Analogue Guns for Training and Practice
Greg Ellifritz https://www.activeresponsetraining.net/ posted an heirloom article that is totally worth reading. Several of my colleagues have commented to me about having people trying to use small guns in a class and how it handicaps the clients that do. I have long been an advocate of using a larger size handgun, with the same action type and controls, for practice and training. It’s what I call an analogue. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/analogue#h1 “something that is similar or comparable to something else either in general or in some specific detail”
Small guns are great for carry but are often painful to shoot for any useful amount of training or practice. Using a larger analogue allows a shooter to develop skill and familiarity that can be transferred to the smaller handgun.
This is especially true for Airweight snub revolvers. Even practicing with a steel framed analogue instead of an Airweight makes a world of difference. Using something like a Model 10 snub allows a shooter to get in a meaningful practice session without the pain caused by an Airweight.
For shooters who are serious about improving their skill level, there’s a lot of downside to the philosophy of “shoot what you carry.” Having a second gun, analogous to the carry gun has a lot of upside.
If you would like to read more in-depth articles about self-defense and personal protection, please consider subscribing to my Patreon page.
9/2 Challenge
To keep my blood pressure down from the malfeasance of the NYC administration, I shot the Langdon Tactical 9/2 Challenge yesterday. There are two videos, one First Person Shooter. and the other 3rd person perspective. It’s a good drill and I enjoyed shooting it.
Here is the First Person Shooter. The 3rd person perspective is linked in the end screen.
I like to think of it as practicing the destruction of the enemies of our great Nation. My BP was only 117/71 this morning so I guess it worked.
The Langdon Tactical webpage with more information about the Challenge is here.
Ill-Annoy Practice Session and Tune-up
#wheelgunwednesday
I’m going to shoot my Model 65 tomorrow at an indoor IDPA match, so I did a little practice and tune-up yesterday. The Ill-Annoy Concealed Carry License Qualification is a nice little tune-up vehicle. Good thing I did because the locally procured reloaded ammunition didn’t perform 100%. Remington UMC 130 gr ball is 100%. Testing one’s equipment is always a good idea.
If you would like to read more in-depth articles about self-defense and personal protection, please consider subscribing to my Patreon page.
Silhouette Torture
#22Tuesday
Decades ago, David Blinder created a 50 round drill for focused practice loosely based on Dot Drill 101 from the Brian Enos Forum. The late Todd Louis Green, who founded pistol-training.com, expanded on it, and codified it into a practice session containing most relevant defensive pistol marksmanship skills. He called it Dot Torture and put it up on the pistol-training forum.
ETA comment from Simon Golub of Pistol-Training
Dot Torture came to us as is. We simply photocopied the target and Todd liked it a lot, giving Blinder the correct credit on the target. –Simon
ETA 2 from the source, David Blinder, himself
I got shooting dots from John Shaw at Mid-South which I believe he got from IPSC. I am also the one who named it dot torture. Todd did some modifications and definitely popularized it.
I’ve made my own version of it using the target employed for the Swiss Concealed Carry License live fire test. Today was an opportunity to shoot it with my LCP II .22. It was fun. A .22 understudy for your carry pistol is a concept that can be very useful. Shooting .22s is inexpensive and has some benefits that centerfires don’t have, minimal recoil and Over Pressure Event being the principal ones.
The demanding nature of the target requires the shooter to know the zero of their pistol very well at whatever distance is being used. In the case of the LCP .22, at three yards the hold was about halfway up on the white circle in the chest of the silhouette.
I recently mounted a Ruger ReadyDot on my Taurus TX22 Compact. https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2026/08/03/readydot-on-tx22-compact/ It zeroes quite well at both 10 and 20 yards.
Although I started to shoot Silhouette Torture with it today, rain set in and I wasn’t able to finish. I was able to shoot it enough to learn that the hold at five yards was on the head. The 15 MOA dot completely covers the head at that distance but it’s not hard to hold. Knowing your pistol’s zero at different ranges, whether using iron or Dot sights is useful.
The Silhouette Torture target is attached. Its instructions are on the 2nd page of the 2 page PDF.
My Red Dot Adventure series is available on my Patreon page for those who are interested in exploring what Dot Sights can and cannot do.
ReadyDot on TX22 Compact
#mousegunmonday
As an experiment, I installed a Ruger ReadyDot on a Taurus TX22 Compact. The efficacy of this combination was surprising. Although the ReadyDot’s zero cannot be adjusted, Point of Impact was really close to Point of Aim at both 20 and 10 yards.
Body shots at 20 yards from a benchrest and headshots at 10 yards offhand were the test for zero used. No complaints whatsoever.
At 20 yards, the dot perfectly covers the four inch circle on the body of the target. For me, this made it very easy to aim without over-aiming. At 10 yards, it is slightly smaller than the head circle. Once again, I found this advantageous. This intrigued me so I shot the IDPA 5X5 Classifier. I didn’t time it but still shot at my normal cadence. Two Points Down.
I’ve created a drill I call the McGee, Shootist, Big Iron Challenge. It is a combination of the McGee Paradigm (3/3/3), Wild Bill Hickok’s shootist test from the American Mercury article about him, and Marty Robbins’ song Big Iron. The Challenge tests marksmanship at three separate distances; 3 yards, 8 yards Primary Hand Only, and 13 yards. It is 18 rounds total, six shots at each distance. In terms of proxemics https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2014/10/16/situational-awareness-and-positioning-part-iii/, marksmanship in the far phase of Social Space, and the near and far phases of Public Space are assessed.
McGee’s Challenge consists of three strings at three yards. One shot from the holster, two shots from the MidPoint, and three shots from Low Ready. The time limit for each string is three seconds. The standard is all six shots in the USPSA Metric target A zone in the head (2 inches x 4 inches).
The Shootist’s Challenge https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2024/08/02/gunfighter-challenge/ comes from the standard Wild Bill Hickok used in the Old West to see if a shooter was ‘good.’
The Big Iron Challenge was inspired by Marty Robbins’ song Big Iron.
“There was 40 feet between them when they stopped to make their play.”
The Big Iron Challenge consists of six shots at 40 feet/13 yards. It’s shot with Two Hands, Untimed. The standard is all six shots must hit in an eight circle, the IDPA -0 body zone.
The TX22/ReadyDot performed well on the Challenge. I’m very pleased with this combination of gun and dot.
Last Thursday, I shot an IDPA match that had a Pick Up Gun theme. I provided the TX22 Compact with the iron sights for one stage. Fifteen shooters fired six rounds each without any malfunctions. The match combined with the ReadyDot test totaled 143 rounds with no malfunctions. MiniMag solids were the ammunition used. This confirms my experience that the TX22 is a very reliable gun when fed decent ammo.
FTC Note and author disclosure: I purchased everything used in these experiments; gun, holster, ammunition, sight, and targets, with my own money. I receive no compensation whatsoever for anything mentioned.
More of my Red Dot Adventures are chronicled on my Patreon page. For those who are considering putting a Red Dot Sight on their pistols, I’m exploring my testing criteria and outcomes, both yea and nay.
Friday Fundamentals – Getting Started
#Fridayfundamentals
Shooting To Live for the 21st Century – Concealed Carry Skills and Drills
Session 1
This session derives from two contemporary Courses of Fire, the original Michigan Council On Law Enforcement Standards Basic Pistol Safety Training Assessment and the New York State Concealed Carry License Live-Fire Proficiency Assessment https://troopers.ny.gov/minimum-standards-new-york-state-concealed-carry-firearm-safety-training to mimic and expand on the Recruit Training Programme described by Fairbairn and Sykes in their classic text Shooting To Live. Together the Assessments mimic the first live fire Practices of the RTP. To expand on it, the distance is increased from two yards used by F&S to 4 yards, the boundary in Proxemics between Social Space and Public Space.
The target consists of three sheets of printer paper stacked vertically in landscape mode. Fold one in half and use it as the top sheet. Put this array on whatever target backer is convenient. The Shoot-N-C is an optional addition on the middle sheet, used as the ‘aiming mark’ mentioned in STL.
This session can be done either at an outdoor range or almost all indoor ranges. The draw for the NYS Assessment is dry, i.e., no ammo in the gun, and most indoor ranges will permit it. There is no time limit so even ranges that require shooting no faster than one shot every three seconds can be placated.
Part I – MCOLES Safety Training Assessment
- String 1
- Load five rounds in the pistol and come to Low Ready.
- Bring the pistol to eye level, acquire a sight picture, and fire one shot.
- Return to Low Ready.
- Repeat four more times for a total of five shots.
- String 2
- Repeat String 1 for another five individual shots.
- String 3
- Load five rounds in the pistol and come to Low Ready
- Bring the pistol to eye level, acquire a sight picture, and fire two shots.
- Return to Low Ready.
- Bring the pistol to eye level, acquire a sight picture, and fire three shots.
The passing standard established by MCOLES was hybrid. Of the three strings, two had to have all five shots hit anywhere on all three sheets of paper. So it’s basically a 100% standard but you get to throw out your worst String.
The second part of this session is the New York State Concealed Carry License Live-Fire Proficiency Assessment. It uses the same target as the MCOLES Assessment. The distance is also four yards.
Part II – NYS CCL Live-Fire Proficiency Assessment
- Verify that the pistol is unloaded.
- Safely holster without loading.
- Draw the unloaded pistol, acquire a sight picture on the target, and dry snap one time.
- Safely holster without loading
- Draw the pistol and load with five rounds.
- To load, use the push method of loading as described by Fairbairn and Sykes.
- “To load the pistol, turn it over, grasping the slide firmly with the thumb and forefinger of the left hand.”
“Push forward with the right hand until the slide is felt to be open to its fullest extent.”
“Immediately that point is reached, release the hold with the left hand. The slide flies forward, taking with it and forcing into the breech, the topmost cartridge of the magazine, the pistol pointing to the ground meanwhile.”
- Achieve a proper firing grip and come to Low Ready.
- Bring the pistol to eye level, acquire a sight picture, and fire five shots.
- Verify that the pistol is unloaded.
- Safely holster
The passing standard for the NY State Proficiency Assessment is that 4 of the 5 shots (80%) must hit somewhere on the three sheets of paper.
The total round count for this session is twenty rounds. While that may seem low by some people’s standard, it is as much as many owners of snub nose revolvers and small pistols like the Ruger LCP will want to fire at one session. As a beginning, shooting this session provides some familiarity with shooting the pistol, what its concussion and recoil feel like, and an indicator of the shooter’s capability within a distance envelope that most criminal victimizations take place in.
Friday Fundamentals for 2026
#fridayfundamentals
Over 10 years ago, I began writing a series called #fridayfundamentals. https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2015/09/25/friday-fundamentals-01-establishing-your-baseline/ It started with ideas from a couple of my friends, Mark Luell and Cecil Burch.
“My friend Mark Luell, the author of Growing Up Guns suggested I provide a ‘Friday Fundamentals’ post weekly. We got the idea from my colleague Cecil Burch who wrote a blog post about Fundamentals. It’s a great idea to stay in touch with the basics.”
The #fridayfundamentals series has continued intermittently ever since. An opportunity has arisen to continue to expand it. As the saying goes, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/10/07/difficulty/
For the past two years, I’ve been writing a monthly column for the digital edition of the NRA magazine Shooting Illustrated. https://www.shootingillustrated.com/ Sadly, we authors have been notified that both the digital and print editions of the magazine will cease to be published at the end of this year.
My 2024 monthly columns were about practice sessions derived from Concealed Carry License Qualification Courses. The sessions were focused on a theme and mostly limited to 50 rounds or less. While highly skilled shooters consider qualification courses to be ‘sobriety tests,’ that’s not true for the majority of gunowners. Especially when a person buys their first pistol, actually having to prove they can shoot it at even an elementary baseline level is intimidating. And because qual courses are designed for ease of administration rather than to have any training or feedback value, they can be segmented into smaller sections that actually do have some training and feedback worth.
First and foremost in my mind when I wrote the series was the Resource Constrained Environment that most gunowners have to practice in. Only a tiny minority of gunowners have access to an outdoor range where movement is possible and shot timers are workable. Almost all gunowners are limited to a booth at an indoor range where universally they can’t move, drawing from a holster isn’t allowed, and a shot timer is useless. Sometimes shooting faster than one shot every three seconds is prohibited. One of the benefits of qual courses is that they are mostly designed with this limitation in mind, so I capitalized on that benefit for the series.
Since Shooting Illustrated is going away, I’ll be re-publishing the series on a weekly basis here on my blog. In addition to the articles, I’ll be creating videos of what each session looks like from a third person POV and the shooter’s POV. YouTube has been taking down some of my videos for vague reasons unspecified other than:
“We think your content violated our firearms policy.
Content that facilitates the sale of certain regulated goods, like firearms, ammunition, or prohibited firearm accessories, isn’t allowed on YouTube.”
As a workaround, I’ll just post a Short of the specified qualification course on YouTube. Then the video of the course with the training enhancements will go up on my Patreon page https://www.patreon.com/TacticalProfessor as a free post because Patreon does not give me a hard time about them.
It’s my hope that gunowners who want to increase their proficiency will find the series useful as practice regimens. There are no shortage of incidents where gunowners find out that the gun they’re depending on doesn’t work or they can’t work it. In the context of personal protection, just knowing you can make the gun go off https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2025/09/17/testing-a-new-gun/ has a lot of value. Being able to hit something with it is even better.
Small Gun Accuracy
#mousegunmonday
The Washington State Basic Covert Carry/Off-Duty Proficiency Course for Law Enforcement Officers includes shots out to 15 yards. This is perfectly workable with small guns like a Ruger LCP, even though it has a double action trigger.
Here’s my YouTube video of the Course of Fire.
If you would like to read more in-depth information about shooting and personal protection, consider subscribing to my Patreon page.
Armed Citizen Scenarios
#scenariosunday
I was nostalgic today for older style IDPA Scenarios like we used to shoot in the sport’s early days. Twenty-five years ago, there wasn’t much reloading on the clock and stages often consisted of multiple strings having six shots or less. It’s a different sport now.
My nostalgia caused me to write a new stage and redesign an older one. One is based on an Armed Citizen incident and the other on an actual car burglary and murder. The stages are called the Chicargo Practical Event and Muffler Thieves.
I finished up with the Old West Shootist’s Challenge. My Little Crappy Pistol (LCP) did just fine.
It was a fun afternoon. I’m going to do it every month, as if it was my own private match.
If you are interested in more in-depth commentary about shooting and Personal Protection incident analysis, please consider subscribing to my Patreon page. https://www.patreon.com/c/TacticalProfessor
Preventing Unintentional Discharges with a Revolver
#wheelgunwednesday
In my “Off-duty Shootouts of the LAPD” presentations, one section is devoted to Notable Incidents – Unintentional Discharges. The LAPD still authorizes snub revolvers for backup and off-duty carry. Unintentional Discharges occur to both revolvers and autoloaders, although there are no reported on-duty UDs with revolvers. Off-duty is when they occur. I’ve written about this before. https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2020/08/19/dry-practice-safety/
No doubt someone will comment that the correct term is Negligent Discharge. The LAPD uses the terms Unintentional Discharge, Negligent Discharge, and Accidental Discharge in very specific context, so I will use their terminology here.
A common cause of Unintentional Discharges is Impromptu Dry Practice and faulty unloading procedures. Another is attempting to clean/maintain loaded weapons. Upon conclusion of the investigation, such incidents will be adjudicated by the Board of Police Commissioners as Negligent.
NON-TACTICAL UNINTENTIONAL DISCHARGE – 040-19 UD at home
NON-TACTICAL UNINTENTIONAL DISCHARGE – 076-08 UD at hotel
NON-TACTICAL UNINTENTIONAL DISCHARGE – 014-23 UD at Rampart Station
Example Proximate Cause of UD
Officer A placed his left hand under the open cylinder and used his left index finger to depress the ejector rod, releasing the live rounds into his left hand. Officer A did not count the live rounds and placed them on top of the kitchen counter directly behind him. Officer A then closed the cylinder and pressed the trigger twice.
According to Officer A, believing his revolver was still unloaded, he placed his finger on the trigger and pressed it a third time, which caused the revolver to discharge a single round. No one was injured by the discharge.
Since my previous post, an even better solution and accompanying procedure has become available. The solution is the SafeSnap™ Training Disc for 5-Shot J-frame Size Revolvers. https://zetasix.com/product/safesnap-5/
Fair disclaimer: I was involved in the development of the SafeSnap™ but I receive no compensation for commenting about it.
The procedure works as follows. Have a SafeSnap and a twist knob speedloader such as HKS, 5 Star, or Lyman of the correct size for your revolver. Keep both of them readily available.
When you decide to dry practice or do maintenance on your revolver, get them before doing anything.
- Take the live cartridges out.
- Count and secure them in the twist knob Speedloader. If there are any empty holes left in the speedloader, the FBI calls that ‘a clue.’
- Put the SafeSnap™ Training Disc in the revolver.
- Do your dry practice or maintenance.
- When finished, don’t reload the gun.
- Do something else to occupy your mind and remove dry practice from your thoughts.
- When you do reload, say “This gun is loaded” out loud three times.
Using such a procedure will go a long way toward preventing Unintentional Discharges. Nevertheless, muzzle direction is still the Primary Safety; always has been, always will be.
The SafeSnap™ is also available for K frames and LCRs. There are other procedures appropriate for autoloaders but this post is specific to revolvers.
Other causes of Unintentional Discharges
- Administratively carrying or handling loaded handguns without a holster
- High stress tactical situations
- Drunkenness
Final note: It’s also inappropriate to dry practice using your girlfriend’s cat as a target.
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2025/04/17/brief-gillette-man-didnt-know-gun-was-loaded-when-he-shot-pet-cat-dead/ Not only will it sour your relationship with her but could conceivably lead to Animal Cruelty charges, which are a Felony in most States.
If you are interested in more in-depth commentary about shooting and Personal Protection incident analysis, please consider subscribing to my Patreon page. https://www.patreon.com/TacticalProfessor
You must be logged in to post a comment.