u/Cocainum

Seen a couple posts recently about CCW carriers joining or escalating situations, and both of them were lucky enough to have lived.

It is also likely you will be seriously injured.

Posted this in the other thread, but if you decide to draw, you're ~5x likelier to be shot (caveat of it being Philly, maybe people keep getting American instead of cheeze whiz at the wrong jawn): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2759797/

CCW is a pretty large sub at this point. Glowies are real, but just as importantly, so is astroturfing and people wanting you to think a certain way (ranging from commercial to political to social).

This post isn't meant to discourage you from carrying or training; it's meant to reinforce that shooting and equipment is one (very small) element of you making it back home safe. In the event of you being attacked at or in your home, do whatever you need to for yourself and your loved ones to stay safe.

Also, as it seems a need to be said: there are people on both sides of the law that opportunistically look to slime other humans in whatever context they can, or 100% do not care if they do or cause others to get murked. Evading accountability and receiving praise + acceptance of one's actions is a universal human trait. Interpret that as you will; just don't die for or because of another man's interests while they beg for your endorsement at the same time, or attempt to influence you to follow their path.

It is also much easier to 🅱️oint ur glawk at ur 🅱️enis n keep ur feet pretty when u got all ur limbs n shit. Nobody goes in for mani pedis here either before rippin off hog crankin materials, but whatever, shit's getting 80s again and bush is back on the menu I guess

Anyway, cheers buds

Summary here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014\_Las\_Vegas\_shootings

Link to vid here:

https://youtu.be/CQOHBSuY7TM?si=kxwTjMcE2L9bgx2\_

Context:

Went out and shot this today at 10 yards because I got a lot of "helpful" advice that's pragmatically not. For this shoot I was:

Tired (little sleep past couple days)

Stressed + focus elsewhere (work stuff top of mind)

Physically out of it (bench + squats at gym earlier back to back because too busy to make it in the week)

Didn't eat (too busy)

Mag dumping (3 to 5 seconds for ~15 rounds per mag)

Haven't practiced pistol shooting in ~4 months

Aka probably how you'll be on the off chance you have to be involved in a defensive shooting.

Shot placement changed because of grip + gun, and how tired I really was using irons at the end (had also started raining).

Reference pic of controlled shooting at end at ~25 yards. I don't know how many eagle eyed people there are, but it is difficult for me to see the target with my naked eyes + slightly better with glasses at 25.

Next part is a rant; tl;dr, don't trust reddit (or most pro gun tubers, etc), dry fire with a dot to see where you're jorkin it during trigger pull, and you're better served doing cardio to run away and live to jack off another day.

This is a CCW sub, not a competition one, and while there's useful overlap, it's just frankly wildly different environments. No one bum rushes, shoots back, or strikes from a concealed (by light or otherwise) position in matches, and your adrenaline isn't spiked through the roof (assuming you're able to draw and shoot, which you may not get the chance to).

This post is also explicitly for new shooters, which the gun community at large and Reddit tends to not be welcoming or helpful to.

Reddit is frequently, aggressively, confidently wrong, and is virulently angry at being called out about it; you should not base your gear, equipment, or training on feedback from it alone. Absolutely no one posts about their worst defensive gun use situation, because they're typically dead or worse (there are worse things than death by far). You need to filter what people say here, because you are the only person that will experience and bear the consequences of whatever situation you're in.

Unfortunately, many people are not in a good position to find advice outside Reddit or YouTube (or your platform of choice), and have limited means to dump hundreds to thousands of rounds per week to brute force their skills; as much as I and every other person would probably love to shoot full time whenever, we've all got shit to do.

So, how do you get better at pragmatic shooting?

1. Join a gym, do cardio, don't get involved unless you absolutely have to.

2. Get a red dot to see how the dot changes when you pull the trigger + how you grip your weapon, and dry fire a lot. Doesn't have to be a nice one for this purpose, you are watching the dot to see how your grip and trigger pull makes the dot move, so cheapo is fine.

3. Before you buy gear, find people that don't like it and give bad reviews based off their practical lived experience so you know what's wrong with it. Reddit's default is spend more = better and shits regularly all over specific brands, which is dumb, but the core sentiment of buying reliability is (partially) good. If you can't buy it, just like everything else, you can learn the skills and improve it to make it better. If you can't do either, learn basic maintenance + how to rapid fix jams and issues specific to your weapon.

4. Do not trust these types of people (anywhere, but specifically for things that might save your life): people that want to sell you things, and people that make a living from your attention (YouTube, etc), because they want to sell you things (they get paid whether you live or die from ad revenue or otherwise). It's okay to learn stuff from competition or high production value channels, etc. You do need, however, to learn how to filter what they are saying, evaluate if it's appropriate for you, and more importantly if you can implement it in an effective way, especially under duress. That's a 3 part process (minimum) that introduces risk at each step for you as a new shooter. You will not get a chance to fix, reset, or have a perfect grip, stance, etc. You may not even know what has happened or be able to respond.

5. Heroes + cool guys die, get maimed, have PTSD, or wind up alone with bad chemical habits. Also, even go fast door kickers in their prime get caught by surprise and just get got sometimes (walking out of a bar, or as is tradition, being too drunk like everyone else enjoying Mardi Gras and not realizing they've been bleeding out until they try to stand up). If they're lucky, they have health insurance, benefits, and get paid to risk getting domed in the skull. You probably have none of that, and your best bet is to do as much as you can to reduce the need for you to be lucky, otherwise you'll be swapping your own pus and rot filled bandages for as long as you can afford to.

6. If you do have to shoot, the balls + trunk are a lot easier to hit and fuck up your shot placement with (left and down is a leg, right and up is a gut shot) than the head. However, you probably will not remember aiming or most material things from the experience either way.

Cheers buds

I'm a big fan of showing receipts, so providing the here with a reference target of someone I hosted using the 4 step setup yesterday

Since it has to be super explicitly laid out:

1. the pictures are exaggerated reference points to show grip placement process, not how a shooter (or myself) would likely hold the gun. You should naturally hold where it feels best or where it works for you. Sorry, I'm not a social media or content creator, I'm just a dude that builds and shoots guns a lot, and often hosts and encourages new shooters to join and get their CCW

2. The reference is for Day 0 shooters with no experience. They often 1) cross the thumbs {and injure themselves} 2) get slide bite or surprise on their thumb which makes them jerk the gun 3) cup the gun, which leads to a less secure grip + other issues 4) are super new to shooting in general, and have a lot going through their head handling a live firearm for the first time

3. Yes, there are much more qualified competition and other shooters you can learn from. I am not physically present with you observing how you hold and interact with your gun, nor are they (unless you are paying them to teach you in person, but at that point, you don't need to listen to me and this isn't for you), so this is very generalized advice

4. This is the repeat process I've used to get Day 0 shooters with the results in the pic above at 7 to 15 yards. It calms them down, helps them focus on something they can control, and keeps the shooting session safe (most dudes like to shoot rapidly and flag people + miss, most women tend to drop their arms and point the gun at their feet or don't finish the mag and flag, this keeps them focused pointing the gun down range)

Target from 10 yards at an indoor range with first time shooter

Cheers buds

I see a lot of grouping pics asking how to shoot better or more consistently

This is the 4 step approach that's helped me and that I use with new or inexperienced shooters and is pretty fool proof, assuming you take your time to check your grip

Summary; wrap your weak hand fingers around your shooting hand knuckles, squeeze your weak hand tight, "only" pull the trigger with your shooting hand (don't over squeeze)

Step by step setup with picture references:

1. Strong (shooting) hand grips pistol. Stick your thumb out flat to the side

2. Wrap your weak hand around your strong hand under your strong hand thumb, and then press down with your strong hand thumb on the meat of your weak hand thumb

3. You can put your weak hand thumb flat forward if you want to; just don't rest it on the slide (new shooters do this a lot). Double check your strong hand thumb is on top of the base meat of your weak hand thumb

4. Use your weak hand to try and touch the knuckles of your strong (shooting) hand and squeeze with your weak hand. “Only” pull the trigger with your strong hand index finger; don't over squeeze with your strong hand.

Picture references (flat knuckles from punching stuff when young, yes it was dumb and I have moderate grip slash finger pain now)

Edit; since it needs to be said apparently; these are exaggerated reference pics for people to learn, not copy 1:1 for go fast operator status. Best thing to do is go shoot + dry fire

Everyone also has different hands + grips that work best for them; I do not need to know what works best for you, but thanks for letting me know

Second edit; thank you all for letting me know your reading comprehension in depth, it is received and filed along with thoughts of preferred barrel aftertaste