Shooting From A Barricade A Critical Task For A Law Enforcement Firearms Training Program
- Rick Hogg
- May 28, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Feb 7
The Internet Loves “Cover.” Real Life Demands You Earn It.
Everybody wants to talk about “using cover.” Few people actually train it the right way. They train it for Instagram angles, hanging half their body out, crowding the barricade, and turning a piece of cover into a problem. That’s not tactics. That’s performance art.
This blog is built around the War HOGG Tactical training tip on “Shooting From Barricades” (the video many of you have seen with the Walther PDP).
Barricade work is a critical task for any serious defensive shooter, and it absolutely belongs in every law enforcement firearms training program.
I’m going to give you the why, the mindset, and a way to train it so you’re actually building skill, not just burning ammo.
Barricade vs. Cover
Let’s clean up language first.
A range barricade is usually a training tool. Real-world cover is whatever is available when the fight picks you. You don’t get to choose the perfect angle, perfect height, or perfect distance.
But the barricade teaches the fundamentals: body positioning, exposure management, sight picture discipline, and the ability to take a shot from something other than your comfortable square-range stance.
If you can’t run a barricade correctly on a flat range, you’re not going to magically do it under stress.
The Biggest Mistake: “Hugging” the Barricade
Here’s what I see constantly: shooters crowd the barricade like it’s a security blanket. They press into it, lean too far out, and expose way more of their body than they need to.
You want the opposite.
Your goal is to reduce exposure, maintain balance, and control your gun, so you can deliver accurate hits without giving away free targets.
Distance off the barricade gives you options:
You can move. You can adjust height. You can work angles. You can keep your gun running without smashing it into the barricade every rep.
Crowding the barricade makes you static, awkward, and sloppy.
The Red Dot Problem Most Shooters Don’t Notice Until It Bites Them
If you’re running a red dot pistol, there’s a specific issue you need to respect: your sights can be clear while your muzzle is not.
That’s not theory. That’s physics.
Just like with a carbine, you can have a perfect sight picture while the muzzle is too close to (or actually contacting) the barricade. And that can lead to a bad day, injury, blast, debris, and a gun that doesn’t cycle the way you think it will.
I want you to read that again because it’s one of those “simple” lessons that keeps people from getting hurt.
Don’t Shoot Your Cover
This is where I get blunt: stop using the barricade as a gun rest unless you fully understand what you’re doing.
Hard contact creates problems:Your muzzle blast is now interacting with the barricade.Your slide can get pushed out of battery.Your dot may look clean, but your muzzle is getting punished.Your stance collapses because you’re depending on the barricade instead of your structure.
If you want to brace, brace the support hand or the forearm, with control. But never let “support” turn into “sloppy dependency.”
Angle Discipline: The Fight Is in the Inches
Shooting from barricades is an angles game.
Your job is to take away angles from the threat while still seeing and engaging what you must. That means:
You don’t step out wide like you’re walking onto a stage.
You don’t “float” your head and shoulders past cover.
You don’t expose your hips and legs because you forgot they exist.
Work the edge.
Own the edge.
Then take the shot and come back in.
Every inch you give away is an inch the threat can use against you.
Build Positions, Not Poses
Barricade shooting is not one position. It’s a problem set.
You’re going to have high ports, mid ports, low ports, awkward angles, and compromised footing. Your job is to build stable solutions without doing something unsafe or inconsistent.
A stable solution looks like:
Balanced feet.Weight controlled.
Gun driven to the target.
Dot found without fishing.
Trigger pressed without drama.
A pose looks like:
Leaning too far out.
One foot doing something random.
Gun wobbling.
Dot hunting.
If your technique only works when everything is perfect, it’s not technique. It’s luck.
Support-Side Work: Stop Avoiding It
If you’re serious, you need to be able to run the gun from both sides of the barricade.
Here’s why: barricades don’t care what handedness you are. Cover doesn’t care. Your environment doesn’t care. The angle that keeps you alive might be the angle that forces you to work support-side.
This doesn’t mean you need to become a circus act. It means you need to be competent enough to:
Present the gun safely.
Control the trigger.
Manage recoil.
Get acceptable hits.
And you build that with reps, dry first, then live.
A Simple Shooting From Barricades Drill That Builds Real Skill
I’m not interested in complicated drills that look cool but don’t move the needle.
Here’s a simple way to train this that works for both law enforcement and serious civilians:
Set a barricade with three working heights (high, mid, low). Run the same target at a realistic distance where you can see mistakes.
Do short strings and hold yourself accountable:
Accuracy standard first.
Then time.
Then movement between ports.
Track your performance. Don’t guess.
This is exactly the kind of skill builder that belongs inside The Firearms Training Notebook with a structured training plan, because the whole point is to be 1% better every day, not randomly good once a month.
And yes, log it. If you don’t track it, you don’t own it.
Why This Matters for Law Enforcement
If you’re a cop, barricade shooting isn’t optional. It shows up around vehicles, corners, doorframes, brick columns, engine blocks, and whatever else is in your environment.
And it’s not just about “can you shoot.” It’s about:
Can you shoot without overexposing?
Can you shoot without injuring yourself?
Can you shoot without turning cover into a liability?
That’s officer safety.
If your agency wants to become more efficient and effective with a red dot pistol program, that training needs to include barricade work, because the real world doesn’t hand you a square stance and a flat bay.
“It’s Your Duty to Be Ready” Isn’t a Slogan
I’m a big believer in giving people a path to train the right way, especially when good information is available for free.
Walther’s “It’s Your Duty To Be Ready” video training series was built around that idea: they can build reliable pistols, but they can’t put the work in for you. That’s on you.
That mindset fits War HOGG Tactical perfectly, because in the end, skill is earned. Not bought.
Bottom Line
Barricade shooting is not advanced wizardry. It’s disciplined fundamentals under a different set of constraints.
Don’t crowd cover.Don’t overexpose.Respect muzzle clearance, especially with a red dot pistol. Build positions you can repeat.Train support-side competence.Track your work.
Train hard, stay safe, and I’ll see you On The Range - Rick.
In this blog post we will discuss pistol shooting from a barricade. This pistol shooting drill is something that should be incorporated in every law enforcement firearms training program. There are some things you need to consider if you are using a red dot sight on your pistol. Just like with a carbine your sights might be clear but your muzzle could be on the barricade or piece of cover, thus causing injury to the shooter.
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Rick Hogg is the owner of War HOGG Tactical, and is a 29 year US Army Special Operation Combat Veteran as well as an SOF K9 handler. Rick has taken his 13 combat deployment, both Iraq and Afghanistan, and teaching experience as a Special Forces Advanced Urban Combat (SFAUC) instructor and harnessed them into a proven combat techniques firearms training company, War HOGG Tactical, Inc.
North Carolina based War HOGG Tactical, offers firearms training, tactical training and K9 training to law abiding civilians, military and law enforcement agencies through combat proven techniques and experience to improve students skill ability. War HOGG Tactical conducts firearms training and tactical training in states like North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Tennessee and more.
War HOGG also conducts product development and product field testing along with a variety of consulting services in the defense, firearms and entertainment / film industry.
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Awesome blog brother!!