Defensive Carry banner

Shooting with your off hand

4K views 46 replies 30 participants last post by  chandlerusm 
#1 ·
How many of you practice drawing, shooting and fighting with your off hand? I'm a righty. UPS just came to my door to deliver a left handed holster for my Glock 19. I plan on using it quite a bit in 2014 to train to draw, shoot and fight with my left hand.

Why? It's entirely possible your strong hand might be shot, stabbed or injured somehow and you simply cannot shoot your gun with it. But it might save your life if you can make quality hits with your off hand. For the small price to pay for a inexpensive holster, it's my opinion that this is a good investment.

The reason I practice drawing with my left hand is this. I travel by car a lot. If I carry at the 4:00 position, the gun is partially interfered by my seat belt and the sides of the car seats. If I keep it on my left side, it's easier to draw from my sitting position in my car and not interfered as much by the seat.

I keep an inside waistband holster on my right side, but for real long trips, it's much more comfortable to keep it on my left side. Your mileage may vary, but the bottom line, know how to shoot effectively with both hands acting as your dominant hand.
 
#2 ·
I am left-handed and right eye dominant. I have carried and shot with my off-hand since 1969. I can shoot a handgun fine with my left hand, especially if I close my left eye. I have both right-hand and left-hand holsters for my carry guns. I occasionally carry a gun on each hip for a New York reload. I have trouble shooting a rifle left-handed.
 
  • Like
Reactions: gatorbait51
#6 ·
It depends on the gun and the situation. For a walk-up up-close encounter, I prefer right-handed to keep better control cross-body in case someone grabs for the gun. At any distance, especially with a big bore revolver, I prefer left-handed to get the gun further out the window for the muzzle flash, cylinder flash, and much less noise.
 
#5 ·
How many of you practice drawing, shooting and fighting with your off hand? I'm a righty. UPS just came to my door to deliver a left handed holster for my Glock 19. I plan on using it quite a bit in 2014 to train to draw, shoot and fight with my left hand.

Why? It's entirely possible your strong hand might be shot, stabbed or injured somehow and you simply cannot shoot your gun with it. But it might save your life if you can make quality hits with your off hand. For the small price to pay for a inexpensive holster, it's my opinion that this is a good investment.

The reason I practice drawing with my left hand is this. I travel by car a lot. If I carry at the 4:00 position, the gun is partially interfered by my seat belt and the sides of the car seats. If I keep it on my left side, it's easier to draw from my sitting position in my car and not interfered as much by the seat.

I keep an inside waistband holster on my right side, but for real long trips, it's much more comfortable to keep it on my left side. Your mileage may vary, but the bottom line, know how to shoot effectively with both hands acting as your dominant hand.
Every time I am practicing. It is a skill that IMO is a must if you carry a weapon....

JMB
Do you have any difficulties engaging out the driver's side of the car when using your left hand?
Being right handed it can be a bit difficult for people that are new to it, but once it is mastered its not that hard.
 
#9 ·
Just out of curiosity OP, do you carry on your left side? We have a range drill, a magazine two hand center mass, a magazine strong hand, a magazine weak hand, and then another magazine two hand head only. We've limited our magazines to 6 rounds with the limited ammo supply!

Accessing your firearm, one handed reloads, and clearing the firearm with weak hand is a skill set that needs practice and should in everyone training. JMHO!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
#10 ·
I always practice weak-side shooting, reloading, & slide racking. In the cooler months (when on my motorcycle), I CC with a left-hand shoulder holster. I've trained to the point where I'm pert-near as good left-handed as right-handed. I will admit that my left hand draw is noticeably slower than my right.
 
#12 ·
While my BUG is in my pocket on the left side my EDC is on my right side. I practice drawing my EDC with my reaction hand almost a daily basis during dry fire. In addition, a few times a week I work on manipulations and clearing malf's LHO. Whenever I go to the range I dedicate at least 20% of my ammo to reaction hand only as well.
 
#13 ·
I have mirror-image holsters and placement and normally perform the same number of repetitions of whatever I'm doing with each hand. I also practice transition from hand to hand and side to side. With rifle as well as pistol. Goal is to be as facile with one side as with the other.

Let me suggest that you stop calling it the 'off' hand or the 'weak' hand. Tell yourself often enough that something is 'off' and you will believe what you say whether it is or not. The mind is strange that way.
 
#14 ·
As a lefty, I find it very difficult to engage out the drivers side of a vehicle with a left side draw. Yes, as the OP said, he can do fine out the right side of vehicle, but how likely ist that an attacker is likely to approach your vehicle on the side furtherest from the driver. I practice weak side often enough that I feel comfortable with a holster mounted against the console, which requires a right-hand draw.

OP, I agree with your statement we should practice weak side shooting, but your notion that left-hand drawing is easier as the driver of a vehicle, is wrong. When I try to draw left-handed in my car, my elbow must go between the left side of the seat and the door, and there is not enough room for my arm to pass through. Try it a few times and I think you will change your thoughts.
 
#16 ·
I've done it over the years as a fun stunt and did once shoot on invitation with a class of Tarrant County (Fort Worth, Texas) deputies on their inaugural qualifying shoot upon completing firearms training which required a weak-hand stage of fire. I can do it and wouldn't be flustered by it. I don't practice it seriously.

Now driving in England, in their cars, on their side of the road? That hoo-doodles me!

I idly scanned this thread's title and first thought it said" "Shooting Your Hand Off."
 
#17 ·
I routinely practice one-handed and two-handed shots from both my strong and weak sides. I don't really have a problem in any of the four positions, but I've been doing drill for a few years now. I catch myself occasionally shooting on my weak side with my strong eye (habit, not cross-dominent), which pushes my shots out to the right a little (I'm a lefty). I've been working on using both eyes open but have problems focusing on the front sight.

What's strange is that with my DDM4 and EoTech sight I don't have any problem using both eyes, and the difference in distance from my eyes is only 8"-10".

As an aside, shooting one-handed is still a lot different than shooting from a car. I dry practice in my garage from time-to-time and it is amazing how challenging it can really be (seating position, steering wheel, seat belt, gun position, passengers, etc.)
 
  • Like
Reactions: gatorbait51
#18 ·
I don't practice left handed draw but I absolutely include left handed shooting every time I'm out. After a while of 2 handed and right only my right hand trigger finger gets tired so I start working lefty. Tendonitis, a constant reminder of age.
 
#19 ·
I practice weak hand draw from the holster as well as shooting rifle and pistol with both hands. Being left handed , I find it easy to do as I switch hit and other tasks righty or lefty quite a bit.
 
  • Like
Reactions: gatorbait51
#20 ·
We used to have strong hand/weak hand rotations in the group we shot with regularly. Since that group disbanded we have had very little non-dominant hand practice with our new group. I do practice dry firing at home with dominant and non-dominant hands, though. The older I get the more difficult it is to fire any gun with my non-dominant hand, though. Kind of scary to think about.
 
  • Like
Reactions: gatorbait51
#26 ·
Being born naturally left handed but then due to the elementary schools back then believing it was a right handed persons world "their words not mine" I was forced to learn to write right handed and basically semi converted to right handed.

This resulted in my doing somethings left handed and some right mostly by habit. I carry right handed but I can draw and shoot and handgun very very close to as well with either hand or both at once at normal sd ranges. That is with both eyes open though I am right eye dominant. What a mess:blink:
 
#46 ·
When I was in the 1st grade, the teacher took my pencil out of my left hand and slapped my hand with a ruler. She then put the pencil in my right hand. After three times she gave up, and wrote a note to my parents I was slow.

When I was six, my dad took me to shoot for the first time. It was a Remington 22 bolt action. I had trouble shooting it left handed because of the bolt getting in the way, but I got used to it and have been shooting right (wrong handed) ever since.

I do practice both left and right every time I go shooting now.
 
#27 ·
I do everything right handed except when I carry or hunt. I switched to left handed rifle aim about 20 years ago and left handed holster draw when I got my HCP.I prefer to have my strong arm free for any physical threat.It just gives me that more of an advantage.
 
  • Like
Reactions: gatorbait51
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top