Session 8: The Physics of Defensive Shooting

When it comes to the fundamentals, the physical fundamentals of defensive shooting, obviously entire books and DVDs and multi-day classes deal with defensive shooting and defensive shooting skill development. But we have to remember that there are some underlying physics that need to be accepted about the guns. The way a semiautomatic firearm works, the mechanics of it, the frame, the part you hold on to, needs to remain as still as possible, in space, while the slide moves as far backwards as it can, and then goes back forward into battery, back into its proper place for the firing sequence. When the slide moves backwards, a bunch of stuff is happening. When the slide moves backwards, the round that was in the chamber that you just fired, that's where the energy comes from, right?

It's up here in the chamber. The round gets fired, the energy pushes the bullet out the front of the gun, and pushes back on this slide. Your body needs to be set up. The skeletal structure of your body and your body weight need to be set up fundamentally to hold this frame as still as possible for a couple of reasons. The first one is the reliability of the gun.

As I'm extended fully out, arm locked out, body weight forward at the hip, knees bent, shoulders fully engaged athletically, not loose beside my body, but fully engaged and active, as I do that, the frame of the gun will remain as still as possible, while the energy, relatively small amount of energy from that little explosion, is gonna push the slide back to the rearward position. That allows the empty case to be fully removed from the chamber by a part called the extractor, it extracts the bullet, and to be run up against the small post that is near the breechface, the part that is up against the back of the bullet. As this gets pulled back against that post, that post is called the ejector, the extractor pulls the bullet back into the ejector and ejects it through the ejection port, through the opening. That's a part of the problem that needs to be solved. If I allow the frame to move with the recoil, I may not let that empty round come out.

It may not be pulled back far enough. You guys can all see it in there? It may not be pulled back far enough to hit the ejector and come out if I allow the energy to be absorbed by my motion. It might come out partially and cause a malfunction. As it starts to come out but doesn't quite get kicked out far enough and the slide starts to go back forward, it tries to put that round back in the chamber along with the next round coming out of the magazine, that's not gonna work.

So I really need to hold that slide forward, or hold the frame forward, so that the slide will move fully back. That round will get out of the way, and now there's nothing stopping the next round in the magazine from being stripped and pushed into the chamber. That's what we're looking to have happen. The further back the slide goes, the more energy is being stored in the recoil spring, which is the spring up here at the front of the gun. That is right now, you can see this little rod underneath the barrel, that's where that spring lives, all around that rod.

It is now pushed all the way back. So it normally is out here, and now it's pushed back to here, and that's where that energy is being stored. The energy from that explosion that pushed the slide back is now stored potential energy inside of that spring Slide goes back, I'm here supporting it with my skeletal structure and my body weight, and then it goes forward. When it goes forward, it strips that round from the magazine and jams it into the chamber. In the meantime, back here, the action of the slide moving back and forth resets all the mechanically things.

That's about as technical as we're gonna be today. Trust me it happens. All of the little mechanically things get reset, and that puts the trigger back out here, right? 'Cause if you notice, when I pull the trigger, it stays back. It just sits there and waits for all the little mechanically things to be reset, and now it's back to where I wanted it to be so that I can press the trigger again.

If the gun gets dirty, if you're using low power ammunition, if you're off balance, all of those things could allow the frame to either move if you're off balance or unsupported, or to move with this slide and not let that whole thing happen, or the underpowered ammunition or the dirty gun could stop the slide from moving back far enough to do what it's supposed to do, and let the gun fail. The more reliable your gun is, the more your fundamentals are used to support the frame, and the higher the quality of your ammunition, the lower the likelihood that you'll have any of those malfunctions, any of those physical problems with running the gun. So we set our fundamentals up, knowing that there is no partial extension. We can, we lock the gun all the way out. We get our elbows straight, we get our shoulders engaged athletically.

Imagine if you were lifting weight, you wouldn't wanna like hold weight over your head. You don't see like Olympic lifters go to like, "Huh, I got it!" And just use nothing but raw muscle and joints shaking the whole weight over their head. They lock out, right? That's, "Uh-huh, I got it. "I got my arms straight, "I got my shoulder active up over my torso, "not out here loose next to my torso, I got it." Well, this is your weight.

The weight is the frame pressing against your gun. You don't wanna be here all sloppy and loose. You wanna drive out, athletically engage, two hands on the gun, get as much friction on the gun as I can. If I can get to no crossing of the thumbs, get as much flesh touching that frame as I can, as much friction as possible, draw it out straight. I already know I'm gonna be in a lowered center of gravity situation anyway, right?

Good, that puts my weight forward, closed at the hip. Now, I just need to engage my shoulders and lock my arm out, in my practice and in my defensive shooting, support the frame as much as possible with my fundamentals. The physics of defensive shooting and the physiology and anatomy of the human animal, the person who's trying to hurt you, are just really easy. You understand the engineering of the gun. You understand the mechanics of the gun.

You understand the way the human body is built. You understand the performance of the bullets, how the bullets perform, what the bullets are gonna do. And it should be pretty easy to start figuring out which guns make sense, which techniques make sense, and which tactics, in terms of how you're gonna shoot and what you're gonna aim for, make sense as well. And the more efficient you can be, the more accurate your decisions can be in terms of gear, in terms of tactics, in terms of techniques, and then in terms of your training model, the better prepared you are for that counter-ambush moment when that worst case scenario shows up.