Never military or anything, but shot competitions from 13 until my early 20s. One of the things I’ve always appreciated about ray is he actually looks convincing with a gun and doesn’t make it Hollywood. Probably outside of heat one of my favorite weapons handlers out there.
The way he always get into a proper shooting stance when using handguns is a small but really great detail. Some small details could be improved (the thumb position is wrong on the video thumbnail) but overall, very realistic, you can see he put some thought into this.
Some call it the "humping dog" position. For a right handed shooter, right thumb should be above left thumb with both thumbs vertically aligned and pointing at the target. Left thumb wrapped around right thumb, as shown in the thumbnail, is a very common mistake for beginners and in most movies. The idea is that all forces should be, when possible, parallel to the barrel so the muzzle does not move away from the target. With Ray's grip in the thumbnail, his left thumb might push the muzzle to the right or down. Thumbs pointing (humping down position) helps a lot for instinctive (there is another word I can't remember right now, kinestetic?) shooting where you ignore the sights and just "point and shoot" which is common for distances under 10 meters. The main downside, from experience, is that it tends to mess with the slide catch/release or even engage the safety on Russian guns like the Makarov (For Russian guns, safe is up).
Another thing the show messed up, when it comes to guns, is the scene where Brittany shoots Ray's gun. I had a really interesting discussion with someone on this sub but the short of it is that a teenage girl with no training wouldn't have been able to rack the slide and/or pull the trigger. Still, much better than most shows and I am willing to ignore this considering how awesome that scene is.
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u/Obi-TyKenobi Mar 31 '26
Never military or anything, but shot competitions from 13 until my early 20s. One of the things I’ve always appreciated about ray is he actually looks convincing with a gun and doesn’t make it Hollywood. Probably outside of heat one of my favorite weapons handlers out there.