Posted: 8/20/2008 4:35:58 AM EDT
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Yesterday after weeks of procrastinating, I finally made it out to the range to practice weak hand shooting. Nothing else was going to be practiced. I NEED TO PRACTICE A LOT MORE ! It was not pretty in the least. Practice shooting with your weak hand. Murphy's Law does not exempt our strong hands. Medicguy |
I've done a bit of weak hand pistol shooting and, yes, I suck  . Better to find out now, though. Plus there's reloading and clearance drills. Yeesh. And, now that I think of it, I've never done the same with my carbine. Always nice to know how much you don't know.... 
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Don't forget the "simple" transition from your Primary to Support side. We have no weak side guys! 
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I think a few good, professional, tactical carbine & tactical handgun courses will do the masses of ARFCOM a world of good!!! It gets you thinking & practicing more for these things... In your practice, your preps, your gear, and your mindset. I just took a course that opened my eyes to a whole new world of shooting techniques, and one-handed holster drawing/shooting/reloading/malfunciton clearing was addressed thoroughly! I was incredibly impressed with the results shown on my shot groupings as well! 
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You mean like THIS. 
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| I guess I'm lucky if you can call it that. I have a bad right shoulder, so I learned to shoot with my off hand. I also started doing everything with my left hand. Now I'm pretty close to ambidexterous in shooting and everything else. If anything my right hand lags a little behind my left. |
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I had a motorcycle accident a few years back where I couldn't use my strong side for a while. My weak hand shooting got really good after that. In fact, it got better than my strong hand until I finished rehab. Now, both are good. The weak side shouldn't have any bad habits if you practice the correct way. |
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The trick is to be as close to 'ambidextrous' as you can with your guns... It gives you versatility in shooting skill. MOST people keep their holster on their strong side, and mags on their weak hand side. The best option is to keep at least ONE spare mag on your strong hand side in the event that your weak/supporting hand is injured or otherwise 'occupied' at the moment you need a reload! Likewise, it is often recommended that you keep a secondary 'pouch holster' on your weak-hand side... Something like a STRIKE M4 Pistol pouch...  It's basically a 2-Mag M4 Pouch with a more robust top flap. This way you can use an AR/M4 mag pouch as a secondary holster in a time of need, and it allows you to 'holster' your sidearm on your weak-hand side (often on a chest rig or plate carrier). This allows you to be truly 'abidextrous' with your weapons. The reason people tend to carry a spare mag on their strong-hand side is incase their weak-hand is occupied... When attempting to unass the area, your weak hand might be digging for keys or trying to unlock your car while you're shooting with your strong hand! Or you might be carrying your child and running to get him/her to safety or cover while you're shooting with your strong hand. If you run out of ammo, and you can't reload on the move, you might be pretty screwed. This is why many of my friends (who went to the sandbox) kept some of their pistol mags in the front/center of their Plate Carriers - it's accessible by either hand, and you can still engage a threat one-handed... When dragging an injured buddy out of a building, you can shoot with your M9 while dragging... Your buddies can only provide so much covering fire while you do the dragging. You're further out front, exposed, and you might see a threat off to one side that your buddies can't see/engage - so YOU must use your pistol to engage them while you're dragging. If your pistol runs dry it's good to have a reload available on your strong-hand side while you try to get your buddy to cover/medic/corpsman. It just helps being able to fire both your rifle and sidearm ambidextrous!
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+1, you don't have a weak hand. It's your support hand. Practice with it, and also practice reloading with one hand only and getting the gun going in case you are injured. |
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I'm partially ambidextrous, so while not as accurate with my off hand, it doesn't feel too uncomfortable and with plenty of practice, should be able to shoot just as well with either hand. I was born left handed, but my mom thought that was weird and forced me to learn to write with my right hand. I shoot and write with my right hand, while I throw with my left. I wear a watch on my right wrist also. I can eat just as well with either hand and sometimes get confused which hand to hold the fork with.  |
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2 things I've learned: 1) Support hand practice with pistols is 1-handed. If you are working on your stance etc with your support hand and main hand reversed, consider the situations you will be using your support hand and not your main hand--something is wrong with the main hand. 2) If you are more accurate with your support hand, your problem with the main hand is you aren't paying as much attention. You are actually focusing more, concentrating more, and being more careful when shooting with the support hand...review your basiscs with the main hand:) 1 thing to learn: One-handed reloads. Support hand as primary, and support hand unavailable. I think when wheel guns were primary, this was practiced more. Holster, mag, draw, release slide. Support hand becomes a beast. Anyone have a good video for one-handed reloads? FWIW I love my XDs with the ambidex-mag releases. |
for the trigger pulling, my .22 DA revolver is a fine support hand trainer. That long deliberate trigger pull forces you to concentrate. I got pretty good at it but I don't do anything "tactical" such as injured hand reload exercises with it. For that I use a real gun.
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And to add to this, make sure you practice drawing your weapon from your weak side. Never know when the primary limb might be a bit dinged up and you have to reach across your own body and try and draw to save your own keister.... |
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Extremely important to work on shooting, reloading, clearing a malfunction with the support hand. People tend to shoot at the threat - i.e. your gun and hand. What we were taught is that a lot of shootings occur in which the gunhand is struck in the initial barrage. The closer you are the easier it is to hit. Being able to manipulate your weapon with your support hand may be the deal breaker. I practice by locking the pistol open, empty mag or either a stovepipe jam, and just tossing on the floor or ground. Pick it up and learn to manage dropping the mag, retrieving and inserting a fresh mag and then rack the slide. I try to catch the rear sights on the hem of my pants or on my boot heel and shove the pistol down to unlock and drop the slide. If I can hit the slide release if just on an empty mag, I do it. |