How to Shoot a Pistol with World Champion Shooter Jerry Miculek

Jerry Miculek has been a pro shooter for over 35 years and a member of the Smith and Wesson pro shooting team for over 25 years. He has over 100 nation and world titles.
A lot of what he does in competition carries over to what you want to do in a self-defense shooting. In this video, he will give you the value of over 3 million rounds of training time and over 40 years of practice. He will teach us how to hold, how to execute, and visualization techniques.

How to Shoot a Pistol

You will want to remember that if you want a performance that you can repeat you have to use the minimum that it takes to make that happen. If you have to do a ton of different things, move your head, shrug your shoulders, hunch down and bend your knees you aren't going to do all of that still have a good target. It's just too much. What he is doing as a professional is taking out all the fluff. He wants to remove everything that doesn't add to the performance.

How to Shoot

Remember to bring your firearm to your dominant eye and not the other way around. He doesn't need to do anything with his head or face, just bring the pistol to it and shoot. He doesn't need to squat, blink or duck his head. As he says bring whatever you have in your holster up to your dominant eye.

Isosceles Stance

Jerry Miculek, as a competitive shooter, shoots a basic isosceles stance, square to the target, face flat. Your dominant hand will hold your firearm and your support hand will wrap around your dominant hand. He wants to be able to see as much of the target as he can all the time. If he has to look through the top of his glasses odds are he isn't going to see well, making it harder to get hits on target.  If he is standing square it allows him to hit far to the right and far to left without ever moving his feet. The only area he can't hit is a very narrow window directly behind him.

Weaver Stance

The Weaver Stance was created by Jack Weaver an LA County Deputy Sheriff in 1959. Using the weaver stance as a right-handed person would force someone to have to tilt their head to see the sights. It will also lead to more chance of missing to the left as a right-handed person or missing to the right as a left-handed person.
If you are shooting a weaver stance and you are shooting targets across (horizontally) you will have a tendency to lean and your muzzle will not progress parallel to the horizon. This means you will always have to bring the gun up slightly after each shot. When shooting from this stance you have a tendency to bring your shoulders and not your body with you. This might lead you to overswing your target.

 Cup and Saucer Grip

Your dominant hand is gripping the gun and your support hand is under your magazine. This provides zero support from your support hand and provides nothing to your shooting. You muzzle will also jump quite a bit.

Wrist Grip

This is something you see a lot in the movies. They will grab the wrist on their dominant hand with their support hand, just like Jerry Miculek is doing in the above picture. Not very efficient and you will still get a good amount of muzzle rise.

Thumbs Forward Grip

Your thumbs are going to want to point towards the target. The thumbs aren't supposed to do anything they are just hanging out of the way. Be sure to lock your wrist. The more your wrist is locked over center the easier it is to keep on target. You want to work as hard as you can to keep it center while not tensing up your arms or shoulders.
If you like you can put your finger on the trigger guard for a more solid grip. Try putting a little skateboard tape on the end of the trigger guard for a good grip. Both over and under the trigger guard is fine, just depends on what you are comfortable with. Overall, this grip will give you the most consistency and tightest patterns.

Always Use Both Hands

When shooting a gun if you can get two hands on the weapon you are going to get much better results. You are going to want to use as much of both hands as possible. This also means you want grab the pistol as high up as possible. The higher your hands are the less recoil you are going to have.
Overall, it is important to be consistent and have as little recoil as possible if you want to be accurate and fast, just like Jerry Miculek. If you have tons of time to make each shot any grip is going to work for you. If you are shooting fast, in a stressful situation or in a leisurely environment, shooting further or on smaller targets you are going to want to have a consistent strong grip such as the thumbs forward grip. If you are using a smaller gun such as a concealed carry gun you may have to adjust your grip differently to fit the gun.
These techniques are pretty simple but when trained and used correctly it can have a huge difference when shooting your gun. Don't try and overwork yourself and don't hesitate to try new things and practice. Always remember when shooting a handgun trigger pull is going to be more important than your sight alignment.

You can also check out this full video on How to shoot a Pistol with world champion shooter, Jerry Miculek

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