It seems like in the movies it is all about suppressive fire.
Does marksman ship play a role in a life or death situation?
whelennut

All i can say is a direct hit or any hit as far as that goes, is better than your best miss

The key is to deliver as much accuracy AS YOU NEED as fast as you can. Not every shooting requires precision accuracy.

Two shots under a quarter in 2 seconds loses to two shots under a sheet of paper in 1.5 seconds.

I'll see your two fast pistol shots and raise you a single well-aimed rifle shot at distance. ;-)

Cheater.

I believe that William Butler Hickok advised "take your time aiming, fast". Since he was the original 19th Century Shootist, I'd heed that advice. Taking careful aim makes you lethal.

This is the standard:



Out of nine shots, if you miss the first body shot (7yd) in each round you should get your eyes checked, and maybe sell your pistol.

If you center punch the body and knock over the head plate without fail, you are a decent pistol shot.

If you hit the plate and seldom miss the 12yd head plate you are a GOOD pistol shot, with both hands at least. Some days I am, some days I ain't.

The drill begins with sights aligned at the base of TGT 1. You have a three-quarters of a second from the time the head plate rises to fire the first two shots. That ain't very long.

Any accurate shot is better than shooting holes in the sky.

Movies are only good for entertainment and toy guns,

A first accurate shot may negate the 'hailstorm' thereby giving your position away.

Gunner

I vote hailstorm of accuracy.

Suppressive fire has it's place. If it saves a life. Especially your own!

Killing someone isn't kill like killing a deer. I'd only do if necessary. If your unharmed and the perp escapes then it's a police responsibility to arrest them. And your not going before a Coroners Grand Jury to explain your actions. Or dealing with being sued by the perps family.

No Problem

I was gonna go shoot a match this weekend. I may just watch YouTube instead.

Suppressive fire is a waste of ammunition. That is, unless it is belt-fed, bipod supported, with a guncrew humping PLENTY of ammo.

I disabused some SOF types of this wive's tail on the range a couple of years ago. They wanted to do the classic "Aussie Peelback" that all of us KNEW was the best way to break contact, back in the day.

No problem, we had frangible ammo so we had them start the drill at 25yd with freshly painted steel torsos on the line. They started the drill and the 12 of 'em fired close to a thousand rounds through their M4's peeling back to 100yd. Not ONE HIT on any piece of stationary steel. Not one.

You should go practice instead of driving 200mi to shoot 75rd.

There's strike one. Care to guess twice more?

I suspect you didn't really understand my points.

While I agree a hit is far better than a miss, I don't totally discount the idea of suppressive fire either, although I wouldn't recommend emptying the magazine with it, either.

It may disrupt the threat enough to allow you to get to cover safely or otherwise keep you safe momentarily.

Granted, given a one-on-one situation a detemintative first shot is better.

Considering you are ultimately responsible for the shots you fire.......

No, GFY

LOL. Wanna come shoot a big match with me and Doc in April?

It's a national level match. All the big names will be there so you can see them in person instead of on YouTube.

I have it on good authority that a hailstorm of bullets is most effective - especially when fired all at once from multiple locations at a single target.

In TX? Probably not.

He can't. He has to work

Wasn't it Bill Jordan who once said, "You can't miss fast enough to win a gun fight."

L.W.

"It seems like in the movies it is all about suppressive fire."

Your question seems to answer itself.

Jerry

The first shot that hits the target is what counts, misses do not.

Good advice.

I've got a minute and thought I'd explain what I posted earlier a little better, for conversation.

Something that I've learned in the last year is using only the amount of accuracy that you NEED and using it as fast as you can. How much accuracy you need will depend on the shot you're taking.

For example, let's say that at 7 yards I can make good nasal cavity shots all day, in 2.5 seconds from the holster. Now if I need to make that hostage shot I'll use all of my 2.5 seconds. But if I've got the entire bad guy to aim at, I can make two shots a whole second faster by NOT being as precise. Which is fine because if I have a whole bad guy at 7 yards to aim at, I don't need as much accuracy to put him down.

At 7 yards I can make torso shots as fast as I can pull the trigger by getting a good first sight picture and controlling the recoil. So it would be silly for me to slow down and aim every shot when I don't NEED to. In fact, I can make shots pretty consistently on a torso without sights, shooting from my side below my armpit.

I've been reading a book on shooting and the author made a good point that the whole "look at your front sight" line isn't always true. If I have three targets to shoot at three yards, I'll probably be looking at the target or even the next target way more than my sights. Because at three yards I don't need sights or precision aiming.

The less distance you have between you and your target the less time you have to get shots off. And you should need less time to get close shots off. It takes skill and time to line up iron sights for 100 yard shots. If you employ the same amount of skill and time in aiming at a bad guy at 10 feet, you'll take too long.

Obviously, it's great to be CAPABLE of great accuracy. The trick is knowing HOW MUCH of that accuracy you need for each shot and then using that much accuracy as fast as you can, as many times as you need to.

Have to be accurate and deliberate enough to hit the intended target but faster than the opponent...

Few years ago a female Boston PD officer and a badguy got into a shootout at something like 10 yards...they were both shooting Glocks I believe...she emptied two magazines and he one...no runs, no hits but lots of errors...

I think it was Bill Jordan who said "you can't miss fast enough to win a gunfight...".

Bob

Two very different things. Suppressive fire is a tactic used to change positions. "marksmanship" is a discipline fostered to place a shot where you want it.

Ran a call once where a member of an Asian gang unleashed a full auto MAC 11 .380 in a studio apartment with 8 people in there. My patient was hit in the ring finger. 32 rounds fired, that was the only hit registered.

For me it is all a balancing act, "as fast as possible, as accurate as necessary and as many times as needed." Cant remember where it was printed but that has always stuck with me.

"Ran a call once where a member of an Asian gang unleashed a full auto MAC 11 .380 in a studio apartment with 8 people in there. My patient was hit in the ring finger. 32 rounds fired, that was the only hit registered."

..one of my favorite full-autos. Used to pay $169.00 if you ordered three at a time. With a suppressor screwed on all you heard is the bolt clicking back and forth and the bullets hitting the target.

Bob

WYATT EARP
Take your time. It's important to draw fast and get off the first shot, but it's much more important to have your bullet go where you want it to go.

http://www.quotefully.com/tvshow/The+Life+and+Legend+of+Wyatt+Earp/Wyatt+Earp

This...........

^^^^^ We have a winner.

As a rule I dislike absolutes when it comes to seeking the truth. Even the relatively well established "truth" that "water boils at 212 Fahrenheit" fails to describe reality as it doesn't take into account variables such as the purity of the water and external pressure. (Water easily boils at room temperature if the pressure is low, etc.) Does anyone really think that there is a "one size fits all" solution for all BG encounters?

After WWII the Russians were using their captured German scientists to help create atomic bombs. The Germans were excited that they had created weapons grade material of a much higher purity than was needed while the Russians were pissed that they had wasted valuable resources - including time - refining the material past what was needed for a big boom.

A shot fired in haste may not hit the target but if it buys you time it isn't necessarily wasted, either.

I agree with this. I do have 1 question though. How many of you guys have head to head competitions in events like bowling pin shoots or other live fire events where it's you against someone else? You find out real quick, who the top dog is. The way I see it is, you get sloppy and you get dead. Nuff said..

Mav said it.



Travis

...believe when I tell you gunfighting is a whole nother animal. Bowling pins aren't shooting back and if you loose you don't die.

Go do a building search sometime for real....it is a whole different mindset when you know you could be carried out if you screw up.

Bob

I don't think anybody would say competing is the same as a gunfight.

But I would say competition is the best thing a guy can do to become a better shooter. Or a better anything for that matter.


Travis

Deflave is f'ing genius, he consistently hits the nail on the head.

An accurate hail storm is the best. Competition along with training is your friend.

I'm also a functioning alcoholic.


Travis

Well my personal experiences have differed a bit and take it for what it is worth.

I can honestly say I felt more pressure standing in a box waiting for a beep when money was on the line than when I have been behind the sights in a fight. For me fights went from relatively calm to over with in a few seconds. There was no adrenaline dump, I reacted as I had trained and my thoughts were focused on what needed to be done (I could hear an old instructor yelling "get off the line and on your sights"). There were no visions of family or anything else clouding my mind. In my first I completed a draw from deep concealment (inside the waist with a snap), got my safety off (sw 5906), was creating distance (started at arms length) and got enough good hits fast enough (4 rounds of 115+p+ center mass) the BG never even got his pistol up all the way and I was conscious he was already collapsing. I guess it fell in the hailstorm of accuracy department.

As a side note I am not a big fan of instructors who preach how xyz techniques will fail under stress or that fine motor skills will perish just because your pulse reaches a certain level. If you train hard enough and engrain your proficiency to the bone you will respond when needed.

I find myself in agreement with Travis.

Amen to that. I'm so freaking sick and tired of hearing people say that I shouldn't use the slide release lever because I won't be able to in a fight. But those same guys expect me to be able to use fine motor skills to release the magazine and insert a new magazine. And those are the same guys who preach about using trigger reset, of all things. Give me a break.

One of the reasons I've seen to not use the slide release lever but to slingshot the slide manually was from Clint Smith.

I'm paraphrasing here (been a long time since I read/heard it) but he said something to the effect "Not every pistol will have a release lever in the same position, working the slide manually with the other hand reloads every pistol available, regardless of mfg."

I don't know - I'm not a tactically low speed guy but it does make sense at first blush. I do question tho that if you're using a battlefield pick up pistol so to speak, what are the odds you've also picked up spare mags. If you had time to get spare mags, I'd think you had time to familiarize yourself with the pistol.

Dunno - just thinking out loud.

I would argue a controlled trigger press is about as fine a motor skill as required yet nobody complains we should not do that under stress. I firmly believe in actually looking at a method, determining the positives and the potential for negatives rather than making a blanket application for everything. If it works for you use it. I recently worked with some guys who could not reach the controls on their sigs, we came up with some different ways of running the gun that were not totally traditional but once ingrained in the skill set they will be equally effective.

Just like the doctrine for unloading a semi auto. Almost every program I have been in says to drop the magazine first and then lock the slide back to unload. It also seems these same programs will also teach than on an unknown failure a shooter should lock the slide back first then strip the magazine out because the pressure of the magazine against the slide could be part of the problem. I believe in teaching one method that involves locking the slide/bolt back then dropping the magazine whether your clearing a malfunction or conducting an administrative unloading.

Another instructor lit into me for it being unsafe but can someone explain it to me? Slide is locked back, chamber is empty and magazine is removed from the firearm, still sounds like a safe gun to me.

It seems we have so many sacred cows out there in defensive firearms training and it is my goal to get rid of all of them.

And while I am ranting on my soapbox can someone explain how mashing down with your thumb on a slide release is a fine motor skill? Making a fist or squeezing down is about as gross as a motor skill gets when manipulating firearms. And why do they make it a serrated/checkered lever when they could easily make it an internal feature if we were not supposed to use it to drop a slide?

First, glad you made it.

Second, I am in complete agreement in regards to the "fine motor skill" BS we always have to hear.

Especially with the M-4. "Don't use your thumb to send the bolt forward! Slap it with your hand so you're using gross motor skills!"

Yet every student is expected to use their pointer finger on the starboard side mag release.

Laughin'...


Travis

I don't know Clint Smith but instructors typically like to instruct. Meaning they like to have their way of doing things and teaching it.

I do not like when people try and push their technique onto others. They typically end up justifying their technique with nonsense like "well what if you pick up a bad guy's gun and the slide release is 1/4" further to the rear?"

Umm... I guess I'll move my thumb a 1/4" to the rear?



Travis

Exactly.

What it comes down to most of the time is a guy should do what he does best. I've seen guys always slingshot, and they are fast. Real fast. I've seen guys thumb the slide release and they're fast. Real fast.

I personally slam the [bleep] out of the mag into the mag well because 9 times out of 10 the slide goes home for me. And that schit really annoys instructors. But it's hard to say anything when I've already got three rounds down range and the targets already turned again.

"Don't rely on that!" Yeah, sure dude. You can rely on "this." And GFY.


Travis

No BSA...if you run in with no bullets or gun into a gunfight and still win then. You have been permenatley separated from the PAC. Lol

Hailstorm always..keeps em in fetal positions and buys time for kill shots.

Light em up brudda. Lol

10-4... I've witnessed whole hillsides lit up and it wasn't because of first accurate shots...

Yes, but that old single or tandem crew has. Lol

There is a reason they call it Spray and PRAY