At what range do you practice point-aiming with a pistol?

[26 Inf]

Years ago, many law enforcement agencies taught a technique called 'point shoulder' - to save me the time of writing about it here you go -

POINT SHOULDER SHOOTING

Point shoulder shooting was developed because situations emerged where the officer had to shoot his weapon to neutralize a threat so fast that he did not even have time to bring the sights up to his eye level........

Point shoulder shooting is simple, intuitive, and easy to teach yourself. It uses instinct rather than dependence on your sights. It’s based on a curious human characteristic that manifests itself as hand-eye coordination. To try it, simply look at an object a few feet away. Now point your index finger at that object. Do you notice how your index finger always points at what your eye is focusing on? Without any training or practice, your index finger naturally finds the spot where your eye focuses on, and that’s what point shoulder shooting uses to aim. When you draw your weapon with your master grip, note that your index finger is usually pointing forward—it is not on the trigger, it is indexed along the trigger guard, and guess what?

It’s already pointing at what you’re looking at in most cases.

Point shoulder shooting is named that because you don’t bring the handgun up to your eyes, you only bring it up to shoulder height, and “point” using your finger at the target. Try it sometime at the range. You’ll find it’s very intuitive and, while you will not achieve the kind of accuracy you would get by using the sights, you will be able to hit the center mass of a target ten yards or so away reliably and without using the sights. It’s really a handy skill to learn as a backup, because there may be a time when you can’t raise that pistol fast enough.

I happened to be pretty good at it because I practiced the qual course and paid attention to my body mechanics. I was also one who would take regularly 'code-7' at our range and shoot. Unlike the square range qual course, when shooting by myself I could move. I quickly learned that point shoulder did not work on the move. I didn't know it then, but I was teaching myself to get a 'flash-sight picture' in order to get hits.

Fast forward 30 years, our state adopted a LEOSA qual course which was so rudimentary we called it 'no shooter left behind.' I can neither confirm nor deny that a couple of the range staff could shoot through the first several stages of the course, which involved movement away from the target at a constant angle and draws from the holster, with eye's closed. If you know where the target is and can orient yourself to the target at some point it becomes nothing more than stance-directed fire based on muscle memory.

These little parlor tricks -point shoulder and natural point - quickly lose effectiveness when you are in an unconventional position, your target is not directly in front of you, where you anticipated it to be, or when either you or the target are moving.

Bring the gun to your eyes, look through the sights, use them as needed, shit works.