The
Tactical Edge – January
Point
Shooting vs Aimed Shooting
Everybody knows how to point. You use your index finger to designate
something that you want someone else to notice. Children learn it as young as six months of
age. It’s not taught to them, but rather
they instinctively develop it. Children
use it to designate the cookie jar to mommy when they want a cookie. Or they use it to designate a puppy across the
street that they want their brother to see. We learned how to do it in early childhood and
use it most of our lifetime. Point
shooting uses the same process only for a different reason. When you’re holding a firearm correctly, the
barrel of that firearm is a natural extension of your index or trigger finger. In point shooting, you would use the barrel of
the gun to align yourself with the target you’re trying to hit. You can do this using both one-handed and
two-handed grips and any of the stances that we have described previously. That’s a very simple description of point
shooting. Now you ask why would I do
this? There are a couple of different reasons. One reason is that you’re out having fun and
just plinking. It’s easier than taking
the time to form a sight picture and sight alignment. The other reason is probably the most
important one. It can save your life! I bet that got your attention. Point shooting is used in self-defense when
you absolutely have no time to spare. It’s you or them and the first one to shoot is
usually the survivor. Point shooting may
be used at distances up to 7 yards or 21 feet. Distances further than that allow you time to
use your sights and proper sight alignment. At close quarters, it is the fastest way to
reduce an immediate threat.
Point shooting —
also known as threat-focused shooting, instinctive aiming, and instinctive
shooting — is a method of shooting a firearm quickly and accurately that
does not rely on the use of the sights in close quarters, life-threatening
situations where there is the greatest chance of being killed.
Point shooting is also a technique used by trained
marksmen to improve general accuracy when using a firearm. By developing a feel for a given weapon such
as a pistol, the shooter can become so accustomed to the weapon's weight and
where it is aimed that they can remain relatively accurate without the need to
focus on the sights of the gun to aim. By continuously practicing with a weapon, a
shooter can develop a subconscious coordination between their eyes, hands, and
brain, utilizing a natural human sense known as proprioception to aid in the
proper and accurate use of a weapon to the point that they can fire said weapon
by "instinct". The closer a
threat is to you, the more accurate you will be one point shooting. It is not as accurate as sight shooting and
should not be used at distances greater than 7 yards or 21 feet. A statistic, that I remember from my police
training, states that most shootings in the United States take place in under 9
feet distance. Point shooting can be
very fast and accurate at that distance.
Point shooting is taught by most police departments in
the United States along with all branches of our military. It is also taught to the military in many
other countries. Point shooting is also
a key component of the Israeli Krav Maga self-defense system which is taught to
our Special Forces and Seal Teams as well as Special Forces Units belonging to
many of our allies. Instinct or point shooting
with a handgun has been taught at most police academies worldwide since the
1980s. Point shooting can be
accomplished using both handguns and rifles, but for our purposes here, we will
be strictly referring to handgun shooting. The theory works equally well in both cases. Our training is primarily for home defense and
concealed carry and a rifle is not really suitable nor very concealable. Going back to my police training, point
shooting was critical to reducing immediate threat at close quarters. It was even a part of our quarterly firearm
qualifications. The very first stage of
our qualification consisted of drawing your firearm from your holster and
firing two rounds at a target distance of 9 feet in under two seconds. That didn’t allow very much time for a aiming
using the sights. This was repeated
three times and consisted of 10% of your qualification score. I think this was typical of most police
departments around the country.
Point shooting has been taught in the military and
various police and government agencies since the early 1900s. It has been improved upon over time until what
we have today. Point shooting can be
done from the hip, mid chest hold or with arms fully extended using either a
one hand or a two handhold. It is
something that requires practice to develop skill and should be a part of all
regular shooting techniques. Col. Jeff Cooper developed the modern shooting
technique incorporating point shooting in a method known as Flash Sight Picture.
The Flash Sight Picture is a method of
allowing the cognitive faculties of the shooter to align the target and the
sights without the delay involved in the conscious alignment of sights. Point shooting will get the job done but it is
not as accurate as Cooper’s method. During a gunfight, waiting to align the
sights is too slow. However, more
accuracy than point shooting is required to hit one's assailant reliably. It is physically impossible for the human eye
to focus simultaneously on the rear sight (nearest to one's eye), the front
sight (farther away from one's eye), and the relatively distant target at the
same time. The muscles of the eye adjust
to focus sight on one specific distance optimally at any one instant, so 3
different distances mean the shooter's focus must hunt (muscular physical
adjustments) between all three points of mental concentration. The greatest adjustment of focus (relatively
more ocular muscle contraction) is required to view shorter distances, such as
the gun's rear sight. In the modern
technique, the shooter is taught to focus on the front sight of the pistol and
align it against the target, ignoring the rear sight for quicker aiming and
minimal physical requirements. This
prevents the focus of the eye from hunting between rear sight, front sight and
target, wasting vital time in refocusing.
The technique is called 'flash' sight picture because the
cognition is best able to perform this function when the target and front sight
are presented quickly as a single image, in a 'flash', as if the shooter had
just turned around to face a threat appearing from close by. The shooter's vision can "see" the
rear sight, even if the focus is on the front sight. This is enough for the cognition to make an
alignment. With the flash sight picture,
the front sight and a rapidly presented image of the target are used to align
the pistol. This is faster and offers
more chance of hitting the target than point shooting from the hip.
The cognitive functions of the brain align objects in the
hand with distant objects at great speed. This ability of human cognition can be used to
align the pistol with the target. Colonel Cooper discovered this specific
ability and named it the "Flash Sight Picture".
Human cognition can perceive a "Flash Sight
Picture" at a speed faster than conscious awareness. This facility was discovered during World War
II experiments with rapid recognition of aircraft silhouettes. Experimentation was continued after the war
and branched into subliminal advertising in the 1960s, where images were
flashed onto cinema screens for a duration too short for the viewer to notice,
yet for cognition to have observed the image nonetheless.
Use of the Flash Sight Picture requires a rapid
acquisition of the front sight in order to allow the brain to perform its
calculations. This focus on the front
sight is one of the main themes Colonel Cooper impressed upon students of the
modern technique to clear their minds when shooting during a confrontation. The emphasis for students of the modern
technique on the word "front sight" was so great, that a shooting
school and a shooting magazine were named after this phrase.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Robin Brown
popularized Pistol Quick Kill. With
Pistol Quick Kill, the pistol is gripped and pointed at a target much like a
person would point their finger. "When you point, you naturally do not
attempt to sight or aim your finger. It
will be somewhat below your eye level in your peripheral vision, perhaps 2-4 inches
below eye level. " The same applies when pointing a gun at a target. Just as with pointing their finger, the user
will ". . . see the end of the barrel and/or front sight while looking at
the target. . . You have not looked at the gun or front sight, just the target.
" With Quick Kill, the focus is
always on the target, never having to adjust one's gaze or focus even remotely
on the near object [the gun or sights].
To shoot quickly and accurately at close distances, you
need different aiming techniques - which is where flash sight picture and point
shooting techniques excel. Point
shooting is relatively simple, as the shooter uses the point of aim rather than
sights to bring the firearm on target. The idea is getting on target and hitting it
as quickly as possible. Point shooting
is taught as a close-quarters shooting technique, especially to police
departments and military forces around the world. William Fairbairn, quite possibly the baddest
man who ever lived, used the technique and taught it while serving in the
Shanghai police and later to British and Allied forces during World War II. He and Eric Sykes extolled the technique in
their book "Shoot To Live," considered one of the authoritative texts
on defensive shooting along with the works of Jeff Cooper and Rex Applegate,
who likewise taught point shooting.
There are two dominant point shooting techniques, both of
which focus on a digit of the shooting hand to control the aim of the pistol. In either case, a pistol should be aligned
with the forearm - essentially, a handgun should be like an extension of the
arm. The easiest technique is a standard
grip in the pistol. In this technique,
control over the gun is asserted by the thumb on the shooting hand in concert
with the wrist, either holding in place or manipulating the pistol to the left
or right. The other technique is to lay
the index finger of the shooting hand on the pistol above the trigger guard. The trigger is pulled with the middle finger. The index finger, in this instance, adjusts
the point of aim in lieu of the the thumb and wrist. Either technique can be used with the
non-shooting hand supporting the handgun, or one-handed if necessary. In essence, the shooter brings the firearm to
bear on the target, covers the target with the muzzle and fires. For more precision, the pistol can be moved
with either the thumb or index finger guiding. Present the pistol, aim and fire. It's that simple. Practice until you can reliably hit. Start slow, and at close distances - ten to
fifteen feet at most. Repeat until
proficiency is gained. Once you've
gotten good enough at it, add it to your rotation of shooting drills.
One of the reasons for the success in point shooting
endeavors has to do with the body under stress, namely in combat conditions. Under stress, peripheral vision contracts,
leading to "tunnel vision. " Point shooting, under these conditions,
is easier to perform than other pistol shooting techniques. Most experts would caution, though, that point
shooting is primarily for close quarters. In distances inside about four yards, point
shooters can get on target and hit faster. However, the flash sight picture technique
reigns supreme at moderate distances, hence why front sight shooters can hit at
moderate distances much better than point shooters. At longer distances, aimed fire is going to
yield more accurate results.
Well, that’s all about point shooting in a nutshell. It is something you should make part of your
ordinary shooting routine. As in any
other shooting technique, practice will make for muscle memory. The use of muscle memory equates to speed and
in a life-and-death instance, speed equates to winner. In a gunfight, the loser doesn’t walk away
embarrassed. He usually doesn’t walk
away! Pass this on to all your shooting friends.
Well that wraps up this month’s issue of the blog. We hope you’re reading it, enjoying it, and
most of all benefiting from it. If you
have comments, please send them to us. We love to get email. In the meantime, keep your gun clean and your
powder dry and take someone to the shooting range or training class with you.
