Basic pistol technique question

[jumpthestack]

Regarding bending your arms, the way it was explained at a Magpul class is that you should bend your arms slightly with your elbows pointed out to the sides(not down).

If your elbows are pointed down, that means the path of least resistance is for your arms to bend upwards, allowing the muzzle to rise.

If your elbows are pointed sideways, then your arms will bend in towards each other with recoil, but then of course they are supporting each other so they won't bend more and the force of the recoil will just go straight back.

Watch Jerry Miculek shoot, he does this well.

[C4IGrant]

Regarding bending your arms, the way it was explained at a Magpul class is that you should bend your arms slightly with your elbows pointed out to the sides(not down).

If your elbows are pointed down, that means the path of least resistance is for your arms to bend upwards, allowing the muzzle to rise.

If your elbows are pointed sideways, then your arms will bend in towards each other with recoil, but then of course they are supporting each other so they won't bend more and the force of the recoil will just go straight back.

Watch Jerry Miculek shoot, he does this well.

This shooting position is also a natural one if you wear body armor (plates). The armor forces you to rotate your elbows out thus creating a good shooting position.


C4

[dookie1481]

I've noticed that some shooters (Sevigny and Defoor come to mind) bend their elbows quite a bit when they shoot. Is there any advantage conferred by this, or is it just an individual preference?

Jay

[mike240]

I learned an interesting method to help each individual determine the amount of bend in the elbow and the direction the elbows point. Obviously this is for what now is called "Modern Isosoles" in most circles. This takes some time to explain however...

Use a round target and imagine it as a clock, at a distance of about 5-7 yards. Maintain your aggressive "fighting/shooting stance" but you will be shooting one hand only. I say this because many change their stance between two handed, strong handed and support hand shooting. Remember the goal here is to determine or refine your two handed technique.

Fire at the center of the target (clock face). You are looking for where the front sight goes during recoil. Does it go to 2 o'clock, 10 o'clock etc? By changing the direction or angle that the elbow points you are looking for consistent sight lift at 12 o'clock.

Do the same with the support hand till you get 12 o'clock lift. You then bring both hands/arms together using the elbow bends you learned. Obviously now that both arms have come together on the weapon, you shoot this again and refine the amount of bend and direction of the elbows to get the desired minimal, 12 o'clock lift.

Now that you have the recoil lifting consistently at 12 o'clock, you want to minimize the amount of lift, or how far away from the center of the clock the sights rise. This is accomplished by changing the distance that the pistol is from the face of the shooter or the amount of bend in the elbows.

As this was taught to me, it is not about dominating recoil but directing and using it to your advantage by only allowing it move in a direction that is advantageous to you.

This method has the slide recoiling almost (the goal!) parallel to the ground and the frame slightly coming to the rear (because the elbows are not fully locked and are acting like short travel shock absorbers). During counter recoil, the slide comes forward and the muzzle returns to the point where the first shot broke. Looking from the side at the shooter, the gun's slide seems like a wave rolling over on the beach and rolling back out. Not sticking up and requiring a conscious thought or effort to return the sights to the point of aim of the first shot.

This greatly improved my one hand shooting accuracy and speed on followup shots.

The man that taught me this also had the uncanny ability to consistently do what he called "post ignition push". If you played ball and dummy with him you would say he had a bad flinch every time he hit a dummy round. He also had the fastest head shot on a failure drill I have ever seen and said he would change his technique slightly so the gun did not return to the point of aim of the second shot, but would instead fire the head shot as the gun rose from the second shot.

That man was Jerry Barnhart....

You end up with pretty much like what was stated above (learned by another poster by Magpul). I just think it helps new or problem shooters by providing a visual of what they are looking for and provide a gauge to see the effects of tweaking their shooting technique. When it came to teaching the mechanics of shooting, setting up your movement to a position to fire etc Barnhart was probably best instructor I ever had. The man was "robotic".

[comprido]

FWIW:Anyone that's made it three pages into a thread about how much bend should be in the arms while shooting and is still interested in it should read Brian Enos' book Beyond Fundamentals. If you like reading about the pros and cons of a slight bend in the elbows, there's lot more topics in the book that will interest you too, I imagine.

While it might be helpful to hear second and third hand reports of what Defoor and Falla teach, if you want you can get more thorough instruction from the guy that (literally) wrote the book on the way the top shooters shoot.