I’ve used them and seen guys on the range use them. I print all of my targets off of the internet for the price of paper and ink. I figure if I can hit a 9 inch pie plate or an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper from multiple distances, I am combat accurate. Do I still practice precision shooting? Yes. Of course. Sticky notes and an old deck of playing cards work for that too. We also shoot the old trifold display boards our kids used for school projects. Lots if little stuff to shoot at on those as well.
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The first shooting class I ever took used a crass phrase to teach this. Pardon me for repeating it, but “tits to pits.” Line up the nipples and the armpits and shoot along that line.
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We were taught to NOT use sul. But this picture is also NOT what we were told Sul was.
The Sul they demonstrated has the gun angling at more of a 45 degree angle towards the front rather than this picture which is very close to straight down. Thanks for providing this pic.
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I was taught that it is actually a Portuguese word since the concept was developed in Brazil. (Google says it means “south.”) Masad Ayoob and others teach that the Brazilian SWAT were taught a similar technique for officers entering a building. The Brazilian cops were constantlu muzzling the guy in front of them (and maybe friendly fire was happening too). So they trained their cops to use position Sul to mitigate. What they showed us was not what was pictured but more of a 45 degree downward angle. We were taught it is not a good tool since you are still muzzling someone in front of you, now his lower extremities rather than the middle of his back. We were taught a technique not called Sul, but very similar to what @Karacal posted. Your support hand opens up and you pivot the gun straight down keeping your hands together. Very fast to get the gun back to correct grip.
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Reading these posts, I see resistance to head shots but there are 2 scenarios we specifically trained for as federal agents where they might be the only option.
The first is where a bad guy is holding a hostage in front of him with only his head or even just part of it showing. The other is when a suicide bomber has a vest loaded with explosives. A chest shot would end the encounter but not in a good way.
If his finger is on the button, there’s a chance he’ll still set off the explosives with a head shot but at least you have a fifty-fifty chance.
Not as many chances of encountering these scenarios as a civilian but I still practice head shots anyway because as we all know, the bad guys chose the time and place and you never know what you might encounter.
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but for your bomb scenario, you need more than just a head shot. You really need to be shooting through some very small piece of the head: the ocular cavity, nose/mouth, or the ear or maybe the back of the head/brain stem. That’s really the only way to reliably shut down the central computer and turn the bad guy off now.
I don’t recall seeing this discussed above, but head shots that hit the bony parts of the head have been known to glance off and not penetrate into the brain. Seems I just read about this actually happening somewhere but I don’t recall where.
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Don’t know if it’s true but one of the cons of a .223 or .556 is that they’re too light weight. Hitting even a small twig or similar will deflect the round off course. Perhaps a more knowledgeable person can give some insight.
There was no time to set up in either scenario. The hostage taker was on a movie screen stepping out from behind a container about 35 feet away. You have an M9 with a red dot, loaded with virtual bullets. The bad guy has one arm wrapped around a woman’s chest with his other hand pressing his gun against her temple and peeking from behind it. While I would strive to shoot him between the eyes, he’s hyped up and not standing still. Anything could happen. You could hit the gun, which would result in it going off killing the hostage and shoot you before you nailed him with your second shot or you could succeed and free the hostage.
The same applies to the suicide bomber. This was done with live actors showing up unexpectedly in the middle of a different training scenario. It’s fluid and there’s no time to think. Even though it was a simulation, it gets the adrenalin pumping.
IRL, I’d be happy with a shot that stopped the threat even if it wasn’t perfectly between the eyes.
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I heard about the kid in the top photo,
Yes he lived, but it’s not like he walked away from it either!
When it happened he collapsed instantly and was in a coma after hours of surgery. The fact that he ever woke up and had any level of function is astounding!
That’s a far cry from taking that headshot and just standing there carrying on a conversation.
And of the undoubtedly millions of people that have received headshots since the invention of the gun, I’d say the survival rate is pretty insignificant.
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Those pictures are creepy and could give a person nightmares. Still glad you posted them.
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There will always be reasons for head shots. Anytime the head is all you can see is a great reason for them. A head shot is great for hitting someone behind cover but requires more precision. But, with someone charging me, I would go for the body. Chest and pelvic areas are much easier when you are in a rush, but I do practice head shots too. It’s easy to hit the head at the range. It is even easier to hit the body.
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Head shots are just one tool in the tool bag, just like golf clubs. And like golf clubs you need to get good with all of them AND how to execute different kinds of shots with each.
So practice, practice, practice so you can think fast and use the tool that meets the task. Never get hung up on a particular stance, drill or shot count when training. Every nanosecond is an opportunity to make a good or poor decision and having many options i good.
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Well said.
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Not only can the bullet glance off of the skull but it’s my understanding that even if it penetrates the skull it might not instantly shut the person off unless it hits the part of the brain that controls motor function. I believe those controls are in the lower part of the brain and brain stem located right behind the area around the nose that you described. But too low and you risk missing the brain altogether.
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9mm bullets have been known to deflect off car windshields due to the angle. The same has been documented with a shot to a skull hit at an angle.
The kill shot is to the brain stem so the middle of the face - between the eyes or upper part of the nose.
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During the first in person pistol self defense class I took we had a segment where we skipped bullets off of the top of 50 gallon plastic drums into a target. All the bullets shot by the various participants in the class - 9mm, .45, 40 - glanced right off the top and into the target as long as the angle was shallow enough. Windshields are even tougher than the plastic barrels.
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When I lived in New England a lot of the hunters would talk about how easily rifle bullets could be deflected by hitting twigs or even leaves in the thick forests up there. This was considered true even with .308 or 30-06. It was often recomended to use heavy for caliber bullets with flat or rounded tips to decrease the chances for deflection.
Makes sense to me from a physics perspective though maybe they were all just using that as an excuse for missing their targets during hunting season🤷♂️
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I have never heard of that. Fascinating. Makes sense, but so interesting. Like skipping rocks I suppose.
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Just like skipping rocks. If I remember correctly the primary point he was trying to show us was why you want to hide behind the engine block or wheels of a vehicle and not stand up and shoot over the hood where an attackers misses could get deflected at you off of the hood or the window.
This instructor also taught the State Police special response team and threw in several different training techniques that I suspect most people don’t get in a level 1 self defense pistol class.
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