Low Light Shooting

Taking a Shot in the Dark

Earlier this week I attended a Low Light Shooting class. Since 80% of all shootings occur in low light, with the deadliest time between 6:00 PM and 6:00 AM, knowing how to shoot in this environment is fairly important. Needless to say this was a new experience. The class focused on how to shoot your every day carry handgun in either very low light or in total darkness, with the assistance of a flashlight. The class covered lots of topics to include:
 

•   Understanding the basic principles of low light tactics
•   Multiple flashlight techniques
•   Reloads in low light
•   Malfunctions and their clearing procedures in low light
•   Illumination, movement, verbal commands and shooting at the same time
•   Combination point-and-shoot and sighted fire drills

 
The majority of the activity was related to learning, trying out and then using various flashlight techniques:
 

•   Neck Index
•   FBI
•   Harries
•   Syringe/Surefire
•   Ayoob
•   Chapman

 
Different techniques worked better for each person – depending on their specific handgun, preferred shooting stance, level of expertise, etc. Personally I preferred the Harries technique since it provided flexibility when pointing the flashlight while allowing the hand holding the flashlight to support the dominant shooting hand. It also allowed me to easily turn the flashlight on (when locating the target) and off (when shooting at the target or moving).
 
Here are some pictures of what the shooting looked like.