{"id":2087,"date":"2017-03-23T19:43:16","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T02:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/self-defense-handguns.com\/?p=2087"},"modified":"2017-03-23T19:43:16","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T02:43:16","slug":"back-from-the-range-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/self-defense-handguns.com\/?p=2087","title":{"rendered":"Back From the Range Again"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Back from the range; another 412 rounds of 9mm has met its fate.<\/p>\n

Went down to the Shelton Rifle & Pistol Club\u2019s indoor range today (well, by the time I\u2019m typing this, it was yesterday) for a little two-stage match. The first stage was a reasonably long 24-round field course. There were eight targets, on every one of them you had to do two to the body, one to the head. These were USPSA targets, the scoring system was Invented Here, they were doing raw time plus one second per point down; of special note the A-zone in the head was down-0, the B-zone was down-1. So, basically we\u2019re trying to hit this little 2\u201dx4\u201d box at, I would estimate, around 10 yards at the longest, about seven yards at the closest. Four different shooting positions: barricades, walls, shooting under a table, movement, use of cover. I felt right at home.<\/p>\n

This was just a little unaffiliated club match, not a USPSA club, not an IDPA club, so it was a bunch of guys who, in overwhelming probability, had never shot USPSA\/IDPA. I only dropped one point for the entire stage, my score for Stage 1 was 21 seconds faster than the 2nd place guy. At this point I was figuring on cruising to an easy win.<\/p>\n

The second stage was the exact same stage again, but in low light.<\/p>\n

Allow me to seemingly digress for a moment. I have passed the Firearms Academy of Seattle\u2019s Handgun Master test four times, once apiece with a Glock 19, Glock 17, Rock River Arms 1911 .45, and Wilson 1911 .45. One of the reasons I\u2019ve been able to do that is that I\u2019m usually the only guy who passes the dark house portion of the test. Also I\u2019m usually the only guy who doesn\u2019t have night sights on his gun. Actually my sights are usually all-black. At close range, even with almost no light inside the FAS dark house, I can just hit the targets with index.<\/p>\n

Now, back to the match. Given the level of ambient light on the range for Stage 2, I knew\u2013 KNEW \u2013 I could shoot it without a light, though using a light was allowed. I wouldn\u2019t even have to do it just with index (the head shots at 10 yards would have been a bit much for that), there was one HELL of a lot more light on this range than inside the FAS dark house. I could actually just use my sights. All false modesty aside, one thing for which I\u2019ve always been grateful is that I have really excellent night vision. I can see things in dim light that other people can\u2019t even see are there. By comparison to the FAS dark house, where the lighting is so dim that even I can\u2019t see my sights, this stage was pretty much a gimme.<\/p>\n

I was playing with the flashlight I carry clipped to my left front pants pocket, flipping it around in my hands while waiting my turn to shoot, thinking about it: sights or use the light? Go with what I knew I could do, or take this as an opportunity to practice my gun\/flashlight shooting (I use the \u201csyringe\u201d technique). Finally I decided to use the light. Mostly because I hadn\u2019t done it for awhile. Honestly, the last time I\u2019d done it, also at a match, it hadn\u2019t worked very well. I thought I\u2019d ironed out those problems in dry fire, but I\u2019d never really tested that live fire. So why not try it again, at this match? If I hadn\u2019t worked the bugs out of my technique, if integrating the gun with the flashlight didn\u2019t work very well, this was a low-risk way to find out.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t work very well.<\/p>\n

I learned a few things I didn\u2019t know. (1) When firing a gun in low light with a high-powered flashlight, after the first few shots, glare off the gun smoke makes it extremely difficult if not impossible to see the targets. (2) When using the syringe technique, when I broke my gun\/flashlight grip to do a reload, when I reacquired my grip after the load it was very difficult to realign the light so it pointed inline with the gun. (3) My hands broke apart under recoil because the syringe technique seriously weakens your grip on the gun; really you\u2019ve only got your ring and little fingers around the gun butt. (4) If your grip is not absolutely perfect, your support hand holding the light will accidentally depress the magazine release button and spit the magazine out of the gun. Ask me how I know.<\/p>\n

When all was said and done, my performance, or lack thereof, on Stage 2 took me out of an easy 1st place down to 5th at the finish line. It was a painful lesson, but then the painful lessons are the ones you remember. Lesson: there are certain techniques that work great in dry fire that don\u2019t work very well at all once you add things like gun smoke and recoil and reloading the gun. And the best place to find that out is at a teeny little unaffiliated club match.<\/p>\n

After the match, I stayed on the range and did some more practice. I wanted mostly to fine tune my draw, using a descending par time. From 10 yards, do 5 second draws, then 4, then 3, then 2. At that point I dropped it down to 1.5, then started dropping it in tenths. At each speed I kept at it til I could hit the A-zone consistently at that speed, the goal being to push myself to failure, both to know what that level was, and then to move past it.<\/p>\n

I am a big believer in \u201cTrain yourself beyond reality.\u201d Train yourself in practice to do things more difficult than what you\u2019ll probably ever see at a match. Train yourself in practice beyond what you\u2019ll probably ever have to do in self-defense. Ten yards is far enough away from the target you\u2019ve got to have your draw technique really grooved-in to hit the A-zone at speed. And when you\u2019re used to doing that at 10 yards, when have to do the typical 4-7 yard draw at a match, you\u2019ll feel like you\u2019re practically standing on top of the target.<\/p>\n

Everything down to two seconds was easy. But I wasn\u2019t doing the 5-2 second stuff to push the time, I was doing it to burn in the draw, to discover flaws in my technique that might get lost at faster speeds. Honestly, at first I had trouble hitting the A-zone every time when I made the big jump from two to 1.5 seconds, but in short order the occasional misses turned into consistent A-zone hits turned into the nice, tight groups in the center of the A-zone that my ego demands. I discovered that the speed at which I can consistently hit the A-zone on the draw at 10 yards is 1.35 seconds, though I\u2019m not happy with my accuracy at that speed. \u201cEvery shot an A-hit\u201d and \u201cevery shot an A-hit in a nice, tight group in the center of the A-zone\u201d are two very different things. Much below that speed and my \u201cevery shot an A-hit\u201d performance turned into \u201cmostly As.\u201d Completely unacceptable.<\/p>\n

Obviously there is definite room for improvement here. And improvement there will be. Descending par time draws at 10 yards is a powerful technique. As I continue to use it, I have no doubt my times will come down and my accuracy will go up.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny. There was time I would have thought consistent 1.35 second A-zone hits at 10 yards was a pretty darn smokin\u2019 skill level. Now I can\u2019t wait to be better.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back from the range; another 412 rounds of 9mm has met its fate. Went down to the Shelton Rifle & Pistol Club\u2019s indoor range today (well, by the time I\u2019m typing this, it was yesterday) for a little two-stage match. The first stage was a reasonably long 24-round field course. There were eight targets, on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/self-defense-handguns.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/self-defense-handguns.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/self-defense-handguns.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/self-defense-handguns.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/self-defense-handguns.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/self-defense-handguns.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2088,"href":"https:\/\/self-defense-handguns.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2087\/revisions\/2088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/self-defense-handguns.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/self-defense-handguns.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/self-defense-handguns.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}