The head shot...

[Guy Miner]

Okay, this is primarily a hunting forum. Mods if you want to delete this post, go right ahead.

But... A lot of people carry a handgun primarily for self defense. Against men. And I train people for that.

Recently we had a shooting in which a fairly young, strong, attacker was hit... with a magazine full of highly acclaimed 9mm self-defense ammo. He eventually crumpled, and later died in the hospital. But... If you're looking for that awesome "one shot stop" from a handgun. Don't.

It MAY happen. Or it may not. If we're just poking holes in his chest, there may be a lot of fight left in the attacker. Look all the way back to the infamous FBI shootout in Miami with armed bank robbers...

So train. Train hard. And in that training, make sure you include some time and effort into making the head shot.

It just might save your life.

BTW, the shooter in this incident was never charged. It was clearly self-defense. And yes, the attacker was armed.

Regards, Guy

 

[big rifle man]

Excellent comments Guy. When I became a Range officer/instructor on our PD the first place I was sent for training was one of our local (2 hrs. away) firearms manufacturers schools. They provided excellent training/gunsmithing courses. A comment by one of the instructiors sticks in my mind to this day and that's " if you want to stop someone immediately shoot them in the computer." Not delicately said but to the point. Making this particular shot in a heated confrontation is difficult at best and the average person simply cannot do it other than by sheer luck.

 

[6mm Remington]

We always practiced two to the chest and one to the head on our drills. Figured it would be good for those really intent on fighting back and for the chance they might be wearing a vest.

 

[truck driver]

When I carried for a while our instructors were ex-LA swat and one of the qualifying drills at the end of a run and gun string was two to the chest and then reload and final shot to the head to stop the clock since we were timed on all the drills. Their thing was this the only way to stop a drug addict on PCP. We carried S&W M13s which were stainless M10s with 4" Bull barrels. If you know what your doing you can stage a S&W trigger and hold the hammer at half cock which gives you an almost single action trigger pull and just squeeze threw.
Double action semi autos you have to squeeze straight threw.
It took my instructors several strings to figure out what I was doing.
One of the guys I use to shoot PPC matches with was a Norwegian national assigned to the Embassy security and he taught me to stage the trigger to duplicate single action.

 

[Vince]

Rather than head shots why not train, two to the chest, one to the head, two to the chest, one to the pelvis?

A head that ain't running around is a lot easier to hit.

Vince


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Yoda]

No body ever thinks of shooting the pelvic area, a bobbing head would be hard to hit for anyone, A pelvic shot will put the person on the ground where he would be easier to deal with or get away..

 

[Guy Miner]

Have heard of mixed results with pelvis shots. Sometimes effective, sometimes virtually no result.

Dunno.

Then again, in my example, some "good" hits produced little result. The bad guy was still trying to attack, while badly wounded, when the cops arrived.

Guy

 

[Guy Miner]

12 gauge... That ought to do it... :wink:

 

[truck driver]

12 gauge... That ought to do it... :wink:

Nothing like a load of 00 Buck to get the job done or Buck and Ball. I have a Winchester 1300 Marine stainless model with 18" barrel setting in the corner by the bed with the magazine full and the chamber empty. If racking the slide doesn't cause the intruder to vacate the premises What comes out the end of the barrel will anchor him in place. :mrgreen:

 

[big rifle man]

My thoughts would be that a shot in the pelvis, as long as it hits the spine will work. I saw one of those back in 1973 (a shot through the lower stomach into the spine) and it dropped him like a sack of potatoes although he was still trying to crawl over to his M1 Carbine. That didn't end well for him.