Train like you fight
In my post on equipment for a carbine class, someone linked to this. Point taken. No need to dress like a ninja if you don’t actually ever dress like a ninja except on range day.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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September 15th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Unfortunately most ranges refuse to allow me to shoot while i am buck naked. Since that’s how i expect to confront an intruder at night, I can’t really train like I plan on fighting. Now, if the intruder wants to wait till I get some pants on, fine. I don’t want the police to mistake me for Robb Allen, but if the intruder rushes me and the cops, seeing a gun and no pants, think that Robb has moved to North Carolina, so be it.
September 15th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Hilarious, Sean, but so true. Reminds me of the night that, by the time I had put on my shorts and shoes, grabbed the Glock 17 and mated it to my Surefire, my wife had already jumped up and answered the door, defeating all of my security measures!
Seriously, I hope we all think much more about this. One instructor, Pat Rogers, opened my eyes. Now, even shooting cardboard, I check for other targets before holstering.
How much low-light / night shooting do we do?
How much shooting on the move do we do?
And, the real toughie: How much do we shoot at moving targets?
Another toughie: How much falling down onto the ground and getting behind cover do we do? (Even at your own, private range, it’s muddy out there; might get your pants dirty.)
I dress my cardboard IDPA bad guys in old T-shirts and ball caps.
Now, the Gen-3 Glock sports a rail-attached light.
I’m using this post as a reminder to find new ways to make my practice more like the real thing. Think of it is scientific validity vs. climate-change computer modeling.
September 15th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
While I have ARs and an AK, my go-to rifle is an M1 carbine. 3 15 round mags and 2 30 round origional U.S. ‘hardback’ GI mags.
That and my Glock pistol is it. Ninja gear? Well I do have some cammo for bow season when I deer hunt but that’s it.
Never been to a shooting school wearing commado stuff. I feel that should be reserved for those who do use it for real, the U.S. military.
September 15th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
I have lots of dubious thoughts about much of training these days, but I’m checking in to offer my observations about men and their ARs.
For a few years, I put on “tac” rifle matches at my home club in Indiana. Basically, they were much like USPSA pistol matches stretched out for rifles. I like running and gunning, and lots of action and different angles; that’s the kind of stages I tend to set up.
What I learned immediately from these and the practical shotgun matches I’d done before (until I got bored watching people reloading their eight-shooters with agonizing slowness), was that few of these AR-wielders could handle their little carbines worth a darn. They couldn’t work the controls, they couldn’t load them, reload them, unload them, do anything pertinent at all.
I’d see jazzed up high-price geegaw-encrusted guns being run slowly and incompetently, dumb sights preventing the shooter from finding targets and then doing nothing to help them hit them.
I ROed a stage at a match this year for another guy and watched more than one shooter blast away the better part of a magazine at a lousy six knockdown circles six inches in diameter- at thirty yards!
Maybe it’s a function of ammunition expense, maybe it’s a lack of a good place to shoot without a heavy layer of rules.
But I was shocked at how poor the operation of these ostensible tools was.
My suggestion is: shoot your gun. A lot, until you’re completely comfortable with it and can operate it without thinking.
That would do more than all the gadgets, doo-dads, tactical accessories and everything else, based on what I actually saw of men with ARs trying to shoot fast under the modest stress of competition.
One more story… I was at the range with some friends today. There were all kinds of ARs all over the place and a couple of good-shooting old-timers, and a capable 1911 runner learning rifle shooting.
All of this benchresting and contortions and not so many holes on the 100-yard targets. One guy stood up with his battered 1943 Enfield No. 4 and put ten holes in the ten-inch circle using crappy wartime irons and shooting pretty darn fast without breaking a sweat.
Obviously, the guy was comfortable operating the old clunker and getting hits came as a result.
Run the gun more.
Off of soapbox.
September 15th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
When I took the required course for my Texas CHL, the shooting part of the exam was a revelation. I was the best shot in my class of ~20. And I am not by any means a good shot.
The thing I learned was that a CHL (and by extension, any defensive gun ownership and any training one does) offers one a chance to use a firearm in a defensive situation, but does not guarantee success.
September 16th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
I didn’t even wear my Molle Gear when I was in Iraq. All that shit is heavy! The fuck do I need two canteens for when I got a Camelbak? I had to wear my Flak and Kevlar, so I just strapped a three round mag pouch on the front of my Kevlar. I wore Tennis shoes for the first three weeks I was in country, because nobody told me to wear my boots. I figured if I stepped on a landmine, it wouldn’t know the difference between comfortable shoes, and heavy, hot, less comfortable boots.
Then we got back stateside…
Suddenly, people who hadn’t even been in either theater knew what it was like “over there”, and all training required us to wear ALL of our Molle gear and all of our other shit ALL THE TIME. I don’t just mean on maneuvers, I mean two weeks in the field, 24/7, you got to wear you gear. In the shitter, during chow, while you’re sleeping, it was total bullshit.
A lot of people are paranoid, and that leads to unrealistic, and sometimes irresponsible training regimes. Col. Jeff Cooper himself told me he thought the combat reload was largely a intellectual exercise, and not something you would need to do if you learned the principals of proper combat shooting. Nobody gets into a firefight with six or more bad opponents and lives to tell the tale.