Muzzle Orientation during Gun Manipulation

Rather than writing a blog entry on PDN's page explaining why Rob Pincus is incorrect, I'm just going to vent here. He posted a picture of a truck he put up on a berm behind a target line, and the intarwebs got all butthurt about it. I don't care about his car. But some of the stuff he mentioned about gun manipulations made my eye start twitching. Here's some of the stuff he said about muzzle orientation last night:

• "Some people don't get that guns pointed up in the air (workspace, high ready, et al) can kill little kids miles away in their back yards.... But suddenly, I park a truck on the berm and some people are horrified (not in the class, just on the inter-web). Go figure..." 
• "Jodie, that whole "workspace" concept is flawed in at least 10 ways. search PDN for Critical Incident Reload and High Compressed Ready to learn more.... And, as noted above, it's reckless on most ranges." 
• "When Travis audited the CFS Instructor course many years ago, I wasn't aware of the neurological issues surrounding looking at the gun during reloads (vision issues, ramifications of the tachypsychia/bradypsychia phenomenons, etc). Of course, we were teaching not to look... but, the argument wasn't as strong way back then. In competition, and on the training ranges, it might still seem to make sense to look (or to want to have the option to) at your gun handling. But, for example, just think: do you need to look at the brake pedal to slam the brakes on when someone jumps into the road... or, is it more important to look at the person and/or the place you want to steer to?? You can learn (easily to run your gun without looking... and it is actually much better to plan to do so." 
• "Long gun, pistol...either way, Jodie... same issues, same concepts. "faster" on a training range or in a competition isn't always better training." 
• "Yes, Mark... it is absolutely okay to cover people incidentally during an actual fight.. THAT is where we have to count on trigger discipline and specific awareness. 
• "Keep in mind that I am NOT tailoring the techniques for the range... it is just a happy coincidence that keeping the pistol in the high compressed ready, muzzle straight or down (and keeping a rifle stock on your chest, muzzle down) are also Range SafER than the less-efficient-to-begin-with muzzle up techniques." 

If you're not familiar with CFS's methodology... The reloads take place in front of the belly with the elbows back. Head remains oriented on the threat. The problem, which I'll discuss in detail, is that you can WATCH the students steal glances at the malfunctions. It's not hard to find video of it. Watch the guy in the above video do it when he's working his reload.






There is so much screwed up with his logic that it's hard to pick a starting spot.

• Making the point about head-shooting kids miles away with a upward muzzle is completely silly. Since he went there though, here's why it's wrong. If a shot were to go off where I do my reloads, which couldn't even happen because of trigger discipline, the angle of the muzzle would destabilize the bullet and it would fall harmlessly at terminal velocity. Not to mention the astronomically slim chance that you would hit a person with an errant shot. Think of how much space is on the planet (when viewed from above) that doesn't have a person standing on it. Now think of the 'body density' of a busy sidewalk in a city when viewed from a horizontal plane. It's like a meat wall. I'd rather point it up (or down). It's for the children.
• He then goes on to say that it's fine to point the muzzle at children in a Critical Stress Incident (tm) BECAUSE we count on "trigger discipline and specific awareness". Ok then. Where was the trigger control and muzzle awareness when we go muzzle up? It's only important when we're flagging children? My first priority is to not shoot the kids that I CAN SEE.
• He says, and later alters his wording, that you shouldn't point the muzzle over the berm because it's range-unsafe. At first it seems like he is trying to say that you might let a round out of the range (and into the FJ). Obviously, as we learned from the Newhall incident, there are major problems with tailoring techniques for shooting ranges when they should be tailored for real world encounters. These are called 'training scars'. They exist, and they can get people killed.
• His point about how we don't have to look at the brake pedal when stopping, but rather eyes on the road steering to avoid the obstacle, is also flawed for several reasons. The problem with that analogy is that you are not simply mashing a pedal, you are putting a small cylindrical thing into a perfectly form-fitting cylindrical hole. You could even say you're "STEERING" it into the mag-well. Also, people DON'T have YEARS of flight time reloading. Nor will they. They probably will look, either on purpose or not, as they do this fine motor skill. I personally would rather keep my head up and looking at the place I was shooting, and use some peripheral vision to work the manipulation, instead of having to break eye contact to look down at my belly to diagnose a problem.
• "faster on range doesn't mean better on the street" - One could probably write a book about stress and competition and then another group would say how it's still not combat. That's all fine. The fact remains that all the winning shooters do muzzle up manipulations. There are hundreds of thousands of reloads performed under competition pressure. The bumps have been pretty well ironed out for both speed and robustness. Everything is situation dependent, of course. Here is Paul Howe discussing muzzle down manipulations and movement. One of the big takeaways for me was when he says "it is situation dependent".

Of course it is. But if I were to teach one way to do a reload to new shooters, it would be:

1. proven under stress (combat or competition) 
2. allow the inevitable visual component to diagnosing problems 
3. allow the person to be able to continue to watch the scene unfold before them. 
4. retain muzzle control at all times 
5. be within a strong physical structure to use force when clearing problems or being combative
6. work in a confined space (either behind cover, in a car, in a bathroom stall...)
7. Allow one to work in a team (a team could be a friend, wife, or door kicking buddy)

For me, muzzle up does this.



And before I close this out I want to say how there are exceptions. I'm not going to go muzzle up if I have to chamber a round standing next to my car after a day at the range. If I'm within arms reach of someone, I'll start striking with the broken pistol. If I'm behind a small piece of cover, I might suck my elbows further back, and work in a more horizontal plane. There are always exceptions.

Also, to be clear, I'm not even talking about scanning positions, searching positions, or movement positions. For those I like 'muzzle averted 3' and sometimes 'sul'. I was only discussing the place to put the gun when reloading it or fixing a problem with it (though an empty gun is a problem!). After I shoot, on a scan, I like Craig's method of going to a tight 3, and keeping the muzzle pointed AT the thing you shot, and use your head to steal a glance around.

I think that's it. If I'm wrong, please help me to understand why.


-M