Point shooting is in general miss understood, miss interpreted and miss quoted. Here is just my thoughts on the subject.
When we learn to shoot a pistol, one of the “fundamental skills” is how to aim it. In most cases the instructor will take a lot of time defining the classic “correct sight alignment and sight picture” such as:
Align the front sight vertically centered in the notch of the rear sight, so that there is an equal amount of light space on either side of the front sight post. The eye / eyes should be focused on the front sight (clearly focused), with the rear sight and the target both out of focus (fuzzy focus).
Sound familiar? Of course it does. Now eye dominance is most often discussed, grip, stance, how the shooter must look “through” and not over the pistol and so on…All sounds about normal, right? But has anyone taken the time to explain to that student what aiming means? What is it in its rawest form? Webster’s dictionary defines it as:
1: To direct a course. Specifically: To point a weapon at an object. Aim carefully before shooting.
1a: POINT: To aim a gun. b: To direct toward a specified object or goal. A story aimed at children
2: ASPIRE, INTEND. Specifically: She aims to win.
*So according to Merriam-Webster, aiming is carefully “pointing”. Now hold that thought, we will come back to it.
Why Use Sights: Let’s dig a little deeper. We are taught to use the sights on the pistol because, well because that’s what is the norm and it’s easy, the sights are directly above the bore of the gun. If the sights are perfectly aligned with the intended target then the bore is aligned with the target and the bullet will strike the intended mark. Simple…So what we are in effect saying is we are using something on the gun, to index the bores alignment with the target. The fact that “sights” have become the norm is neither here nor there. If we did not have “sights”, we could use the edge of the pistol, back plate of the slide, firing pin hole or some other reference point on the gun to index the bore… right? Yes, absolutely correct we could and can, that is called INDEXING the gun.
Accuracy v Aiming: In reality when we fire a pistol, the bullets travels down the rifled bore. That bore is straight and will give the exact same accuracy regardless to how the gun is aimed (using, open sights, red dot, scope, slide indexed) or point shoot. In other words it is not the aiming device that makes it more accurate, it is the correct aligning of the bore using WHATEVER indexing / aiming system the user is most proficient in, that makes he / her accurate with that pistol. The bore does not become less accurate because the sights are missing, but because the user has no experience using any other means of aiming.
Indexing the Gun: Again, you can use the side of the slide, the tip of the slide, the back plate etc. Just as if you we using sights. This of course requires that you look at the gun, the same as you would look at the gun if you were using a classic front sight aiming system.
Subconscious Sight Picture: This is often referred to as Threat Focused or Target Focused. First, the proper grip on the handgun is crucial. The beaver-tail or tang of the handgun needs to be centered in the middle of the strong hand wrist, so that the bore is aligned with the forearm bone of the dominant hand. The trigger finger should be STRAIGHT down the frame of the pistol. The MAIN and true difference is UNLIKE front sight-focused shooting (where the front sight is clear), with target-focused shooting the target is clear and it’s the front sight that is blurry.
Point Shooting: So if aiming is (as defined by Webster’s dictionary*) a type of carefully pointing, is then point shooting aiming? The answer is YES, if done correctly. To most untrained in point shooting may think it’s just point the gun randomly in the direction of the target and pull the trigger. That my friends is not point shooting. Point shooting is aligning the bore with your forearm bone and then using your natural body’s kinesthetic alignment to get the pistol bore to the intended target. First, the proper grip on the handgun is crucial. The beaver-tail or tang of the handgun needs to be centered in the middle of the strong hand wrist, so that the bore is aligned with the forearm bone of the dominant hand. The second key ingredient is that the eyes have a laser like focus on the specific point on the intended target. The trigger finger should be STRAIGHT down the frame of the pistol. As the shooter looks intently at the target the handgun is instinctively presented out to exactly where the eyes are focused by pointing the index finger, then locking the body in place, then squeezing the trigger.
So to recap:
- Front Sight focused aiming (requires starring at gun)
- Subconscious Sight Picture (requires starring at target and seeing sights in your peripheral vision) If you like red dot sights, it kind of hard to argue against this logic! You don’t look at the dot, you look at the target and put the dot on that.
- Indexed Shooting (requires starring at the gun)
- Point shooting (requires you just stare at the target)
All the four “aiming” systems above have a place in firearms shooting and training. Each have benefits depending on what the shooter is trying to achieve, distance and situation he / she is in. All 4 of these sighting have merits and the negatives. There is no WAY, just ways…you need to find YOUR way.
The men for whom combat point shooting did not suffice are not here to tell us of its failures. We know of lots of such failures in matches, tho. Are we to believe that suffering mere peer-pressure causes more misssing than being shot-at? In matches, point shooters get to carefully orient their bodies towards their targets, get all ready, etc. When it’s for real, the conditions will not be so nice, eh? Pointing does work, to 10 ft, on fully exposed torsos, and that is what’s needed for the great majority of civilian defense shootings. In fact, you rarely have to fire at all and misses have changed a lot of minds, as have warning shots. I"ve pointed guns at men 6x in my life and all of them surrendered or fled. That’s 6x more than Elmer Keith or Ed McGiven ever did such a thing, yet thousands of guys believed in their teachings.