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Ox14 Comments

AIMING CENTER MASS VS. QUICK STOP–WHICH IS BETTER?

I remember the first deer that I shot.

I was about 80 yards away, waited until I had my angle, and hit it with a
heart-double-lung shot with my .308. It bucked and then sprinted off as if it
hadn’t watched enough TV to know how it was supposed to react when shot.

I was impatient, so we only waited a few minutes and went to where it had been
when I took the shot.

Relieved to see bright red blood, we started tracking it and found it 150-200
yards away after having jumped 2 fences. I butchered it and proudly shared the
meat with anyone who’d eat it with me.

It was a clean shot—textbook, in fact. It was a South Texas deer, so I had way
MORE than enough gun.

But it didn’t stop the deer instantly.

And if she would have been an attacker, we would have been hands-on before she
dropped.

For years, this kind of confused me. Heart-lung shots would get me good kills,
but rarely instant stops. It really made me question self-defense teaching,
because, at the same time, almost all of the self-defense literature said that
you need to aim center-mass in a lethal force encounter–even with severely
inadequate defensive pistol rounds.

This, even though there are cases every year of bad guys absorbing 5, 10, 15, or
more rounds and still staying in the fight.

In a recent Force Science training I was at with Mike Musengo, he told us about
a fellow officer who put multiple center-mass hits on a threat…including one
that took out the aorta, and the attacker STILL stayed in the fight for 13.5
seconds with a non-functioning circulatory system.

The fact is, “clean kills” and “lethal hits” have a time component. It’s OK if
you shoot a grass eater that’s 100 yards away and it runs away from you for
10-15 seconds before expiring.

It’s NOT OK for a mortally wounded meat eater (2 legged or 4 legged) who’s
charging you to have 10-15 seconds to put the hurt on you before expiring…like
this:

With both human and animal attackers, “critical” center-mass shots don’t always
stop attackers fast enough…and there’s a very straight forward reason why.

When you break it down, stopping an attacker or stopping the threat is a
function of eliminating the attacker’s intent, ability, and/or opportunity to
keep hurting you.

You can take away opportunity by removing their mobility and taking away
projectile weapons, moving behind cover, or other strategies.

You can take away their intent by convincing them that they should stop fighting
and give up or run away (which is what happens the majority of time when
non-conditioned people are shot at, regardless of whether or not they’re
actually hit). This “convincing” can be verbal, non-verbal, or kinetic, but once
an attack has started, kinetic solutions have a much better track record.

And the most effective way to take away their ability is to interrupt their
central nervous system either mechanically (trauma to the mid-brain, spinal
cord, or the limb they’re using to attack you), hydraulically (blood flow
delivering oxygen to the brain), or electrically (interrupt the signal between
the brain and the muscles wielding the weapon(s)).

Center-mass shots depend on the attacker giving up, a drop in blood pressure, or
a bullet hitting the spinal cord. And, as we’ve seen in hunting and numerous
after-action reports, a drop in blood pressure isn’t always a quick solution and
sometimes falling causes blood pressure to rise back up to where the attacker is
able to continue fighting.

Each critical hit that doesn’t immediately stop the threat speeds up the
countdown until the threat is no longer a threat, but, because of the time
component, this means that a threat that’s close to you may take MORE solid hits
than one that’s further away.

When you’re talking about a situation where you need to use a firearm to defend
yourself, you’re not talking about shooting a well-adjusted person. You’re
talking about someone who, at that moment, is trying to cause you or another
innocent person great bodily harm and who’s acting like a wild animal.

So, as a defensive shooter trying to improve survivability for guys going
downrange, officers here in the states, as well as civilian defenders, the holy
grail for me became, how do I stop a threat quickly with an under-powered weapon
(pistol) without risking missing errant shots? If an attacker doesn’t choose to
stop attacking after the first shot, how can I minimize the damage that they are
able to do to me, you, or my other friends, relatives, and clients?

One thing was that I did as a result was to train myself to see targets 3
dimensionally and started aiming for the spine, even with the armpit instead of
aiming at center-mass. The concept of “Aim small, miss small” comes into play
here and if I miss my 1-2” target by 400%, I’m still making “combat accurate”
hits on center-mass.

Then, if you can pile round after round, you have a very good chance of stopping
the threat psychologically, hydraulically, or electrically while attempting to
drill through to the spinal cord.

Worst case, you end up with the same number of rounds on target as if you would
have aimed center-mass and the center mass hits hopefully slow down the head
enough that you can transition to the head or pelvis>head if necessary.

Best case, you stop the threat much sooner…with fewer shots fired and less risk
to yourself and innocent bystanders.

So, how does a shooter with limited time and budget make it happen?

The answer is high quality at-home training.

To be clear, “high quality” is not grinding out 500 trigger presses in a night,
playing “gun games” or grinding out a high volume of any drill like dime drills,
wall drills, or other low-leverage drills.

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components, combining them back together, and then adding in more and more
real-world context with training like Draw Stroke Mastery and Praxis Gunfight
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14 COMMENTS

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* Trackbacks

* Ron Leifeste

Reply August 23, 2016

When I started duck hunting my first year of HS I was told when shooting at a
flock of ducks to pick out only ONE duck to shoot at. The same thing applies.
Do not shoot at the flock, (center mass), shoot only at ONE duck, (button).
My future FIL taught me that. He was a WW2 marine. I assumed, correctly, that
he was right.
I sure do miss that man. Ron

* Frank Doolan

Reply April 25, 2016

I work extensively on three shot response to attack. Two to the upper body
and one to the head. I change the philosophy of “aim small miss small “to
“aim small hit small” and use small targets like the 3×5 cards or dots to
reference as the point of aim. I also understand the limitations of handguns
and the corresponding ammunition. That in mind , practice, practice,
practice.

* Johnny

Reply April 20, 2016

I always shoot two to the sternum (heart,lungs,spine) one to nose and I
practice no further than 10 feet and my home range there are no rules that I
have to stand in one spot. The reason for closeness of target is coming
towards me simulation and movement on my part, gettin off the X.

* Mark

Reply April 20, 2016

Truly accurate in some cases. An animal (sometimes as people are refered to)
can excel and attack when confronted and hit inapropriately. Many will charge
and let off a furocious attack at anything in the vecinity. Humans on the
other hand will to sometimes. Stay on your target and hope to get good hits
that will neutralize. Otherwise the lion might rip you to shreads, and so
might the human.

* Dave

Reply April 20, 2016

The way I received training in the military was a three shot strategy. Tap
Tap to the chest then a Tap to the nose.

The double tap to the chest applies maximum kinetic energy to the rib cage
sternum. This forces the attacker back plus it maximizes the trauma to the
heart region.

Then the single tap to the nose. There is a passage, of weaker bone structure
from the nose to the brain stem, so the nose shot gives the greater potential
of severing the brain stem.

* Smokey

Reply June 29, 2015

I’ve never thought of things in this manner before, but have seen it in my
own shooting for most of my life. When I was a boy my uncle used to have me
feel for where the spine was connected to the head in the deer he shot and
I’ve always tried to shoot that same spot all throughout my years hunting.
What’s funny is that I recently went through an active shooter simulation and
my first shot was a head shot, and the second was right below the neck. I did
pull the trigger for a third time but missed while the shooter was falling to
the ground. I was not thinking about going for a head shot, but it was more
of a natural reaction to where I always place my sights, even though I do
train for center mass. Everything seemed to change once put on the spot, in a
“simulated real life” situation. I may actually start training in this manner
from now on. Thanks.

* George Clark

Reply June 27, 2015

Great concept, I will try it and see how it works for me.

George

* Steven C

Reply June 24, 2015

In principle to shoot the brain stem or spinal cord is the best method to
stop an attack. However, a head shot leave very little margin for error. If
you are two inches to the left or the right you strike a superficial wound at
best and miss completely in most cases. This goes double when your attacker
is moving, bobbing and weaving. . . . or shooting at you!

Center mass torso shots have the highest rate of success to hit a moving
active attacker. In the majority of the cases center mass will stop the
fight. Two or three rounds to the torso then aim for the head if the attacker
does not stop is the most effective training method for the majority of
people since most will not put in the level of training and practice to
accomplish the method you describe.

* Ox

Reply June 24, 2015

Hey Steven, thanks for your comment..

Your first paragraph brings up the unfortunate reality that there isn’t
really a temporary wound channel with pistol ammo and how unpredictable the
effects of shots to the head can be if they don’t hit the mid-brain / brain
stem area.

Your second paragraph is, fundamentally, what people refer to as “the
Mozambique” or the “failure drill” and is what Insight teaches as a general
rule to most entry level and medium level students. One difference being
that the word “failure” is removed

* Jim

Reply June 19, 2015

Same as my years of martial arts training… Aim Small – Miss Small.

* Andi

Reply June 19, 2015

With shootings becoming more common in public places – schools, churches,
malls – a wise fast decision is crucial. When crowds of people are present,
what would you recommend as the best choice here? Aiming for a smaller area
could mean missing with the first shot, causing the shooter to go crazier
than he already is. Aiming for the larger area could cause more people to be
harmed if the shooter is still able to function. Advice?

* Ox

Reply June 19, 2015

Great question, Andi, but there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. It depends
on the shooter and the situation.

One thing to keep in mind is the following…

Shooting at a smaller target might cause you to end up missing
but
shooting at a smaller area on a target will always make you more accurate.

Here’s what I mean…

Shooting at the mid-brain increases the chance of missing your target
(walnut sized) over shooting at the torso
but
shooting at the top hole in the 2nd button down on a shirt will always
increase your chances of hitting the torso.

* Robert

Reply June 19, 2015

I started shooting when I was eleven. No one trained me until I went to Army
Basic. There was a nine year difference. Over that time I hunted. No target
shooting ever. Never took a shot that I wasn’t confident of hitting. However,
a really good friend said one thing to me that meant more to my skills than
anything else. He was 82nd Airborne and jumped into Normandy on the night
before D-Day. He caused me to love the Sprngfield ’06 round. Now today at 68
years of age and having fired many hundreds of thousands of rounds from .22
to .50 cal machine gun the ’06 is still my favorite.

My friend told me to break the spine of whatever I was shooting at and it
would drop where it stood. On a deer, that’s shoulder top to brain. On a
human target it works the same. The difference is the human target is most
often facing you. Like the lion, a facing target needs to be shot in the
nervous system to insure a stop. Nothing else works as surely.

There in lies the confirmation that is in ‘aim small’. It works in all
calibers and platforms. Obviously in rounds that really reach out there,
small is increasingly more difficult. It doesn’t change the concept.
Conversely, the attacking critter is closer and the concept has to deal with
more serious stresses. Up close is not a bad time to use center mass. Follow
up shots will be the only remaining option. As with a certain woman, a head
shot does not ensure death, but may work to stop a threat.

In any case, practice. Perfect practice makes practice perfect. There is no
substitute for the real thing. Sun Tsu is quoted as saying that the more you
bleed in peace the less you bleed in war. The assumption is you may bleed in
either case. Unless the Lord God favors you.

* EddieW

Reply June 19, 2015

All my practise is for head shots, as my carry gun is a mouse gun…a 25 auto A
heavy Mackinaw jacket will stop the bullet, as well as any kind of body
armor! I dry fire practice daily aiming at small things around my house, as
well as on the computer, trying to get 2 shots on targets that pop up for 1
to 2 seconds…Can’t do it in 1 sec. I have a 9MM but my brother gets really
mad when he sees me at home carrying it! I use a cross draw holster so need a
jacket or vest to hide it. I’ve never been caught carrying, except at home!

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