I hit the range once a week, occasionally two times and mostly concentrate on accuracy, speed and multiple target transitions. Rarely do I spend much time shooting strong hand only and hardly ever off hand only because, frankly, I suck at both. That needs to change.
Today I didn’t some time SHO practice and did okay, but just barely. Aligning the sights or finding the optic dot is a whole lot different with one hand, particularly being right handed/left eyed.
Many of the actual citizen crime-fightin’ videos I see, both criminals and good guys are shooting one handed and moving. Can’t move much at my indoor range, but I can see much more dry fire practice is in order.
What would you say is the percentage of one-hand shooting in your practice regimen?
Not much, because I like one-handed shooting a lot, and I have to force myself to practice the “proper” techniques before I start having fun. Otherwise, my muscle memory would simply revert to the classic bladed stance like some AEF officer who thinks he can dodge bullets by standing sideways.
I try to do both strong and weak hand every time I go to the range. Accuracy on slow fire has improved a lot since I started adding them to my routine, but follow up shots still way off.
Shooting one handed was the way people learned in the old days. We were even trained to shoot one handed in the military. Many of us made it a point to get proficient with either hand. Over the years two handed shooting was added to practice, but always include the old one handed drills. Where I shoot there are no restrictions on moving or drawing from holsters, so you can get creative in your practice routines.
I’m trying to do one hand shooting whenever I train shooting while moving. I use simple drill, moving diagonally forward and back over imaginary big X.
I change hands moving left or right and use two hands grip in the middle of the X.
If I’m satisfied with results - 18 - 20 rounds is enough, otherwise 9 - 10 more for corrections.
I have found when I do a lot of weak hand training then strong hand training my shooting with both hands improves a lot! I think it is great training to shoot single handed. I even practice point shooting at 12 feet with one hand shooting.
10-20% dry and live fire.
usually slow fire with the laser, and timed on the range.
not as much from the holster as I should.
1H accuracy seems to fall off faster than 2H when I skip.
Single-hand training is definitely important. You never know when one hand may be injured but you still need to be in the fight, or for those who have kids, you may need to use one hand to hold them behind you or however, that situation dictates.
I took a course up in Minnesota a few weeks back and we spent about 30-45 minutes working on single hand shooting. For both weak and strong the instructor had us try angling the firearm to about a 45-degree angle and it helped a bit with red dot acquisition as well as recoil management. If you are training one-handed, give it a try and see if it works for you. I noticed a huge difference.
I stopped using 45 degrees angle for single hand shooting.
I found it unnecessary change in my regular stance and grip. There’s no difference in shooting isosceles stance both and single hand. All mechanics are the same. In one hand shooting I put more weight on the leg which is on the same side as handgun to have better recoil control.
Several years ago I broke my right wrist in a motorcycle accident, and they put pins in my wrist. So the only way I could shoot was with my left hand. A few years after that I blew out the knuckle on my left hand trigger finger. so now when shooting left handed I have to pull the trigger with my middle finger. I just rest the stiff finger near the frame and carry on, it’s not that bad and I think it actually helps stabilize the pistol a little better.
Sounds like you are adapting well to your circumstances! I have seen some people recommend this method for point shooting without using the sights since you end up pointing your index finger at the target. Have only tried it a couple of times so can’t really say if it helps or not. The main disadvantage is you end up left with only two fingers on the grip so recoil control is reduced.
Just had a shoulder replaced (SH). For the next few months all of my shooting/training will be 1-handed. Should be interesting to (hopefully) track improvement. After this surgery is healed I am having the other shoulder done, so will repeat the process. When I get to that point I hope my 2-handed shooting has not degraded too much.
I caarry 2 weapons,a 45 in left shoulder holster and a 9mm on my right anchle,and I have on demand laseerrs on all my weapons rifles and pistols,I have all zeroed in that where the laser dot is is where the round goes and Y practice point shooting all the time,and No i dont really go to the range to practice and fiire expensive rounds up,as long as i can place to laser and snap cap laser where i and aiming the dot on the 3 laser targetsthe in a confrontation my motor memory takes over automatiicaly,as fat as the 9mm i practice in the down position and with my left hand,and my motor memory works no
matter what position I am in.When a situationn occurs you need to act and not rea ct because you only have seconds to live or die
I’m not sure I’m digesting this description correctly. Sorry if I missed something.
“The laser dot will be where the round goes” can work at the distance you set for zero and at that distance only. If the final zero setting is achieved without live ammunition (i.e. just registered to iron sights), the round is unlikely to land on the dot at that range, either.
It may not matter too much if the longest shot contemplated is 7-10 yards (unless one hopes to shoot the buttons off somebody’s shirt). Expectations that “bullet will hit the dot” are going to start failing pretty quick after that if sight offset and bullet arc are not considered in selecting a zero method.
This article doesn’t have the clearest descriptions, but it does cover the principal ways to account for the difference between a bullet and a light beam, and between a barrel axis and a sight axis. If some of this is unfamiliar information, search terms from the article will help dig for a better how-to.
I would agree that 90% dry fire and 10% with live ammo is a great way to save on ammunition and range expenses while getting effective practice. If we’re talking about thousands of shots per month. But if we’re talking about just a couple boxes of practice ammo a year, or no live shooting at all, I’m afraid that would be closer to “training” for an NFL career by playing lots of Madden.
Forgot to mention that when sighting inn a pistol i also use a laser snap cap and the open sights and squeeze the snap cap and see where all 3 hit,and this is in a secured weapons vice and on pistols is at 2o yds zero,which seem to do the job with a hit at up to 20 yds,the pistols are all red lasers and the rifles are all green which show farther in the daylight and really farther with the dark,but I have day noght thermal clipons for my rifles and some day/nite scops on my other rifles so when I have a thermal on one of the rifles then i use the clip on as a monoculerm
and all my rifles have range finders and windage clicks in them
I’ve been doing a lot more SHO. Every range trip now it’s at least semi featured and timed. But WHO, I see very very low chances of needing that, one or two strings of 3_5 per range maybe most times?
