POINT SHOOTING?

What Is Point Shooting?

• When this page was intially posted, in May 1998, the topic of point shooting had recently re-emerged in the law enforcement training community. At that time it was still a fairly hot debate, largely because most the advocates of point shooting and most of the advocates of aimed fire were largely treating it as a matter of "either-or."
• Point shooting means different things to different people. To some people it means hip shooting, with the gun well below the line of sight. To others it means shooting with the gun at or near a conventional position for aimed fire but with the vision focused on the selected target, not on the sights. For others, dating back to Fairbairn and Sykes, and increasingly including more of today's trainers, it is part of a continuum that begins with shooting from the hip and ends with traditionally aimed fire, depending on the distance to the threat.
• This page presents some of the major and a few of the minor variations in point shooting, in an effort to enhance understanding of that continuum.

How Do Bullets Find Their Targets?

• Guns launch projectiles in relatively straight lines. In order for the bullet to hit its target, the muzzle has to be aligned with the target at the time that the bullet exits the bore.
• Precision is a relative matter. Generally the need for precision in this alignment increases as the distance to the target increases. A lot of gunfights with handguns actually occur at ranges of about two arm's lengths or less.
• At the very closest of ranges you could actually hold the muzzle against your assailant and put the bullet into him. It might not go into the most disabling part of his anatomy, but you could say that you aligned the bore to the target by touch.
• As the distance grows you can still get a fairly good alignment with a target which is not moving radically merely by body position. Body position is, in fact, a component of precision, sighted shooting. Target shooters refer to it as the natural point of aim (NPOA).
• NPOA is the orientation of your body to your target for the particular position you are shooting where, after you have obtained your sight picture, you can close your eyes for a moment and still find your sights aligned with your target when you reopen your eyes. When you train repeatedly with the NPOA, it becomes natural to adopt that orientation toward potential targets.
• As your distance from the target increases it usually becomes necessary to use a visual index. As the distance continues to grow, not only do most people need to use the sights to align the gun with the target, but they need to use them with increasing care as the distance grows increasingly longer. Keep in mind that circumstances other than distance may also increase the need for precision.

The O.S.S. Legacy

• W.E. Fairbairn rose to the rank of Assistant Commissioner of the Shanghai Municipal Police in the period between both World Wars. During this time he and E.A. Sykes developed a method of close-quarters shooting based on their observations and research of actual gunfights. Their method was a radical departure from the traditional, one-handed bullseye shooting which constituted most handgun training at that time.
• The Fairbairn/Sykes method is actually a continuum, ranging from hip shooting to sighted fire, according to the distance to the threat and the rapidity of its appearance. On the one hand they actually described "quarter hip," "half hip" and "three-quarter hip" positions. On the other hand, they also taught several variations on two-handed, aimed fire.
• In late 1942, Fairbairn came to the U.S. to provide training for the new American intelligence agency, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). He was assigned an assistant, then-Lieutenant Rex Applegate. In training the OSS operatives Fairbairn emphasized his three-quarter hip position.
• When Applegate transferred to the Military Intelligence Training Center, after a stint with Sykes in England, he combined the body attitude of the three-quarter hip position with the raising of the pistol to eye level, as Fairbairn and Sykes taught as their most basic instruction to beginners.
• The Applegate method consists of:
  1. A deep crouch;
  2. Lunging toward the threat, facing it squarely;
  3. Focusing the eyes on the threat;
  4. Extending the non-gun hand to the side for balance;
  5. Grasping the gun in alignment with the forearm, at the end of a fully extended arm which is kept about 45 degrees below horizontal;
  6. Raising the gun into the line of sight as though the arm were a pump handle;
  7. Holding the gun in a "convulsive" grip and firing the gun with the squeeze of the entire hand as it enters the line of sight.
• The three-quarter hip position differs primarily by holding the gun horizontally at the body's vertical midline, at chest level or slightly lower. This requires some flexion of the elbow.
• While these methods differ in that one supplements the role of body position with a coarse visual alignment, both emphasize an attempt to incorporate the body's natural reaction to high stress.
• Col. Applegate gave me a video copy of a post-WWII FBI training film. It depicts one technique, often referred to as the FBI crouch, that is very similar to Fairbairn and Sykes' three-quarter hip position. A second technique depicted, often referred to as the FBI shoulder point, is very similar to Applegate's method. For many years the FBI taught the use of both, depending on the distance to the target. A few FBI agents did take leave from the bureau for military service in WWII.
• It is noteworthy that legendary lawman D.A. "Jelly" Bryce apears in many photographs in a very aggressively forward-leaning shooting position that closely resembles Fairbairn and Sykes' three-quarter hip position. Bryce joined the FBI in 1934, one of several police officers who were apparently hired because of their records as gunfighters. He was extensively involved in that agency's firearms training program throughout his 23 years of service.
• A continuum of unsighted shooting positions also appears in Bill Jordan's book, No Second Place Winner. Jordan's continumm uses what appear to be variations on on Fairbairn and Sykes's half hip and three-quarter hip positions at zero to three yards and three to seven yards, respectively, then brings in the support hand to supplement the three-quarter hip position for seven to 15 yards, giving us a preview of one of Jim Cirillo's techniques.

By this point in his career, Applegate was already wearing the silver oak leaves of a lieutenant colonel and was assigned to the Military Intelligence Training Center at Ft. Ritchie MD. He is pictured here with some of the trademark equipment of the operatives of the day, including suppressed pistols. Col. Applegate generously provided me hours of videos of historic films and recent training programs.

Bill Jordan contrasted his upright style of point shooting with what he called the "gunfighter crouch." The crouch was used by "Jelly" Bryce and is a part of Applegate's sytem, as well as the Fairbairn-Sykes "Three-quarter Hip" and "Half Hip" positions, albeit not as exaggerated. In this photo the difference between the two shooters is magnified as Jordan stood well over six feet in height. Fairbairn and Sykes taught the crouch because they had observed that it was an instinctive response to danger. Others may have exaggerated it in the belief that shots tend to go high (as they often do in the dark) and that a deeper crouch might allow incoming fire to pass over the shooter. I believe that inexperienced or overly excited shooters tend to jerk their shots low and that too deep a crouch limits mobility.

• When Col. Applegate first challenged me to think about point shooting, I had two major concerns with his method, both of which involved the concept of stepping toward the threat to establish the requisite body alignment:
  1. I was uncomfortable with stepping toward a threat which might be charging me, perhaps with a knife, while thrusting a gun out where it could be grabbed by the assailant. I know of no handgun ammunition which can cancel the forward momentum of a human body.
  2. While the system is designed for speed under stress, I was not convinced that a system requiring a step to realign yourself would adequately deal with threats which may be moving laterally.
• Col. Applegate's response was that his system is not carved in stone. While stepping toward your target helps establish your body's alignment, the principles can be used even if you're seated. The most crucial components are:
  1. The convulsive grip on the gun;
  2. The fully extended arm;
  3. Raising the gun to the line of sight;
  4. The conscious visual focus on the threat, with only a subconscious visual awareness of the gun.
  Thus, you could track a target moving laterally without shifting your stance.
• In June 2005 I finally had the opportunity to take some live-fire training in point shooting, offered by Matt Temkin at the Annual Training Conference of the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors.
• Matt concentrates his training on the three-quarter hip position preferred by Fairbairn, for ranges of just a few yards. The three-quarter hip position doesn't place the gun quite so readily within the grasp of an assailant. Further, as the distance closes, the gun is presumed to be reflexively drawn back to the half hip or quarter hip positions.
• By this point in my teaching career I had already been emphasizing the close-range use of a protected-gun position not too dissimilar from the quarter hip position, coupled with lateral movement that actually would continue into the assailant (some people are referring to this concept as a "J.") Thus I was no longer uncomfortable with the concept of moving aggressively toward the assailant, so long as it is not done on a direct, frontal line.

Cirillo's "Alternative Sighting Methods"

• While many instructors use the term "sighted fire" to imply the use of the sights and "aimed fire" for a coarser visual index using the shape of the gun, the late Jim Cirillo taught a block of instruction that he called "alternative sighting methods."
• Jim believed that when you shoot using the sights, your conscious mind is occupied with the sight picture. He further believed that the subconscious mind works faster than the conscious mind. While you have been consciously training with a formal sight picture, your subconscious mind has picked up on a bunch of subtleties about how the gun is aimed. In particular, the subconscious mind knows what the silhouette of the gun looks like if it is aligned with the target.
• Jim taught his "weapon silhouette point" by taping over the sights on the gun, after demonstrating what the slide of an autoloader or the cylinder of a revolver look like if the gun strays out of alignment. Thus, the gun is visually aimed solely by its shape. Many students actually shoot better with the sights taped. His theory on this was that since they cannot see a traditional sight picture, they don't jerk the trigger when they think they've got a perfect one.
• The purpose of the silhouette point is to get the gun aligned and fired more quickly, by relying on your subconscious mind. The method is independent of the position in which you grasp the gun. In a 1990 class I tried it with the isosceles; in a 1998 class I used the Weaver.
• Jim also taught two variations on a technique where the gun remains below the line of sight. The trick here is to keep the gun parallel to the ground as you lower the gun from your sighting plane to the level at which you want to strike the target. The simpler version, the "geometric point," can be used if there isn't enough light to see your sights. (Obviously, there has to be enough light to locate the target.)
• In the second version, the "nose point," you do a geometric point, making sure that the gun is under your nose. You can then pivot like a tank turret and rapidly engage targets to your sides as soon as the pivot of your body points your nose at them, so long as you have kept the gun under your nose (and you do not overswing your target).
• If you are going to keep the gun horizontal and below the level of the shoulders, you are probably going to have to bend your elbows into some variation of the Weaver grasp, assuming you are using two hands on the gun. If you only keep one hand on the gun you will bear a distinct resemblance to the Fairbairn/Sykes three-quarter hip position.

Jim Cirillo (left) and I shared a break on the Mobile (AL) P.D. range at the 11th Annual International Training Seminar of the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers, January, 1998. This seminar was my second opportunity to go through Jim's alternative sighting training, the first being the 1990 ASLET seminar. This photo was taken the day after Jim's class. Each time I trained with Jim we were forced to make do with laser-equipped guns in classrooms; I never had the opportunity to take his training live-fire.

The Role of Stress

• Fairbairn and Sykes, Applegate and their more recent devotees, such as Bruce Siddle, emphasize the body's reaction to life-threatening stress. They claim that those who succumb to it tend to crouch, face the threat squarely and lose fine motor coordination, possibly including the ability to close one eye and to focus for close vision.
• These people argue that at close distances people tend to shoot one-handed and that when they get far enough from the threat to get both hands on the gun, they tend to shoot with both arms fully extended (isosceles position).
• They argue that only if you do not feel immediately threatened will you be able to use the Weaver position (elbows flexed). Your perception of the immediacy of the threat could be reduced by being on the favorable side of the time-distance-cover continuum.
• This group makes its arguments on the basis of the physiology of stress, rather than the speed of the subconscious, as Cirillo argues. They claim that it can take as long as half a second to shift the visual focus from the threat to the front sight, if you can do so at all.

Other Interpretations

• Darrell Mulroy preferred to use the word "fright" rather than "stress." Based on his study of actual gunfights, he taught a two-handed grasp of the gun with both arms fully extended into an isosceles position. In his method, the gun is held below the line of sight. Like Cirillo's geometric or nose point techniques, the elevation is adjusted by holding the gun at the level where the shooter wants to place the shot.
• The California Highway Patrol is currently teaching a program developed by Lou Chiodo. While the program includes the Applegate one-handed technique at very close distances, its main technique is very similar to Darrell's, except that the gun is high enough to include a weapon silhouette visual index like Cirillo's.
• Chuck Klein may be at the opposite end of the spectrum from the Applegate crowd. He isn't concerned with arm position, body position or foot position. His concerns include that the handgun be adjusted to point where your finger would point, that you grasp the gun primarily with the middle and ring fingers and that you develop good trigger control. He concedes that it may actually take more practice to master what he calls "instinct shooting" than conventionally sighted fire. Arguably, the only instinctive component of Chuck's system is focusing on the target.

Target Focus

• Almost all point shooting advocates argue that people will focus on the threat, not the sights, when under the stress of a potentially deadly attack, at least one that appears suddenly, at close range.
• Many advocates of sighted fire cite the example of Jim Cirillo's first gunfight, where he describes being able to see every ding in the serrations on the front sight of his S&W Model 10 revolver. Nonetheless, in addition to conventional sighted fire, Jim also teaches "alternative sighting methods," none of which involve focusing on the sights.
• For all the variations of point shooting being advocated or taught, I think that Walt Rauch once explained the common denominator with the term "target focus." He emphasized that whatever the system, the shooter's vision was focused on the target, not the sights or the shape of the gun. Any element of visual confirmation of the gun's alignment would be out of focus.

• Over time I have seen more and more enlightened trainers emphasize the continuum of techniques, depending on the distance to the threat. Whether one regards point shooting or aimed fire as the primary technique is most likely to depend on whether one expects the most likely encounters to occur at distances best measured in feet or in yards.
• I teach virtually all my students a protected-gun position for close encounters. This is basically a variation on the Fairbairn-Sykes quarter hip position. Since it is illegal, in most jurisdictions, to expose or draw a firearm, absent the same justification to fire it, it follows that most engagements will occur at close range.
• I teach most of my students the use of the silhouette point at intermediate ranges. It works better for some than it does for others, as does Cirillo's nose point technique, which I like as an option for low-light encounters at intermediate range. I now realize that the three-quarter hip position is essentially the nose point without a second hand helping to support the gun. (This leaves that second hand available for things like operating a flashlight.)
• For those students who take handgun training other than the basic orientation in the CWP course, I have started offering training in the half hip and three-quarter hip positions, after having introduced them to a couple of equivalent variations of the nose point technique. I also teach some additional point shooting techniques for threats that present themselves at unconventional angles.
• In the time that I have been investigating this subject I have come to favor aimed-fire techniques that share common features with those point-shooting techniques that include some sort of visual index. I feel that this leaves the operator with a good chance of scoring hits, even at longer ranges, in the event of focus on the threat.
• I encourage my students to train in various techniques. If environmental (cramped quarters, low light, etc.) or physiologic circumstances limit your ability to use your most favored technique, it's nice to have "plan B" in place. I should note that not all techniques work equally well for all people so, as an instructor, it's also nice to have a variety of techniques available, according to what seems to fit each student.
• I emphasize confidence and the determined attitude to prevail as the primary means to ensure that stress does not keep you from fighting as you have trained. Unfortunately, if you have settled for the training which came in the box with the gun, you'll probably be lacking in both skill and confidence when you most need them.
• If you wish to experiment with additional techniques like those of Fairbairn, Sykes and Applegate, remember that real threats will usually not stand still like paper targets on the range. Test these techniques as realistically as you can!
• As most handgun engagements occur at distances under seven yards, I feel comfortable in saying that trigger control is the most important element in hitting your target with a handgun.
• While I believe in using a full-strength grip on the gun, I believe it is important to recognize that when Allied operatives were taught to fire the gun with a convulsive grip of the entire hand in WWII, they were also being taught to move about with their fingers inside the trigger guards of cocked 1911A1 .45 pistols! This is an unacceptable practice by today's standards. Spend the time on safe dry-fire practice so that trigger control becomes subconscious.
• Remember, bullet placement is the most important component of "stopping power." Use of the sights offers the most precision. I would not discourage use of the sights, when circumstances permit doing so without added risk to yourself, particularly for a shot that requires a high level of precision, such as when only a small portion of your assailant is visible. Once the bullet leaves the barrel, there is no way to steer it or to stop it!

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