Snubs - Expert's Gun?

[JimCunn]

"This. In tennis, the racquet is already in your hand so you have some understanding and control of its orientation at all times. It’s much easier to then shift the orientation of the racquet in your hand when you need to"

Interesting. Let's assume you are using the Eastern grip forehand and backhand to receive a 130 mph serve (fast for a woman, moderately fast for a man). The Eastern requires a 90° rotation of the grip in the hand between forehand and backhand. If you are good enough to crowd the baseline while receiving, you have about 0.42 second after server contact with the ball to react and rotate your grip. Average reaction time is about 0.2 seconds, leaving about 0.22 seconds to rotate your grip 90° (so grip positioning has to be at least as precise as grip positioning on a handgun with perhaps less time available to accomplish the transition). And this occurs simultaneously with the need to move up to five or six feet laterally in either direction during the same elapsed time.

The Continental grip doesn't require the grip transition, but limits the power of the backhand return, so isn't always advisable. My personal preference is for the Eastern backhand because of the enhanced power and control.

The Western backhand though quite powerful on high balls, requires a different grip transition and is OK for a high bounce return, but requires a power reducing contortion on low returns that is quite awkward.

On service, my grip is a Continental that varies slightly depending upon whether I am serving a renshaw, a reverse, an American twist, an Australian twist, or a cannonball - but there is plenty of time to accomplish that (I usually serve a renshaw, but with a slightly modified follow through to accommodate an old shoulder injury).

If you are a tennis player, I am sure you know who the Renshaw brothers were and don't require a description of their service motion itself.

[JCN]

@JimCunn

You do understand that firearm and equipment advice is user ability dependent, right?

If you’re at the kinesthetic skill with firearm that you are with a tennis racquet, standard rec league junior high tennis equivalent firearm advice won’t apply….

[Shawn Dodson]

I’m glad FAS is still around, I took Marty’s courses back in the mid 90’s, my first formal training outside the army, and also attended LFI 1&2 there.

Belle McCormack owns FAS now, but Marty's still around. I met her in April, when I took Dark Angel Medical's Direct Action Response Training.

You can read Belle's profile here - https://firearmsacademy.com/instructors

[sharps54]

Belle McCormack owns FAS now, but Marty's still around. I met her in April, when I took Dark Angel Medical's Direct Action Response Training.

You can read Belle's profile here - https://firearmsacademy.com/instructors

Looks like it is in good hands!

[Joe S]

Autos are generally more finicky when it comes running a compromised grip. Snubs have less grip to hold onto. There's no free lunch. The objective doctrinally that I teach, is to use wrestling and BJJ to control position so one can attain the proper grip. It's really not an ECQ shooting problem so much as it is a grappling problem with a gun.

Contact shots are really not something I advocate for. The better practice is to retract the pistol back to a retention position to fire, not jam the gun into someone's body. We call that "floating the gun" and usually it makes a weapons retention problem worse when people do it. I've seen plenty of people jam a snub into someone to make a contact shot and the adversary fights back by grabbing the pistol and binding the cylinder. Dead gun just like an auto pistol out of battery.

I keep a cache' of about 200 rounds or so of 38 sim in my work bag for anyone that wants to run a snub in an evolution and I'm probably one of the few guys that actually has that ammo for students to use in their guns. Based on my observations over 21 years of running evolutions with 38 sim rounds in those guns and realistically that's probably....150 of them?...I stand by what I said. @Totem Polar ran one in one of his ECQCs at one point.

Pure gold.

Can we get a Shivworks shirt of the Clinch Cobra taking down a Sacred Cow?

[Totem Polar]

I keep a cache' of about 200 rounds or so of 38 sim in my work bag for anyone that wants to run a snub in an evolution and I'm probably one of the few guys that actually has that ammo for students to use in their guns. Based on my observations over 21 years of running evolutions with 38 sim rounds in those guns and realistically that's probably....150 of them?...I stand by what I said. @Totem Polar ran one in one of his ECQCs at one point.

I'm still debating signing up for your class at Firearms Academy of Seattle in August. I've a torn rotator cuff in my right shoulder. I want to be able to get the most out of your training without having to favor my shoulder.

I am planning on running a J frame in the FAS class in Aug. I am working on tracking down a bunch of Speed loaders so I don't slow down the class. I am not going to run it in the pocket though. I am going to run it AIWB. I can't imagine trying to dig a gun out of my pocket when I am tangled up.

Guys, I’m literally on the run in between gigs, so I have to be uncharacteristically short:

On running sims in Js at ECQC: props to Craig for the way he handled it. When I ran a J in ECQC, I used a 640 (which now belongs to Sherm House, because I found out that an original 1989 640 centennial was one of his grails) for all the live coursework, and a 642 airweight that was sims-only. Craig took possession of the 642, and was the only one to handle it, right up until it was time for my turn at EVOs. The 640 *never* came near the sims, and the 642 *never* saw range time. Mostly, though, only Craig had control of the 642 airweight—none of this Alec Baldwin shit at ECQC.

On injuries and ECQC: I did my first ECQC with a freshly torn meniscus—I couldn’t bend that knee at all or put weight on it. @Maple Syrup Actual had to help me get my shit from the parking lot to the range. I still got a *ton* out of that class, as I did with all of them.

On keeping up with the line while running a J: Yeah… I will bet money that @Flamingo is not the one holding up the line. I brought something like 18 speedloaders, and a small sneaky bags “SUB” (basically a shoulder bag that acted as a dump pouch and refill kit), and I managed to keep up OK. @Flamingo, if you need to borrow some HKS for FAS/ECQC, hit me up.

In short: take ECQC, no real excuse not to. Do what you can—if you have to operate on someone’s brain tumor the next morning (or put your own body under the Ortho’s knife) sit out the EVOs. Nobody will get their birthday taken away, or lose their man card, or get cancelled on P-F.

Better still if you can take it with a snub, so you can evaluate what you can and can’t do with one in a more informed manner. I do find a 642 with sims to be much more reliable than a Glock T-gun; anyone who’s ever been to an ECQC has seen those things malf. I’ll absolutely leave it to Craig to determine how much carry over—if any—there is from T’s into the land of actual G17s in FUT use. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has run a T-gun through a 2000k sim challenge, except for Craig’s ECQC kit.

JMO.

[JJN]

Autos are generally more finicky when it comes running a compromised grip. Snubs have less grip to hold onto. There's no free lunch. The objective doctrinally that I teach, is to use wrestling and BJJ to control position so one can attain the proper grip. It's really not an ECQ shooting problem so much as it is a grappling problem with a gun.

Contact shots are really not something I advocate for. The better practice is to retract the pistol back to a retention position to fire, not jam the gun into someone's body. We call that "floating the gun" and usually it makes a weapons retention problem worse when people do it. I've seen plenty of people jam a snub into someone to make a contact shot and the adversary fights back by grabbing the pistol and binding the cylinder. Dead gun just like an auto pistol out of battery.

I keep a cache' of about 200 rounds or so of 38 sim in my work bag for anyone that wants to run a snub in an evolution and I'm probably one of the few guys that actually has that ammo for students to use in their guns. Based on my observations over 21 years of running evolutions with 38 sim rounds in those guns and realistically that's probably....150 of them?...I stand by what I said. @Totem Polar ran one in one of his ECQCs at one point.

The ECQC alum in me finds nothing to quibble with in the above, Craig. What are your thoughts on snubs vs. small autos for the other 99.99% of the casual CCW masses with zero gun-grappling experience?

[SouthNarc]

The ECQC alum in me finds nothing to quibble with in the above, Craig. What are your thoughts on snubs vs. small autos for the other 99.99% of the casual CCW masses with zero gun-grappling experience?

For a contact range problem or just in general/overall?

[Up1911Fan]

For a contact range problem or just in general/overall?

I'll answer for the group. Both.

[JJN]

I'm concerned with mugging/rape range, 0-5'. A reasonably high chance of non-intentional contact shots.