Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns "Shooting To Live" on pdf !

Well, he has compiled alot of good historical stuff and references to what others have tried and proven..and what else he has on his FREE site is worthwhile.

The section on deadly force, situational awareness and situational evaluations and knowing the rule of law is a CRITICAL part of the equation which some may not consider...but should.

Assuming anything at all from a website can misleading...TOTALLY depends on who designed it and wrote the script...

Birdwatcher, have you ever taken a formal class on pistol shooting from one of the top folks in the country...like Gunsite, LFI, Thunder Ranch, Chapman, Barnhart, Leatham, or any of the rest? It is intense, competitive and informative

...not for those looking for anything free, who want it given to them, or are concerned about how the website is written...

As regarding �Cashing in� consider this fact - relying on his Pension wasn�t an option.

Fairbairn had retired from the SMP, the colony was overrun by the Japanese shortly after and was held until their surrender. After the war Shanghai was united with Communist China and as such the SMP ceased to exist, this meant Fairbairn had no income coming from his SMP pension at all....

SOE only existed as a temporary wartime department, it was created purely as a means to an end. Again I suspect that Fairbairn had realised this, although pensions were promised to its staff after the organisations closure MI6 (the arch-enemy of SOE) took over the SOE pensions. One only has to look to what happened to the late Gavin Maxwell (SOE weapons Instructor) to know that pensions for former SOE Instructors or Operatives weren�t really a priority for SIS. Sad to say but that was the fate for many of the people who served.

The Fairbairn-Sykes knife which bore his name had been mass produced by Britain, the United States and many other countries (along with variations), neither of the men who designed it received a penny in royalties for their selfless contribution.

Fairbairn and Sykes both taught different syllabuses.

These programmes of instruction had a shared beginning but evolved into completely different systems which were (on some points) completely at odd�s with the other.

Shocking to some but true - no matter what others would have us believe.

Fairbairn�s studies into self protection evolved into �Defendu�, it then progressed further into �Close Combat�. This was then later refined into the �Fairbairn System� or �Gutterfighting� during wartime.

Some core techniques were retained throughout, a fact is that they were not the same as the ones E.A Sykes�s was instructing to SOE�s recruits.

The first available copy we have of Sykes�s programme of instruction is SOE�s �Close Combat� syllabus (the Silent Killing Course) which was first released in June of 1942. Please bear in mind that prior to this date he had taught students with Fairbairn for two years, he had also been with SOE for less than five months.

Below are some comments he wrote about two core techniques of the Fairbairn system:

�Difficult to apply unless your opponent has lost his senses�

and more pertinently:

�Why bother?�

These are comments he made about two techniques which were retained throughout the evolution of Fairbairn�s systems. This is in no way meant to cast any aspersions as the physical veracity of Fairbairn�s techniques; it is included simply to show that the two systems were very different from one another.

To quote another of my instructors �In the trade, this is known as a clue�

Sykes�s syllabus was constantly revised and kept up to date until the end of the war, mainly from the experiences and information from operatives in the field. Simply put some of the techniques may have been the same but the emphasis was completely different.

THE IRON HAND of WAR
British experiences in the development of combat shooting.

...a typical police force would take the top competitors and make them the force firearms instructors who would then stipulate the range facilities and training program. People teach what they know, and if you employ target shooters, they will teach target shooting.

This accounts for virtually every police/military pistol range being of at least 25yds length�. there is no tactical reason, it comes from sporting regulation...

Today liberal sentiment is highly critical of the British Empire, but whatever the faults it provided the British Army and Colonial Police Services with a wealth of experience. Tribal confrontations, border disputes and insurrections gave soldiers and police practical experience. From these ranks many radical thinkers emerged, men who realised that bulls-eye target shooting was a woefully deficient preparation for fighting.

I�ve heard of one officer who would take primed cartridge cases and press the case mouths into blocks of soap, forming a hard soap �bullet�. He would load these into his service Webley. In the garden he would have his servants surround him, armed with a variety of sticks and bludgeons, then at random rush him. Our hero would then respond with well-placed shots to his human targets, giving him practise in reactive accuracy....

The earliest influential figure in our study is Arthur Woodhouse, an officer with the United Provinces Police in India. The result of his experiments was offered in the �New Revolver Manual for Police and Infantry Forces� published in 1907, with the stated objective �to give sound advice on how to practise in order to become a good shot- and to urge more practical training. Woodhouse was a proponent of unsighted snapshooting for close range confrontations. The shot was fired by �whole hand squeeze� while the pistol was sweeping up through the target. As we will see, these two techniques form a common thread.

An innovation was his �revolver pit� a 20-yard circular bay enclosed by a 14-foot high mud wall. A series of target zones were marked on the wall, and the shooter had to engage them according to the random commands of the instructor. Scores were noted, then bullet holes filled with wet mud, which quickly dried in the Indian sun....

In the bloody hand-to-hand trench raiding of World War One many fearsome close-range impact and edged weapons were devised and employed (still on view in the Imperial War Museum). At hand to hand range, in ankle-deep mud the pistol was a valued weapon but again, bull�s-eye training proved inadequate. Captain Charles Tracy was a voice of reason. In his �Revolver Shooting in War�, published in 1915 he says � Fine drill method is one thing, revolver fighting is another�.

An advocate of the �whole hand squeeze� and �vertical lift�, like Woodhouse his preference was for the revolver rather than the semi-auto pistol. Tracy constructed a number of tactical training ranges, where his students could search a �ruined village�, or, navigate an �enemy trench�. Targets appeared, moved dropped. At night the student would wander into booby traps, which would detonate; briefly illuminating targets to be taken by snap-shot....

Noel wrote �How To Shoot With A Revolver� in 1918, followed by �The Automatic Pistol� in 1919 and a later [1940] abridged edition of �How To Shoot With A Revolver�. In Noel�s work we see links between Tracy and Grant-Taylor [particularly with the cocking of the gun in route to firing position]. Noel covers firing by �instinctive sense of direction� utilizing a contraction of the whole hand, as though �squeezing water from a sponge�, a 45-degree ready position and a vertical lift to threat.

He, also, created shoot houses with moving, falling, pop up, and knock down targets. In some cases, he even fitted a blank firing pistol to the hand of a 3D target so that he could cause the hand to raise and fire the gun at the student.

We know that Tracy eventually went on to command the �Southern Command Revolver School at Wareham� and that Noel went on to become a �revolver instructor� at the �Small Arms School at Hythe� under Major Dudley Johnson in 1921, but that�s all I have regarding them as instructors....

THE MAXIMS OF PISTOL SHOOTING...

...7] You seldom need a pistol, but when you do, you need it mighty badly.
...8] You cannot claim to be a pistol shot unless you are a fast shot
...9] Practice the correct handling of the pistol from the first, then you will handle it by instinct when the moment comes.

...14] Trigger pressing is the secret of pistol shooting.
...15] Pistol shooting is merely a matter of practice
...16] Don�t hang on to the trigger, release the finger fully after every shot.
...17] Learn not to fumble. Practice a clean, quick action in drawing and handling your pistol.

...20] Reload at the first opportunity. Always have a full magazine ready.

...22] Keep cool. Fire fast, but never faster than your �best speed� or you will miss every time.
...23] The art of quick shooting lies in perfection in the quick alignment of the sights, combined with an instinctive and automatic trigger squeeze.

I should like in conclusion to give a word of warning. Almost every one of these methods, applied vigorously and without restraint, will result, if not in the death, then certainly in the maiming of your opponent. Extreme caution, then, should be exercised in practice, care being taken never to give a blow with full force or a grip with maximum pressure.