Category Archives: firearms

Fundamentals of Pistol Shooting (Part 6)

By tacticalprofessor on | 1 Comment

#fridayfundamentals

How do we know we’re doing the Fundamental of Pistol Shooting correctly? That’s where Standards and measurement come in. The term ‘Standards’ is intimidating to many people so if it makes you more comfortable, say ‘baseline’ instead.

The most important thing is to have a Standard, any standard. As the saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, there’s no road that will get you there.” Even the gurus of 20th Century ‘point shooting,’ Fairbairn and Sykes, had standards their officers had to meet.

Another aspect of the situation is that Standards introduce pressure. Pressure brings about failures, both human and mechanical. The book Holloway’s Raiders https://www.amazon.com/Holloways-Raiders-Captain-R-Walt-ebook/dp/B01LWMDZ4D has an excellent example of a pistol that worked fine at the range but malfunctioned when the officer got into a gunfight. The gun was no different, it was how the officer handled it under the pressure of a gunfight that changed the pistol’s performance. Chuck Haggard https://agiletactical.com/ and I have both observed that malfunctions are far more common in POlice gunfights than is generally acknowledged. This phenomenon is well documented in the LAPD Categorical Use of Force reports. https://www.lapdonline.org/police-commission/categorical-use-of-force/

When shooters enter competitions, it’s very common for malfunctions in their pistols to show up. “I don’t understand it, my gun never malfunctions when I practice but here I’m having a lot of problems” is a frequent comment by new competitors. Consequently, the Standard you choose is less important than simply having one, and the pressure it brings about, in the first place.

The most relevant shooting task for those who want a CCW is to pass the Qualification Course, if their State requires one. Millions of people who obtain Licenses to Carry have had to qualify with their pistol to get the license. Only a few thousand, a tiny fraction, will ever fire a pistol for Personal Protection.

A Qualification Course example

Experienced shooters often tell new shooters “It’s easy; blah, blah, blah” with regard to shooting a Qualification. No, it’s not. For someone who’s never fired a pistol before, it’s a daunting task. Most people have not taken any test at all, even one on pen and paper, since high school. Testing of any kind is a process that is usually hated and feared. Add in the presence of a deadly weapon and the test becomes a huge psychological obstacle.

Time is an aspect of any deadly force encounter. The saying “There are no timers in a gunfight” is foolish. The most important timer, your life clock, is running the whole time. It can be stopped if you don’t react in time. One POlice who was involved in an extended gunfight said to himself, “Hey, I need to slow down and aim better.” What he meant was ‘I need to apply the Fundamentals, shoot better, and start neutralizing my opponent with bullets.’ He came to realize the concept that time matters.

If you don’t take the time do it something right in the first place, how are you going to get the time to do it over?

My mother

Until the invention of electronic timers, there was no way to accurately time individual shots. Timers didn’t exist in the Fairbairn/Sykes/Applegate era, only stopwatches. And yet, even Shooting to Live mentions that an observer with a stopwatch can be a tremendous aid to improving performance.

Pick a Standard, any standard, and see how well you can meet it. If your State requires a Qualification Course, that’s a good place to start. If not, pick some Standard, they’re readily available on the Internet, and use that. Then, over time, improve your performance against the Standard. For instance, using 100% as your goal on the Qualification instead of the minimum passing score. You’ll be better prepared if you do have to defend yourself and you’ll feel more confident in general.

The final two parts of this series will feature guest articles about the Decisions aspect of the Fundamentals paradigm.

Part I     https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/11/05/fundamentals-of-pistol-shooting-part-1/

Part 2    https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/11/12/fundamentals-of-pistol-shooting-part-2/

Part 3    https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/11/22/fundamentals-of-pistol-shooting-part-3/

Part 4    https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/12/03/fundamentals-of-pistol-shooting-part-4/

Part 5    https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/12/10/fundamentals-of-pistol-shooting-part-5/

Tactical Professor books (all PDF)

Purchase of any book includes Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make.

Strategies, Tactics, and Options for Personal Protection presentation at Rangemaster Tactical Conference

https://www.payloadz.com/go?id=3381307

Posted in: firearms, marksmanship, skills, standards

Fundamentals of Pistol Shooting (Part 5)

By tacticalprofessor on

#fridayfundamentals

The fourth Fundamental of Pistol Shooting is:

Follow Through

Following through can be tricky in more ways than one, even grammatically. The noun form of the word has a hyphen, while the verb form does not.

follow-through (noun)

  1. : the part of the stroke following the striking of a ball
  2. : the act or an instance of following through

follow through (verb)

  1. : to continue a stroke or motion to the end of its arc
  2. : to press on in an activity or process especially to a conclusion

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/follow-through

Follow-through is one of the most ignored aspects of shooting well. As the verb definition implies, following through means continuing to keep the gun on target until the shot is concluded. The shot is not concluded until the bullet has left the barrel. Therein lies the issue with not following through. Shooters will frequently move the gun, or themselves, before the bullet has left the barrel. Sometimes the lack of follow-through occurs even before the shot is fired.

The way lack of follow-through occurs can take three forms. Shooters will lift their heads, drop the gun, or pull the gun back close to the body immediately after the gun fires. This is driven by several different motivations.

  1. The desire to see where the bullet hit. That desire is why shooters lift their heads.
  2. They’ve been told to ‘scan and assess’ without being told that scan and assess comes after following through. This is the usual motivation for dropping the gun and is noticeably prevalent during NRA Personal Protection training.
  3. They’ve been taught that after firing their rounds, they have to immediately make ready for physical combat with an aggressor. Preparation for physical contact is the reason for pulling the gun back to the body.

None of these three actions accomplish what they are intended to. They are all counter-productive to both good marksmanship and to their original intent.

In defensive shooting, hits on an adversary are rarely visible the moment after the shot is fired, so lifting the head in an attempt to see the hits accomplishes nothing. When practicing, unless some kind of reactive target is being used, a shooter can’t usually tell where the round has hit on a paper target anyway. This is especially true if the previous hits on the target haven’t been pasted or taped and the target looks like Swiss cheese.

Scan and assess actually should occur in the reverse order, i.e., assess and scan. First, we want to assess the efficacy of our shooting on the initial threat and second, scan for additional threats. Assessment is properly done by looking through the sights to see if the opponent is still continuing the fight. If so, then additional and immediate sighted gunfire is the appropriate response. Note that during the assessment, the trigger finger is still going to be in the trigger guard and on the trigger, ready to instantly fire again, if necessary. Once the assessment determines that the attacker has been “neutralized with bullets,” https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/02/europe/sword-ninja-france-police-shot-intl/index.html then the finger comes out of the trigger guard, the pistol is lowered, and a scan for other threats begins.

The desire by an criminal to close with a defender through a hail of bullets is a figbar of the imagination of certain segments of the training community. As the saying goes, “once the bullets start flying, everyone starts moving.” To which should be added, “away from the source of the bullets.” Assuming the fight is continuing, more accuracy will be required as the distance increases. This accuracy refinement is unlikely to be achieved by using a two handed version of the Fairbairn-Sykes “Quarter-hip” position.

A way to practice your follow-through is to count ‘one thousand’ after each shot prior to making any movement such as moving the gun, your head, or taking your finger off the trigger. Also be sure you’re keeping your eyes open during and after the shot. Blinking the eyes at the moment of ignition is far more common than most people know. Either a video camera or a partner to your side can help detect blinking.

There is a good article about how to develop follow-through on the NRA’s website.

https://www.nrafamily.org/articles/2020/4/6/follow-through-a-shooting-fundamental

The next Part will cover standards and measurement.

Part I     https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/11/05/fundamentals-of-pistol-shooting-part-1/

Part 2    https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/11/12/fundamentals-of-pistol-shooting-part-2/

Part 3    https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/11/22/fundamentals-of-pistol-shooting-part-3/

Part 4    https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/12/03/fundamentals-of-pistol-shooting-part-4/

Tactical Professor books (all PDF)

Purchase of any book includes Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make.

STOPP Presentation at Rangemaster Tactical Conference

The direct purchase link for the STOPP Presentation is: https://www.payloadz.com/go?id=3381307

Posted in: firearms, marksmanship, skills

Fundamentals of Pistol Shooting (Part 4)

By tacticalprofessor on

#fridayfundamentals

The third Fundamental of Pistol Shooting is:

  • ‘Press the trigger smoothly and straight to the rear.’

First of all, let’s distinguish between ‘trigger manipulation,’ a physical process, and ‘trigger control,’ a mental process. Trigger control is the result of the Decide phase of each shot referenced in the first post of this series. Being a mental process, trigger control will not be addressed in this post.

Note that trigger manipulation has two components. The first, Press the trigger smoothly, is fairly well known even when it’s not well done. A dictionary definition of smoothly is:

in an even way, without suddenly stopping and starting again

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/smoothly

Consider the way you squeeze a tube of toothpaste. While the trigger press is often much faster than that, as an analogy it describes the feel of the process fairly well. What we want to do is to press the trigger adequately to make the pistol fire and no more.

Pressing smoothly avoids trigger yanking, the opposite of Pressing the Trigger Smoothly. My friend and colleague Ken Hackathorn refers to yanking as ‘El Snatcho,’ which is a good way of describing it. Trigger yanking isn’t a problem in the Fairbairn-Sykes scenario of hitting a full size silhouette at two yards fifty percent of time. However, when the distance is greater, the hit standard higher, or the target is smaller, then we need to avoid yanking and press the trigger smoothly even if we must press it quickly.

The second component, straight to the rear, is not nearly as well understood. Our trigger fingers are not well set up to press the trigger straight to the rear. Physiologically, the finger most naturally moves in an arc curling toward the tip of the thumb. This is easily observed by manipulating the trigger finger without a pistol in your hand. To overcome this built in tendency, training the trigger finger is necessary. An easy practice exercise is available in the Press the trigger smoothly post. https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2018/11/16/press-the-trigger-smoothly/

This is a video with further explanation about the straight to the rear practice drill.

Learning to Press the trigger smoothly and straight to the rear is critical to becoming “A real shooter with aim.” Aim, as described in Part 2 of this Series, doesn’t do much good if you yank the pistol away from the target as you fire the shot.

The next Part will cover ‘Follow Through.’

Part 1 of the Series         

https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/11/05/fundamentals-of-pistol-shooting-part-1/

Part 2 of the Series         

https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/11/12/fundamentals-of-pistol-shooting-part-2/

Part 3 of the Series         

https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/11/22/fundamentals-of-pistol-shooting-part-3/

Tactical Professor books (all PDF)

Purchase of any book includes Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make.

STOPP Presentation at Rangemaster Tactical Conference

https://www.payloadz.com/go?id=3381307

Posted in: firearms, marksmanship, skills

Chicago Concealed Carry in the news

By tacticalprofessor on

It pains me that my hometown of Chicargo has now become infamous as perhaps the murder capital of the world. The situation is so outrageous that I give thanks regularly I no longer live there.

Nearly 50 Shot During Weekend in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Chicago

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/11/08/nearly-50-shot-during-weekend-in-mayor-lori-lightfoots-chicago/

The good news about Chicago now is that Private Citizens have the legal capability to carry firearms for personal protection.

Elderly retired firefighter with concealed carry [License] shoots Chicago robber dead: police

https://www.foxnews.com/us/chicago-elderly-man-firefighter-shoots-kills-robber

Chicago conceal carry [License] holder guns down car thief after being shot at in the street

https://www.foxnews.com/us/chicago-licensed-carry-holder-guns-down-car-thief-response-being-shot

It’s always entertaining when the media uses the term “guns down.” Makes it sound like an unlawful killing, even when it’s not.

Those of us who wanted to carry when I lived there either had to do so illegally or go through some rigmarole such as working an unpaid shift as a Cook County bailiff each month.

The story about the elderly firefighter defending himself pleases me so much that I’m offering Concealed Carry Skills and Drills and Indoor Range Practice Sessions along with a face target of the notorious BTK murderer for only $7.99. As always, my most important work, Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make is included at no extra cost.

Link to package:

https://www.payloadz.com/go?id=3384555

The custom face target, included as a PDF in the package.

Tactical Professor books (all PDF)

Purchase of any book includes Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make.

STOPP Presentation at Rangemaster Tactical Conference

https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/09/14/stopp-presentation-now-available/

The direct purchase link for the STOPP Presentation is:

https://www.payloadz.com/go?id=3381307

Posted in: concealed carry, deadly force, firearms, skills

Fundamentals of Pistol Shooting (Part 2)

By tacticalprofessor on

#fridayfundamentals

Fundamentals of Pistol Shooting (Part 1)

The first Fundamental of Pistol Shooting is:

  • Grip the pistol firmly.

The proper grip for any handgun should accomplish several objectives:

  1. Maximize our hand friction on the handgun. The way we prevent the handgun from moving around in our hand(s) is simply via friction. Therefore, the more hand surface we have in contact with the gun, the more friction we can achieve.
  2. Minimize the gun’s motion during recoil by stabilizing the supporting joints, principally the wrists, when the gun fires.
  3. Reduce the distance between the line of the handgun’s bore and our hands to the smallest amount possible. This diminishes the rotational torque generated by the handgun upon firing.

After establishing the appropriate grip, a series of index points can be used to feel when the grip has been properly achieved. Especially in defensive encounters, there is no time for visually checking whether the proper grip is in place. Having a set of index points allows a shooter to establish a proper firing grip in the holster and during the drawstroke to know that the grip is as it should be.

A previous blog post covered the grip in detail with illustrations. Click the image below to go to that post.

There have been endless discussions and opinions about how tightly to grip the pistol. These range from the ‘convulsive’ grip of the Fairbairn-Sykes-Applegate technique to the percentages of grip with both hands as explained by the Modern Technique/IPSC/USPSA school of thought.

Probably the easiest way to think about it is to grip the pistol as tightly as you would a hammer or baseball bat. Both hammers and baseball bats require you to grip the tool tightly enough to prevent it from moving in your hand before, during, and after an impact. That’s the same thing we’re trying to accomplish with the pistol.

The next segment will cover ‘Visually index the pistol on target.’

Tactical Professor books (all PDF)

Purchase of any book includes Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make.

STOPP Presentation at Rangemaster Tactical Conference

https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/09/14/stopp-presentation-now-available/

The direct purchase link for the STOPP Presentation is: https://www.payloadz.com/go?id=3381307

Posted in: concealed carry, firearms, skills

Fundamentals of Pistol Shooting (Part 1)

By tacticalprofessor on

#fridayfundamentals

Fundamentals Bookmark

During my time teaching at the elite Rogers Shooting School, I refined the Fundamentals of Pistol Shooting down to Four elements. In order of doing them, they are:

  • Grip the pistol firmly.
  • See the sights.
  • Press the trigger smoothly.
  • Follow through.

Any time a shooter missed a target before it went away, (disappearing targets do that) not performing one element on that list was the cause.

Over time, nuances of those elements have changed in my mind about how to explain them but the basic concepts remain the same. Now I break the process into two phases, ‘Preparing for the Shot’ and ‘Making the Shot.’ The reason is that between the two mechanical, i.e., physical, phases there are two decisions that have to be made; 1) the Don’t Shoot/Shoot decision and 2) whether the preparation for the shot is adequate to make a hit. The concept of making a decision about adequate preparation was developed by my colleague Brian Hill of The Complete Combatant http://www.thecompletecombatant.com/ and it’s right on target, no pun intended.

The overall process could be described as:

  • Prepare for the shot
    • Grip the pistol firmly
    • Visually index the pistol on target
  • Decide
    • Don’t Shoot/Shoot
    • Whether there is adequate preparation to make a hit
  • Make the shot
    • Press the trigger smoothly and straight to the rear
    • Follow through

The decision step is a mental process, not a physical one, so it will not be included in this series.

Training aids and Memory aids are useful tools. As a Memory aid for the Fundamentals, I’ve created the bookmark shown at the beginning of the post to provide a quick reference guide to the mechanical aspects of the Fundamentals. The PDF is attached so you can download it, print it, fold it, and use it as an everyday reminder to keep the Fundamentals fresh in your mind.

v3c-bookmarkDownload

This series will have an additional four Parts on the next four Fridays. Each post will explain one element of the Fundamentals in greater detail. I hope you will find the series useful.

Purchase of any book includes Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make.

STOPP Presentation at Rangemaster Tactical Conference

https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/09/14/stopp-presentation-now-available/

The direct purchase link for the STOPP Presentation is https://www.payloadz.com/go?id=3381307

Posted in: firearms, marksmanship, skills, standards

The LCP Project – Ill-Annoy CCL Qualification (5 yard stage)

By tacticalprofessor on | 2 Comments

Continuing The LCP Project, this video shows the 5 yard stage of the Illinois (Ill-Annoy) Concealed Carry License Qualification shot with a Ruger LCP. This stage was shot by drawing from a concealed holster, although a concealed draw is not required when shooting the Qualification to obtain a CCL. The 10 required shots were fired as 3 shots in 3 seconds 3 times. The 10th shot was a shot to the face in 3 seconds.

The 5 yard face shot reminds me of something my Dad once said to a would be robber, “Do you want it in the belly or the teeth?” The robber suddenly remembered an appointment he was late for and left. No shooting was necessary in that incident. My shot placement on the Qual was unintentional but brought back a memory.

Ammo for the LCP Project was furnished by Ammoman https://www.ammoman.com/

The 10 yard stage video can be seen at https://youtu.be/3EKAoExWDE0

Tactical Professor books (all PDF)

Purchase of any book includes Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make.

STOPP Presentation at Rangemaster Tactical Conference

https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/09/14/stopp-presentation-now-available/

https://www.payloadz.com/go?id=3381307

Posted in: concealed carry, firearms, LCP Project, practice, skills, standards

The LCP Project – Ill-Annoy CCL Qualification

By tacticalprofessor on | 2 Comments

The Ruger LCP is a far more capable gun than it’s given credit for. The LCP Project is intended to show what the gun is capable of and some modifications and equipment that are useful when carrying and shooting it.

This video shows the 10 yard stage of the Illinois (Ill-Annoy) Concealed Carry License Qualification shot with a Ruger LCP. The target was a standard B-27 with the addition of a legal size sheet of paper. The sheet of paper is the size of the scoring area of the Illinois POlice qualification that the CCL Qual is derived from. The score on the legal sized sheet was 100%. Note that when the Course is shot to obtain a CCL, hits anywhere on the silhouette count and only 21 hits (70%) are required to pass.

Ammo for the LCP Project was furnished by Ammoman https://www.ammoman.com/

Tactical Professor books (all PDF)

Purchase of any book includes Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make.

STOPP Presentation at Rangemaster Tactical Conference

https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/09/14/stopp-presentation-now-available/

https://www.payloadz.com/go?id=3381307

Posted in: concealed carry, firearms, LCP Project, practice, skills, standards

Serious Mistakes – Unintentional Discharges (Part III)

By tacticalprofessor on | 3 Comments

Teen finds mom shot to death after stray bullet hits her in her sleep

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/apartment-shooting-woman-killed-stray-bullet/85-5c3bb691-c868-48d6-bae6-fac915372686

Police said the 22-year-old neighbor told them he had an ‘accidental discharge’ while he was loading [sic] his firearm. His attorney, Jeff Sliz, said his client was cleaning his 9 millimeter pistol at the time.

‘He didn’t have the magazine in it, but he was cleaning it and apparently there was a bullet [sic] in the chamber and it accidentally discharged and went through the wall,’ Sliz said.

My colleague Chuck Haggard made the comment: “I see people using random walls as a ‘safe direction’ way too often.”

I believe it was Mas Ayoob who said many years ago that the only reasonably ‘safe direction’ in an apartment or motel is the bowl of a terlet. The combination of water, porcelain, and pipes are far more bullet resistant than two sheets of drywall. Shooting it would be a mess but less likely to kill someone else than sending a bullet through a wall into an adjacent unit..

The man who fired the shot has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct. Odds are that he will do some prison time. So much for the idea of joining the Navy and becoming a diver.

It’s hard to imagine what life will be like for the son who found his mother dead. Let’s face it, a close range bullet wound to the head was probably an ugly wound. That’s a psychological scar that will be with him as long as he lives.

This is an example of why I believe the commonly taught sequence of ‘magazine out then clear the chamber’ is incorrect. I lock the gun open first thing, then remove the magazine, and finally visually and physically check the chamber for no ammunition. The magazine is not the source of ammunition, it’s the source of follow-on ammunition. The chamber is the source of the fireable ammunition and should be dealt with first. But that’s just me.

There are so many Negative Outcomes that will result from one Serious Mistake. It’s very sad.

Click on the image to purchase my book Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make.

https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2019/09/02/serious-mistakes-gunowners-make-the-book/
Posted in: firearms, Negative Outcomes, Serious Mistakes

Friday Fundamentals – Ball and Dummy

By tacticalprofessor on

My last post about shooting Dots https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/09/24/marksmanship-practice-shooting-dots/ generated a few questions about whether my ammo was bad. No, I incorporated random Ball and Dummy into the Dot Drill, just as I do in most of my practice sessions. Ball and Dummy, both random and alternating, is an excellent method for evaluating how smooth your trigger press is and if you are refining your sight picture adequately. This is not the same as practicing malfunction clearance, as mentioned in the article.

Highly recommended. My favorite dummies are from ST ACTION PRO. They are inexpensive, highly visible, and don’t get lost on the range as much as others do.

Tactical Professor Information Products

STOPP Presentation at Rangemaster Tactical Conference
https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2021/09/14/stopp-presentation-now-available/

https://www.payloadz.com/go?id=3381307

Books (all PDF)

tacticalprofessor's avatartacticalprofessor

What is ball and dummy?

Sometimes, we instructors take our subject matter knowledge for granted. A friend posted that she was pulling a few of her shots low and left. She’s right handed. My reply was ‘ball and dummy.’ She then asked me what that meant.

Ball and dummy means interspersing dummy (inert) ammunition among your live ammunition during a practice session. It’s a key training tool at the elite Rogers Shooting School. The dummies can be random, e.g., three or four dummies in a 15-17 round magazine. They can also be alternating; i.e., live, dummy, live, dummy, live, dummy, etc. for the entire magazine.

The purpose of ball and dummy is to watch the sights when the dummy round is clicked on to learn how smoothly, or not, you are pressing the trigger. Ball and dummy for marksmanship training is NOT the same as an Immediate Action Drill…

View original post 277 more words

Posted in: firearms, marksmanship, practice, skills