Combat pistol shooting is a modern martial art that focuses on the use of the handgun as a defensive weapon for self defense, or for military and police use. Like most martial arts, combat pistol shooting is practiced both for defense and for sport.

Many of the action shooting disciplines are based on combat pistol techniques, and take the form of simulations of defensive or combat situations. Also related to combat pistol shooting are the sports of paintball and Airsoft.

Combat pistol shooting, as separate from target shooting, began to evolve in the early 1900s. William E. Fairbairn and later Rex Applegate enumerated many of the early combat pistol practices developed during their training of Office of Strategic Services and British Commando troops in World War II. Jeff Cooper was also instrumental in establishing both a combat pistol based sport, International Practical Shooting Confederation, and a combat pistol training school, Gunsite . The methods promoted by Applegate and Cooper differ in many respects, and to this day there are often emotional arguments between supporters of the different methodologies.

Techniques

One of the techniques common in combat pistol disciplines is the requirement that two shots be placed on each target. This reflects a common practice in police an military training, where it is assumed that a single shot might not disable an opponent. Since a repeated shot on the same target takes very little time, two shots are fired in rapid succession to increase the chances of causing a disabling wound. This technique is called a "double tap" or a "hammer"; these terms are often used interchangeably, but others use each term to describe a slightly different technique. In a double tap, the shooter visually reaquires the front sight and places it back on target before firing the second shot; this is enough to ensure close placement of the shot, since the recoil will not have disturbed the alignment of front and rear sights. A hammer involves an immediate second shot as soon as the gun returns to position after recoil; no attempt is made to visually reaquire the sights, the shooter relies strictly on kinesthesia to determine when the gun is realigned. Competitive shooters will tend to use a double tap, as the greater accuracy will often result in more points than the slight gain in speed given by a hammer.

Another technique in combat pistol disciplines is the use of reactive targets, or targets that move when hit. Steel plates are the most common, and they may be roughly human shaped or simple round or sqare plates. In the case of reactive targets, a single hit may not be sufficient to knock down the heavy steel target, so the shooter may have to come back and fire again at remaining targets, or continue firing at each target until the target is obviously going to fall.

Nearly all combat pistol disciplines have some attempt to incorporate combat or defensive role playing elements in the target layouts. Multiple targets will be spread across a wide area, targets may be partially behind hard or soft cover, there may be "no-shoot" targets representing bystanders, and even "hostage" targets, where a target will be partially hidden behind a no-shoot target. There will often be cover for the shooter as well; walls, windows and doorways that must be manuvered around, with penalties given if the shooter exposes too much of their body to the targets.

No-shoot targets carry a significant penalty if hit, and often there are only subtle differences between the no-shoot targets and the real targets; police often train with photographic targets, where the only difference between the real and the no-shoot target will be a picture of a gun in the hand of the real target. Trying to differentiate real and no-shoot targets while runing against the clock can create a large amount of stress in the shooter, which is the goal—training under stress will make real life and death situations that much easier to handle.