As Kevin would say, practicing with your ‘other strong hand’. When is the last time you shot with your ‘weak’ hand? The Lt. used to say every time you practice shoot one or two magazines with your weak hand. Its a practice I have done since the 80s, but my left has never become as good as my right, I may be able to keep them ‘in the black at seven yards’, but its not a target that I would brag about.
Along these lines, have you ever considered needing to wear your firearm on the opposite side? I didn’t until this weekend. Drawing with the weak side, wearing the firearm on the opposite side and, for me, having a left hand side holster were not things I had thought about, but it is something you may want to consider.
Nasty cut on the Index finger, the splint keep it from bending and opening back up. It won’t fit in the trigger guard. The middle finger has the remains of a burn/blister. Got to go with the Left, for me the weak hand.
Practicing as a lefty, while shooting is one thing, but I have never considered what I would really need to do to be prepared to carry as a lefty. Good news, the cut should be healed enough to shoot with in a week or two, till then a new holster is ordered and should be here in a couple of days.
We constantly try to visualize the worse case scenario, but do we think about it from the aspect of what we may be physically capable of doing?
OUCH! Hopefully your fingers heal quickly, @Stone!
In my experience, my dominant hand is more likely to get hurt from falls or burns, but my other hand has taken the brunt of cuts. I almost broke my right hand at one point during a black belt testing, so I didn’t carry for a few days because I wasn’t prepared to carry on the left. Granted, I was prepared to physically defend myself with my left hand if I had to hand-to-hand.
But you bring up a great point - who has a setup (holster, mag holster, etc.) for their non-dominant hand?
My Weak Hand is really weak. There’s not a day I don’t have any pain but I cannot take pain medicine or even Advil. I did the best I could when I was first shot afterwards but I could not take your normal prescription pain medicine because all it ever did was constipate me and make my right ear ring non-stop. Advil / Tylenol same only after regular blood tests I was looking at Liver problems so I just live with the pain. My left index finger was shot off by a gang banger in my old neighborhood in Chicago my Second month I was retired. So my hand kind of looks a little deformed. I don’t ever have expectations for getting better. Even sleeping it hurts, cannot clap my hands at a show etc. I fake clap so as to not appear rude or ignorant. I grabbed the gun from the shooter, there was no way I was going to bring a gun to the city, my only savior was I’m a young 69 year old. Then I was 67. I was not going to be caught up in the courts for the next 10 years and right then I didn’t hear of USCCA at this time of my life, I had a distant company. So I cannot shoot left handed, my middle finger is now acting as an index finger and just not even interested in attempts to shoot any gun with my left hand.
I’ll generally do one handed drills each time I go to the range. I dont spend a ton of time on it however, but I do spend some time. If I got a hand injury, I’d spend some time putting in alot of dry fire reps.
Let’s hope you never need to, but it sounds like you have it covered. I can shoot with the left, but had never thought about drawing and carrying on that side.
I carry my gun at 230-330 and always ensure I can draw the gun from my strong side with my weak hand. I practice this dry fire at home and even include it in my own personal defensive pistol curriculum. Also one hand reloads with weak hand as well.
We dont spend a ton of time on it as statistically it’s unlikely to happen, but i also dont want my students to have to figure it out in a life and death situation either, because Murphy’s law.
It not so much the accuracy, which could be better. It the fact I never thought about having to carry and draw from that side. I can carry at the 4 or so and reach around behind me to draw, but that is slow and I don’t practice it that often.
@Stone Actually, with my heavier iron, I prefer shoulder rig on offside. So, while it’s a bit of a pain it’s no worse off handing time-wise to carry only a back up at the ankle. I hadn’t seen Versa Carry before, neat stuff! But I did have an interesting come away when I looked at their “Left hand carry” gear. Aside from the metal clipped rigs, I could have sworn I was looking at right hand oriented…
@Robert8 I remember your injury Brother, from some of your past posts but it’s so easy to forget when thinking about a topic just personally. I didn’t know you have had to deal with unrelieved pain. IF I wasn’t in Doctor’s care with something… well, I’m sorry my friend; I wish better tomorrows for you, Sir.
I’m chiming in with loads of dry fire and live one-handed both sides for practice, Trying to contort offhand to our everyday carry rig is something really good to remember practicing. It’s so easy to let that get away when every day is like yesterday - until it isn’t.
Both of these are one handed drills. I stuck the opposite hand in my back pocket to keep from using it. 2 magazines worth on each target, that means one handed reloads. Top is my right (dominant) hand, bottom is my left (weak) hand. Both were starting from holster. I almost dropped my firearm drawing off hand. But i did make it work.
Carry corset or hip band can both be used as ambi-carry - so I can set up either to carry left instead of right - or both for that matter.
I haven’t worked enough on left hand draw, so that needs more range time. I have worked some on it though, and can do left-hand draw of my right-hand setup if needed from both carry corset and hip band. (I do appendix carry so that helps with this).
I don’t have hard holsters that are set up for left hand draw though… that’s probably worth considering.
And I do some off-hand shooting most range visits.
