Handgun Shooting Positions: Bad Stances - 1

In many of our previous posts, we have looked at various good stances to use when shooting firearms. In the next few posts, we will look at some of the bad shooting stances. Most of these bad stances are because of the influence of the movie industry and music videos.

The first bad shooting stance we will look at is the infamous "cup-and-saucer grip", also known as the "teacup grip". This one shows up in a lot of movies and TV shows. In this, the shooter holds (cups) the pistol in his dominant hand and then rests the bottom of his handgun magazine in the off hand (the saucer).

Click on image to enlarge.

Here, we have the character Jack Bauer, played by actor Kiefer Sutherland, from the popular TV show "24". As you can see, he is attempting to use something like a weaver stance. However, pay attention to his hands, especially his off-hand, and you can clearly see him placing his dominant hand and the magazine butt into his off-hand.

The above is another picture of Jack Bauer clearly using a cup-and-saucer grip.

Click on image to enlarge

Jack Bauer isn't the only character around who uses questionable methods to hold handguns. In the above picture, we have James Bond (played by actor Daniel Craig) using a cup-and-saucer grip as well.

Click on image to enlarge

And finally, the Alice character (played by actress Milla Jovovich) from the Resident Evil series of movies, also using the cup-and-saucer grip, this time with a revolver. You may see this grip used in a lot of other movies as well.

This technique was once actually taught to revolver shooters in the Wild West (and sometimes called the "palm supported grip"). The main reason it is bad with modern firearms is that the off hand provides almost no support against the recoil, which forces the user to aim the target again for each of the subsequent shots. Also, no matter how strong the user is, the recoil will make the user's hands separate and the off-hand needs to be reapplied after every shot. Additionally, if a cartridge is overloaded, the additional pressure has to be released somewhere, and in the case of handguns, it may forcefully eject the magazine out. If the user is using a cup and saucer grip, the off-hand will get a pretty nasty smack.

We will look at more bad stances in subsequent posts.