Freestyle or weakhand?

[spook]

In an oncoming match we will shoot a three string standard. One of the strings is:

At beep, engage T1 (10 y) with 2 rounds freestyle. Next, engage T1 with 2 rounds weak hand. Fixed time 4.5 seconds.

Would you shoot the first two shots freestyle, or buy yourself some extra time by transferring the gun to the weakhand during the draw and shoot the whole string weak hand?

[asiaeagle]

I can do both within time,but I will shoot free style+ weak hand. Because I most likely get at lease 2 As from free style.

[Garfield]

Hi,

I think I would go for freestyle first.

It's a mere letting go with the strong hand after the first two shots, and I am still a better shot with two hands than with my weak hand only. My grip is such that there is not much transfering to do, just letting go with my strong hand and moving the thumb of my weak hand across the backside of the grip.

BTW: I hadn't looked at the stages for Druten yet (I never do), but now I see that this stage is in there. Gosh do I hate such standard exercises !!

[TriggerT]

Go freestyle first, then weak hand. If you know it is coming up, practice your freestyle to weak hand transfere. You can get it down to the point where it should be costing you VERY little time. I figure the added control of the freestyle should get you a few more points.

On the other hand, I know a guy who after having shoulder surgery shot ONLY weak hand for 3 months. If you were that guy, I would say go weak hand only, since his weak hand is now as good or better than most people's strong hand. What a sick puppy.....weak hand only for three months.

[spook]

I practiced this stuff in dryfire for two days now.

Seems like the weak hand only way is a litte more forgiving in the time department. But...you're shooting the whole thing weak handed, so you'd better get good hits!

The freestyle to weakhand way will guarantee good first two shots, but I found myself snapping the trigger on the last two shots more.

All arguments presented by you make sense, but I still haven't figured out which way to go.

[schmitz]

Spook,

you know more than I do!

Just coming of the range, I practised draws and weakhanddraws/transfers this afternoon, all went well.

In Bianchi the weakhand is a common draw in the Practical-event, I don't expect any problems.

My solution: first free-style then weakhand.

!!Garfield don't hate them, practise them!!

Henny.

[eric nielsen]

Just find out where you need to hold the sights to get the center of your weak hand groups into the center of the Azone.

At ten yards [a very typical weakhand distance, btw] I hold at the top-left corner of the Azone. Further out, I may hold more in the shoulder or even in the air left of the "upper A/B panel".

What matters is, can you shoot a reasonable group size with only the weak hand? If you're not sure, shoot at a huge piece of cardboard with some sort of sticker or Sharpie-X as an aiming point. I get much better results with my thumb completely off the gun, which I stumbled on while shooting a KelTec .380 one-handed.

Once the groups are good, just hold off-center as needed. Having said that, I'm still going to try this both ways at the range tomorrow nite.

[eric nielsen]

Got all A's either way, but only after much practice with the freestyle/weakhand transition, which was not at all natural. Much easier with draw-to-weak-hand.

In a real match, with a string each for both ways, I'm sure the all-weak-hand would go much much better. Probably an overtime shot the other way.

Once you practice draw to weakhand [dryfire] down to a par time of 1.4 or 1.3, everything else is easy. Starting out my par was 2.2 but it got much shorter with practice. Needed to practice that anyway...

[spook]

Thanks for posting your live fire observations! You found exactly what I expected. The transition from freestyle to weakhand shooting doesn't benefit your shooting. Weak hand only it is! Guess I needed that confirmation Thanks again.