IDPA weak hand dry fire question

[MCGILLA G]

Good Afternoon,
I am relatively new to IDPA but I’m currently shooting CDP division with a 1911. For those that compete do you sweep the thumb safety off before transferring the pistol to the left hand or wait until it’s transferred to the weak side before taking it off? I have a ambi safety on one of my pistols but favor a single safety on my carry one. I’m trying to learn more about which is the preferred method in practice. Next month I am trying to shoot the qualifier and would like to know a best practice for it. There are only two other guys at my local club shooting the division so it’s not a big pool of people to ask. Thank You and I appreciate all the education I get here!

[Jim Watson]

If called on to draw and change hands, I disengage the safety on the draw and transfer a hot gun.
This is not common, usually a WHO string starts with gun in the off hand. But not always.

The short Classifier does not have WHO. I have not seen a long Classifier since the short one came out.

[1911Nut]

What Jim said in the previous post. Ditto.

[okie john]

Good Afternoon,
I am relatively new to IDPA but I’m currently shooting CDP division with a 1911. For those that compete do you sweep the thumb safety off before transferring the pistol to the left hand or wait until it’s transferred to the weak side before taking it off? I have a ambi safety on one of my pistols but favor a single safety on my carry one. I’m trying to learn more about which is the preferred method in practice. Next month I am trying to shoot the qualifier and would like to know a best practice for it. There are only two other guys at my local club shooting the division so it’s not a big pool of people to ask. Thank You and I appreciate all the education I get here!

The whole point of IDPA is to expand your pistol-handling skills by forcing you to solve varied problems with it. Both methods work, each has pros and cons, and stage designers can specify which method you use. I'd learn both, practice both, and be able to execute either safely on command.

"On command" is the reason why.

Range Officers have considerable leeway in how they define unsafe behavior and some of their ideas are, umm, debatable. Nobody ever wins a pissing contest with an RO or a Match Director, so ask which method they prefer while they're talking through the stage with the entire squad, then do it their way so you don't get disqualified.


Okie John

[JCN]

Good Afternoon,
I am relatively new to IDPA but I’m currently shooting CDP division with a 1911. For those that compete do you sweep the thumb safety off before transferring the pistol to the left hand or wait until it’s transferred to the weak side before taking it off? I have a ambi safety on one of my pistols but favor a single safety on my carry one. I’m trying to learn more about which is the preferred method in practice. Next month I am trying to shoot the qualifier and would like to know a best practice for it. There are only two other guys at my local club shooting the division so it’s not a big pool of people to ask. Thank You and I appreciate all the education I get here!

A general rule for gaming is that safety has to be on when gun is in holster.

Outside of that, it’s usually not defined.

A lot of gamer striker fire guns are fully tensioned, no safety and short and light pull <3#.

So there’s not usually separate restrictions on how a safety equipped gun is handled different than a striker except in holster.

[MCGILLA G]

The whole point of IDPA is to expand your pistol-handling skills by forcing you to solve varied problems with it. Both methods work, each has pros and cons, and stage designers can specify which method you use. I'd learn both, practice both, and be able to execute either safely on command.

"On command" is the reason why.

Range Officers have considerable leeway in how they define unsafe behavior and some of their ideas are, umm, debatable. Nobody ever wins a pissing contest with an RO or a Match Director, so ask which method they prefer while they're talking through the stage with the entire squad, then do it their way so you don't get disqualified.


Okie John

Thanks for all the responses gentlemen I sure appreciate it. I never considered what the RO might think when switching hands on a stage, that’s definitely a consideration and I needed to hear that. I’ve always felt quite good about making sure my thumb is doing what it needs too on the safety when moving but was not considering that if I was just standing and delivering. Is the rule that the safety needs to be on when switching hands? Now that you point it out I would think for safety sake maybe yes, but in practice I use a single side safety on my carry gun I’d probably just do the transfer if it was bad enough to switch hands in a fight.

[okie john]

Is the rule that the safety needs to be on when switching hands?

There may not be a rule or the stage designer may stipulate how you make the switch. Can't say for sure since I haven't competed in a while. The key is to prepare to do it either way without thinking so that your IDPA skills serve you in real life.

Now that you point it out I would think for safety sake maybe yes, but in practice I use a single side safety on my carry gun I’d probably just do the transfer if it was bad enough to switch hands in a fight.

This is exactly the kind of thought that IDPA is meant to provoke, and good stage designers provide it in spades. After a few matches shooting against one whose stages were diabolically complex, I realized that what was best in IDPA was to crush the stages, see the ROs driven before me, and to hear the lamentations of the stage designers.


Okie John

[CraigS]

Only 5 years of idpa for me but I have never seen any directions on safety activation once the gun is out of the holster. As JCN said, "A lot of gamer striker fire guns are fully tensioned, no safety and short and light pull <3#." With that in mind, requiring you to do anything w/ your safety after you knock it off during the draw would be ridiculous. What I would practice is doing that transfer w/ safety off and working real hard to keep finger off trigger until you really want it there. Two matches ago we had a swap hands stage and my first shot weak handed was uhhhh, well uhhhh, really fast. Fortunately it was unlimited so I just shot again. My weak hand trigger finger is not as disciplined as the strong hand. One other aspect that they seem to like to introduce where I shoot is something like 3 targets, 2 shots each weak hand, 2 shots each strong hand and 2 head shots each free style any order. So the most critical part of all is to try work it out so the gun is in your strong hand when you need a reload. Practice swapping hands as fast as you can but at the match consciously go to about 85% speed. A good proper grip will gain you more than the .1 second you gain w/ a blazing swap.

[Erick Gelhaus]

My M&Ps, 1911s, 2011s all have ambi-safeties. I work the safety with the hand that is on the gun as I come on target.

[Bigguy]

Sometime back on this forum, some of the LEOs were talking about their BUGs. A couple of them advocated for the BUG being available to the weak hand as it’s possible that what ever takes put your primary weapon might also take out your strong hand. That sounded logical to me. My EDC is a Ruger SR9C carried at 3’ 0-clock. My BUG was a Ruger LCP. I began to carry it at the small of my back with the handle pointed left, available to my left (weak) hand.
The sights on an LC9 are at best an afterthought. Weak hand I can pretty consistently hit the 8 ring, with more than half of the rounds within the 9 ring.
Now, I’ve never been in a gun fight. This is all putting holes in paper. I have no idea how I’d react it the target was shooting back. Probably not as well.