Things have changed a bit since 1944, but entertaining nonetheless:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=14qTdp-Dd30
I think Rex Applegate had some input into that–see his book “Kill Or Get Killed”.
As a kid I shot a Canadian “commando match” in 1960 with an Inglis BHP–much like what the film shows. We’ve evolved a little since those days…
Been a while since I been on a 50 yard pistol range. 45 tracers Cool.
David
What’s the bag limit on them?
Sorry, that was the first thing I saw in your reply. 
Now I want to drag out the 1911s and find some tracers!
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This is just speculation but perhaps the fact there was no body armor made a bladed 1 armed firing stance tenable. Either that or in the 40’s you were considered a sissy if you shot with 2 hands. 
Evolution of the Fairbairn/Sykes paradigm based on (among other things) point shooting or indexed shooting. It’s notable that those doctrines were developed with revolvers which didn’t lend themselves to the Modern Technique quite the same way as semi-autos.
If you watch far enough in the video they have a whole segment on a two handed firing position. It was around the 5 min mark.
Then they showed everyone shooting two handed from the prone and kneeling positions.
They were teaching the old crappy “cup and saucer” type method though.
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Yea that’s interesting, what your father went through in the 70’s. When you say that they made a “big deal” out of the two handed method being for “gunfighters” was that them saying they thought it was a good thing or a bad thing?
I would hope that they wanted their officers to win the fight if they found themselves in one lol. But from doing this job and seeing the huge dearth of firearms tactics taught in the academy aimed at just getting people to pass a qual vs skills and tactics to actualy win a gunfight I wouldn’t be surprised if they were against it back in the 70s.
Funny how so many seemingly obvious techniques and hardware designs weren’t adopted or widespread until relatively recently…like large, easy to see sights, or two-handed shooting, or revolver grips that actually fill your hand and don’t feel like toothpicks.
Institutional inertia is a sonofabitch to overcome in the absence of genuine competition. Colt and S&W were pretty happy to coast along on the merits of their turn-of-the-century designs until the Europeans started eating their lunch.
It might not hurt to practice our one-handed a skills little more, even with the “modern technique”.
Neat, thanks for posting.
My father, who also went thru a Police Academy in the 70’s, taught me it is a Handgun - not a Handsgun. 
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That is old school! But they got the job done.
As I recall/understand it, when competitions become popular (50s’60s?), everyone was shooting one handed, and it was Weaver who “developed” the two handed stance that dominated competitions, which then was adopted by various others, and then dominated for decades until the modern stance most currently use.
As the story goes, people gave Weaver a hard time for the grip/stance at first, but he dominated (as you’d expect) and as usual, change comes slow but winning = people will have to adapt it, and thus the “Weaver stance” became the stance used by most for a long time, and many still do.
My may have some exact details/time line wrong, but that’s my recollection.
very cool video
I agree. Even more with our non dominant hand. Thanks for the reminder.
I know what the focus of my next practice session will be.
Some did. OSS Jedburgh training was a bit different though…no cup and saucer here either…
I always found this video of the OSS ‘House of Horrors’ interesting (if dated and a bit strange with the ‘Lone Ranger’ masks). Probably the earliest use of a ‘shoot house’.
BTW, William Fairbairn is the instructor behind the mask.
