Arm fully extended or elbow bent

[Bill Schwab]

Course of fire dictates you start with gun in weak hand pointed downrange at a 45 degree angle.  

Do you start with the weak arm fully extended and pointed at 45 such that you raise the gun to the target, or do you strive for something closer to the body (still pointed at 45) so that you can punch the gun out?

Sorry for the crappy explanation.

Bill

[tightloop]

when I do weak hand IDPA, I already have my grip, and my sights are very close, arm is at 45 and relaxed.  At the beep, I raise my arm, not with elbow locked, and since the sights and grip are nearly there, I concentrate on letting the shot go.  since it is 7 yds or less, no problem.

[Ron Ankeny]

Bill:

My weak hand shooting sucks canal water. For what it is worth, if I lock my elbow, when I raise the gun I seem to hyper extend because I try to push out at the last instant. This causes my sights to dip, bob, and weave.

I keep my elbow bent just slightly and push out a little bit at the last instant, then break the shot. That's what works best for me. Then again, you need to remember that I need help too. I hope, Brian, Pat, Matt, etc. share their thoughts.

[danny]

Its just as if your shooting strong hand supported,elbows bent and you raise and push the firearm out as if your ringing a door bell. (smooth is fast ) your getting your sight picture the last few inches as your arms are extending.  

[Larrys1911]

I punch it out.

Whenever I start from low ready regardless of which hand or both, I punch it out! Just like the last part of Drawing to me!

Larry P

[benos]

I may be old-school, but I just extend my arm to it's exact ending position before raising the gun, and just smoothly raise 'er up.

If you've ever had the opportunity to watch an Olympic rapid-fire shooter train, you'd really appreciate the beauty of the "raise." It's like watching a GM draw.

be

[DT Guy]

FWIW:

In a class with Dave Elderton, he advocated keeping the the gun in close to the body, with the gun down at a 45 degree angle, during the weak hand stage of the classifier. He recommended against raising a straightened arm since most people 'overshoot' and have to spend time dropping the sight back on target.

I'm still, well, let's say I'm working on it...

Larry

[tightloop]

I know there is more one way to skin a cat, but lets not overthink this, it is simply raising your arm.

[Flexmoney]

I see two ways to do it.

1.)  Start with the arms extended to their normal shooting length, then raise them (I think that would cause the gun to whip some at the end???)

2.)  Start with the gun in close to the body, then press out...like the final portion of a holster draw.