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Handgun or Pistol Quick Kill [ QK ] Shooting Technique ©

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#1 ·
Handgun or Pistol Quick Kill [ QK ] Shooting Technique © TM
By Robin Brown

I was fortunate enough to have been involved with a group of men in the early 1980's, directed and led by one of the original OSS operatives whose function was to protect VIP's as well as establish security measures for major US corporations in and outside the US borders.

Maj. Gen. Mitch WerBell, who was given that rank by the Afghanistan president for his efforts in fighting the communists and training security forces in Afghanistan, held training at his 66 acre compound in Georgia, USA. It became affectionately known as "The Farm" by many.

The training center was known as SIONICS and was an acronym for "Studies In Organized Negation of Insurgency and Counter Subversion". Mitch brought men with military backgrounds, or those who had specific martial and "sneaky pete" skills to his SIONICS training facility. They instructed us in the finer points of staying alive under various adverse conditions.

Not quite 400 private citizens were allowed to attend before the operation closed down due to his death in late 81 while working in Cal. for a major corporation where I was with the team. I say, "allowed to attend" as your background was checked and you were accepted once cleared that you were not affiliated with a terrorist state or subversive group.

Former military personnel were given preference as well as people in the security profession but just about anyone could attend if they passed the background check. The course was intensive and lasted for 10 days at 18 hours per day. Only 10 individuals were allowed in each class. The cost in 1981 was $3000.00 to attend and it needed to be paid in advance.

One of the instructors was Lucky McDaniel, a colorful figure who had developed his "Instinct Shooting" program which was later adopted and renamed the Quick Kill (QK) rifle technique by the US Army.

Lucky demonstrated and trained us in the long gun Quick Kill as well as the pistol Quick Kill over two days of the 10 we were there at the compound. One day on long guns and one day with pistols. The long gun training started with bb guns and hitting aluminum disks varying from 3 inches to 1 inch in diameter which were thrown into the air. The rifle training regimen was also found in the US Army training text 23-71-1. From there we went to shotguns and shooting clays thrown from every angle using this long gun/rifle Quick Kill technique.

In the pistol Quick Kill course, we went directly to 1911's that had the sights removed. We trained from 3 feet to about 36 feet. There was a different technique for less than three feet which was not QK, and which protected the gun from a gun grab or swipe.

The following is how I was instructed and then executed/used the Quick Kill technique with a pistol or handgun based on that instruction.

Find a light switch across the room. Any object at about that distance will do. Then with the light switch or object in your view, raise your arm/hand and point your finger naturally at the object, like you are scolding a dog. Looking at your target, you also should be able to see in your peripheral vision, the end of the finger that's pointing at it.
When you point, you naturally do not attempt to sight or aim your finger. It will be somewhat below your eye level in your peripheral vision, perhaps 2-4 inches below eye level.

Now, place the end of that finger about 2 inches below your target. Move your arm, NOT JUST THE FINGER. Then, lower your head and try to sight along the length of it. You will be on the object. Raise your head and you will see the end of the finger still about 2 inches below the object. The reference point can be different depending on the person and gun being used. Many handguns have different natural pointing abilities. Just start out at 2 inches below the target initially.

If you find you are above the target when checking the finger, you may need to use three inches below, as the reference point for you initially. Conversely, if you are low, you may need to raise the reference point a little. Once you find the reference point for you, you can point at anything using this Quick Kill technique and know that you are hitting the object automatically, and when not looking at anything but the target. Your finger will be in your peripheral vision but not looked at.

Now go get a handgun, make sure it's empty, and do the same thing on the same object across the room. Use the end of the barrel and/or the front sight now instead of the end of your finger in your peripheral vision
.
Once you have referenced the end of the barrel and/or the front sight about 2 inches below the target, DON'T MOVE THE GUN, and lower your head and check where the sights are pointing.

As above, when you could see the end of the finger pointing at the target in your peripheral vision while focusing on the target, you will now peripherally see the end of the barrel and/or front sight while looking at the target. Once you have tweaked the reference point for that gun, you can repeat with follow up shots as soon as the reference has been reacquired peripherally. You have not looked at the gun or front sight, just the target. And the gun will be anywhere from 2-6 inches below your eye level, more or less.

With Quick Kill, the focus is always on the target, never having to adjust ones gaze or focus even remotely on the near object [the gun or sights]. I don't have need to worry about 0-3 yards or 7-10 yards or beyond 10 yard methodologies, the commonality of one focal point in using Quick Kill with a handgun under the stresses of self defense is easier to ingrain into memory once it has been mastered.

Some will achieve this immediately while others will have issues and questions. I hope that I have explained this well enough for most. It's much easier to show and guide one, than just describe Quick Kill. As with most things, practice can improve performance, and the same is true with Quick Kill with a pistol or handgun. You can practice at home or on the line. Draw, raise the gun up into your peripheral vision, acquire the referenced distance from the end of the barrel that includes the front sight to the target, and dry fire or blast it for real. Try different distances from 3 feet to 20 yards. The reference point can and should be tweaked up or down until you know where you need to keep it at those distances with that handgun.

With one focal plane to worry about when utilizing the Quick Kill methodology, the older I get, the more I appreciate the way it works. Though admittedly, when I was enlightened I was still capable of quickly adjusting between focal planes.

Lucky McDaniel never published or wrote about the handgun and pistol Quick Kill technique. The verbal information he imparted at SIONICS during our training had never been seen in print before. I’m aware of a few firearms and knife instructors as well as some in the private sector who have searched for over two decades for this technique with pistols and handguns with no success.

Handgun or Pistol Quick Kill [ QK ] Shooting Technique ©, as described above, uses a very specific peripheral reference point from the end of the barrel and/or front sight to the target while ones conscious focus is on the intended target. That not only is different than any other method of sighting previously discussed anywhere but it is what makes Quick Kill continuously repeatable by utilizing a specific reference point between the end of the barrel and/or front sight and the intended object one wants to hit.

I first wrote something similar to this on February 22, 2004 on the internet that also included the long rifle Quick Kill technique as shown to me that was referenced above in the army manual. I registered the copyrighted material and the document is filed with the Library of Congress, Copyright Office in Washington, D.C.

I've carried this knowledge of the Handgun or Pistol Quick Kill [ QK ] Shooting Technique © since 1981 but had never put it into print until 2004.

Brownie
 
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#3 · (Edited)
clippermiami,

That's in the works in the future, but I'm not going to rush a video to production and not have the best product possible with my name attached to it.

I've got hours of footage to work with, but it has to be put together correctly. I'll probably be working on getting this finished this summer.

Brownie
 
#4 ·
That would be good, sounds like a good technique. I'd settle for a quick and dirty on YouTube to be followed by a "proper" video. Sometimes perfection is the enemy of the good :)
 
#5 · (Edited)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsOB2zF0Z6E

Quick Kill pistol skill in action being shot by a student of mine who had learned this just minutes before. The action starts about the 30 second mark in the clip.

Notice I remind him to get his head/eyes up off the gun and not lower his head, then he raps off a full mag on the plate with the pistol well below line of sight about level with his nose/mouth . The plates I use are the same size as an IDPA -1 scoring area. I've had them for two decades now.



Brownie
 
#7 · (Edited)
Article on "Lucky" McDaniel from 1958

Here's an article that was published in 1958 in Sports Illustrated about one of my shooting mentors:

"Some odd specimens of tremble-fingered man can put 10 bullets into less than a one-inch circle at 100 yards. That is a wonderful feat, even though such marksmen use a heavy barrel, a telescopic sight and a bench rest. It brings together in excruciating perfection the precise matching of ammo to rifle and ammo and rifle to shooter.

It is the calculus of shooting but it is not a romantic sport. It is quite unrelated to hunting, for instance, or to shooting in self-defense. It is not romantic because it has so little to do with the basic purpose of shooting, which is to kill.

Romantic shooting is offhand shooting and has deep roots in our folklore, all the way back to Daniel Boone and Wild Bill Hickok and beyond, men whose skills are legendary and unproved. They used inferior weapons by today's standards and, by today's standards, they did not know a dime's worth about ballistics. But the stories say that whenever they pulled a trigger they performed magic.

The will to believe these stories is so great that they are cherished in our hearts, if not in our heads, and so, all the way from William S. (for Shakespeare) Hart to Wyatt Earp's TV incarnation, every one of us has, from childhood on, been entertained by the essential premise of the Western story: that such magic is possible. It is an artistic convention, like the one-minute commercial.

The astounding truth is that anyone can perform similar feats of offhand shooting, feats that would pop the pristine eye of Davy Crockett.
In the hurly-burly of Pete Rademacher's wonderful assault on the heavyweight boxing title a year ago I could make only passing mention (SI, Aug. 19, '57) of one Lucky McDaniel, a member of Rademacher's Youth Unlimited organization. (They call it Unlimited Enterprises now because a pre-existing Youth Unlimited Foundation objected to the similarity of names.)
The title fight so overshadowed Lucky's ability to teach shooting that I had only a few paragraphs to report how he taught me, in little more than an hour, to shoot with such marvelous accuracy that soon I was hitting crawling beetles and tossed pennies with a BB gun, with scarcely ever a miss. The first time I ever wore a pistol I was able to draw it and hit a pine cone in the road, at a distance of some 20 feet, six times out of six, shooting from the hip.

After Rademacher failed to go into orbit against Floyd Patterson I visited Lucky again, this time at Sea Island, Georgia, where he was giving lessons to guests of The Cloister. The idea was to study his teaching method and try to explain it.

The most lucid explanation of the method is Lucky's own. He calls it "instinct" shooting. That is all there is to it. You look at something, you shoot and you hit it.

Ordinary offhand shooting with rifle or even with pistol is an attempt to approximate the conditions of bench-rest shooting. You take careful aim. You breathe according to plan. You watch the front sight drift back and forth across the target. You find it impossible to control the wavering sight but you hope you can discover a rhythm that will permit you to let off the bullet at the correct instant. You try, therefore, to time the wavering of the sight, the beating of your heart, the extraordinary turbulence of your softest breathing. When you think you have all these in rhythm you do not pull the trigger. You squeeze it, ever so gently, making sure that you are holding your breath. You try to time the squeeze so that the bullet will let off between beats of your mounting pulse. If you are a demi-semi-waver off in all this delicate timing you miss the 10-ring. Offhand shooting can be the most exasperating of the sporting arts.

But a student of the Lucky McDaniel method ("The Lucky McDaniel System of Muscular Coordination and Synchronization Between Eyes and Hands") does not trifle with the meticulous. A true McDaniel follower will go so far as to have the sights removed from his weapons because they are a hindrance to him. He will point rifle or pistol as naturally as he would point a finger, pretty much as good shotgunners do. Looking at what he wants to hit and quite disregarding the cant of his weapon or the state of his breathing, he pulls the trigger. He does not squeeze the trigger. He might even slap it, as shotgunners sometimes do. That is all. He hits the target, which may be a flying dime or an Alka-Seltzer tablet tossed into the air by Lucky.
It takes Lucky, a slightly built young man with blond, close-cropped hair, about an hour to transmit this miracle-making power. It takes his pupils the rest of their lives to get over the fact that they can do it.
Not that they can do it for the rest of their lives solely on the basis of one lesson. Practice is required thereafter, as in any sport.
Ross Baldwin, a young architect who has since been inspired to design a BB gun to Lucky's specifications, propped up nine paper matches in the red dust of a Georgia road. He drew a nine-shot .22 revolver and, shooting from the hip, knocked down all nine matches without reloading, shooting far faster than what is considered rapid-fire in competition.
"I paid Lucky $25 for a lesson," he said, "and I have since spent $1,500 for practice ammunition."

The McDaniel method has evolved from doing what comes naturally. Lucky is 33 years old and has been shooting at game for 28 years.
"Everything I have got today," he says, "I was born with."

He was born with it on his father's 800-acre peach farm in Upson County, Georgia, an area lush with woods and streams. His first weapon was a rare piece, a .22 caliber Winchester, which was fired, not by pulling a trigger, but by pressing down on a small obtrusion with the thumb. It had been expropriated from a farmhand who had used it to shoot an associate. Lucky's Uncle Elmo Draughorn, before presenting it to his 5-year-old nephew, took the precaution of filling the barrel with lead. Lucky brought the rifle to a blacksmith, who removed the lead. Then Lucky took to the woods, where he began shooting rabbits and squirrels.

Just before Lucky's sixth birthday Uncle Elmo gave him a .410 shotgun, and the two went off to shoot quail. "The dogs flushed the covey," Lucky recalls. "One quail came up the hill my way and my uncle said, 'Here he comes, Bobby. Get him!' And I did. I killed my first bird with the first shot from my first shotgun."

Thereafter Lucky hunted just about daily under the guidance of a ***** farmhand, Johnnie Smith, and in the companionship of Johnnie's son, Elmo, a year older than Lucky. Lucky's father, Benjamin Franklin McDaniel, gave Johnnie very simple instructions: "You take my boy out and bring him back safe."

Johnnie was a superb shot, and his method, it seems now, was much the same as Lucky's "instinct" shooting. "Johnnie never aimed," Lucky recalls. "He said a sight was a crutch for a shotgun."

It was a wonderful time and place and way for a boy to grow up. On hot summer days Lucky and his cousin, Bushy McDaniel, now fire chief of Thomaston, Georgia, shot frogs in Potato Creek and sold the legs to hotels and restaurants for movie money. Lucky fished, too, as did his mother ("she fished every afternoon for 35 years"), and he developed some astonishing skills, all of them having something to do with marksmanship. By the time he was 7 he could kill a fly on the wall with a slingshot. He hunted rabbits with a bow and arrows he made himself. He became expert with the lariat, developing skill on cows and horses about the farm. "I beat everyone at horseshoes," he recalls. With a bull whip he would knock a cigaret from the lips of obliging little Elmo. He made a spear gun out of an air-rifle barrel and found it useful on frogs. He won his school's marbles championship.
At age 13, ill of pneumonia, Lucky discovered the blow gun. He made one out of half-inch pipe taken from a peach-spraying rig. With homemade darts he could pin a lizard to a pine tree or knock the ashes off a cigaret (held by the magnificent Elmo) at 30 feet. Today, while his wife, Betsy, watches in admiration, Lucky will pick up his blow gun and demonstrate his skill by hitting a minuscule spot on the living-room wall.

With a gun in his hand Lucky would strike you as quite a nerveless fellow, in spite of his quick, birdlike movements and bright, impulsive chatter, but the Navy discharged him in 1941 because of "bad nerves" and, of all things, weak eyesight.

His eyes were examined recently by a shooting student of his, A. C. Hobbs Jr., M.D., of Columbus, Georgia, and found to be a normal 20/20, though Lucky had previously been under the impression, perhaps because of his Navy experience, that he was nearsighted. He believes quite firmly that his kind of shooting develops visual acuity. My own experience has half persuaded me that he is right. In busting clay pigeons with a .22 rifle I can now see the bullet hole—a tiny dot against the blue sky—in that fleeting fraction of an instant before the pigeons powder.

"Lucky's ability," Dr. Hobbs says, "is just something you don't believe. I had a theory that accurate shooting represented bisecting the lines of vision from each eye, but that collapsed when Lucky shot just as accurately from his hip. One eye is as good as two. [Lucky has taught one-eyed persons.] I think I could almost have been blindfolded and hit the target."

There is something a trifle odd about Lucky's left eye. It has two pupils, which is probably against Navy regulations. He was born with a single pupil in it, but when he was a boy a door spring struck the eye, injuring it so that a portion of the pupil's fluid drained into a corner of the iris. Lucky believes this may have given him a little extra in the way of peripheral vision, which is very useful, he points out, in knife fighting. He teaches knife fighting on the side.

After the war Lucky became a salesman for the U.S. Tobacco Company, going from store to store trying to sell Model tobacco. On his first day as a salesman he had no luck until his 19th call.

"Then," he remembers, "in this fellow's place of business I noticed a rifle. I mentioned something or other about being able to hit a coin in the air. He didn't believe me. So I made him a wager—12 dozen of my tobacco against hitting that coin with his rifle. I hit it, and after that I had the ring in my hand."

From then on selling was no problem. Lucky just shot and bet his way into an extraordinary pile of orders. In gun-loving Georgia his sales record became fabulous. One skeptical prospect, C. D. Lane of Moultrie, bet his grocery store against Lucky's new Dodge that Lucky could not hit a quarter in the air. Lucky refused to carry away the store. Instead, Lane became a steady tobacco customer.

Lucky stumbled onto teaching. Four years ago, while selling tobacco in Valdosta, Georgia, he took time out to have a pistol repaired. In the shop he encountered Brooker Blanton, former University of Georgia football star who is owner of the Dixie Lakes Distributing Company. Lucky just happened to mention his shooting ability, in a way he has, and Blanton bridled at the thought of such nonsense being foisted on him. "He called me a liar, so to speak," says Lucky. They met at Blanton's home. There Lucky performed his usual feats. Blanton demanded instruction. "It's a God-given thing," Lucky said dubiously. "I don't know what I'm doing myself."

It took a little persuasion—Blanton offered to pay Lucky even if he flunked—and Lucky undertook the job. They started with a .22 rifle and Blanton shot 500 rounds without a smidgen of improvement.
It was getting a mite expensive. Lucky suggested they borrow a kid's air rifle and use BB shot.
 
#8 ·
part 2

That did it. It was late afternoon and the sun was shining behind their backs. They could see the shot emerge from the BB gun. They could follow its trajectory. Thereupon Blanton began to hit small objects tossed into the air.
The BB gun is now basic to McDaniel's teaching method. It is the pupil's first weapon. Before he can shoot it at anything Lucky insists that he be able to see the shot leave the gun. Seeing the shot, the pupil unconsciously notes his margin of error on a miss and, again unconsciously, corrects for it on his next shot.

This is so important that Lucky has designed, and Ross Baldwin has built, a BB gun with variable power, so that weak-eyed students can be helped to see a slow-moving pellet as it emerges from the barrel. The spring which propels the BB can be weakened or strengthened by turning a screw. The gun has, of course, no sights and the fore end of the barrel is even necked down in order to discourage any inclination to sight along the barrel. Its balance is very like that of a shotgun.

Successful with the BB gun, Blanton went back to the .22 rifle and, finding he could now shoot spectacularly with that, swore Lucky to secrecy and "went out and clipped everyone." Next day Blanton brought another student to Lucky and his teaching career began.

Lucky guesses that he has taught thousands in the past few years, among them members of several police departments. In addition to hip shooting Lucky instructs the cops in the quick draw, at which he is most adept. He demonstrated this to me by having me point an unloaded pistol at him.
"I'll draw and fire," he said, "before you can pull the trigger." He did, too.

But the quick draw is a dangerous sport. The first policeman Lucky taught was Maurice Phillips of the Dalton, Georgia force. Phillips prevailed on his chief and the mayor to pay Lucky $20 a man to instruct the department's 23 cops. The policemen were so enthusiastic that they took to practicing against each other with empty guns. But one day Maurice Phillips was killed in such a match with a fellow officer whose gun, it turned out, was not empty. On the other hand, Patrolman T. J. Blake of Prichard, Alabama owes his life to the quick draw, which came in handy when a burglar attacked him.
Alabama police now have restricted Lucky to teaching the draw to police and to civilians approved of by the police chief of a town. Lucky himself is not enthusiastic about teaching it to civilians. It is dangerous, he points out, because once trained the shooter is so conditioned that he finds it difficult to remove his gun from the holster without pulling the trigger. Both movements blend into one. The tendency, furthermore, is to shoot at whatever catches the eye, which might be the family cat.

Lucky's method of instruction is a marvel of simplicity. There is, in fact, very little instruction because Lucky does not want to clutter the pupil's mind with inhibitions.

The pupil is handed a BB gun and told to shoot it at nothing a couple of times. He is asked if he has seen the pellet leave the barrel. When he has satisfied Lucky that he really has seen it, the pupil is permitted to shoot at objects tossed into the air by Lucky, who stands at his right side and a half-step to the rear. Practically the only advice he gets is to cheek the gun lightly and to look at the object without sighting along the barrel.

"Cheek it and shoot it," Lucky tells the pupil as he tosses up the first target, a rather large iron washer, a little bigger than a silver dollar. The pupil generally misses. "Where did the BB go?" Lucky asks. The pupil says he saw the shot pass under the target.

"That's right," Lucky says, and tosses up the washer again. "Cheek it and shoot it." The pupil misses again, is asked where the BB went and again he says it went under. Lucky agrees that it did. But on the fourth or fifth miss a pupil may say that he saw the BB pass over the target.

"No," Lucky says firmly. "It never goes over. You'll never miss by shooting over it. Now try to shoot over it and you'll hit it." The pupil tries to shoot over the washer. He hits it. In that instant he becomes a wing shot. Smaller and smaller washers are tossed into the air and the misses become very infrequent. Eventually the pupil is hitting penny-sized washers and is able to plink them on the top or bottom, as called for by Lucky.

This occurs in an incredibly few minutes, usually under a half hour. During that time the shooter has been kept very busy. Lucky gives him no time to think about what he is doing, no time to theorize, no time to tense up. Targets are tossed in fast succession while Lucky keeps up a patter of suggestion pretty much implying that this is just about the brightest pupil he ever has taught. The pupil is inclined to think so, too.

After establishing expertness with the BB gun, the shooter moves on to the .22 rifle. The routine is much the same except that targets may be anything from small clay pigeons to charcoal briquets, either of which powders in a very satisfying way when hit by a bullet. There is almost never any difficulty in making the shift to the .22. The shooter now has ingrained ability to resist the temptation to aim. He just looks at the target, pulling the trigger when, somehow, he senses that he is pointing properly. This is a very definite feeling but hard to describe. It is a feeling of empathy with the target. Establishment of this "sense" is the big fundamental of Lucky's teaching.
One reason for seeing the BB leave the gun, Lucky says, is that he wants the pupil to "learn to focus on a single object without looking at everything else around."

"I tell him to hold the gun easy against the cheek, not force the cheek down to the gun in the regular way," he explains. "As soon as he begins to shoot I know what he is doing wrong. There are a thousand things he can do wrong. But I don't excite him. You've got to give him confidence or he'll tighten up. I tell him he's going to hit the target and most of the time I call 'em right. When he's shooting high I don't just point to where he should be shooting. I throw the object and point while I'm throwing it. I keep this up steadily so he'll swing into it. Then I keep shifting the target, like from one match to another on the ground, so he won't get wrapped up in one target.
"This is instinctive shooting and it's got to come easy."

The third step is pistol shooting from the hip and again Lucky gives only minimum instruction. He shows how to press the elbow of the shooting arm firmly against the hipbone, makes sure that the wrist is held stiff. The shooter stands with feet apart and knees slightly bent. Lucky tosses small objects—pine cones, cartridge boxes, briquets—onto the ground and the shooter selects one for a target. He is told that if he misses on a shot he must not try to hit the same object again but must shift to another target. The reason is that after a miss there is a tendency to overcorrect on the next shot. Shifting to another target seems to relieve the tension that leads to over correction.

Finally the shooter is given a shotgun and goes through the same procedure against clay pigeons slung from a hand trap. This transition is difficult for some shooters. A shotgun's blast and kick can cause flinching, the pitch of the barrels is different and the heft and balance of a shotgun feel strange after the rifle. But the principle on which Lucky has taught rifle shooting is the basic principle of good shotgun shooting. With a little practice it pays off.
Lucky has no patience with those who teach shotgunners to lead their birds, even though this makes good ballistic sense.

"When a man tells me he doesn't know how he hits, I figure he must be a good shot," Lucky says. A good shotgunner, he believes, doesn't know whether he leads or not.

Fred D. Missildine, a Sea Island resident and champion skeet shot, dropped by to watch Lucky give a lesson to Colonel J. Henry Pool, a retired Army officer. Missildine is a Winchester shooting promotion representative and a few days before he had given Lucky a new Winchester Model 55 single-shot .22 rifle, which features a safety that goes on automatically when the cartridge is inserted in the rifle. Lucky has found it an ideal teaching weapon.
Missildine was curious about the teaching method. He watched intently as Colonel Pool, using the .22, began to knock nickel-sized cardboard plugs from the center of tossed washers. He grasped quickly the idea behind Lucky's "instinct" shooting.

"I've been shooting like that all my life and didn't know it," he said finally. In 1957 Missildine set an all-round world record at skeet, blasting 496 out of 500 targets.

Missildine was further impressed when he saw that Lucky could be equally successful with the experienced Mrs. Charles Moeser, wife of a former Princeton football captain, who that afternoon was to go on a turkey shoot, and the totally inexperienced Mrs. Stella Harned, wife of The Cloister's manager, who had an actual dislike for shooting and had to be persuaded to take a lesson. It was not so impressive to me since I already knew that Lucky had taught small children as well as women.

It is Lucky's contention that the legendary shooters of the West actually did perform as the stories tell and that they shot by instinct.
"Every once in a while some wife gets mad at her husband," Lucky says. "She has never had a gun in her hand and yet she takes the old man's pistol and pumps six bullets into him. Wives never miss when they shoot at their husbands. That's instinct."

Lucky warns his pupils that they may be embarrassed if they try to show off without practice. It seems to be true, too, that Lucky's presence is a large factor in success.

William O. Walton, county solicitor in Lafayette, Alabama, says that after being taught by Lucky he could hit at least five out of 10 pennies in the air in front of friends, and once hit eight of 10 washers.
"I shot a lot better with Lucky standing there," he said. "It's some sort of hypnosis. It's not logical, for I always feel that I can't hit these things, yet I do."

The hypnosis theory comes up quite frequently. Lucky grins and concedes that "the power of suggestion" has a lot to do with it.
But Lucky insists that his pupils can, if they will practice faithfully, retain their skill.

If you would like to try it out, here are some pointers.
1) Wear glasses to protect the eyes against ricochet.
2) Remember to shoot at nothing a few times until you can clearly see the BB leave the gun. It will look like a coppery streak, and eventually that streak will seem to you like an extension of the gun barrel. You will have the feeling that you are reaching out with this coppery streak, quite as though it were a long, thin pole, and touching the target with the end of it.
3) Have a friend toss the targets straight up over your head at first to a height of about 12 or 15 feet. It is important that he toss them to pretty much the same spot each time, and that the flat side of the washer is presented to you as you shoot.
4) Don't shoot at a single object on the ground. Toss out several, and if you miss on one, shift to another target.
5) Even if you are shooting at something as small as a penny, pick out a spot on the penny to concentrate on.
6) Cocking the gun may be tiring. Ask your target-tosser to do it.
7) Take your time.
8) Don't pay too much attention to these instructions. Just look at what you want to hit and pull the trigger."

Brownie
 
#135 ·
part 2

That did it. It was late afternoon and the sun was shining behind their backs. They could see the shot emerge from the BB gun. They could follow its trajectory. Thereupon Blanton began to hit small objects tossed into the air.
The BB gun is now basic to McDaniel's teaching method. It is the pupil's first weapon. Before he can shoot it at anything Lucky insists that he be able to see the shot leave the gun. Seeing the shot, the pupil unconsciously notes his margin of error on a miss and, again unconsciously, corrects for it on his next shot.

This is so important that Lucky has designed, and Ross Baldwin has built, a BB gun with variable power, so that weak-eyed students can be helped to see a slow-moving pellet as it emerges from the barrel. The spring which propels the BB can be weakened or strengthened by turning a screw. The gun has, of course, no sights and the fore end of the barrel is even necked down in order to discourage any inclination to sight along the barrel. Its balance is very like that of a shotgun.

Successful with the BB gun, Blanton went back to the .22 rifle and, finding he could now shoot spectacularly with that, swore Lucky to secrecy and "went out and clipped everyone." Next day Blanton brought another student to Lucky and his teaching career began.

Lucky guesses that he has taught thousands in the past few years, among them members of several police departments. In addition to hip shooting Lucky instructs the cops in the quick draw, at which he is most adept. He demonstrated this to me by having me point an unloaded pistol at him.
"I'll draw and fire," he said, "before you can pull the trigger." He did, too.

But the quick draw is a dangerous sport. The first policeman Lucky taught was Maurice Phillips of the Dalton, Georgia force. Phillips prevailed on his chief and the mayor to pay Lucky $20 a man to instruct the department's 23 cops. The policemen were so enthusiastic that they took to practicing against each other with empty guns. But one day Maurice Phillips was killed in such a match with a fellow officer whose gun, it turned out, was not empty. On the other hand, Patrolman T. J. Blake of Prichard, Alabama owes his life to the quick draw, which came in handy when a burglar attacked him.
Alabama police now have restricted Lucky to teaching the draw to police and to civilians approved of by the police chief of a town. Lucky himself is not enthusiastic about teaching it to civilians. It is dangerous, he points out, because once trained the shooter is so conditioned that he finds it difficult to remove his gun from the holster without pulling the trigger. Both movements blend into one. The tendency, furthermore, is to shoot at whatever catches the eye, which might be the family cat.

Lucky's method of instruction is a marvel of simplicity. There is, in fact, very little instruction because Lucky does not want to clutter the pupil's mind with inhibitions.

The pupil is handed a BB gun and told to shoot it at nothing a couple of times. He is asked if he has seen the pellet leave the barrel. When he has satisfied Lucky that he really has seen it, the pupil is permitted to shoot at objects tossed into the air by Lucky, who stands at his right side and a half-step to the rear. Practically the only advice he gets is to cheek the gun lightly and to look at the object without sighting along the barrel.

"Cheek it and shoot it," Lucky tells the pupil as he tosses up the first target, a rather large iron washer, a little bigger than a silver dollar. The pupil generally misses. "Where did the BB go?" Lucky asks. The pupil says he saw the shot pass under the target.

"That's right," Lucky says, and tosses up the washer again. "Cheek it and shoot it." The pupil misses again, is asked where the BB went and again he says it went under. Lucky agrees that it did. But on the fourth or fifth miss a pupil may say that he saw the BB pass over the target.

"No," Lucky says firmly. "It never goes over. You'll never miss by shooting over it. Now try to shoot over it and you'll hit it." The pupil tries to shoot over the washer. He hits it. In that instant he becomes a wing shot. Smaller and smaller washers are tossed into the air and the misses become very infrequent. Eventually the pupil is hitting penny-sized washers and is able to plink them on the top or bottom, as called for by Lucky.

This occurs in an incredibly few minutes, usually under a half hour. During that time the shooter has been kept very busy. Lucky gives him no time to think about what he is doing, no time to theorize, no time to tense up. Targets are tossed in fast succession while Lucky keeps up a patter of suggestion pretty much implying that this is just about the brightest pupil he ever has taught. The pupil is inclined to think so, too.

After establishing expertness with the BB gun, the shooter moves on to the .22 rifle. The routine is much the same except that targets may be anything from small clay pigeons to charcoal briquets, either of which powders in a very satisfying way when hit by a bullet. There is almost never any difficulty in making the shift to the .22. The shooter now has ingrained ability to resist the temptation to aim. He just looks at the target, pulling the trigger when, somehow, he senses that he is pointing properly. This is a very definite feeling but hard to describe. It is a feeling of empathy with the target. Establishment of this "sense" is the big fundamental of Lucky's teaching.
One reason for seeing the BB leave the gun, Lucky says, is that he wants the pupil to "learn to focus on a single object without looking at everything else around."

"I tell him to hold the gun easy against the cheek, not force the cheek down to the gun in the regular way," he explains. "As soon as he begins to shoot I know what he is doing wrong. There are a thousand things he can do wrong. But I don't excite him. You've got to give him confidence or he'll tighten up. I tell him he's going to hit the target and most of the time I call 'em right. When he's shooting high I don't just point to where he should be shooting. I throw the object and point while I'm throwing it. I keep this up steadily so he'll swing into it. Then I keep shifting the target, like from one match to another on the ground, so he won't get wrapped up in one target.
"This is instinctive shooting and it's got to come easy."

The third step is pistol shooting from the hip and again Lucky gives only minimum instruction. He shows how to press the elbow of the shooting arm firmly against the hipbone, makes sure that the wrist is held stiff. The shooter stands with feet apart and knees slightly bent. Lucky tosses small objects—pine cones, cartridge boxes, briquets—onto the ground and the shooter selects one for a target. He is told that if he misses on a shot he must not try to hit the same object again but must shift to another target. The reason is that after a miss there is a tendency to overcorrect on the next shot. Shifting to another target seems to relieve the tension that leads to over correction.

Finally the shooter is given a shotgun and goes through the same procedure against clay pigeons slung from a hand trap. This transition is difficult for some shooters. A shotgun's blast and kick can cause flinching, the pitch of the barrels is different and the heft and balance of a shotgun feel strange after the rifle. But the principle on which Lucky has taught rifle shooting is the basic principle of good shotgun shooting. With a little practice it pays off.
Lucky has no patience with those who teach shotgunners to lead their birds, even though this makes good ballistic sense.

"When a man tells me he doesn't know how he hits, I figure he must be a good shot," Lucky says. A good shotgunner, he believes, doesn't know whether he leads or not.

Fred D. Missildine, a Sea Island resident and champion skeet shot, dropped by to watch Lucky give a lesson to Colonel J. Henry Pool, a retired Army officer. Missildine is a Winchester shooting promotion representative and a few days before he had given Lucky a new Winchester Model 55 single-shot .22 rifle, which features a safety that goes on automatically when the cartridge is inserted in the rifle. Lucky has found it an ideal teaching weapon.
Missildine was curious about the teaching method. He watched intently as Colonel Pool, using the .22, began to knock nickel-sized cardboard plugs from the center of tossed washers. He grasped quickly the idea behind Lucky's "instinct" shooting.

"I've been shooting like that all my life and didn't know it," he said finally. In 1957 Missildine set an all-round world record at skeet, blasting 496 out of 500 targets.

Missildine was further impressed when he saw that Lucky could be equally successful with the experienced Mrs. Charles Moeser, wife of a former Princeton football captain, who that afternoon was to go on a turkey shoot, and the totally inexperienced Mrs. Stella Harned, wife of The Cloister's manager, who had an actual dislike for shooting and had to be persuaded to take a lesson. It was not so impressive to me since I already knew that Lucky had taught small children as well as women.

It is Lucky's contention that the legendary shooters of the West actually did perform as the stories tell and that they shot by instinct.
"Every once in a while some wife gets mad at her husband," Lucky says. "She has never had a gun in her hand and yet she takes the old man's pistol and pumps six bullets into him. Wives never miss when they shoot at their husbands. That's instinct."

Lucky warns his pupils that they may be embarrassed if they try to show off without practice. It seems to be true, too, that Lucky's presence is a large factor in success.

William O. Walton, county solicitor in Lafayette, Alabama, says that after being taught by Lucky he could hit at least five out of 10 pennies in the air in front of friends, and once hit eight of 10 washers.
"I shot a lot better with Lucky standing there," he said. "It's some sort of hypnosis. It's not logical, for I always feel that I can't hit these things, yet I do."

The hypnosis theory comes up quite frequently. Lucky grins and concedes that "the power of suggestion" has a lot to do with it.
But Lucky insists that his pupils can, if they will practice faithfully, retain their skill.

If you would like to try it out, here are some pointers.
1) Wear glasses to protect the eyes against ricochet.
2) Remember to shoot at nothing a few times until you can clearly see the BB leave the gun. It will look like a coppery streak, and eventually that streak will seem to you like an extension of the gun barrel. You will have the feeling that you are reaching out with this coppery streak, quite as though it were a long, thin pole, and touching the target with the end of it.
3) Have a friend toss the targets straight up over your head at first to a height of about 12 or 15 feet. It is important that he toss them to pretty much the same spot each time, and that the flat side of the washer is presented to you as you shoot.
4) Don't shoot at a single object on the ground. Toss out several, and if you miss on one, shift to another target.
5) Even if you are shooting at something as small as a penny, pick out a spot on the penny to concentrate on.
6) Cocking the gun may be tiring. Ask your target-tosser to do it.
7) Take your time.
8) Don't pay too much attention to these instructions. Just look at what you want to hit and pull the trigger."

Brownie
An incredible history lesson of point shooting, index shooting or instinctive shooting.
 
#9 ·
I tried this technique for the first time today, shooting at a silhouette target at 10 yards. Of the 24 rounds that I fired, 23 were on the paper and 19 hit the target. Of the 19, 14 were center of mass.

Not very good, but a lot better than I expected for a first try. I fired 6 rounds at a time, about 1 second per round. It was a lot of fun, and I'll certainly work on it more.
 
#10 ·
10 yrds is too far to start with this without personal instruction [ though your hits seemed okay at the distance without guidance and just reading a narrative ].

Start at 4 yds, slow fire, when all shots are in the 9 ring, move back to 5 yrds and repeat, then 7 yrds and repeat.

Let me know how you are doing and if you have any questions. Fire 1 rd every 2 seconds until all shots are in the 9 ring, then speed up a little and repeat.

I had a class today and had a brand new shooter doing this at 5, then 7, then 10 yrds within 15 minutes with every round in the 9 ring at 2-3 rds a second.

Brownie
 
#12 ·
4" x 5"

You keep em in that type of group slow fire, then when you do 1-2 rounds a second, you'll keep them inside that 8" circle I look for. Smaller than 8", shooting too slow, bigger than 8", shooting too fast.

Let your mind work out the peripheral reference point slowly, once your mind see's you can hit without verifying the gun in direct vision, it will allow you to shoot faster.

Read my signature line, it's not the physical skills that will hold you back, it's the mental verification your brain wants to have and needs to let go of before you truly become one with the gun.

Brownie
 
#21 ·
Thanks, Brownie! This technique is terrific.

I finally made it back out to the range today, and followed your instructions. The key for me was to slow down to about 2 seconds per round, as you said. I also put a small white label at my estimated "peripheral vision aim point" (about 3 inches left and 3 inches down- I'm a lefty).

I fired 5 shot groups, slow fire. The first 10 were at 4 or 5 yards, and all went in about a 4 inch circle. The next 10 were at about 7 yards and also went in about a 4 inch circle.

Then I fired 30 rounds at 10 yards, slow fire. The spread went up more than I liked- to about 8 inches total. Out of 50 rounds all together, 49 were center of mass, and the paper bad guy took one in the arm.

Next time I'll work on tightening the groups. When I get the 10 yard groups in the 9 ring, I'll do what you said and increase the rate of fire until they spread back out to about where I was today at slow fire.

I really like this.
 
#14 ·
#15 ·
Ok, SwampRat,

This post piqued my interest and I actually finally registered on Threat Focused Forum in order to read this article about Brownie only to find that this link doesn't work.

Now I've been outed as being curious about what Brownie has said.

Can you fix the link or would you prefer that curiosity go ahead and kill me now?
 
#16 · (Edited)
Mamabear, I just checked the link, it took me to the thread with the linked article on my forum right off. I clicked the linked article and it opened up for me. Not sure why you couldn't get the link to open.

Brownie
 
#17 ·
Blush.

Ok, it works now. I don't have time to read it because I'm supposed to be teaching pre-algebra to my son and not surfing.

I've iconized (is that a word?) it and will read it during lunch hour.

Thanks.
 
#18 ·
I do not know how it works or what I am doing. However, I notice that I am just as deadly with my guns up to 15 yards, whether or not I am looking at the sights. If I had to shoot in a defensive scenario, I do not think I would l use the sights unless I was getting towards the last rounds. I am not saying that I am surgical, its just that I do about as well with point and shoot. I guess I have good gun-eye coordination...

(this only holds true for semi-auto pistols... I suck with revolvers and shotguns).
 
#19 · (Edited)
driver,

With some Pistol Quick Kill training you can do this:

"Brownie may be able to chew a ragged 2 inch hole out of a target with 2 handed QK at 30 feet, but I would still use my sights if I had to put bullets into a space that precise at that range."

as reported by a student in Tenn. who watched me perform the above with no sights on the gun in June 2006:

http://www.threatfocused.com/forums/showthread.php?t=380 paragraph 11

Just recently completed this course out here in Arizona:

http://www.threatfocused.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2329

My admin on http://www.threatfocused.com/forums/index.php, one of two Quick Kill instructors was down for the weekend event and reported this of a federal agent who goes by the handle 7677 and I shooting simultaneously using one handed Quick Kill at 9 yrds on my steel plates.

Watching 7677 and Brownie move and shoot on those two plates was something to behold. One handed, from what - ten yards? From my vantage point behind you and off to your left, your pistols were definitely below line of sight. I lost count of how many mags you two went through, it sounded like someone beating on the steel with a pair of steel drumsticks, and I don't recall many misses -- three, maybe four?

You covered each other during mag changes really well, moving around the other during mag changes. It seemed like a mad minute, but as fast as you were firing, I don't think you could carry that many rounds on your person for a whole minute!

Your racket making sure attracted a crowd, though


It was 116 rounds in 20 seconds one handed for both 7677 and myself at 9 yrds. He had 4 glock 19 mags and I had 3 glock 17 mags when we started. That's a hit rate on a -1 IDPA scoring area [ the size of my plates ] of 96.6% shooting a sustained rate of fire of 5.8 rounds a second one handed and the gun below line of sight using peripheral vision and not looking at the gun.

I am not saying that I am surgical, its just that I do about as well with point and shoot.

Depending on the time you have and the distance from the threat, you don't necessarily want surgical, but with some training, you can still be surgical without looking at the gun, which gives you some leeway under stress to still be making COM shots on threats at some pretty good distances. Shooting is one of the easiest things in the world to do, but most people make it too damned complicated. It's all in the training and people attending this event http://floridaconcealedcarry.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=864 are going to find that out in the next two weeks. :D

Brownie
 
#22 · (Edited)
Steve48,

Sounds like you had some success with the skill this time around.

Now try this-----------

Two hand hold, Iso or mod iso stance, both eyes open with the gun between your nose and mouth in height, slide/barrel level/parallel to the ground.

In this position, look at the target [ place a dot on the target so you have an aiming point ] and you can "see" the end of the barrel in your peripheral vision. Place the end of the barrel 2-3" below where you want to hit and pull the trigger. Do this for 5 shots.

If the group is lower than where you wanted to hit, raise the reference between the end of the barrel and your intended hit point a little, reverse this procedure if you are hitting higher than your intended hit point.

Start at 4-5 yrds, stay at that range, fire till your groups are in that 4-5" pattern, then speed up your shots till they open up to 8" in group. Once you learn where the end of the barrel needs to be in your peripheral vision to hit your intended point, you can blast 2 rds per second pretty easily.

Stay at that distance and work on your shots per second keeping the shots in that 8" circle. Watch your grip, trigger control and try to get the groups reduced at the same speed. 10 yrds is counter productive until you can keep the groups into 4-5" at 5 yrds with speed, then you'll have enough practice with this to move out to 7, then 10 yrds.

You'll get there, shooting is one of the easiest things you'll ever do once you learn to use your natural ability.

Brownie
 
#24 ·
I'm sorry for bumping this older thread, but I have to say....

WOW!

I read this Saturday night all the way thru, youtubed it, pointed non stop at everything for the last two days and finally got to try it a little bit today at a range. Shot with far better accuracy and comfort, my pace improved, and just had a pleasurable shooting experience all the way around. I only understand maybe .00005% of what I read and saw, but then again I'm slow so I will have to practice (alot, yippee:ak:ak).

Mr. Brown, you are a wonder sir. Just as soon as I am able I hope to have the privilege of some of your instruction. Many sincere thanks.
 
#25 ·
SXmas,

Glad to see you find value in the skill and saw immediate improvement using your natural ability to point in on things using your peripheral vision. It's not rocket science, but it is enlightening what you've always been capable of, just needed that door opened and to step through :thumsup

Your thoughts a very much appreciated
 
#29 ·
Brownie,

I am just discovered last week I am cross dominant and shoot with my right hand. So, while at the range I shot with my right hand and once with each eye closed. Did equally well with right and left eye. Maybe better with my left eye open (I have to test again)

Anyhow, when I point at something across the room and look at it, in my peripheral I see my finger with double vision as if I was cross eyed. Is this normal? If not can it be overcome?

Thanks
 
#30 ·
It's not uncommon for some to see double guns/fingers with both eyes open. Have someone try this with you to determine dominance. You make a circle with your index and thumb like the signal "a okay". Both eyes open, raise it at about 1 foot in front of you, now look through it and put it on their nose. Have them tell you which eye they see on you through the hole. That's your dominant eye.

Now point your finger, arm extended like you're shooting with both eyes open like at a light switch. Put the left ghost finger on the switch and close the eye they person DIDN'T see through the hole. Did the finger move off the switch? If it did, use the ghost right image when you shoot. If it didn't use the ghost left image to shoot when you see two barrels/slides with both eyes open.

Let me know how you make out with that, I can correct further if necessary.
 
#31 ·
Brownie,

I did your test and 2 people said they saw my right eye.

Last week I did a test where you put your hands together in front of you as in the attached image. Then you look at something through the hole. Close one eye, then the other. Which ever eye allows the object not to move is your dominant eye. Using this test my left eye was dominant because the object didn't move.

When I use you other test of pointing at something with the left ghost finger and then close my left eye (the one they didn't see) my finger is on the light switch.

When I point at something with the right ghost finger and then close my right eye (the one they did see) my finger is on the light switch also.

Seems like there is a conflict here.
 

Attachments

#32 ·
The test I gave you appears to indicate you are right eye dominant.
The test you performed seems to indicate left eye dominance.

There's another possibility in that you could be close to neutral and not have a master eye. Master eye is different that dominant eye which many do not understand.

You could be just slightly dominant in one eye but may be closer to neutral in eye dominance. Myself, I shoot right handed [ pistols ] and am just barely left eye dominant [ almost neutral myself ].
 
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