Articles by Jim Higginbotham “Triggernometry”

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The 1911 – A Century of Excellence – Triggernometry



“This is the finest close quarters combat handgun ever designed.” Said my friend and fellow firearms instructor Ken Hackathorn holding up a 1911 .45 Pistol in front of a class he was teaching at RangeMaster back in the late 1990s. I could not have agreed more. Ken may have changed his mind since then, I do not know, but I haven’t changed mine.

According to 1911 authority William Goddard, the first lot of 1911s (other than test pistols and tool room samples) were assembled at the Colt plant on 28 December 1911 (barely making it into the year the pistol was christened). They were shipped the first week of January. The rest, as they say is history. The collecting of 1911s is a joy and a field all to itself. But after 100 years, the 1911 still soldiers on, and not for nothing.

My focus is on use of the 1911, not collecting, but I am a student of history and the history of the 1911 in use for what it was intended is one of sublime success. My intent here is to touch on that use as well as some personal shooting impressions. I intend to spend a good bit of time on the “real” 1911. That is to say, U.S. Military issue and Commercial Government Models made before 1924 when the transition was begun to the 1911a1. To be sure the 1911a1 has very few fleas on it, but it is a slightly different pistol in my estimation.

My first personal experience with a 1911 was not exactly an auspicious occasion. My father was an excellent shot, worked for the Army for most of his adult life and was a WW-II veteran. Like many former military men he had an abiding respect for the .45 Automatic. And so, other than an old double barreled shotgun that had belonged to his father, the only firearm that he owned was an ex military 1911 for which I believe he paid the munificent sum of $15.

At the age of five, I had my first encounter with this pistol. It did not bode well. My dad had to help me hold the gun up but I was the one to press….ah jerk…on the trigger. Ear plugs? Real men did not use earplugs in the early 1950s! So their little boys didn’t either. Eye protection you ask? Nobody thought about it.

When I touched that pistol off I thought the world had come to an end! There was noise, and recoil and I probably would have dropped the blamed thing if my Dad’s hands hadn’t been wrapped around mine. To add injury to insult the hot empty case dropped right down the neck of my shirt and stayed there!

My next one 10 years later, didn’t do anything to improve my assessment. My first centerfire handgun was not a 1911, it was a 1911a1. I saved up money from soft drink bottle deposits and at age 15 bought a surplus Remington Rand .45. I did not buy it because I wanted a .45 Automatic. I bought it because I wanted a center fire handgun and it was cheap. By accident of birth and circumstances I was able to purchase this gun legally, though the owner of the pawn shop insisted that my Mother vouch for me. Just two years later I could not even purchase ammo as the 1968 Gun Control Act started taking effect.

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Triggernometry – Home Bullet Penetration Testing

When I was a young tadpole growing up on Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers westerns, when the guy in the white hat shot the guy in the black hat the bad guy would wince and fold slowly – that is unless the good guy decided to be magnanimous and just shoot the gun out of his hand. Later westerns and cop shows got a lot grittier and you saw a lot of blood and people being blown over backwards. Blown over backward has become the modern movie standard in most cases now, and third party tales on the internet about as to the impact power and “stopping power” of the various combat handguns with varying loads.

Well, it turned out that whatever those early movies lacked in good examples of gun handling they had the right when it came to the actual effect of a handgun bullet hitting a human subject. The truth of the matter, friends, is that bullets don’t blow up people nor do they physically knock them over backwards. Not to say that people cannot react violently at times to being shot, but this depends on exactly what is hit inside the body, and the mental and physical state of the subject being shot. Small animals may react dramatically to this impact but things that weigh 100 lbs or more often do not show any immediate reaction – other than to keep fighting or run faster.

Now this is not another article on 9mm vs .45. It is not about “stopping power” per se, but we all need to accept that the illusions we see on the silver screen are just that – illusions and for entertainment purposes. If you expect your .44 Magnum to bowl people over with a hit to the midsection you may be in for a rude and fatal shock!

So, would I say that caliber or “power” do not matter at all? I cannot bring myself to say that. I see a difference in cases that come across the desk and in the hunting fields, but that difference is subtle, not so drastic that you can say unequivocally that caliber A is so much better than caliber B that if you carry A you cannot go wrong or that B is a silly choice… within reasonable parameters.

Triggernometry – Seconds That Can Save Your Life

There is only one type of shooting competition that only has a trophy for second place. The trophy is generally made of granite, has an epitaph inscribed on it, and when it is awarded to you, you are surrounded by everyone you love, crying their eyes out because you are dead. It’s called a tombstone.

A gunfight is a competition, but it isn’t a standard shooting competition like those you see in timed shooting sports. Speed is a factor, but it isn’t the only factor. And there will always be factors outside of your control, such as the physical and mental state of the threatening party, his competence, how well we shoot under the pressure of a gunfight, and what we are doing while engaging our adversary to keep from getting shot (or cut, or bludgeoned, etc.).

Some things, however, you can control, or at least prepare to control, and many of these involve speed and can be practiced. They are how fast you are able to present your weapon, how fast you can fire it accurately, and how fast you can reload when you are out of bullets or in danger of soon being out of bullets.

Wyatt Earp, one of the most famous gunfighters of all time, is quoted as saying: “Take your time…but be quick about it! He is also quoted as saying something to the effect of “Fast is fine but accuracy is final”. The interplay between these two factors, speed and accuracy, is one reality we must always recognize, the faster you go the less accurate you are.

Gunfight Realities When Choosing a Handgun

Last month in Part I of this series you may have been shocked to find that I didn’t instruct you to go out and buy my “pet” favorite carry pistol. I have one of course, but I have changed what I carry over the years as my preferences changed. The point was that there are a lot of factors, but the most measurable “correct” answer is to measure what you are shooting well, and weigh those choices against the standard “bigger is better” considerations when choosing a handgun for carry. No, I’m not going to tell you what to buy this month either, but we will get into some interesting details about aspects that many people just gloss over, but that are vitally important and will affect your ability to survive your gunfight.

Choices have consequences. People have died for the inability to stay in the fight until they prevailed. Just recently I had a student report that he won his second fight, immediately following his first, because of a technique we taught him for reloading in combat. An enemy fighter suddenly materialized after the first fight was over, presumably out of “nowhere.” He was able to choose the best option, and simply shot said bad guy, because his head, and his gun, were still in the fight! He did not “unload to reload”. He did not stick his muzzle into the air where it might take a lifetime to re-index or block his vision (or act as a flag to tell every bad guy in the vicinity that someone is going to be out of action for a brief period). Rather, he had kept up his guard up when his first attacker fell and, after a threat scan to insure there wasn’t another immediate threat, he started to execute a reload. When a threat did materialize without warning he was able to stop mid-stream and change gears. I could not, of course, be more pleased.

Within the same week we received a report (in the form of an excellent but sad magazine article) from a young Marine who is disabled for life because he did not know how to do this. That of course was not pleasing. Forward this article to your friends! Nobody wants to learn these lessons the hard way, whether carrying a gun as a CCW, as a Police Officer on duty or off, as a security guard, or in the sandbox so far away protecting our freedom.

Triggernometry – Choose Your Weapon! Part I

That is a question I get a lot. Sometimes it is from folks who have little or no shooting experience and sometimes it is from folks who just want me to tell them that the latest weapon they have chosen wasn’t a really stupid choice.

Friends, I don’t have an ambiguous bone in my body but I cannot give you an answer without more input. Even then I don’t usually make specific make and model recommendations for I cannot know the totality of your circumstances or, without spending at least a day on the range with you, your skill level. It is truly a case of the Biblical admonition to “work out your own salvation”. All I can do is report on what you might expect to find, but you will have to go shoot the guns and do more study on your own in order to make an informed decision.

The “Center Mass” Myth and Ending a Gunfight -Triggernometry

Surviving a gunfight isn’t what you think it is. Don’t let conventional wisdom get you killed. A well place round to “center mass” in your attacker may not take him out of the fight. Lots of people stay in the fight after “center mass” hits, and some even win it. If you expect to win your gunfight, you have to make sure that you have effectively ended the threat of your attacker. One, two or even several well placed “center mass” shots may not do what you think it will, and learning to recognize this before you gunfight may save your life.

There is a self styled self defense “expert” under every rock, and perhaps two behind every bush, these days. If you have a pet theory on what might work on the street then you can probably find a champion for that idea who actually charges people to teach them that skill. But few of the experts out there have ever been in gunfights, and even fewer have studied real gunfights to see how things really work out when the bullets really fly for blood.