I searched, but didn't find what I'm looking for.
While reading the point shooting thread I realized I don't know dick about handgun fundamentals. I've watched videos and read articles on grip, stance, breathing, etc. but I still struggle to control the pistol and shoot accurately. I'm not interested in competitive target shooting or other "square range" disciplines. I carry and want to be fast and accurate.

What's the state-of-the-art in defensive/tactical pistol techniques these days? Do I need to take a class or can I fix myself with videos and dry-fire practice?

TLDR: I suck at handguns and don't want to.

Read Bill Jordan's book "No Second Place Winner".  Jordan was a master at point shooting.

If you practice Jordan's method of point shooting, you can achieve startling accuracy.  I got to where hitting smaller targets at 5-10 yards was no problem.  Some advantages of point shooting are speed, ability to hit your target in complete darkness WITHOUT the aide of night sights, red dots, lasers, or any kind of sighting apparatus.  Keeping the weapon very close to the side of your body also makes disarming you more difficult.

Plus, point shooting that way is just a lot of fun.  IIRC, Jordan called the exercise "rock on's" because as the pistol cleared the holster, it was rotated so it rocked onto position on the target.

IIRC, Jordan said that nothing breaks your opponent's concentration and aim like a couple of rounds to the belt buckle area.

Jordan would give demonstrations where he would begin with a ping-pong ball balanced on the back of his hand that was above his holstered pistol.  He would drop the ping-pong ball, draw, and shoot the ping-pong ball before it hit the ground.  Then he would point shoot 2" wood discs, then point shoot Neco candy wafers, and finally point shoot aspirin tablets.  A person capable of that kind of speed and accuracy could really mess someone else up in a gunfight.  

Jordan was in many gunfights, and like he said, there is no second place winner in a gun fight.


I don't believe there really are any "advanced" gun fighting tactics.  Most of the real advancements started within a decade or two of Jeff Cooper and the modern pistol techniques.  The best instructors are the best because they can properly explain the techniques and how to use them to students...they aren't necessarily the fastest guns around.

It is more difficult to find a good instructor than it is to find a good shooter.  Good shooters are fairly easy to find, finding a good shooter who can teach others is really wonderful.

Scott Satterlee, and Clint Smith are among instructors that can REALLY teach.  Thunder Ranch and Gunsight are world famous learning centers with well earned reputations for excellence in instruction.

With handgun fundamentals, having a good instructor is important.

You can find local NRA classes here:

https://www.nrainstructors.org/Search.aspx

Don't think you'd go wrong with references like SGM Lamb's book: Stay in the Fight!! Warriors Guide to the Combat Pistol

This is the standard NRA pistol manual describing the isosceles position and fundamentals of marksmanship which includes printable targets:

https://www.nrainstructors.org/InstructorAdmin/docs/82608D1143424B57BFE0A018DDB1CE3Q/BOPS_ILT_07282017.pdf

Not interested? You are going to have a very hard time getting as fast and accurate as possible

No matches...if you never challenge yourself against others and the clock how do you know if you are as fast as possible?
Why mentally minimalize Square range shooting

Reading books is not going to help
practice practice practice

I like the concept of point shooting. When practicing my draw and presentation, I can get on target immediately by holding my thumbs parallel with the bore and pointing them while looking directly at the target. Getting on the sights usually takes me another second or two, and feels slow and clunky. I think this is something I can train, but it doesn't feel natural.
From reading a few point shooting threads I know it's not without its detractors, so I'm not attached to it as the be-all of shooting, but it does seem intuitive and natural to me.

I think my main problem isn't acquiring the target, but controlling the pistol...however my slow-fire aimed shooting isn't great either. What's frustrating is I've been working on this for a few years now, watching videos and practicing. Rifles, carbines, shotguns? I'm not a pro, but I picked them up without much trouble. Handguns, I am still like a baby.



Thanks for the links and book recommendations. I'll seek out some trainers locally.




I should have clarified: as fast and accurate as necessary to make good hits in a dynamic situation. Of course there are important skills the square range can teach, but Olympic bullseye shooting isn't going to prepare you for the same thing as force-on-force (for example).
Despite the poor video quality, this is the type of scenario I'm interested in training for: https://imgur.com/a/JM2oELZ

Anyway, I think the square range has good lessons, but not all the lessons. Without intent to start a disagreement, I include things like IPSC and USPSA in this category. It's more like kata than sparring; the former is important, but insufficient on its own.

You need to get over this mindset.  The reason 99% of people say they don't want to compete is they suck.  Swallow your ego, go shoot a match, get stomped by an old man in Jorts and New Balance, then practice so you stop sucking.

Gun games are fun. I play them.

Gun can games help you become comfortable with a firearm.

But as it pertains to killing something, there is a totally separate type of thought process involved. If you think you might ever have to… it is the THOUGHT PROCESS that requires the greatest rehearsal.

Da Vinci probably spent very little time contemplating where to buy paint, or how best to hold a brush.

I do suck.
I realize now I shouldn't have derailed my own thread



100%.

Almost poetic, that one. Im gonna steal that.

Grip is huge to having confidence in the handgun.  It’s where the rubber meets the road.

I liked Travis Haley’s instruction on grip.  Some good videos out there on it with him giving a solid over view of it.

You likely won’t get good until you spend some brass on a range.

ETA: I like the multi day immersion training classes.  Spending an hour with earl at the local indoor range is ok if you’re starting from scratch, but invest in a solid 2-5 day class.

1st who shoots Olympic?
2nd Your current mindset and lack of shooting knowledge (which is making up artificial barriers around certain aspects of shooting) is your biggest hindrance.

There is a reason Tier 1 units like Delta (for a fact) hire guys like Rob Leatham to come in a teach classes.
Competition while does not teach tactics, will force you to shoot fast and accurately as possible (which is at least 50% of winning a gunfight)

My recommendation is to start with Safety and Pistol Marksmanship Fundamentals (sighted).

After that, I teach my students to how to safety and effectively use barricades and holsters.  Then I bring in point shooting.

The NRA pistol training program (Basic Pistol, Personal Protection in the Home, Personal Protection outside the Home, etc) generally follows those lines of development.

Skipping ahead can cause you to ingrain bad habits, which take a lot of work to get rid of.

After you are safe, can execute good fundamentals, and can use a holster safely, then you can think about doing USPSA, IDPA, etc.  Competition will introduce you to other people in the shooting community and is affordable to get into.  Competition's biggest benefit is to challenge you and get practice with gunhandling skills and your gear.

While I only compete from time to time, even serious competitors will tell you the hard work is done with your dryfire practice.  You can do confirmation of that practice with live fire on the weekends, competitions, running qualifications, or training classes.  Regular training over time is the fastest way to getting good.

I stopped shooting 30 years ago because of bad eyesight. Getting old sucks. After 2 cataract surgeries and putting red dots on pistols, I’m back to shooting again. I quickly realized unless I was shooting one round every 4-5 seconds, everything I was doing was wrong. I wasn’t able to shoot fast and accurately. I watched YouTube videos on the proper grip and practiced with a Sig 320 grip module while watching TV. I got it worked out and confirmed I was on the right path thru live fire. I shoot 3-4 times a week and each time I pay strict attention to grip, stance, and trigger. I have specific goals each trip and try to improve just a bit each time. I am 1,000 times better than I was years ago. YouTube is a great resource.

Also, red dots are fantastic training tools because you can see what the dot does during recoil. This gives you immediate feedback on your grip and stance.

IMO, the best pistol class you can take is Tactical Performance Center. You will master the fundamentals and be able to diagnose your own deficiency and furthermore correct it in 3 days. You can look them up on YouTube and check out the material. YouTube is not a place to learn though and their live classes are much more in detail and much more in depth. You’re just getting a taster.

As far as sport shooting, I know a GM who is a very big name in the sport and he is brought in all the time to teach Army’s Tier 1. That unit is allowed to bring in who they want and he gets brought in multiple times a year. He probably makes the vast majority of his income from those contracts. Other military units bring in sports shooters all the time as well. That should tell you something. As was mentioned though, sports shooting and actually shooting in a defensive scenario will require two different mindsets. Sport shooters can teach you the shooting part, the mindset and how to cultivate it is another topic all together.

Fundamentals is a term that requires context, because not everyone is talking about the same thing when we say it.  There are fundamentals to marksmanship, operation of the firearm, movement, target ID and engagement, etc.  Everything starts out somewhere, which is what we refer to as the fundamentals.  The best way to describe it is one that has been used for decades, which is to consider everything like a pyramid.  You need a wide solid base that will support everything else.  That base are your core fundamentals of marksmanship and gun operation.  Once you have that, you can start stacking on more skills to build up your mental skill pyramid.  You can do things like movement, positional shooting, working around vehicles, long range target engagement, CQB/room clearing, ECQC, etc.  It’s important to start out with basics and build.  The best shooters in the world didn’t get there by learning to run and gun before they could properly draw, grip a gun, work a trigger and consistently hit what they are aiming at.  

I’ve been a MIL, LE and civilian firearms instructor for 21 years, and I’ve been around every shift in training ideology and TTP in that time.  The one thing that stays true and consistent throughout is that core fundamentals of marksmanship are necessary and the key to success.  I’ve had a software engineer come in to a course and smoke a 15 year LE SWAT veteran with military experience because the software engineer did regimented dry fire practice 3-4 nights a week and shot at least 2-3 times a week.  He had learned basic shooting fundamentals and just kept practicing on his own.  As a result, he’s one of the best non-professional shooters I’ve ever met.  When he started taking tactics-based classes like when we would host Dave Spaulding for adaptive combat pistol or critical space pistol, and our own Moving Pistol course, he excelled in class and learned quickly.  He didn’t have to dedicate time and mental energy trying to keep his fundamentals in check, and could dedicate all of his attention to the movements and problem solving needed.  In training, there are two main kinds of training: skill-based and tactics-based.  Skill-based training is your fundamental marksmanship or precision rifle shooting stuff.  Tactics-based is your movement, CQB, vehicle, etc training.  Tactics-based training is an amalgamation of multiple skill sets.  Skill sets are an amalgamation of a number of related individual skills.  In short, SKILL + SKILL + SKILL = SKILL SET.  Tactics-based training then is where you get SKILL SET + SKILL SET + SKILL SET = TACTICS.

The point to all of this is that you will never get to the level of high proficiency of some fictional movie character, 20 years SOF veteran, 25 year metro SWAT cop, USPSA Grandmaster or professional trick-shooter if you never learn to master the fundamentals of marksmanship and basic firearm manipulation.  The worst shooters I’ve ever had in class are the ones that have garbage fundamentals, but think they don’t need them and then decide to take more advanced skill -based courses.  They struggle in class and don’t bother to understand why, and then when told that their struggles are related to lacking fundamentals, they deflect and find alternate excuses.  I can’t tell you how many students I’ve had over the years that claimed they were highly skilled and trained shooters who wound up being at the bottom of the class.  Every time it was because they had learned something 20 years ago in basic training, of it was something their daddy taught them, or they watched online videos and didn’t need to actually learn from real qualified instructors.  

Start by taking a basic pistol course.  Single-day courses are a good start, but a multi-day course from a National level instructor will yield the best results for opening your horizons.  A shooting academy like Rogers Shooting School, Gunsite or Thunder Ranch would also be a good option.  Low-level qualifications like NRA certifications are fine for getting the basics, but be careful about how much weight you give to paper certifications.  As you progress, you will learn to evaluate instructors and academies and figure out what you like and don’t like, and who knows what they’re talking about and who is just a parrot regurgitating what they’ve been told.  

I would also be careful about putting emphasis and training time on point shooting.  It is a very misunderstood topic, where people treat it as a primary shooting method when in reality it’s a exigent shooting skill to be used when needed.  Point shooting ability is great, but when you have to make a hit on a threat at 20yds in a crowd, it’s the wrong tool for the job.  The best point shooters in the world, guys like Bill Jordan, have spent years developing the neural pathways to get the repeatable kinesthetic alignment needed to make those shots.  This is colloquially called “muscle memory”, but scientifically it’s referred to as Automaticity or repetitive task transference.  Regardless of what you call it, you can’t just decide in a weekend to be a good point shooter and be one.  And no matter how good someone’s point shooting is, sighted shooting will always be more accurate and repeatable.  There are numerous statistics and studies, including some done by Dr Bill Lewinski of the Force Science Institute, that lend credence to the necessity for aimed fire and how it positively affects outcomes of gunfights.  This starts at training, which is where you are at.  Yes, point shooting is pretty much fine at 3yds.  But for those that have been in shootings at longer distances, we can tell you that sighted fire becomes a necessity.  In my own training with my training group, we put students through a short segment on point shooting and the wheels come off around 7-10yds, depending on the skill of the shooter.  Beyond that, the vast majority of trained shooters are having difficulty getting all rounds on the target.  Students with less experience don’t even keep the rounds on the paper.  
I’m not saying point shooting is bad by any means- it just needs context.  In specific contexts, you benefit from knowing how to do it.  But deciding that it’s something you should concentrate on right now when you admit that you are inexperienced on the fundamentals is the wrong path.  If you don’t have a solid understanding of grip, draw stroke, aiming, trigger press, recoil control or other skills, then what is the point of just slinging rounds down range?  In the training world we have a term for that: ballistic masturbation.  

I would also caution you about having an aversion to competition shooters.  As has been pointed out, the goal of both competition and winning a gunfight is to put the most accurate rounds on target the fastest.  SOF and LE units worldwide have taken training from top shooters like Rob Leatham, Todd Jarrett, Jerry Miculek, etc.  The top shooters in my department (a major metro LE agency) are sponsored national-level competition shooters who do everything from 3-gun to IPSC to The Tactical Games.  Competition is great skill source if you take it in context.  Again, that’s the key- CONTEXT.  

Start out at the bottom.  Learn the basics.  Get rid of any preconceived notions or ideas of what you want to be like.  Just strive to be a good shooter.  With skill mastery comes competence, and with competence comes speed and confidence.  

Food for thought.

Great post!

Were I you, I'd start with a good shooting coach. They can spot weaknesses in your technique and help you hone good habits. Get accurate, then get faster.

Damn. This post is spot on.