GUN - Free Shop Manual

arm, hand, or shoulder muscles but, rather,
all possible looseness of these parts should
be attempted.
The right shoulder should be allowed to
drop slightly back in the act of drawing as
opposed to the exaggerated forward thrust
advocated by some methods of teaching. This
is a point which you can easily prove for
yourse-]f. If you will slowly draw a gun,
using the exaggerated forward thrust of the
shoulder, you will find that the weapon cannot
be leveled until it is well in front of
the body. Dropping the shoulder back in·
stead, allows the gun to be pointed at the
target just as it clears the holster, an
economy of motion which reduces slightly
the overall time.
In this connection, the theory has been
advanced by this "shoulder thrust" school,
probably in defense of what is obviously
othe,rwise an· untenable position, that the
first shot should be fired as soon as the gun
clears the holster, whether lined up on the
target or not. The idea of this being that
even if those first shots only plow up the
dirt between yourself and your opponent
they will disconcert him and cause him to
miss.
This theory defeats the whole idea of
fast draw marksmanship, which, when reduced
to its essentials, is simply to place
your shot in a vital spot before you are hit
by your opponent. Surely nothing could be
more disconcerting to the accuracy of an
adversary than a .357 Magnum slug applied
judiciously in the region of his belt buckle!
It will beat kicking dirt in his face every
time!
There is an old adage which should be
held in mind at all times as you work on
the fast draw: "Speed's fine but accuracy's
fatal!" I do not know who first made that
statement, but he was a very sabe hombre.
There is too much fancy gun juggling being
masqueraded as fast gun work. If you cannot
hit your target on the first shot you had best
give up the quest for speed until you canunless,
of course, you are interested only in
dexterity and not concerned with self defense.
The body should remain motionless and
the draw made with the arm only. The
rigid claw-like fingers and the gunman's
crouch so often seen on movie and TV
screens and described by Western writers,
while both menacing and impressive, are
not part of an efficient fast draw technique.
The crouch may, as some insist, "make you
a smaller target;" but this is negative thinking.
The crouch slows your shot and therefore
handicaps you in your main objective
-which is to stop him before he can make
you a target.
There are three good reasons for the upright
stance: There is no strained, unnatural posi.
tion of the body to hamper smooth movement
of the arm; your intentions are not
disclosed by "telegraphing your punch" as
they would be by assuming a menacing
crouch; and, after training your hand to a
specific task of going instinctively to the
same place, the gun will be at that place
rather than having to be pursued and
caught in movement.
The fourth point is probably the most im·
portant. The hand must not pause from the
moment it starts moving until the instant the
gun is fired. The only means by which this
can be accomplished is that the hand moves
in a circular motion, "scooping" up the reo
volver enroute.
(Continued on page 36)
GUNS NOVEMBER 1959
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