Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns History and Anecdotes on the Weaver Stance

Since I no longer have the ability to post pictures here, here is a piece in yesterday's (July 9) Shooting Wire that has some old pics that I took almost 40 years ago that some of you may find interesting.

http://www.shootingwire.com

scroll down to the feature at the bottom

vs

Nice writeup....

I shoot whatever happens to be appropriate at the time... Probably most shooting for accuracy is Modified Weaver with the shooting elbow locked.

Bob

Good article. Thanks for it.

Hmmm...I'm progressing just like Rob Leatham:

1. Grip has evolved
2. Body has "filled out somewhat..." and
3. Awesome shooter

Well, 2 out of 3 is still good. (You can probably guess which 2 apply to me...)

Waders, LOL...

In those pictures it's very interesting how Ross Seyfried has that 1911 clutched so close. I wonder if his technique has changed and evolved over the years?

Why is the default hold fully extended, even for defensive shooting? More accurate, OK, but in close quarters you're giving your gun away. In the constant search for a unique take on things the Close Strong Hold will be the next Big Thing. Again.

I always liked the Weaver, even before I new it had a name. It's just natural to me. My eyes like the sights farther away

I had the fortune, or misfortune, to go through the police academy during the transition from Weaver to Isoceles within our instructor ranks. It was an interesting time.

I'm old enough that I was trained Weaver and shot that way for a long time. I have since moved to the newest "Modern Technique" touted as best. And I think it is for me, I'm more accurate, faster and more quickly adaptable to my immediate surroundings than I used to be with the bent arm strongly bladed Weaver stance and finger on the front of the trigger guard grip on the gun.

Very nice write up Greg.

I had no formal training prior to Ray's school in 1980. These days, no matter how hard I try, I just can't get comfortable in the isosceles.
And given any situational "stress", I invariably revert to the "Chapman Weaver".

Old dogs and new tricks, I guess.

Thank you for that.

Why would you use any sort of close retention hold if you didn't need to?

If you take some formal close quarters defensive training by a good instructor you should be taught a number of different close retention shooting positions. Those are modified or discarded as distance increases, as appropriate. None of the close shooting positions are as solid or accurate for precision shooting as fully extended can be, for various reasons. Fully extended is the default for several reasons, the two main ones IMO being first that it's the best application of the basic fundamentals for target shooting, and secondly that most pistol enthusiasts never get any training beyond basic target shooting.