Editor’s Note: In the ***NSFW*** video above, Clay shows you why temple index, aka high ready, is a gun handling technique that has a very limited application in the real world.
Basically, unless you’re backing up the point man (the #2 position) on a CQB raid, temple index is a mistake!
So, forget what those mall ninjas told you, temple index is not the way to go. Watch and learn!
Clay Martin is a retired Marine and Green Beret, having served with distinction in the 3rd Special Forces Group. A multi-service, multi-decade sniper, he’s also a seasoned 3-Gun competitor and a Master-ranked shooter in USPSA Production. When he’s not writing about firearms and tactics, Clay is the author of the novel Last Son of The War God, a gritty story about dispensing justice the hard way. Follow him on Twitter @offthe_res or visit his website at Off-The-Reservation.com.
Experience:
– U.S. Marine Corps Infantry, Scout/Sniper, and Recon Marine
– U.S. Army Green Beret, 3rd Special Forces Group (ODA Comms SGT, Intel SGT, SFAUC Instructor)
– Competitive Shooter – Master-ranked in USPSA Production, experienced 3-Gun competitor
– Tactical Instructor – Extensive background in teaching carbine, pistol, CQB, and survival skills
– Author – Fiction and non-fiction works on warfare, survival, and American resilience
– 2A Advocate – Defender of the Constitution and vocal proponent of gun rights
– Outdoorsman – Idaho-based hunter, adventurer, and father of feral children and dogs
I wish I could take instruction from Clay, I just think his advice/training is spot-on and the most realistic I’ve seen ANYWHERE online..plus the fucking guy absolutely cracks me up with his humor, Great Job Dude and from one Vet to another, thanks for your service,,( I was in the USAF for 8yrs, so I wasn’t really in the military..lol)
thanks for sharing, this is really a good article you write. i have bookmark it so later i can come here again
Clay!!! Great video!!!! LMAO, if you invent a holster for you hat/helmut let me know! We don’t live to far from you, we could trade you some siding for your storage shed for some training!!! lol!!! Thanks again and keep them coming!!! I think you write an article regarding the demonstrators/flag burners like the one you wrote for Kappernick!!!!
Awesome video from you Clay and also, as many others already have written, a humorous one indeed! I was very surprised that the high-ready for guns is more a myth than a good idea for combat situations because I also can see it all the time, either in movies or video games. I never was in the military, police nor do I have guns (I live in the wrong country) so Gunsamerica is the only website, where I can finally receive useful information from experts like you, thank you very much!
Yet, I would like to comment on something you were showing. I agree that it is a bad idea to hold the gun directly beside your head, like your friend did when he just came out of the car. But the way I see temple index with pistols normally is around 20cm away from your head, while pointing it into the air and the other hand holds the lower end of the pistol, while you have the grip in your first hand and your finger on the trigger. While doing so, the pistol builds a straight line with your head but it is far away from your temple and not as close to it as your friend was carrying it. I was just wondering about it because I never saw a pistol at point-blanc range to the temple as your friend had it. I guess carrying the gun like I just mentioned also won’t give you the vision problem which you showed in the video at 1:50 (If the enemy gets that close anyway, I believe you were making even more wrong than just the temple index). But I admit that, as a layman, I could be horribly wrong in this case.
Clay, since you are debunking movie myths about guns in your videos, I wonder if you maybe can make a video about the so called Akimbo style, you know two pistols firing at the same time. While I see all these guys in movies and games shooting pistols like this frequently, often even small MPs like fully automatic Uzis, it looks unbelievable to me, yet I have also read that this really comes from the wild west during the 19th century, where you had nothing more than 6-round revolvers that took you plenty of time to reload and therefore you were always carrying a second one to have an advantage against your opponent. I would like to know if this is also just Hollywood crap or a good choice for combat, especially in close quarters, because I never saw policemen or soldiers doing this in real life, only in movies and games, so I wonder what this is all about.
Keep the videos up Clay, I like to watch them and I already learned a lot, thank you!
High gun with a rifle or shotgun in CQB when coming around a blind corner, the opposition can reach out and hold the gun up, but with it pointed down, you can at least shoot him in the foot.
And as he said, high gun is better for the second guy.
The high ready (temple position) dates to the movie posters for “Dirty Harry”, and carried forward to “Lethal Weapon”, etc, and is mostly a Hollywood contrivance. The reasoning for #2 man in a stack or vehicle dismounts in hot zones seems valid.
Yeah, only movie and TV actors do temple ready. Great video, Clay. Thanks.
Hahahahhaa some awesome pieces of kit & a good vid there Clay! “A$$-over-Tea Kettle” had me rollin forever! I’m learning so much from your vids, and trying to train at the range with that information in mind. Keep it boss man!!
another “legitimate” use of a temple area (high) hold (so I have been told) is the rapid exit of a detail from vehicles under fire or to mount a rapid operation from a vehicle in “Zones” that the only weapon allowed is the sidearm (M9 etc.) Some that have served in “zones” controlled by our allies may know what I mean.
Clay, thanks for the morning LMAO! Good information and thanks for the laugh! Like I’ve always said Hollyweird will get you killed if thats your training method!
This video hit me right in the funny bone, Thanks Clay! The reason for my laughing is this, I have a good friend who spent over 20 years working on many movies as a stunt man, I won’t name the many movies but I can assure you that all of you have seen a lot of them, some of which we all gave him shot for being in , he just laughed and said it all paid very well, I see the light of that.
I asked my friend one day why the movie idiots don’t learn to handle guns properly, his answer kinda stunned me. It seems the directors tell the actors to always “SHOW” the gun, that’s why you see them running down a hallway with their gun held way out from their body, sort of waving it, same thing with the “Draw the weapon, rack the slide” thing, Stupid! I watched a movie once where the actor gets out of a cop car with a double barrel shotgun, short of course, and the waving of it not being enough the director added the sounds of a pump gun cambering a round, and then there is the loud clicking off of the safety on a Glock.
Hollyweird creates all this crap such as the sideways gangbanger stuff.
On that note and while Hollyweird blows big time they do once in a while get it pretty right, as in the flick “John Wick” the gun handling in that was pretty damn good, of course John killed about 70 bad guys but WTF, they killed his puppy!
Does this have anything to do with Clsy’s video? not at all! but I enjoyed saying it.
Really like Slays “real and down to earth style” .
I wear a Donald Duck hat with a Freedom Arms .22 derringer pointing at my “Six” beneath the tail feathers The weapon can be fired by pulling on the bill, a migratory waterfowl version of “pull my finger.” I call it Duck of Death. Am I ready for the big time tacticool firearms training world?