"Support Side Shooting" with Gunslinger Roland

This commentary was published by Gunslinger Roland in a private training forum. With his permission, I share it here for others. -Whiskey Delta Gulf

"I don't switch hands shooting pistol based on cover. BUT I do shoot a lot of weak hand only pistol because I have suffered a complete fracture of my humerus. I have experienced an arm dangling from my shoulder and bending forward in the middle of my upper arm. I bent over to collect some of my kit off the ground and seeing the sheer uselessness of that arm and hand as a result of the break.

So, the possibility of losing the use of my rifle and my strong arm in an explosion or by getting stitched across the chest plate with automatic weapons fire is very real to me!

I HAVE to be able to recover my pistol from my strong side holster using only my left hand and then finish a fight against one or more dudes with rifles. That won't be easy and that's why I train weak side only shooting and manipulations.

Photo courtesy of Shooting Illustrated

I talked to one of the Ranger officers in the months following Oct 3rd (1993) and I asked him (and most of the others) for all the info and lessons learned that I could. I asked him, if there was ONE thing that you could go back in time and train on that you were lacking in the MOG, what would it be.

The Task Force Ranger member looked me in the eyes and said "shooting from the support side, hands down!" I was shocked. Support side and barricade shooting were not really a big deal in the Rangers back then. 

TF Ranger 1993

He further explained. "I was at this four way intersection and there was a machine gun (might have been a big gun on a technical, it's been 22 years since he told me this story) firing at them from down the side street. Every time I broke the right hand corner of the building and exposed my whole body to take a right handed rifle shot, the ricochets and spall off the wall would force me back behind cover, so I tried using my left shoulder and couldn't hit shit even though I had much more time to aim. So I was forced to sprint all the way across the intersection while being engaged so that I now had a left hand corner and I could brace from a right handed position. A couple of shots later and I had taken the machinegun out."

So let's think about this Ranger's combat experience here for a minute. He is getting hell pissed on him from the 3 o'clock and because of his lack of proficiency with support shoulder barricade position shooting, the only way he can silence the guns is to sprint to the 12 o'clock through a hail of lead from his right. When he made it across the intersection, turn around and brace on the far corner wall for a right handed barricade shot.

%#@# that! I think I'll practice alternate positions, thank you very much!"