Top Guns featured a antique firearms expert training Colby Donaldson and another marksman. He taught them to load a flintlock pistol and insisted they had to fire single handed. A plow handle grip.
He also taught them to fire the Colt 45 Single Action Army one handed.
It seems counter intuitive to extend a heavy pistol straight out without bracing your hand. Add in a heavy trigger pull and it’s a difficult weapon to aim.
So why didn’t they use a two handed grip?
The antique firearms expert made a comment like “Stand on your two legs like a man and fire single handed. You gotta stick with the tradition.” Did the men using flintlocks really think a 2 hand grip was effeminate?
With a two handed grip you pretty much have to face the target. With a one hand grip you can face left or right of the target. I’m a lot thinner front to back than I am side to side. OK, I used to be.
That would make a smaller target wouldn’t it.
Older guns were far more prone to catastrophic failures, that shooting stance also gives you a reduced exposure to shrapnel and debris if the gun explodes. Your hand is screwed but the rest of your vital organs are fairly well shielded from most of the direct force by the stock and or your forearm in the way.
Would the Colt have been a cavalry pistol, rather than a dueling pistol? If that’s the case, firing two-handed while riding would involve (a) dropping the reins and (b) annoying your horse. It’s probably specifically designed to be fired single-handed, to the side.
I’ll agree with Alessan. At least, I’ve not been able to find references citing common use of a two-handed pistol grip before the oft-citedJack Weaver group using itin Southern California competitive pistol shooting.
I don’t have a copy, but it is supposed to be mentioned as a long-range shooting technique in Ed McGivern’s 1938 book, “Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting.” By long-range, I mean ~250 yds +. With iron sights. The book is partially searchable on Google Books, and the author has several photographs of man-sized targets that were hit at various ranges including 600 yds. The techniques used were a several including sitting with an elbow supported two-handed grip and prone with a two-handed grip. I did not see any pictures of the Creedmoor (Creedmore?) pistol position being used. Considering that it’s a bit dicey with a revolver unless a thick protective leg shield is used near the cylinder gap area, that’s not surprising.
250 yards isn’t particularly amazing now, in the era of long-range silhouette shooting, but I’m sure it was eye-opening in 1938. The long-time U.S. pistol coach and FBI special agent Walter Walsh used a two-handed hold to kill a Japanese sniper in 1944 with his 1911 pistol at either 75 or 90 yards, depending on where you read the story. So, there were isolated examples of its use. I wouldn’t be surprised, though I can’t find any accounts, that accurate long-range revolvers like the famous Buntline Specials, also benefited from a two-hand grip.
In addition to the benefits of a bladed stance, I’ve also read accounts that echo Ethilrist’s point: pistols were primarily a short-range cavalry weapon, and the other hand was needed either to hold the reins or another weapon. Moreover, due to the inaccuracies of early handguns, any increase in precision from a two-handed hold would be swamped by the pistol’s latent inaccuracy. So why not shoot one-handed, gaining the benefit of a narrow stance, and a hand to fend off any attempt to grab the pistol or use another weapon? Finally, if you’ve two hands to hold a weapon in the first place, then why are you using a handgun, and not a rifle or shotgun?
The single-handed “off hand” position is more steady and accurate during single-shot firing regardless of the weight of the handgun. This is mainly my experience but a lot of shooter agree. The sideways positioning of the body relative to the shooting axis braces the arm in a cantilever position relatively to the body and feet, unlike a two-handed grip wherein the body faces the target squarely.
Two-handed shooting was devised more to control the weapon during rapid double action or semi-automatic shooting.
With a percussion revolver, like a Colt Army .45 (or any replica) a two-handed grip can result in a powder burn to the off hand, as those revolvers can “spit” a bit at the cylinder gap.
The double handed or “weaver stance” that most people now associate with shooting a hand-gun is actually quite recent. I think as late as WW2 or even into the 50’s and 60’s (look at old action movies even) the preferred method to shoot was one handed and often to the side.
In fact, I dare you all to show me a photo, daguerreotype, painting, drawing or woodcut featuring someone holding a pistol two-handed from before 1950.
This appears to be a WW2 hand-gun firing drill and as you can see they are all aiming the gun one handed side-ways similar to the way as the OP describes. http://www.guns.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/pistol_m1911_700_061.jpg
I suppose the trade-off to the newer method for better hand control is that you appear as a bigger target somewhat to the enemy?
There’s a photo in the Fast & Fancy book I linked to, showing someone target shooting prone with a revolver and using both hands. As the target is 600 yds out, I can see why. Google Books is being ornery, but the photo is at around page 405.
Not exactly a Weaver or Isosceles stance, but it counts.
This site claims that both William Fairbairn’s, “Shooting to Live,” at page 42, (first published in 1942) and Rex Applegate’s “Kill or Get Killed”, pg. not listed, (first published in 1943) had illustrated examples of two-handed pistol grips. I’ve not read either book, and in any event, the cite for the second is ambiguous as to whether it refers to the original Applegate work, or his re-make of it in 1976.
Nevertheless, I feel these exceptions are proving your point. If the cite is correct that U.S. Army pistol manuals prior to 1960 included cavalry techniques, and that those manuals were representative of how other countries taught pistolcraft, then it’s easy to see why the one-handed grip was so ubiquitous. I personally am much more accurate two-handed than one, but I am a mediocre pistol shot.
Great find, Telperion. I was looking for something exactly like that.
Missed the Edit window. I just found a .pdf of Shooting to Live and two different versions of a two-handed grip are demonstrated on pages 48-51.
Before Telperion’s cite, I’d just say make it 1940, and you’re good. I still think that these rare exceptions still prove the rule that two-handed grips were practically non-existent before Weaver and the 1950s.
