Torso (center mass; A-zone): Greatest margin for marksmanship error and weapon inaccuracy forgiveness, and generally a good spot to aim for.
Groin ("pelvic girdle"; crotch): A great potential for eliminating target mobility, while still providing a generous POA, and bypassing most armor.
Head (off switch): Smallest POA, but most certain elimination of threat.

Failure-to-stop (Mozambique drill): Bad guy won't immediately cease aggression, or is wearing armor, so headshots are utilized after torso shots are found ineffective.

Following the target to the ground: Bad guy immediately reacts to engagement, and we conduct follow-ups as he descends, to ensure deadness.

Different people seem to advocate different things. There is no substitute for marksmanship. Perhaps center mass is as good a start point as any, and follow-up shots can be adjusted accordingly, depending on targets reaction to initial engagement. Obviously, we're considering circumstances that don't give a visual indication as to what POA or technique may be advantageous. If we can see that the bad guy is wearing armor, we'd do well not to shoot him in the chest; if the bad guy has a hostage, we have no choice but to go for the headshot.

It seems that the head is a poor choice of a primary aim point, due to it's prohibitive size. The groin vs torso is more debatable; especially given the proliferation of body armor, and the potential of a "near peer" threat, outside the context of the 20 year GWOT.

Do SF members have ideas that they stick to, in their training? Do you advocate one thing over another? When all things marksmanship are equal, is there something you choose to do, in the interest of realism? We can shoot at little dots all day, but most folks may want to shoot a threat-shaped target, and where we decide to aim on on that target is potentially something worth discussing.

Another thing about head shots besides the size of the target is that it’s easiest for us to protect: When our face is threatened we react very fast to protect it, and its size also means that it doesn’t have to be moved very far to do that. At close distances the instinctive reaction to a threat (and assuming having a gun pointed at our face is perceived as a threat) is to move very quickly.

I believe that if we think someone is wearing torso armor, targeting the groin and even the upper thighs is usually a better alternative. Although I was generally not very impressed with the video about following an assailant to the ground, the examples the narrator cited of the individuals’ collapsing from a single shot are not uncommon based on what I’ve seen of other shootings. Despite persistent claims that no one is going to be “stopped” by a handgun bullet unless it hits the central nervous system, real life incidents rather than physiological theory demonstrate the exact opposite time and again.

I remember how some years ago fans of the latter school became exercised by the idea that our bullets needed to be able to perforate the arm of someone who was aiming a gun at us and then go on to inflict serious damage to the torso. What that notion completely overlooked, of course, is that having the bones in one’s arm shattered by a bullet—something that has been reported by LEOs many times—makes it very difficult to continue aiming a gun regardless of what the bullet does after that. (I haven’t seen that idea expressed in a long time; perhaps I wasn’t the only one that recognized the point about being able or willing to continue aiming a gun with a broken arm.)

In fact, YouTube has many videos that demonstrate when home invaders, store robbers, or other attackers are met with defensive gunfire, in the vast majority of cases they leave the area as fast as their feet will take them, regardless of whether they’re actually hit.

There are of course exceptions, such as the actions of the one highly motivated killer in the infamous 1986 FBI shootout in Miami, but unless we’re an LEO dealing with a desperate criminal who has vowed to go down fighting or a soldier in miliary combat against religious or political fanatics, the likelihood that a good hit anywhere won’t have a significant effect on their activities is very small.

After all that does it mean I don’t practice “head” shots myself? On the contrary. I believe that “aim small, miss small” is a valid concept, and if I can reliably hit a 4×6 inch zone at 7 yards in 1.5 seconds or thereabouts, it gives me confidence that I can hit much larger targets at longer ranges as well.

As for other practices, one of the principles taught in NRA LE instructor development courses is that our drills and training should address a wide spectrum of skills. What that means depends on many things, but I’ll describe one course of fire I personally developed and which I believe helps satisfy that goal in many ways.

It’s a 13-stage course with seven highly-modified IDPA type targets arrayed in an arc from 3 to 25 yards. Weapons are rifles and handguns. The requirements of the stages vary from a single handgun shot at 7 yards to two shots each at six targets, three with handgun and three with rifle. Reloads and clearing malfunctions with both handgun and rifle are included. In the stages that start with rifles, it’s then necessary to transition to the handgun without pause. One stage requires the use of cover, one stage requires engaging a target with simulated body armor, one stage requires shooting with one’s nondominant hand, and there are three head shot stages. One rifle stage involves moving back to 50 yards and firing three shots. Everything is timed and exceeding the par time results in failing the stage, but the course also uses a scoring scheme that permits “making up” for some poor hits or misses. The course involves firing 30 handgun rounds and 35 rifle rounds.
Whenever possible a friend and I run the course twice in a range session.

I firmly believe that anyone who might ever need to use a weapon for serious purposes should practice and become proficient at a minimum with engaging different sized targets at different distances and at different speeds—and regardless of how likely any particular training scenario might be in real life.

Anyway, more thoughts and opinions, and not intended to convince anyone of anything.

I think of this in engagement 'zones'. If I'm in a gunfight for survival at very close distances I'm not aiming in the classic sense. I'm shooting center mass using gross aiming as its very fast and I'm shooting in volume. none of this 2 to the chest and one to the head aimed fire bs, the person is literally yards or maybe feet away. Yes I'll try and create space by retreating, but maybe not possible. Yes someone with armor will potentially survive that but even with armor being shot is not a no impact situation and being shot many times is definitely distracting. I think its the best plan in that very first engagement zone. We run a drill on this in my training group, 8" circle from concealment 10 shots on target less than 5 seconds. It makes some pretty impressive holes when you do it well.
As distance increase so does the options for aimed fire. At long enough distances one can do some assessment of if the fire is effective and change plans, but in the intermediate zone especially on a moving target I'm just going for actual hits, anywhere. Even in non fatal zones they are effective at threat reduction. I don't have the ability to simulate moving targets very often but in our training we try to do shooting while moving on a regular basis, because you should plan on moving unless you have some sort of cover. We generally try to make it more interesting by having multiple targets you have to engage so you can't just focus on one. And we require hits in both the body and head (but never other areas at this point). Be better if we could find some cheap robot with a target to run at us while zig zagging, but we don't have one.

quote:

Originally posted by hrcjon:
Be better if we could find some cheap robot with a target to run at us while zig zagging ....

Yes, a reasonably-priced controllable robot would be nice. I looked at one system for my agency, but couldn’t justify the price.

For something manually, though, this is a platform a student made for me. The target stand is clamped to the platform and the platform is moved by pulling a rope. I don’t know how to make it zig-zag, but with a long cord and pulling from behind the shooter it “charges” very well.





To move the target laterally, I rotate the target and use this pully system to still allow pulling from behind the shooter. The distance from the shooter is limited only by how long it can be operated with a rope. I’ve used mine up to 100 yards.