At the 2006 (could have been 2005) S&W IDPA Match, my friend Julie Golob showed me a flashlight/pistol technique that she’d come up with… possibly years earlier, I honestly just don’t recall. For some reason I didn’t really give it the attention I should have but talking with her husband recently I was reminded of it.
It is, without doubt, the easiest way I’ve seen to manipulate a flashlight and maintain what is darn close to my exact normal two-handed pistol grip technique. My support hand index finger curls the trigger guard a bit but otherwise it feels like I’m just gripping the gun normally.
Here is possibly the worst YouTube video ever made showing what is possibly the best tactical flashlight pistol grip method ever devised … all from a competitive shooter trying to figure out how to shoot low-light stages at a match as fast as she could.
I give you: The Julie Method!
(looking through YouTube, I note there’s another instructor who came upon the same idea eventually… see one of his student’s videos talking about it here … if you’ve seen it elsewhere, comment below, I think it’s very interesting when you see diverse folks making parallel developments in technique)
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
It looks kinda like Ayoob’s “stressfire technique”.
Basically a modified Surefire/Bill Rogers technique. As long as it works for the individual then it works. I never found it (SF/Rogers) comfortable, stable or reliable enough (to operate) for me though, let alone under duress.
Slight modification of the Surefire/Syringe Technique. It works ok but only with correctly equipped flashlights. Rings like the ones surefire makes do make the technique work better.
http://www.surefire.com/combatrings-cr-kit01.html
Also a video with a little better explaination of the technique:
http://youtu.be/A48dEDkkI24
I’ll stick with weapon mounted lights or neck index.
Bryan — The Rogers technique never worked for me either as it wants to use the meat of the shooting hand as the button contact point. This uses the wrapped around fingers at the front strap and, at least for me, makes a huge difference.
XGEP — I think neck index is great and use it all the time as well as, of course, completely independent gun/light movement when not actually shooting. But this (at least for me) is very quick to get into from my search position and definitely gives me more control than 1H shooting. Also, for what it’s worth, I can do it with my thin 4Sevens Quark Tactical with no extra rings or attachments.
costa also has a version of the surefire ring that i’m keen to try as none of the handheld techniques other than harries has worked out for me with the lights i own.
http://soldiersystems.net/2014/01/21/thyrm-costa-switchback-tactical-flashlight-rings/
To me the big advantage of the rings comes when you need to reload or deal with a malfunction. I run a WML and still use the ring. I just let the flashlight “drop” when take a shot, and then still have the flashlight for searching.
I’ve seen and used this before but never knew where it came from. Cool!
I saw this years ago. I believe Matt Graham was the one who came up with it initially and then worked with surefire to manufacture the rings they put out.
Yep, do a search on Matt Graham Combat Ring.
Del — My point is exactly that, different people developed the same idea in parallel with no real contact between them. As best I can tell, Graham was doing it before at least as early as ’08 because that seems to be when Surefire adopted his rings. Julie also figured it out at least as early as ’06 as noted in my post.
I don’t know for sure, but I’m willing to bet Julie and Graham have never met. They’re just two folks who came up with the same way of doing things. Since I saw Julie do it first, it’s the Julie Method to me. 😎
I recall seeing it in “The Book of Two Guns” by Tiger McKee.
I was taught this at thunder ranch in 2001. It’s definitely not new.
Yeah this technique looks familiar, something Hackathorn demonstrated in a Wilson Combat training video on low light shooting.