Drawing & Firing a Handgun Using ONLY Your Support Hand

Drawing & Firing a Handgun Using ONLY Your Support Hand
BY Kim Heath

Blue Island, IL –-(Ammoland.com)- I hope your Holiday season is off to a happy start.

For the next WOD, I wanted to post a couple short videos to quickly explain it and make it easier for those of you who have never practiced this skill, but my cell phone camera and my MacBook are refusing to speak the same language they both spoke a month ago.

I also figured most of you would not miss a WOD this week with everything else going on family/Holiday/work wise.

This WOD focuses on drawing and firing using ONLY your support hand. Get your body armor set up in such a way that you can dry fire at it. Now unload your pistol and put all ammunition in another room. Lock the slide back, stick your finger in the chamber and make sure physically you have an empty chamber and mag well. Slide forward and press check, look away, and press check again, reholster. Do not just rack the slide several times and hope the extractor does its job.

Tuck your gun side hand into the back of your waist and forget it is there. Reach over with your non-gun hand and grab your holstered pistol. If you cannot reach it, pull the holster towards your front. If your belt will not rotate, switch out your velcro inner belt for a leather one, or reverse the velcro to the inside.

Now grab your holster and pull it towards your front. If you still cannot reach it, you may want to consider downsizing, not for vanity, but for the ability to perform a potentially life saving skill. If you can reach your holster where it is, or have pulled it over a little bit and now can reach it, defeat your retention. If you have a Safariland ALS holster, rotate the hood forward and grasp the holster so your thumb is on the ALS button and your middle finger is where the front strap meets the trigger guard.

Push back on the ALS button and lift up with your middle finger. If you have a Blackhawk holster, the hardest part should be finding a way to press the side button and lift up on the pistol at the same time. Once you start playing
around with this, I hope you understand why it is important to first practice this skill with an empty pistol as fingers are going everywhere. Some holsters will be much easier to draw from with your support hand than others, but regardless of which one you have, it is doable, and you can become quite proficient at it with some good old fashioned “finagling.”

There is nothing in the rule book that says you can’t pull the holster around towards your back, or how far to rotate your belt, you do what you have to do, so you can do what you have to do.

Once you get your pistol out of the holster, the next challenge is how to get it rotated around so you are not gripping it upside down. Once I’ve gotten my pistol partially out of the holster, I pull up just high enough to rotate the pistol so the magazine is pointing forward, and can then grip it in a proper support handed grip.

I then draw out of the holster and come in close to my body, muzzle pointed at the threat, to a retention position, then punch out to the threat and step into it with my support side foot. For a one handed grip, I grip tightly and point my thumb up, smooth press of the trigger, second sight picture, follow the threat to the ground, retract, scan 360, and back to the holster the same way it came out. If you do not need to reset your trigger for every shot, then go ahead and give several trigger pulls while your pointed at the threat.

Reholstering:You may find it easier to go back the same way you came out. Insert the muzzle into the holster with the magazine facing forward, lift up slightly and turn the pistol around so the magazine is facing the rear as it usually is, and insert it the rest of the way into the holster, secure your retention.

An option here is instead of drawing the pistol and rotating it in the holster so you can establish a proper grip, some shooters will draw the pistol from the holster gripped upside down, and place the slide against their chest, rolling the pistol over and obtaining a proper grip.

I’ve seen others draw the pistol upside down, place the muzzle on top of their cuff case, or other item on the front of their duty belt, and reverse their grip that way. If you consult the rule book, you will see there is nothing in it prohibiting any method as this is a bonafide, Holy Crap moment. You do what you have to do to get the job done. I highly recommend that you use your holster to rotate the pistol and get a proper grip, the first method described, because it is much easier to run to cover and do it that way without dropping your pistol. Once you find a technique that works for you, try it while moving/running and you may want to make some adjustments.

For this WOD, just stay static so you can figure out the draw, and Tuesday’s WOD will involve movement.

If you are having trouble with the WOD and/or have questions, feel free to shoot me an email got.1911sATgmail.com, or give me a call and we will work it out.

Next time I won’t wear a black coat as a background for a black pistol, but after several days of messing around with technical difficulties, I just didn’t have the patience to redo it.

A peek in to the future for WODs, we will focus on pistol skills for a while, then transition to rifle skills, and throw in some shotgun WODs if there is an interest.

Thanks for tuning in, Go Bears!

Kim

Visit Women’s Tactical Association at: https://womenstactical.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

About:
Women’s Tactical Association: The primary mission of the WTA is to promote and encourage training and education among female Law Enforcement in an effort to enhance and refine skills in the areas of firearms, combat mindset, tactics and fitness. Visit: www.womenstactical.ning.com