I did bring my strike clicker with me. If you listen with audio, you can hear the click of the trigger. Watch my hands at the click, there’s no bounce with the press out whereas there’s a little bounce as I’m trying to stop the transition from the low ready start.



Note that if your draw doesn’t have a horizontal press out at the end, you won’t get much of the benefit from this. For people who do a full extension rise up at the end of their draw or a fishing, casting wave from above, this won’t help (and the low ready will be superior).




Agreed, and I wasn’t implying tactics just technical commenting. The analogy to shooting while zippering would be shooting before starting pressing out from a compressed high ready. I estimate that I could probably still get thoracic shots on target from compressed high ready during the same time that somebody would be shooting legs or pelvis in a zipper. Either way would work in reality. Philosophically I kind of like being muzzle on intended target early.

EDIT: thought a video might help explain the compressed analogy to zipper. Listen with audio to hear the “shots.”



Would it change the calculus if there was a table or chair in between you and the target and zippering might not have the intended effect? Yes, no, maybe? Again, I am not a tactician and I don’t mean to imply anything to that regard. Just technical thoughts.

Thanks for taking the time to post this, including the videos.

I’ll try not to “game” it

Using a 3 count draw, I’ll start from the #2 position (garment cleared by support hand and strong hand on the grip) and proceed to shooting a controlled pair (one dot picture for each shot) to the body A zone, at 7 yards.

From the low ready I’ll start with the gun aimed at the base of the target stand, using a typical isosceles free style hold, at 7yards, and come straight up to take the shots. I’ll plan on using the fancy slam free drawer technique ; where I slow down in the last 10-20% so that as soon as I get dot confirmation in the A zone I’ll shoot the controller pair, without over aiming or overshooting my aiming point.

Edit: I see that the low ready you are demonstrating is from lower down than aiming at the base of the target stand would achieve.. I’ll try to start from the position you are demonstrating.

I’m hoping to do this this weekend.

[UNM1136]

ETA: @JCN... I forgot to quote you...

Like anything else, adapt to experience/skill level.

Our qual courses, IIRC and without looking it up are all "shoot", and you have 2-3 seconds to draw and get two rounds off. Might be a good place to start, and can be dialed in for the individually as you go. If you flip the card, decide "no shoot" and have a second remaining before the second beep, tighten it up. If you are struggling, give yourself more time. The goal, at least early on is to put time limits on decision making, not necessarily the application of the decision. I am sure they can, should, and will be combined at some point.

What I really like about this is you can set up more than binary decision making on both audible and visual inputs.

It is still limited in real life application, but it is a manageable drill....

pat

[Sig_Fiend]

I'm not advocating for or against anything, except maybe keeping options open. This just feels right to post anytime I see the subject of drawstroke and ready positions come up.

Some words from the late, great, Paul Gomez:




As an aside, I get Forest Whitaker eye every time I see position sul, and the thought of it makes my wrist issues flare up. One "no-ready" position I truly dislike.

Also, some interesting options from Mike Pannone, as well as a thread on PF discussing it:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJbvShbA..._web_copy_link

http://instagram.com/p/CJbvShbA-Kq/


Some of this may or may not quite be relevant to the discussion at hand or intent behind some of the scenarios mentioned. What I think is relevant is the systematic thinking, assessing the pros, cons, strength, safety, and performance of various techniques.
Then being able to flow into and out of appropriate techniques as the situation dictates. In some cases, maybe that's low ready? In others, maybe a high, compressed ready (aka averted #3)? Time, distance, and opportunity should dictate.

Other random thoughts:

"If all you have is a hammer..." I feel like the same applies to individual techniques.

For example, if all you have is a low ready, everything gets the low ready. This can easily lead to a cargo cult like mentality about technique, IMO.

Probably best to have, at minimum, both a low ready technique as well as a high ready technique (like an averted #3, NOT a "full Sabrina", temple index type).

[JCN]

Playing with a new gun today.



Hand on gun to confident 5 yard alpha ~0.60.

Did it from low ready and was in the 0.50 range but the hits were worse.

I found it hard to time the shots on the low to high transition, but easy on the draw.