How to Use Cover, Tactics for Self-Defense

Cover is a gift from the heavens if someone tries to kill you with a long-range, portable hole puncher. Cover projects a literal blanket of security that sits between you and certain death. I guarantee anyone reading this owns a gun for self-protection and likely carries the gun for self-defense purposes. If you carry a weapon and intend to defend your life and the life of your family, then you need to know how to use that bulletproof heavenly gift.

Using Cover

Getting tucked in and safe behind some form of cover seems simple. Just stand behind it, right? Well, not exactly. If you’re new to carrying a gun, you likely picture something from a movie. The hero has their back to a wall, their gun held with both hands at chest level. They spin out from around the wall, and plot armor takes over.

That’s not what we are doing today. We are taking a rational look at how to use cover and how to make the most out of that bulletproof, or more accurately bullet resistant, heavenly gift. The first thing you need to be able to do is figure out what resists bullets and what doesn’t.

Know the Difference Between Cover and Concealment

Cover stops bullets, and concealment hides you from shooters. According to movies, you can just flip a dinner table over and be protected from gunfire. In real life, most things don’t stop bullets. If you champion situational awareness, you should look at things that can prevent bullets from finding their way inside you.

You want to find solid pillars, hard concrete displays, steel, and similar materials. Most of a car isn’t cover, you have to hide behind the engine to stop most rounds. Anything is better than nothing, but the harder, more solid the material the better. Fiberboard, most wood, and thin metal aren’t going to stop bullets.

Actual cover can be challenging to find, so you always have to look for it. Less-than-perfect cover can divert bullets, help them lose energy, or disguise your movements and make you more challenging to hit.

Give Cover Some Space

You don’t want to be all up on your cover. Give it some space to breathe, man. Back off a bit. Optimistically, you want to be two arms’ length away from cover. Sometimes, this might not be possible because of the rarity of cover, but the more distance you have, the better.

Having room allows you to easily peer out from the cover while hiding the majority of your body behind it. If you position your body against the cover and aim around it, it’s a lot harder to tuck behind it quickly. When you have distance, you can pop in and out without being impeded.

That extra room gives you a little space to manipulate your firearm. If you aren’t up all over the cover, you can easily manipulate your firearm. You can reload, fix malfunctions, or whatever else you need to do with your firearm.

Backing off a bit gives you better situational awareness via peripheral vision. This might help you track a threat or non-threats that might come out of nowhere. More situational awareness is better than less.

Material splatters when hit by return fire. Concrete breaks and cracks, and you don’t want speed mini rocks hitting you. At best, it’s uncomfortable and distracting, and at worst, it gets in your eyes and blinds you.

Be Greedy With Cover

Here’s the thing: cover only works if you tuck your body behind it. The more of your body behind it, the better off you will be. You want to use as much cover as possible. Stick your butt behind and keep it back there. You have to fight, so you have to expose yourself a little bit so that you can shoot back.

To do that, you need to pie yourself around cover, which is another benefit of giving cover space—it’s easier to pie around. You want to take a slow bite of cover, leading with your gun and leaving as much of your body behind cover as possible. Ideally, you will expose your gun, very little of your head, and some of your arm, but not much more.

You want to slowly come around cover until your sights find the target, and you can take a shot. Expose only as much as necessary to take a shot at the target.

Watch Your Barrel and Sights

This is a bigger issue with rifles than handguns due to offset. Your sights sit above the barrel, and just because your sights are on the target doesn’t mean your barrel is pointing at the target. Your sights might be on target, but the barrel is pointing at your cover.

With a rifle, your mid-sight line might be inches above the barrel, which makes it easy to shoot your cover or something in front of your cover even with a perfect shot on target. If you are shooting beside cover, make sure you aren’t canting the gun and leaving part of the barrel beyond cover while your sights are on target.

I have a nice blue barrel I use as a cover simulation for training, and it’s got a nice hole in it from the latter.

Change The Angle

Let’s say you are suing right, shooting, and you have to fully duck back behind cover. Maybe you need to reload or reset it for any reason at all. You reload, fix the gun, or whatever, and are ready to reengage. You want to break cover as little as possible, but you want to change it up.

If you shoot high on the right side before you tuck behind the cover, you don’t want to poke out from the high right side of the cover again. The bad guy might be waiting for you to do that. Mix it up, break from the left, from low on the right, or do something less predictable.

No Ducking

If you have good taste in movies, you’ve watched the film Naked Gun 2 ½ and laughed at the rooftop shootout scene. The two characters are mere feet away and constantly shoot and duck behind cover. It’s hilarious but not a valid tactic. I know; it’s a big surprise that Leslie Nielsen movies don’t teach great tactics.

If you’re shooting, then shoot. Don’t shoot a shot and duck. Shoot and hold the position. Fire superiority rules. If you lose it, you might lose your life. If your enemy is pinned down, you’re winning the fight. Keep your position and wait for the enemy to make a mistake.

Staying Alive

Cover saves lives. It stops bullets and allows you to fight from a defensible position. Using it properly can be a force multiplier. It’s not enough to know how to use it; you have to go out and practice. Luckily, it’s easy to do so with dry fire and a wall. Practice learning the distance, practice breaking cover only enough to take a shot, and use multiple angles of cover.

A phone with the camera on is a great tool for judging your performance. Get out there or in there, and practice.

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About Travis Pike

Travis Pike is a former Marine Machine Gunner, a lifelong firearms enthusiast, and now a regular guy who likes to shoot, write, and find ways to combine the two. He holds an NRA certification as a Basic Pistol Instructor and is the world’s Okayest firearm’s instructor.