Why Practice Shooting Through Ports

I want to talk for a few minutes about why we train to shoot through these ports. Why we train on a barricade like this? Now, I know there's going to be a lot of different reasons, but I'm going to answer specifically for myself. I ce training company, all of our related programs and why we most think it's important to train on these things for personal defense networks, point of view when it comes to using a firearm in a close quarters environment around buildings, around any kind of structures, even outdoors inside those buildings, obviously around vehicles and, and the like the reason isn't the same if you're really focused just on shooting skills, particularly in a competition environment. Now, certainly there are going to be rules in some competition environments where you are or are not allowed to touch your firearm to a barricade. Maybe even whether or not you're allowed to encroach the barricade or be close to it or any of these ports, any of the firing ports. These are very, very different environments. I think too often people see people using these barricades as rests learning how to press their guns up against the handguns that in some competition areas have attachments to the handguns that they can be pressed against barricades. This is not what we're thinking of when it comes to personal defense CQB or inside of a structure kind of use of a firearm. There are all kinds of reasons why you don't want to get close to corners. Even if you're just using this big flat area or this stair step side for practicing your shooting around cover, right? If I'm thinking there might be a bad guy on the other side of this doorway, I don't want to approach the doorway with the muzzle sitting here where he can reach out and grab it. That's the number one reason we don't want to get close to cover. Obviously, as we're approaching it, we could also have someone jump around the corner. These things are all covered in our extreme close quarters, tactics or extreme close quarters shooting courses and have really been covered in other videos right now, I want to talk specifically about these ports. So one of the main reasons that we see people want to practice shooting through these ports is to get a better understanding of height over board or we call mechanical offset. It's the actual offset mechanically that's caused by the fact that your optic line, your sight line or in this case, the laser aiming device line is above the bore of this Ar 15 style pistol. So what that means is I may be able to see through this port with the optic but have a situation right here where while I can see through that very clearly, obviously, my muzzle is going into that port. So this is a very mechanical, very skill based concept that people think about. Well, if I take this and I draw through that barricade and I either rest the side of the hand guard there. If I were to push the laser device against there, if I were to take this piece, if I were going through a different port, I might be able to use this little rail piece here as a pressure stop. I might even grab onto the barricade and push and lean into it. That can be a very stable way to shoot. And if your situation allows for that or if you're in shooting a competition environment and it allows for that, that would probably be the best answer. However, let's think about your home. If your home is a normal home and doesn't have a bunch of holes in the walls, sort of randomly from room to room, you don't have something like this. So why would you need to practice shooting through a port other than just understanding the technical issues of height over board? What are we really doing when we shoot through this port? Well, if we step back from the port, here's what I want you to think about that square or this angle, you know, rectangle, the diagonal circle, triangle trapezoid, whatever it may be doesn't represent a two dimensional surface with a hole in it. I want you to start thinking about that as representing a three dimensional tube across, let's say the open floor plan of your first level of your home. That's the path that the bullet can take. And it's also potentially the path that it has an unobstructed view for your optical line or if you're using a laser aiming dice for that laser line to travel across that floor. So, what am I talking about? Well, maybe this is over the dining room table. You have a heavy wood or tile, dining room table that's over the dining room table and then 10 ft past that, you've got a bookshelf and this is the bookshelf in the maybe transition from the dining area to your living room area. And that's what this is. And then there's a chandelier that hangs down, uh further down the other, the other side of the room, you've got a light fixture or some kind of chandelier that hangs down. So you've got to go under that. You've got to go over the dining room table from where you're standing and you've got to go past this bookshelf and that's where the bad guy is over there on the side of the house. Maybe this is a situation where you've got a banister coming down a stairwell. So this is the banister or this is the, the wall, maybe you've got a half wall on a stairwell. And then again, this is that top wall coming down or you might have a shape where it's flat on the top and angled at the bottom to represent that. But what that means is I can't run up to the dining room table and forget about the bookshelf, that's 1015 ft away. I can't forget about the light fixture that's 20 ft away. On the other side of that floor. I've really got to shoot through the tube and I've got to look through the tube. So how do simulate this? Well, we stay back 6 8 10 ft from the barricade structure itself. And then what I'm going to be forced to do is get into an improvised shooting position. A little bit of a squat. I've got to support the way to the gun. I've got to think about height overboard. So I don't want to be down here just barely over the bottom edge of that port. I've got to be up here just under the top edge. That means I have plenty of clearance for my muzzle so that I get both the optical line and the bullet flight path through this imaginary three dimensional tube. Again, if I think about this port, same thing, I have to get into a modified position. I have to angle the gun to be congruent with that imagined angled banister, right on the stairwell. And now if I am down by the bottom, I know that if my optical area, my aiming point is near the bottom of that diagonal, I'm probably shooting into the barricade. So I've got to come up a little bit higher so that both the optical angle and the muzzle are going through the port. This is a very common misunderstanding. I see a lot of people intending to do good things with barricades like this. But if you're right up on the barricade and you're just thinking this is a flat two dimensional space, you're missing the why of why do we train on ports?