Alex Starkiller wrote:Two things. One: Thanks for the support and the many bits of additonal information pumpkincat.
Two: Michael Westion rawks. And that is the stance I most often use, though depending on the handgun, it varies. Especially when I am using a PLR-16, which is basically a rifle-turned-handgun, or smaller weapons. And when just out on the range, and extended arm is pretty fun.
Quite welcome! And yeah, it will vary depending on weapon. I only own one handgun, though, and the Weaver stance works best for me for that (it's a Remington 1911 chambered in .45ACP). Fairly macho recoil, but the weight of the pistol soaks up a lot of it, making it a good choice (contrary to what a lot of idiots try to tell me) for a woman's grip. The handgrip itself is built for a medium to small-sized hand, which is the big problem for a lot of women. Soaks up recoil, accurate in aiming (as accurate as the shooter, anyway), good penetration - the only down side I see is that some people prefer something you can conceal more readily. And it is a heavy piece of hardware.
My other firearms are all long guns, of varying levels of historical interest. All of them are practical and functional pieces, however.
(Note : the story related below this point may upset people for whom animal death is disturbing. I'd rather not be responsible for that, so I'm putting this warning here.)
Additional side note concerning stance - at one point, we had a possum coming to our place and raiding the ducks' nests. We chased it away once - my SO had stepped off the porch to look for it and it ran out while he'd left the rifle on the porch. I was standing by the side of the house with my sidearm, so I took a shot at it. It was the first time I'd shot at a /moving/ target; I didn't hit it, but there were kicked-up patches of earth where it had been a second ago. Didn't see it for a few nights, so we thought it'd learned this was not the best place to be for getting a free meal.
A full week went by - and it came back. I was alone and heard a loud thump from the porch while I was in the house and rushed out with my pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other and no idea of what the noise actually was. (Try this sometime and see how it feels. There is a slight element of feeling ridiculous - 'I know I'm being the one who gets it in every horror movie ever made' - but concern for one's responsibilities and dependents, of which livestock must count towards, overrides it remarkably well.)
No sign of anything but all the geese were clustered together giving the porch the stinkeye, and the duck whose nest was under the porch at the time was out looking very distressed. I looked under the porch and saw the possum standing over her nest, casually eating eggs and ignoring the beam of the flashlight pinning it in place.
Now, I couldn't shoot it - it was under the porch up against the foundation of the house. There was no way to get a safe shot at it without risking hitting the house, let alone the animals. So I waited. And eventually it came out, paused, looked at me as if to say 'You're not gonna shoot /me/' - and proceeded to try to amble away.
This time I didn't miss.
I may, however, in my nervous desire to make sure I got a clean kill and it didn't suffer, have shot it a few more times than strictly necessary.
Now, the first time I was shooting at it, I was doing Weaver stance. The second time, I don't think I was using both hands. I don't remember. It all went a bit blurry with adrenaline and a little bit of shock. So it's worth pointing out that in an actual 'live' situation, the habits you acquire in practice DO help, but they can go right out the window amazingly fast.
