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Is Retention Shooting A Good Idea?

Talyn

Talyn

SAINT
Founding Member
“Is retention shooting a good idea?”

The basic concept of shooting from retention is the concept of not being able to fully draw your firearm and only being able to shoot close to the body to get the threat either away from you or stop the threat. The basic concept is understandable but there are some rather serious safety concerns.

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Concealed Carry Corner: Is Retention Shooting A Good Idea?

how to clear rooms with less-than-ideal entryways. Let's take a closer look at the answer to the question is retention shooting a good idea.
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MrMichaelActual said:
I have tried some of that, when I am at the farm and noone is around... Hope to God I dont ever need to make it count.
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The goal of retention training is for CQB. That video is depicting nothing realistic unless you are a spook of some sort or maybe some situation a soldier might find himself in. There could be situations where you are not going to be able to extend your shooting hand(s) out and you may need to shoot from retention. You will be so close though that it's probably going to be hard to miss. Just make sure you have your support hand up on your chest while you are practicing this. Your inclination is going to be to move your support hand to the gun, which in this case you do not want to do.
 
mveach99 said:
I don't know about the whole shooting from the hip thing but, shooting with the gun close to the body at chest high could be very useful. If I should ever have to clear my house or something similar, I don't want my gun sticking out at arms length when entering a room.
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Let's say you are in a hand to hand situation. You may need to shoot as soon as you clear the holster.
 
The trainer that @KillerFord1977 and I work with trains us in retention shooting as a component of CQB and I find it pretty useful from the standpoint of how you may behave when you are within arms reach. It helps to be properly aware of your fight or flight response too, but knowing how to press the fight in close is pretty empowering. We also train in pressing the fight physically before pulling from retention. We’ll probably never need it, but it is helpful to know what it’s going to feel like when you’re practically sharing spit with the bad guy. One of the interesting exercises we did was what to do if you have your semi auto pistol pressed up against someone hard enough to potentially push it out of battery. This could happen if you were held against a wall, for instance. By pushing your thumb extremely hard against the back of the slide you keep the gun in battery and it will fire. The gun won’t eject the empty round so you have to rack the gun to reload all the while trying to ignore the not insignificant pain in the top of your thumb and the rapidly swelling blood blister on same. Ask me how I know! 😜😫
 
Years ago, in one of the gun magazines, I learned a drill that was developed by the State Police somewhere. I forget exactly where. :rolleyes:
Stand arms length from the target, draw and fire two shots from close retention, step back and fire one shot to the head while retreating.
I can see where this could be a useful skill and I do practice it from time to time. But I intend to do my best to never have to use it. ;)
 
Something I practice occasionally and hope I never have to use, I focus very hard on not letting people who raise my spider sense get close to me and will go out of my way to make sure there’s an adequate distance and opportunity to retreat before it gets messy.
I also make sure that people around me are aware that I’m aware of them.
 
I end every session with CQB and failure drills. Think in terms of having your car door open and being accosted by a carjacker, or at an ATM, ETC. Also think the Rule of Threes. That is that most lethal encounters occur at 3 yards or less, 3 shots or less are fired, and it is over in 3 seconds or less. Carry methods and gear are important here. Safety in practice is critical, muzzle and trigger finger discipline is absolute. Hundreds of dry fire practice repetitions to build the fundamentals before speed. Trying to go fast from the start is a recipe for disaster. Having another shooter watching your technique is helpful. If you have a video camera and tripod available, video youself to see what you are actually doing-you might be surprised and learn how to improve. I have had students getting on the trigger too soon who did not believe it until I showed them the video.

As Bassbob says, get the nongun hand out of the way. Years ago we taught officers to put the nongun hand across the chest. Nowadays I teach putting that hand atop their head with the elbow pointed forward to defend your CPU and eyes from a strike or slash. Go slow and speed will come. Be safe out there.
 
Keystone19250 said:
Something I practice occasionally and hope I never have to use, I focus very hard on not letting people who raise my spider sense get close to me and will go out of my way to make sure there’s an adequate distance and opportunity to retreat before it gets messy.
I also make sure that people around me are aware that I’m aware of them.
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Very good advice.

Directly related to this are the drug gangs (i.e. MS13 etc.) like to get a close as possible before they attack, and they prefer using knives to seriously carve up their victims up since its their trademark.

Recently a friend of mine was nearly drawn in by some characters trying to get him to buy some items for hard cash. Fortunately, he didn't fall for it and kept a safe distance & got out of the situation.
 
SimonRL said:
The trainer that @KillerFord1977 and I work with trains us in retention shooting as a component of CQB and I find it pretty useful from the standpoint of how you may behave when you are within arms reach. It helps to be properly aware of your fight or flight response too, but knowing how to press the fight in close is pretty empowering. We also train in pressing the fight physically before pulling from retention. We’ll probably never need it, but it is helpful to know what it’s going to feel like when you’re practically sharing spit with the bad guy. One of the interesting exercises we did was what to do if you have your semi auto pistol pressed up against someone hard enough to potentially push it out of battery. This could happen if you were held against a wall, for instance. By pushing your thumb extremely hard against the back of the slide you keep the gun in battery and it will fire. The gun won’t eject the empty round so you have to rack the gun to reload all the while trying to ignore the not insignificant pain in the top of your thumb and the rapidly swelling blood blister on same. Ask me how I know! 😜😫
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It was a great training exercise and shooting scenerio. Hit the assailant with a quick push/hit to get them off, pull and shoot. Like next to body and limited movement where you could not retreat like Simon said up against a wall with limited elbow/arm movement
 
I’ve wrecked a lot of shirts practicing retention shooting with revolvers.

Back when I started, I had a bit of a belly; the first time, I learned a t-shirt that was a wee bit too tight was not a good choice to wear to practice…on the second shot, the gap flash burned through and stung like a mother…

Since then, I wear a heavier overshirt during practice.
 
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