It’s apparent that modern doctrine supports the use of an isosceles style. For those who use that style, when you drive the pistol forward, do you fully straighten both arms outward or leave them ‘bent’?
On your reloads, do you keep the gun up and on target, or pull back slightly into a ‘workspace’?
Fully extended outward. I am by no means hyperextending my elbows, but there is no noticeable bend in them
Bring the weapon into your workspace. Pretend like you are reading the ingriedients on a soup can in a grocery store. Whre do you have it??? About 8"-10" in front of your face.
PJ
Thanks much-
Do you also change your visual focus to your weapon during the reload, or use your peripheral vision while keeping your eyes on the target? I’m of the opinion that peripheral vision would disappear under extreme duress, but the alternative of taking your eyes off the target sucks too. Is depending on muscle memory the solution?
Arms pushed out with a slight bend in the elbows
Reloads and malfunction clearing are done in the work space.
That is what I have been taught. One mistake I had been making, but was recently corrected on, was holding my pistol too low during reloads. You keep the pistol in front of your face, target level, so you are not caught looking down. The target is in your peripheral vision.
I find myself looking through the triggerwell and the area around it it at the threat.
I primarily stay focused on the threat, until my hand is at the base of my mag well. At that time I throw a split glance down at where the magazine and magazine well are meeting. Once I have begun to insert the mag, my focus goes back to the threat.
The threat will always be my main area of focus except for that split 10th of a second where my focus goes to the magwell even then it is still in my periphreals.
Alot of new shooters love to do reloads bent over and looking down at their beltline, or they love to do weapons manipulations at full extension. Both of which are not good.
PJ
Thanks for the clarifications, these were my feelings but I wanted to make sure they were proper, generally speaking.
I like this advice. Don’t need to watch the mag all the way, only need to watch it enough to make sure its going where it needs to go.
Another question:
When drawing your pistol, who favors driving the pistol straight towards the target( a-la Jeff Cooper), and who rotates it up and pointed at the target, and then drives it forward (a-la Clint Smith)?
The faster the sights are level in front of the eyes, the faster you will be able to make an aimed hit. So, if the need for a visual index exists, I want to draw my gun straight up to my eye-line with my muzzle a little high (pretty much inside the workspace).
From there, the sights are aligned, the gun is pushed to full extension, and the trigger is pressed, simultaneously. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, the key is knowing which two points to connect. It doesn’t do much good to throw the gun from holster to full extension if you don’t have the visual reference you need and are waiting on that reference to begin trigger press.
Arms should not be fully extended. The slight bend in the arms helps with fatigue and recoil management. Push your arms all the way out, then bring them slightly in. There should a a slight, but noticeable, bend in the elbows. The info. is straight from TigerSwan.
There are guys that shoot at the GM level with varying degrees of elbow bend, and instructors are predisposed to teach what works best. This is not to say that TS is wrong, just that there are a few right answers, and some depend on the skill of the individual.
Or what their body is capable of. If one is more stable and gets better results with locked elbows, but they end up paying for it with aches & pains, it becomes a cost/benefit analysis, not a question of right/wrong technique.
First shot as the arms are pushing out, just as the sights are at eye level. That’s what a master class guy showed me anyway.
I don’t mean to haunt this thread, just to hit a couple of points-
1- Riverine’s point about physical limitations is absolutely valid, and something that makes professional instructors worth their salt.
2- Taking the shot as the arms are extending.
The shot is taken when the sights/visual reference tell you to.
Sometimes that is when the arms are extending.
Sometimes it is as soon as the gun is level.
Sometimes you will need to further stabilize the sights for a second or two.
It all depends on need of precision and speed.
Im of the opinion that full extension is the way to go. Under stress, especially when caught by surprise, youre most likely to shove the gun out and press the trigger as fast as you can. Obviously there are exceptions and tier 1 guys are a perfect example. Those guys do so much force on force training and conduct so many operations that they become accustomed to and more able to deal with the body alarm response. You see this in police officers who have been in multiple shoots a well.
Full extension for me may not be full extension for you either. You may have some level of discomfort at lockout and therefore may bend slightly. You may have body armor on that keeps you from locking all the way out. All that matters i that you push the gun out until your body tells you to stop…thats full extension.
As for reloads…theres two different schools of thought. I myself am not yet sold on which is best. There is the work space reload taught by LAV, Magpul, TS, Kyle Lamb, etc. This is where you reload in front of your face looking through the gun until the moment comes where you insert the mag into the magwell. Theres no doubt that this is the fastest way to reload and that definitely gives it some extra merit.
Then theres the school of thought that says you will lose fine motor control and focus on the threat during a shooting. Most that subscribe to that idea advocate reloading from a compressed ready position around your chest without looking at the weapon, and using the overhand slide rack instead of a slide release. You are stronger with your hands closer to your body and the position is consistent with your presentation.
In my opinion I think “the best way” will always be up for debate. I believe that it lies somewhere in between the two schools of thought that I mentioned above.
For bend in the elbows I like to use this illustration.
Walk up to a wall about arms length away(fingertips on the wall), put you feet in the “square-range shooting stance”,lay your palms on the wall with you fingers feathered out, and push like you want the wall to fall over you should take care to have a relatively vertical back.
Now, at this distance you will find that you bend at the knees and dig your toes into the floor to stabilize when you push. This is not the important part but helps you to know what to do to get the upper body in position.
What you should notice is that you have some bend in your arms and your BACK is exerting between the shoulder blades(although this may be in fact the shoulder muscles, I simply dont know I’m not a physical therypist). Now, without moving out of position put your hands in the IPSC grip while keeping the arms in the same position and press against the wall while stretching the offhand thumb getting that tight forearm that controls recoil.
This is how I try and teach people the modern grip. It is worth noting that many people stop teaching the grip at the elbows but your shoulders, between the shoulders, and chest will all help to correct posture and reduce recoil. I also always make it a point to get whoever I am teaching away from the wall and show them that they can keep that upperbody firmness without the lowerbody in any perticular position and have almost 180 degrees of rotation between the upper body and lower body. This of course helps with shooting on the move and is another discussion.
I hope I wrote that in a manner than can be understood. Both my writing incompetence and my inability to put thoughts on paper make internet discussion difficult.
I am closer to a lockout extension (not hyper) than a bend in the elbows. I tend to be high in the workspace on reloads. Pretty normal for me / my body build (fat guy :)). Maybe it is because I have some heft in my build, that I absorb or manage recoil pretty well, so I find a more repeatable point of aim with an extended grip to be of more benefit than a bent grip.
I will also echo what I think F2S was saying and with all due respect to TigerSwan and I think they might agree, that we cannot put a definitive or blanket statement that we can reasonably think will cover everyone. This is a very bad idea IMO. What works for one, or even for the majority, will not reasonably translate to everyone. As instructors, we need to try and cover all shooters and not the majority and develop styles accordingly. Absolute statements are often not a good thing. See what I did there. 
I will also say that I believe Clint Smith says that leaving the weapon extended, especially under stress, works for the greater majority of shooters with a greater success, especially when those shooters fall within a certain range of skill sets. In other words, a lesser skilled shooter may be more effective leaving the weapon and its sights in a more normal “firing” alignment with an extended hold during the reload. Clint, if I am wrong my sincerest apologies.
Having said that, I do believe that a higher skilled shooter will allow for a common variance which is often seen as high and in the work space type of reload. I say a common variance because I tend to see this progression of a reload happen as skill level increases. Which Clint Smith admits may be faster and has referenced a top shooter. I believe this reload progression to occur as a shooter becomes more highly skilled they become more comfortable with the punch out and sight alignment, all the while maintaining great accuracy. IMO, this in turn allows the shooter a faster mag insertion by setting the weapon up in a more ergonomic or efficient position to accept the incoming magazine. This faster mag exchange with a high level of efficiency at returning the sights to a good firing alignment will result in a much faster reload with greater overall results / efficiency.
Like always, YMMV. 
I like to use high-speed video:D :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjbFHK8Kz1k&feature=channel
Note how Mr. Falla’s slightly bent arms act as a shock absorber for the recoil of the pistol.
I really would like to have a few days with some top level shooters and some high speed video equipment. I believe with those resources it would be possible to dispel some myths about gun handling.
Getting advice from top level shooters is a must.
I am a master class IDPA shooter and anyone who has shot both IDPA and USPSA knows just how low on the pecking order that puts someone compared to good GM shooters.
I spent some time practicing along side a GM shooter once or twice and it is amazing just how much you can learn in reguards to gun handling. It is also humbling. There is also alot of knowledge about the “game”, but too many people automatically think that somehow participating in the “game” makes their knowledge unapplicable. Nothing could be furthur from the truth. Watching someone run Bill Drills with a major pf and splits in the .10+/- range is amazing.
It is always worth your time to just stay a little longer when a friendly GM who is just playing around shows up. Though be respectful of their practice time if that is why they are there. I also got to shoot some very nice 6in STI “Fat Free” limited guns:D.