Shooting sideways

[atxgun]

So long as a shooter is maintaining muzzle awareness, not flagging another shooter and his rounds are impacting down range, there is no safety violation.

Thank you

[ELB]

...
Holding a weapon weak hand, out of position, laying on my side, or even upside down is no more or less dangerous then another hold method.. ,, You coming over to my lane is,, stay away unless invited. So long as a shooter is maintaining muzzle awareness, not flagging another shooter and his rounds are impacting down range, there is no safety violation.

+1 on all three points. Or is that +3?

If the only way I can hit a close man-sized target at is to stand weaver-style, holding the gun straight up and down in both hands and look through the sights, then I am way too limited in technique. I can do more than that, but not enough more, so on to more practice and training. Public ranges have their functions, but learning self-defense shooting isn't really one of them. If you don't have your own turf to shoot on, it's hard.

There are some instructors who teach use of a gun indexing technique for quick-reaction close range that has the gun a a 45-degree angle and uses the corner of the slide as a "sight." (Jokingly called the "half-homey" position.) One example is where the a righthanded shooter loses use of the right eye (perhaps because it had blood or debris in it). Simply moving the gun over to the left eye using the right hand naturally cants the gun a bit, and looking down the corner of the slide gives an usable sight index, and saves the time that would be used to transfer the gun to the left hand.

There is a difference between sloppy gun-handling and experimenting with new techniques. Once you know the basics and the "rules," thinking through the ramifications of changing them, and then trying it to see if it works is learning. Kudos to atxgun for working things out for himself.

[HankB]

Q: Why do some people hold their handgun sideways when shooting it?

A: That's the way it came out of the box.

You might try some of these next time: http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/wp-con ... esytes.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[03Lightningrocks]

You probably misunderstood what the RO was upset over. I bet you were not using proper sideways gun technique. First and foremost I notice non-gang affiliated people fail to hold the gun above head level while pointing it down toward the target. You also must say lots of curse words while firing the gun. I bet you also forgot to put your gold caps in place on your front teeth.

[USA1]

You probably misunderstood what the RO was upset over. I bet you were not using proper sideways gun technique. First and foremost I notice non-gang affiliated people fail to hold the gun above head level while pointing it down toward the target. You also must say lots of curse words while firing the gun. I bet you also forgot to put your gold caps in place on your front teeth.

And...Your other hand has to hold up your baggy britches.

[WildBill]

How many Hail Mary's and Our Father's should I say for penance?

On second thought, how about raising your right hand and repeating five times "I am NOT a gangsta."

[MadMonkey]

Personally I think the RSO should be given a boot to the rear. Plenty of well-meaning people need it, actually...

I can think of situations where that hold would be needed.

[RHenriksen]

I've tried the gangsta hold a few times, out of curiousity. I don't see where it's wildly unsafe. My accuracy wasn't far off from a normal hold, though my follow up shots were a *lot* slower. Never had anyone say 'boo' about it, either.

[srothstein]

I am glad to see some real discussion on this topic, as opposed to just the normal put down for gangster style shooters. There is a difference between gangster style and just horizontal hold.

I have tried a few shots with horizontal holds, and taught some officers to do it. When shooting unsupported weakhanded, we usually teach the officers to hold a the pistol at a slight cant, just because the wrist itself is rarely at its strongest holding straight up. I have seen some officers recommending the same thing for unsupported strong hand, though i rarely recommend it. I find that the strong hand is usually strong enough to hold upright, while the weak hand is not.

I also teach officers full horizontal hold for shooting in tactical situations. For example, if you need to use a car for cover, you might decide to shoot under the car instead of over it. It is much easier to shoot horizontally when bending over and trying to get low enough to shoot underneath the car.

As for accuracy, you should see some degradation in the target accuracy of the pistol. The normal pistol design will have the barrel in a slight vertical angle to the sights. This is to account for the ballistic trajectory of ammunition plus the rise and fall of the barrel as the pistol recoils. When you shoot horizontally, the angle of the barrels is now at a different angle than the design factors took into account. The bullet will still fall as it moves forward, without quite as much upward angle from the barrel to counter the gravity. The bullet will also move of to the side more as the angle of the barrel is not countered by gravity and stays sideways. So, if I were shooting with the pistol tilted 90 degrees to the right, I would expect the bullet impact to be slightly lower than normal and slightly to the right. In combat shooting, at 7 to 10 yards, with normal acceptable accuracy being a 5 inch circle, you may not even notice the change. In bullseye shooting, where the center dot of the target is the real point to shoot for, you will see a degradation of accuracy that can be severe enough to cost you a contest.

So, to recap, it is important to practice this way for tactical shooting and it will not significantly impact the accuracy for combat uses.If trying for precision accuracy, then you should be able to notice the difference.

[The Annoyed Man]

Steve, I have a question though about right/left handedness....

I am left handed. If I shoot horizontally from my strong side, the ejection port of my pistol is facing downward. For a right handed shooter, it's facing upward. You've all indicated so far that shooting horizontally works for you and the gun does not experience malfunctions. But is my being left-handed going to influence the reliability shooting horizontally? Most of the time, the pistol is likely to be either a 3" or 5" 1911.

[E.Marquez]

Steve, I have a question though about right/left handedness....

I am left handed. If I shoot horizontally from my strong side, the ejection port of my pistol is facing downward. For a right handed shooter, it's facing upward. You've all indicated so far that shooting horizontally works for you and the gun does not experience malfunctions. But is my being left-handed going to influence the reliability shooting horizontally? Most of the time, the pistol is likely to be either a 3" or 5" 1911.

Unless your ejected casing is bouncing off something the gun does not care if the ejection port is up or down.. I have shot thousands of rounds around, over, under between barriers with both US army service pistols and personal ones...holding the pistol sideways, canted and even upside down... The pistol simply does not care,,, just point it in the right direction and all will be well.. Practice, practice, practice...

[The Annoyed Man]

Cool. Thanks for the answer.

[AddyLO]

Doh! I just came back to this thread. My apologies! For some reason when I read your first post I pictured you shooting across your body at hip height (i.e. sideways). Thus my response.

I withdraw my comment.

[TexDotCom]

I've not fired my SA XD .45 sideways, but I do recall numerous times when I had to fire my M16A2 that way. Any time we were prone and firing while in MOPP (chem/bio protective wear) and had our protective ("gas") masks on, we had to tilt the weapon up to fire because the mask canister would get in the way otherwise. As long as you practice your fundamentals of good sight picture, controlled breathing, and steady trigger pull, accuracy wasn't reduced all that much. I'd imagine a handgun would function in a similar manner, although the much shorter barrel might make things a lot more difficult.

My $.02