Having covered a short, biased history of the technique as well as the basic concept behind it, we will now look at how to practice it for the most benefit. When learning the Press-Out, it is best practiced on a small target at short range, say a 3″ target at 5 yards. Dry is of course the best way to learn anything initially, and this is no different. The small target forces a precise line of movement that will help refine your technique and prevent it from being sloppy. Once you get the basic idea, you can expand your target size to something like 6″ at 5 yards, then 6″ at 7 yards. Then go back to 3″ at 7 yards to clean up any sloppiness. Then play with all sorts of variants.
Though you can do a Press-Out from low-ready, it is probably at its best from high-ready or a high draw. If you picture your eye line as the long leg of a 90-degree triangle and the distance from your gun in high ready to that line as the short leg, then the path the gun takes as you press it out is the hypotenuse. It should cut the angle and arrive at your eye line smoothly. You want the short leg to be as short as reasonable, without holding your gun awkwardly high at the ready. Since the gun travels on the hypotenuse, it should not be artificially raised and then pushed out horizontally, nor should it go out low and horizontally and then raised to the eye line at extension.
A couple of points worth driving home. The Press-Out is a great way to teach correct trigger control. It is a tangible method of pressing the trigger that results in good repeatable hits. There are other good ways to press the trigger, but none are as durable and widely useful as the Press-Out. With the Press-Out, a good grip can make up for a less-than-perfect trigger press. With a good trigger press, you can make up for a less-than-ideal grip. If you accomplish any aspect of the Press-Out, to any degree, your shot will benefit. Why does this matter? Glad you asked. When teaching, you should tailor the technique to the desired outcome. Civilian enthusiasts, like competition shooters, can be expected to practice. That doesn’t actually always happen, but then it is on them 100%.
When teaching professional gun-toters, like cops and the military, they generally cannot be expected to practice very much. The technique must match their mission, which when it comes to pistols, usually revolves around close-range self-defense. The Press-Out accomplishes that mission better than the alternatives. Part of that is the inherent lack of practice that we have already covered. The other part is that pistol use in the real world often involves a compromised grip. Shooters might be injured, off balance or simply not skilled enough to get a good grip under pressure. A shooting technique that requires a nearly perfect grip to accomplish is an immediate no-go. Guns that do not malfunction normally on the range start to malfunction on the street at much higher rates. As much as any technique can help mitigate these issues, the Press-Out does.
Is it perfect? Of course not, but learning the Press-Out will put most people far ahead of those who don’t know it. Combine that with correct trigger reset (quickly under recoil, not riding the trigger to hear the click of the reset point), and you can go a very long way. Once you get there, you can decide for yourself what direction you want to take to continue to improve. And that is the ultimate point of all this. Learn to execute the fundamentals at a high level. Own the techniques, don’t just simply regurgitate what some instructor has told you. Then decide for yourself what you need and make it happen.