The weak hand factor

[P95Carry]

This morning's IDPA shoot was great - cold but sunny - not too many shooters and a good course of fire. One round I had was a clear and time not bad either - rare for me!

One section involved a start with 6 rounds - to be put one shot on each of six sillhouettes. Reload from slidelock and repeat - Vickers tho so a chance at least to ''top up''

Despite a disadvantage I have due a a partial muscle palsy on left shoulder - I was (again) made very aware of just how important weak hand practice is. Not just the shooting itself, re accuracy and control - but heck - the reload too!!

I found I was changing hands for the reload, then re-aquiring the weak hand hold to continue. This is for sure something I really must work on more.!

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[HotGuns]

Its always good to practice weak hand, not enough people do it.

Myself, Im pretty much ambidextrious and dont have a problem with the hands working correctly, what limits me is the fact that Im right eyed dominate and have to concentrate to use my left eye otherewise I'll start "crosshooting" and using the right eye to sight the gun in the left hand and that is NOT good for accuracy.

Several of my guns have ambi safetys and its definatly easier when shooting left handed. The ones that dont are obviously slower to get back into action.

[rocky]

I practice weak hand shooting , but the reload would be a sloopy looking affair with my weak hand.

[acparmed]

Am I missing something here?
The reason for off-hand shooting is the presumption that your strong hand is out of commission.

You aren't just switching hands and shooting left handed (for us righties) You are now shooting without the benefit of two hands as well as the fact that you are probably in extreme pain and stressed to the max.
Now manage that one-handed reload.

As Clint Smith says, "Boy, we're having fun now!!"

[oregonshooter]

I was thinking the same thing. I can't think of a scenario where I would shoot weak hand if my strong hand was strong enough to do reload drills with?

Does IDPA even allow WHO or STO reloads without using the "lame" hand? Every club shoot I've seen they have you use both hands in reload even if you are shooting STO or WHO. Like it magically healed itself long enough to to the mag change.

It's a shame IDPA/IPSC don't allow STO/WHO reloads, it's an important part of training. One handed clearance drills are even more important, but not allowed either, right?

[BlueLion]

Furthermore, if it comes to weak handing shooting you are definitely in trouble and more concerned with getting rounds off so that you can get to cover than anything else.

[oregonshooter]

Hmmmm... good argument for hi-caps. :)

[Anubis]

The reason for off-hand shooting is the presumption that your strong hand is out of commission.

I didn't know that! I am very new to IDPA, having done only 1 match so far.

There were no SHO/WHO stages; when I was engaging targets from the left side of cover, I would fire left-hand only and when I moved to fire from the right side, switched to the right hand only. My thought was to minimize my exposure on each side.

I prefer to shoot single-hand anyway, and since my left is strong side, I am working on right-hand shooting.

In "Tomb Raider", seems like Jolie was firing 2 pistols simultaneously in the opening sequence and did some kind of simultaneous reload.

Seriously, maybe a good IDPA simulation of injury to the strong hand combined with malfunction or loss of pistol (like if shot in the strong arm and dropped the principal weapon, unable to retrieve) would be to fire a few shots with the principal, then switch to a back-up pistol for the rest. To fully simulate the injury, no reloads allowed.

[oregonshooter]

IDPA does not allow for BUGs either. Nice try though! :)

[Anubis]

IDPA does not allow for BUGs either. Nice try though! :)

No doubt due to the factor of "loading and making ready" 2 pistols; I see how that could double the chance of error.

I haven't carried a back-up myself yet, but I did see an unofficial stage only for BUGs. There was no drawing from a holster, as I recall; seems like they loaded and placed the BUG on a table to begin the action. I think the targets were steel: a Texas Star and maybe some drop-downs (? vertical steel that falls over when hit).