Any experienced shooter will tell you the fundamentals are essential. Unless we begin with a solid foundation of fundamentals we’ll never progress as a shooter. Having a solid stance is imperative to these fundamentals - in fact, it’s the very core fundamental to shooting. Good stance comes from the positioning of nearly every part of our bodies. When we have a good stance the effects will help accuracy, recoil management and consistency. Having a great shooting stance will provide a balance as well and will help allow shooting on the move to be more seamless.

Most Common Shooting Stances

Let’s take a look at the 3 most popular handgun shooting stances that are utilized by pros every day.

Isosceles Shooting Stance

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Who said that Geometry class in high school wouldn’t be helpful am I right? The Isosceles Stance is called that because you form a triangle with your chest and arms. Grip using the Weaver two hand method and then push your arms forward from the center of your chest. Lock your elbows with your arms fully extended.

Make sure your feet are about shoulder width apart and facing forward towards your target. If you are doing the Isosceles handgun stance properly this should feel very natural and even comfortable as you engage your target with your locked arms helping to mitigate recoil.

Isosceles Stance allows us to really lean into the gun and absorb the recoil through your upper body down into your lower body. Isosceles is a great and very common handgun shooting stance that can be very natural to some people. Not quite sure this one works for you? Let’s look into Modified Isosceles!

Modified Isosceles

Modified Isosceles is also known as the Chapman Stance. Modified Isosceles was developed in special force’s communities and then adopted by law enforcement. Some people say that this is the Navy SEALs Shooting Stance and while we can’t find anything specifically confirming that, it certainly seems like that if you watch them shoot! The stance itself resembles a boxing stance similar to the Weaver stance but your dominant arm is locked straight out in front.

Lock your dominant arm straight out and take your support arm slightly bent, pulling back against the gun forming yet another Isosceles triangle. Place your feet shoulder's width apart and your dominant foot should be farther back with your toes at the middle of your other foot. Flex your knees. Now you are in a modified Isosceles Stance. The point of all of this is to allow the shooter to absorb recoil and move whilst shooting.

Modified Isosceles or Chapman Stance also allows you to create a cheek weld out of your arm which only helps to make this a more rock-solid shooting stance for your shooting! If the Modified Isosceles Stance doesn’t quite work for you, fear not! We are now about to move into Weaver Stance - the one that started it all!

Weaver Stance

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The Weaver Stance is likely the most common stance used and preferred by pistol shooters as a stance. The Weaver Stance works well in helping with balance, accuracy and recoil management with your handgun.

Holding our handgun in our dominant hand while the support hand wraps around our dominant hand. Your dominant elbow should be bent slightly to almost locked. Now we’ll push our support arm straight down and push forward with our dominant hand while applying pressure with the support hand

Now we lean slightly forward at the waist and position our feet in a boxing stance, placing our support foot just slightly in front of our dominant foot and slightly bend your knees. Our dominant foot should be about 45 degrees to the side and shoulder width apart.

Doing the Weaver Stance correctly will reduce felt recoil and make the shooter feel balanced. This shooting stance is one of the most popular stances for pistol shooting and most other stances discussed are based off of the Weaver Stance to some degree.

Sight Picture and Sight Alignment

Something to practice consistently and understand are the differences between sight picture and sight alignment. Sight alignment is the way you align your front and rear sights on the gun and should be consistent and not change.

Sight picture what your eyes see when you have sights aligned at the target. Sight picture is how your dominant eye sees the target. These are both concepts that are important to keep in mind when it comes to how you hold your weapon in a handgun shooting stance.

TL;DR:

In the end there are plenty of shooting stances that can provide great results for the shooter - we just find these to be the most popular overall. There is no reason why the shooter cannot modify any of these stances to fit their current situation and desired needs. The reality of the situation is that unless we train consistently, none of these stances will become habit and therefore, will not assist the shooter in becoming better. Always practice and train with your weapon!

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