Firearms Training: Angles with 3D vs 2D Targets

Now, obviously, there's a big difference between this standard two dimensional target that's pretty plain and non-threatening and this three-dimensional target with clearly a replica gun in it's hand, and some, sinister fashion accessories here. The idea is that training on a three-dimensional target though has to be very specific because there is a lot more costs. There's a lot more setup, time, effort and energy. We need to think about what can we really gain by training on this type of target versus this type of target. Now, one thing that people immediately say is that behaviorally, this helps you get into a mode or a zone where you're actually afraid.

But the fact is we just spent 20 minutes setting this up. We're standing around it. I'm not afraid of this target. So while it may help visually on a kinda geometrical standpoint, the reality is that this isn't scaring me. So I can visualize a threat around this target and put myself in that same place.

And I certainly can train on this type of target and apply whatever I develop in terms of skill to a realistic threat in that worst case scenario environment. So that's not the main reason I like to use a three-dimensional target. One of the best things we can do with a three-dimensional target, is to start thinking about angles, that we're going to shoot into the human body to stop a threat. And not as much a threat that's facing us, right? I used to be a big believer in the idea that, there's huge value in training on a three-dimensional target, if you were to move laterally, if they move laterally.

Now, all of a sudden you're shooting at an angle but if you watch enough actual fights, you see that that's not really what happens, if you right now were to take your perspective from this camera angle and move 30 yards to the left, this bad guy wouldn't take his gun and turn it with his head and leave his body facing over here where it is now. Obviously the bad guy is gonna follow you. So the presentation of the torso if someone's trying to hurt you is almost always going to be what you see when you look at the two dimensional target, the actual torso. So we can still use that outline shape, the points of the shoulder, the area of the head and the outside of the ears to denote what is the highest center chest area. Where three-dimensional targets really come into their own and really become valuable is if we think about shooting in the defense of others, now whether that's a law enforcement security or military person or you're shooting to protect a family member this can be really valuable training.

Now let's take a look at what I'm talking about. We're gonna leave these targets oriented towards you but I'm gonna move off angle. I'm gonna move over here. I'm gonna put my eye protection on. I've got my ear protection in.

And the idea is let's imagine that I was shooting to defend you and I wanted to stop this threat. Now, the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna look at the paper target threat. So I'm gonna take my gun out. I'm gonna drive out. I'm gonna try to hit that center of that target.

We're gonna think about where those shots would go. Now I'm gonna move back put myself in the same relative position to the three-dimensional target and take very similar shots. Now, what we're gonna do is take a look at what happened with these targets. When I come in here, we can see that these two shots are well inside of the a-zone. Now this is a pretty dramatic representation.

So we can see that there are slices through the paper. They're not really holes through the paper but we really have no way to gauge these. Other than that, they are inside that down zero a-zone whatever you want to call it, they're in what we would consider the high center chest. So we kinda have to count them as good, right? But we know that the human torso is a three-dimensional target, right?

Now, the two shots that I fired on this guy we had one come in and skip right through the edge and come out through the arm. And we had another one come in here right across the sternum area. And again, you can tell that it's an angular entry but when we go to the back of the target this is where things really become interesting. And this is where the three-dimensional target really pays off. We've got this insert, we've got this cardboard insert that has a little bit of depth to it.

And that's representing the center of that torso. In fact, we can come up here just and look at the rubber and see that there was no penetration. This is a brand new target, there's no breaks in the rubber coming into the center of the torso. So that shot, that looks pretty good that if we look at it, the one, especially the second one, if we look at it from here, I mean, it's inside of the circle. It's inside of that a-zone, that down zero it's in the high center chest but all it really did was tear pectoral muscle maybe come off the ribs, follow the ribs around.

We don't know what it did, but we do know that it did not go through the core of this target's body. And that's really easy and obvious to see with this target versus that target. Now let's change perspective. We go to our traditional perspective. If I'm out here in front of the target, we think about defending myself and I shoot at that paper target.

Well, no big deal. As I drive out on the paper, target fire the shots good, as I drive out on this target fire the shots good. Now we're gonna go in and take a look. Obviously two shots into the chest. They drove straight through the center, cavity of the chest.

Exactly what I'm looking for. I come over here, I look at this target, I've got two shots that go right into the center of the chest. And of course now, if we look at the cardboard we're gonna see that we have these two wounds that came through the center of the chest cavity. And that's what we want. We want the shots to go through the center of the chest cavity.

So what we need to do is think about how are we going to engage this three-dimensional tube, this oval that is the human body if we wanna hit the high center chest in that way from the side. And of course that's gonna mean driving a deeper angle a steeper angle, maybe even through the shoulder area and the side of the chest and not aiming for that normal area we would between the nipples, underneath the collarbone and above the diaphragm from the front. So again, I'll move over here And now let's think about where that would be on the paper target. So with the paper target, I'm gonna fire a couple shots. One there, one there, I'm gonna take a couple shots over here , and let's see where those ended up.

So we can see these two shots basically in the same hole over here. And we come over here and now we've got shots that went in through the shoulder. Now, if we come around here with this camera and take a look and see what I'm seeing now, we can see that these entry wounds, well, one of them is in the shoulder and one of them is up here in that high center chest area, just above the shoulder. Obviously, if this were a human being that would be completely through the shoulder area coming in here at the top of the pectoral muscle. And sure enough, if we come around back and take a look you're gonna see that now in our cardboard insert we've got those new holes.

We've got one up here at the top of the high center chest and we've got one over here in the middle of the high center chest. So that's what we're looking for is proof and evidence that we're driving through the middle of this target that we're actually cutting through the middle of that oval and not just superficially skimming across the front of it. And we really can't tell the difference. If we come back over here to where those two holes went these don't look like good shots, right? These holes don't look like good shots.

They look like they're off to the right. And it's really hard to gauge that. So when we think about what we've got with a high center, with a three-dimensional target, showing us the high center chest and the reality of where the internal cavity is we're much better off for teaching this lesson. So that's the kind of access that I like to give our students to. We may bring a three-dimensional target out once during a two day class, just to teach that lesson especially when we think about defending other people and shooting into the torso and an other than to the front angle.