One of the sets I worked on was firing from inside a car. The car was my 96 Ford Bronco, so it’s relatively representative of today’s SUV’s in size. The handgun was a G-19 in an IHL belt slide holster, so it has a cant to it, and no straps for retention. I really like straight drop holsters due to their speed of presentation, but when you sit down in a car, they can be hard to draw from without having to do some contortions.
Safety gear included hearing protection, long sleeved shirt, and glasses. For hearing protection, I was using a good set of headphone style protectors in addition to a set of ear plugs. The sound pressure level inside a car can get rather high compared to the open air of a range. To help reduce the level, I also open all windows, including the big one on the tailgate.
The shirt was for protection from hot brass and inside a vehicle, brass can bounce around with a fair amount of velocity and getting hit in the eye could be bad, hence the glasses.
It’s also a good idea to open the heater/air-conditioning vents and turn the fan on high. It will help with exhausting the fumes out of the vehicle.
It had been awhile since I had practiced “car shooting�, but I was pleased to find my times and accuracy were still acceptable (at least to me, you fast movers would have laughed yourselves to death no doubt
).Since it seems I’m always the one driving, I usually practice from the driver’s seat. But to round the training out, I moved over to the passenger side to finish up the set. Assume 12:00 is directly in front of the car, so 6:00 is out the rear. It was a bad day for my arthritis and I was not capable of engaging targets past about 2:30 without leaning way forward and sticking the weapon out the window.
In my mind, there’s two problems with that. One is the seatbelt in some vehicles will “lock-up� if you lean forward fast, and that would stop you from getting into the firing position. The second is sticking the weapon out the window could make weapons retention very problematic, especially if someone you didn’t see approached from the rear of the vehicle (multiple assailant attack).
To solve the problem, I would draw as normal with my right hand, and then transition the weapon to my left hand. It became readily apparent this was a good solution. The weapon stayed inside the vehicle (better chance at retention), and I could easily engage targets to ~5:00. The “time penalty� was in my mind acceptable since it vastly improved weapons retention (weapon stayed in the vehicle and the right hand was available to “repel boarders�).
The next time you practice shooting from a car (you do don’t you?) give it a try. I would be very interested in your results and comments.
