Day 8 – 14 days to be a better shooter – switching hands
- By tire iron
- 26 November, 2014
- 2 Comments
Day 8 – 14 days to be a better shooter – switching hands
Day 8 is all about switching shoulders with the long guns and switching hands with the handgun.
Day 8 – switching hands with the handgun
Switching Hands with the handgun
For the handgun, the reason you should practice switching shoulders is not so much a cover issue, but more of a practical issue. Lets say you have your handgun in your right hand, but need to access some gear in your right front pocket and you don’t feel the area is safe or secure enough to reholster. You would merely switch hands so that you could still engage a threat left handed should one present itself while you were getting something from your right front pocket with your right hand. Additionally you may have an injured right hand. So learning to shoot and do all the manipulations left handed is just as important as doing them right handed.
To switch hands, lets assume you are holding the handgun in your right hand. The first step is to extend the thumb and bring it as far as you can away from the gun. This creates the gap that you will fill with your other hand. So you now bring your left thumb/hand and fill the gap left by your right hand. Now just switch out your fingers. What you want to say to yourself is: Create the gap, Fill the gap, Switch hands.
Do this back and forth twenty times, then do it another twenty times while blindfolded.
Day 8 – switching hands with the long gun
Switching hands / shoulders with the carbine
For the long gun, switching shoulders is a MUST. There is equal amounts of right side cover, and left side cover in the world. To only use one shoulder relegates you to either always choosing a particular side (which is unrealistic) or you WILL expose more of your body than necessary to enemy fire if you have to shoot from the other side of cover.
By switching shoulders, you will always be able to expose just the bare minimum of yourself to enemy fire while maximizing your hit potential down range.
There are two different methods of switching shoulders. They are “switch hands/switch shoulders” and “switch shoulders/switch hands”.
Switch Hands / Switch Shoulders
The first one we will cover is “switch hands/switch shoulders”. The first step is to mount the carbine in your shoulder and hold it like you normally do. Let’s assume that you have the long gun in the right shoulder. Take your firing hand (the hand that is on the pistol grip) and extend it out to meet your left hand. Grab the forearm with your right hand. Now bring your left hand back and grasp the pistol grip.
Now push the long gun straight out toward the target, bring the buttstock out in front of your mouth, then bring the buttstock into your left shoulder. That completes the switch. Now switch back doing the reverse.
Repeat this twenty times, then do it blind folded twenty times.
Pay close attention that you are not doing any extreme movements with your head. You want it as stable and fixed as possible.
Switch Shoulders / Switch Hands
The second way is to “switch shoulders/switch hands”.
This is pretty much just opposite of what you learned above. Lets assume (again) that you are starting with the rifle in your right shoulder. Push the rifle straight out, move the buttstock in front of your mouth, and the bring the buttstock straight back into the left shoulder. Then take your right hand and place it out on the fore-end near your left hand. Then bring your left hand back and place it on the pistol grip.
The only advantage one has over the other, is if you switch shoulders first, then switch hands, you are able to get a shot off from the left shoulder but using the right hand to shoot the gun. In other words after you have switched shoulders and BEFORE you have switched hands, you are able to pull the trigger.
Practice this twenty times, then blindfolded twenty times.
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TI, your explination in how to switch positions, makes it very easy. Thank you for all the time you put into making your vids.
Tire Iron, I see some typos and omissions in my post above.
If my post is approved could you instead use this one below that I have corrected my typo’s and omissions on?
Great post Tire Iron, thanks. Having taught your methods to many new guys in our militia; to make it as fool as proof possible, I always add the obvious, “be sure when your left finger is on the trigger you are looking down your sights with your left eye and when your right finger is on the trigger you are looking down your sights with your right eye.”
Some men are so right eye dominant that they have great difficulty shooting with their left hand or vise versa. In that case we tell them to practice shooting with their non-dominant eye patched shut or as Tire Iron says put Vaseline over safety glasses or over their Rx glasses to force them to use the other eye. Of course when combat shooting keep both eyes open.
We also tell our men when shooting a rifle on their weak side to align their supporting index finger with the barrel to get on target quicker. Of course we tell them to transition back to their strong after a few rounds or when there is a break in the action. Of course if you are shooting around cover or concealment you must match your shooting side to the side the cover or concealment is on.
I tell them any trigger time is good trigger time and to practice shooting with their off hand by shooting cans with a BB gun or an airsoft in their backyard to save on ammo expense.
I am having an on going argument with a good friend in our militia who is former Army who when patrolling down a trail in ranger file formation and the man in front of him is shooting right handed he refuses to patrol shooting left handed to better cover the right side of the trail. He says never try to shoot with your off hand (LOL).