Shooting the FBI Handgun Qualification With No Sights

[cedartop]

[video=youtube_share;cZvmzArslgs]https://youtu.be/cZvmzArslgs[/video]

I enjoyed this video not so much for his demo, but for the commentary and the points he makes.

 

[Goodcat]

I recently learned to fend without a front sight when my front sight popped off out on the first shot of a 9 hole drill. As usual, you finish the drill no matter what. Missed the first few until I figured out what was funky, and started drilling them. Don’t need no stinkin sights.

 

[bwframe]

That's a great video. Put the "point shooting" idea where it belongs.

 

[Jackson]

I think there is merit in using scored qualifications or drills to assess a shooter's skill level.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I remember talking with Ernest Langdon on the topic of sights. He said he learned to make good hits out to 25y with a gun with no sights, but it was slower then a gun with sights and the wheels started to fall off when movement was introduced

I'm not remotely the shooter EL is, but I played around with the concept with the same conclusions. I was able to get real numbers on both speed and spread at various distances stationary. I did not have access to a moving target, so could not recreate the "moving shooter/moving target" part. Just me moving and a stationary target at 7y was significantly more difficult without sights, to the point instead of numbers I have "sucks, don't do it."

 

[cedartop]

That's a great video. Put the "point shooting" idea where it belongs.

Exactly. Actual point shooting is for retention or near contact distance shooting.

Now, that being said there are good, well trained and highly skilled shooters who can shoot quickly and accurately out to 25 yards plus or minus using target focused shooting. Ben Stoeger is someone who does this. This is not what most people think of as point shooting and as BBI alluded to is not the ticket for most people.

 

[bwframe]

Yes. Taran Butler can shoot very accurately from the hip also.

As stated with Stoeger, these are established grandmaster shooters who put their seasoned skills into a point shooting skill set.

Too often we hear the "point shooting" proponents say that it is an alternative to shooting with sights.

 

[Coach]

But, but, but .... point shooting is faster.

 

[cedartop]

But, but, but .... point shooting is faster.

Maybe, from what I have witnessed, it can be a faster miss

(Yes, I know you are being sarcastic)

 

[GIJEW]

I might be repeating some comments upthread but...
I think "point shooting=no sights vs aimed shooting=sights" is over simplified. IMO there's a continuum from hip/retention shooting (with no visual index at all) to precision, aimed fire.

In between those, there are points like:

being able to only see the slide like in Cowan's video or conceptually like Cirrillo's "silhouette" method

stacking the front and rear sights like Ayoob's "stress-fire"--in the IDF before red dot sights, we were taught that with a stutter-step for shooting on the run

And you have all heard of the "flash sight picture"

Sights are on guns for a good reason but there needs to be a sliding scale of how much they're relied on, balancing the need for speed vs precision. I don't think "less than aimed" methods are exclusively for people with the supernatural ability of trick shooters. The need for shooting at grappling distance or getting the first hit, applies to anybody in a gun fight. The ability to use "less than aimed" methods is just an extension of mastering fundamentals.

 

[cedartop]

BTW, I am leaving this wide open for Randy Harris to come in to talk about alternative indexing methods.

 

[cedartop]

I might be repeating some comments upthread but...
I think "point shooting=no sights vs aimed shooting=sights" is over simplified. IMO there's a continuum from hip/retention shooting (with no visual index at all) to precision, aimed fire.

In between those, there are points like:

being able to only see the slide like in Cowan's video or conceptually like Cirrillo's "silhouette" method

stacking the front and rear sights like Ayoob's "stress-fire"--in the IDF before red dot sights, we were taught that with a stutter-step for shooting on the run

And you have all heard of the "flash sight picture"

Sights are on guns for a good reason but there needs to be a sliding scale of how much they're relied on, balancing the need for speed vs precision. I don't think "less than aimed" methods are exclusively for people with the supernatural ability of trick shooters. The need for shooting at grappling distance or getting the first hit, applies to anybody in a gun fight. The ability to use "less than aimed" methods is just an extension of mastering fundamentals.

You already bolded it, but last two words are key

 

[Coach]

Maybe, from what I have witnessed, it can be a faster miss

(Yes, I know you are being sarcastic)

I can miss fast using the sights. I have seen me do it.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I can miss fast using the sights. I have seen me do it.

There's your problem. Eyes are too slow. Learn to blind fire.

 

[Coach]

There's your problem. Eyes are too slow. Learn to blind fire.

Do you think the Ray Charles head swing will help or hurt?

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Do you think the Ray Charles head swing will help or hurt?

I think it's likely to depend on the distance and if you need to curve the bullet around an obstruction. Only the timer and target can tell for sure, though.

Please post video.

On a serious note, I bet you actually could make a decent hit blind on a stationary target while squared up to it based purely on consistency of draw and indexing. I know McPhee demonstrates how proper recoil management gets the gun to return to the same spot every time by turning his head away from the target and talking to the students as he continues to fire a pretty reasonable sized group.

 

[Randy Harris]

Ok so Mike (Cedartop) forwarded this to me to take a look. He and I had actually had a discussion along these lines in the last month. At the local training group I run we shot Ken Hackathorn’s John Wick Drill as a “pop quiz” and as a warmup drill. The targets are at 3 , 5 , and 7 yards and it is 18 total rounds. I had mentioned to the participants that I had just gotten a new slide that I had assembled with internals but as of yet did not have any iron sights or an RMR on it yet and was going to shoot a few rounds just to make sure it worked. After the group had all shot the drill they suggested I shoot it with the bare slide to see if I could break the 8 second par time. So I shot it in just a shade over 8 (8.51) but was down 3 points (which we scored as IDPA 1 second per point) so my score was 11.51. For comparison I normally shoot it clean or down 1 in the 6.5 to 7.5 time frame. This was the 1st time I had ever shot this drill with no sights.

The 3 points came from the head shot being just under the down Zero circle “teeth area” , and 2 minus 1s on the 5 yard target just under the down Zero circle. Oddly enough the 7 yard target was clean.

My own perception in shooting the drill was that I was taking way longer than normal concentrating on the 7 yard shots. At 7 yards the slide is the same width as the down Zero circle so I had to be very careful to keep it aligned in the circle as I worked the trigger. The closer targets I was able to shoot at about the same speed as I would with a gun with sights . (Which upon further review may have caused the 3 points down?). I think the round in the head that was low was a matter of no sight there telling me the exact elevation (mechanical offset) and it went just a tiny bit low. The 2 -1s at 5 yards were impossible to determine if they were trigger or sight (Slide) misalignment as they were shot quickly and nothing “felt” bad about the trigger presses.

After I finished and they basked in the good natured joy of seeing me crash and burn , I asked “ So what does this tell us?” The answer they arrived at was that hand eye coordination is pretty important and that inside 7 yards it is possible to make high quality hits (thoracic vital zone and face) without a traditional sight picture. As the target gets farther away (or gets smaller) the sights make a big difference in being able to guarantee shot placement at speed. Like I said I felt there was a definitive slow down on the 7 yard target and the witnesses said the same thing. Yes it was clean ( down Zero for all 6 shots) but it took longer to shoot them (while trying to stay down Zero) than it would with sights or a red dot.

Now just some commentary. I thought the video was nicely done even if he does not know the “average “ 3 yards 3 rounds 3 seconds is from the NYPD SOP 9 study back in 1970s that was released in 1981. But then again maybe it is just “gunstore lore” . I can see how he would be annoyed if people are using the data to tell people “a Jframe and point shooting will solve all your problems”. If THAT is what he is ranting about then I’m in agreement. I prefer to use that data to make people aware that it happens Closer and Faster than you think and one way or the other it will be over when someone hits someone somewhere important. So be fast AND accurate.

And again these are AVERAGES . For every 1 shot stop there has to be a 5 shot stop to get an average of 3....so if your pistol only holds 5 shots and there are 2 adversaries who require the average number of hits to stop....you are 1 round short.....Good luck with that emergency revolver reload....in the 3 second allotted average time.....

So steering this more toward what Mike was thinking. It is not 1926 anymore. No one is riding a horse to the grocery store ( still common in 1926) or tasting urine to test for diabetes( how they tested for it then) or using an outhouse instead of indoor plumbing ( also still common in the 1920s). Sights on auto pistols are much more visible now than they were then.And with the availability of shot timers we can see just how fast we can shoot using sights vs not. And we generally find that there just is not much difference in time between the two but the hits are generally A LOT better when we can get a peek at the sights... or at least a peek at something (I’m getting there Mike).

There is a lot of visual information available to be processed when holding a gun in your visual cone. It is all there if you CHOOSE to look for it.You have front and rear sights that can be used together to aim the gun. You have a front sight that can be used by itself like a shotgun bead, there is the corner of the slide, there is the back plate of the striker fired guns, there is the top of the slide, there is the cross bar/frame of the RMR, there is the corner of the RMR etc, etc. so between a “picture perfect sight picture” and “shooting from the hip like a1950s western” there is a vast, dare I say ,“continuum” of course alternative indexing methods that can be used to visually align the gun without HAVING to see a picture perfect sight picture. Of course a best case scenario is a picture perfect sight picture while behind cover but sometimes we end up with a worst case scenario and we are initiative deficient and out in the open walking to our car. At this point getting moving and getting quick (but still high quality) hits as you move to keep from getting shot might be something we want to be able to accomplish. Or you can stand still , look for your sights and play rock ‘em sock’em robot with bullets at 3 yards when the other guy got to start shooting first but no one likes how that tends to play out...

Interpretation varies. Some people will take the OP video to mean that anything less than a picture perfect sight picture does not give the kind of accuracy that matters. On the other hand we could also take it to show that with practice even a gun with NO sights can be used to make torso hits out to 25 yards. But just because SOMEONE WHO SHOOTS A LOT can do it does not mean EVERYONE can just pick up a gun and do it with no practice. Practice and developing the skills is kind of important. And it shows (my opinion) that inside 5 yards hand eye coordination combined with alternative indexing methods can accomplish high quality hits at speed. But In the end it still comes down to pressing the trigger with enough finesse to not yank it off target .

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Now just some commentary. I thought the video was nicely done even if he does not know the “average “ 3 yards 3 rounds 3 seconds is from the NYPD SOP 9 study back in 1970s that was released in 1981....

And again these are AVERAGES . For every 1 shot stop there has to be a 5 shot stop to get an average of 3....so if your pistol only holds 5 shots and there are 2 adversaries who require the average number of hits to stop....you are 1 round short.....Good luck with that emergency revolver reload....in the 3 second allotted average time.....

While not arguing with your overall point about sight usage, I just want to point out that this is incorrect. 20 officers who fire 1 round and 1 officer who fires 18 rounds results in an average of 1.8 rounds, just as an example. There does not need to be a "5" for every "1" and there isn't. There's a lot of 1s and then a few real high round counts for reasons I'll touch on in a second.

Specific to the SOP-9 you mentioned, the average was 2.6 rounds fired. Note that "total shots fired" and "total stops to shot" are not the same thing. Even ignoring what we can't measure without things like video like reaction time to stop shooting may result in more rounds fired then were actually required to stop, the bigger issues at play were:

For part of that time NYPD could still shoot at moving cars and that TN vs Garner didn't happen until 1985. You could shoot at fleeing people until you couldn't see them. NYPD was one of the first to prohibit shooting at cars in the nation, though, and the numbers didn't change all that much in terms of rounds per incident but total incidents fell a lot.

It also does not account for misses. It doesn't even account for if the suspect was ever "stopped". The suspect could win or escape and the numbers are still included.

From the SOP-9 itself (emphasis present in original) :

Rapid Reloading
The SOP 9 study reveals that the average number of shots fired by individual officers in an armed confrontation is between two and three rounds, less than half the capacity of the service revolver. The two to three rounds per incident has remained constant over the years covered by the report. It also sub*stantiates an earlier study by the L.A.P.D. (1967) which found that 2.6 rounds per encounter were discharged.

The necessity for rapid reloading to prevent death or serious injury was not a factor In any of the cases examined. In close range encounters, under 15 feet, it was never reported as neces*sary to continue the action. However, in 6% of the total cases the officer reported reloading. These involved cases of pursuit, barricaded persons and other incidents where the action was pro*longed and the distance exceeded the 25 foot death zone.

So, frankly, the SOP-9 does not indicate what you're saying it does in those regards.

 

[Randy Harris]

And yet that is still most likely where the 3 shots 3 yards 3 seconds “conventional wisdom” originated.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

And yet that is still most likely where the 3 shots 3 yards 3 seconds “conventional wisdom” originated.

Well, that's not really the point I addressed. However if that's where the idea originated, those folks should probably actually read it as doesn't support 3/3/3.