Final SCCY Report
Now that SCCY Industries https://sccy.com/ is out of business, it’s probably moot but some thoughts about my experiences with the guns are in order.
My first SCCY was provided to me in 2015 at no cost as a Testing and Evaluation sample. It was produced in 2014, as best I can tell by the serial number. At the time it was furnished, I was doing my second iteration of 1,000 Days of Dry Fire and I used it extensively for dry practice. I also eventually fired about 1,600 live rounds through it. The firing pin broke after about 10,000 dry snaps. During live fire, I had two Failures to Feed between 400 and 500 rounds. No other malfunctions. The ejector broke about the 1200 round mark but it still ejected, just sluggishly and erratically. In both cases, SCCY serviced the pistol and it then ran fine.
Last year (2024), I purchased a SCCY Gen 3 with my own money because I wanted to see what the upgrades had been. This time, it was a disappointment. The gun had a Failure to Chamber every 25 rounds. I traced this to sharp edges around the chamber mouth. SCCY sent me a new barrel and two more magazines, gratis, but the chamber in it had very noticeable machining rings. I didn’t know if it would work but installed it anyway.
A couple of months ago, I purchased an early production used Gen 2, produced in 2013, for $80 at a local range. The trigger on it was much better than my original Gen 2. Whether it has the original mainspring or a replacement, IDK. It had occasional Failures to Eject. The source of those Failures turned out to be a broken ejector. I bought a replacement on eBay and installed it.
For Memorial Day, in remembrance of my Army friends who are dead, I took all three to the range and practiced the destruction of the enemies of our great Nation. Since I’m going to be teaching the NRA Defensive Pistol Course https://www.nrainstructors.org/CatalogInfo.aspx?cid=41 for a Private lesson soon, the Course of Fire I chose was the DP Qualification Course. It consists of 34 rounds fired at distances of 3 to 10 yards. I shot it once with each of them.
All three SCCYs made it through without a malfunction. That’s not a 10,000 round torture test but probably more than 99 out of 100 gunowners will ever fire their handguns. Although they’re not target pistols, they all were sufficiently accurate to group in the eight inch 10 ring of the NRA AP-1.
Bottom line of the whole exercise is that when purchasing a pistol, shoot at least a box of ammo through it to be sure it works. Preferably a structured and measured session. Feeling the trigger and knowing the results it can produce is useful. Inspect the pistol for broken parts after shooting it. My colleague, the late Paul Gomez, was fond of saying “Shoot Yor Guns!” and that’s good advice.
The Demi-Practical Event
#wheelgunwednesday
Caleb Giddings of Taurus inspired me to design a Course of Fire derived from the Bianchi Cup Practical Event. I wanted something that wouldn’t demoralize newer shooters by making them shoot a demanding par time course at a long distance though.
The Bianchi Cup https://thecmp.org/competitions/cmp-pistol-program/cmp-bianchi-cup/ is being shot now at the Green Valley Rifle & Pistol Club in Missouri. The Cup goes back to 1979 and it is one of the most prestigious and lucrative shooting contests in the world. There are four Events at Bianchi, The Practical being one of them. It consists of 48 shots. There are 4 stages, fired at 10, 15, 25, and 50 yards, with 3 series of 2, 4 and 6 shots in each stage. Two targets are set up 1 yard apart, each having a four inch X Ring and a 10 point scoring ring 8 inches in diameter. The target is much larger overall but a competitor who sends more than one or two hits of the 48 outside the 10 ring doesn’t have a chance. The X Ring is to break ties.
Three series are shot at each distance. One shot on each of the targets, two shot on each target, and three shots on each target. At 10 yards, the three shot series is fired with the Support hand after drawing and transferring the pistol from the Primary hand to the Support hand. A nice thing about Bianchi is that it is six shot revolver neutral and there is no reloading on the clock.
Since shooting a pistol at 50 yards would be soul crushing to most shooters, the Event I created is called the Demi-Practical, demi- meaning half https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/demi-. The 50 yard stage is eliminated and the other distances are halved. This gives us a 36 round Event shot at 5 yards, 7 yards, and 12 yards. The Support hand shooting is changed to Primary hand only shooting with a time change to 6 seconds since there is no hand transfer. All shooting is done from the Standing position.
Since the AP1 is not a common target commercially, I substituted the IDPA target. Points down scoring works fine as a practical marksmanship metric. Par timing makes it easier to administer and score.
Today was a beautiful day so I took the opportunity to go shooting. My Taurus 856 snub was one of the test subjects.
At 5 yards, I was 2 points down on the right target. At 7 yards, I was able to shoot both clean. At 12 yards, I was 1 point down on each target.
I had a good time shooting it. You might enjoy shooting it, too.
Trigger Press Casualty
A post is circulating on Facebook about a fellow whose hand became a casualty when the chambered round in his Glock 44 (.22 Long Rifle caliber) failed to eject. He then pressed the trigger and a loud noise occurred instead of the ‘click’ he expected. Unfortunately for him, his hand was over the muzzle and the bullet injured his hand.
Many, in fact most, of the comments involve some version of Rule 2 “Never let your muzzle cover anything you’re not prepared to destroy.” This is true. While that statement tells you what NOT to do, it doesn’t cover what the correct thing you SHOULD do is.
The correct thing to do is always establish a proper grip and deliberately take a sight picture whenever you press the trigger. It doesn’t matter when, do it at all times. When clearing your pistol at the range, take a sight picture on some particular target and observe what the sights do when you press the trigger. When you have to press the trigger to disassemble the pistol, aim at something that will involve the least amount of “damage to property and/or injury to personnel.” Aim at a door frame or something else solid that is more likely to stop a bullet than an interior wall made of Sheetrock.
“Avoid damage to property and/or injury to personnel”, was repeated to us daily during the Weapons phase of the Special Forces Qualification Course. We spent all day handling and working on small arms so the instructors drummed it into our heads regularly. It was my first exposure to the concept of Negative Outcomes and set the concept firmly in my mind.
Establishing grip and taking a sight picture even when you don’t expect the pistol to fire reinforces good marksmanship principles and mitigates safety risks simultaneously. It’s a total WIN WIN.
Periodic Personal Evaluation
#saturdayskillsczech
My December article for Shooting Illustrated is entitled Near to Far Marksmanship Practice.
https://www.shootingillustrated.com/content/near-to-far-marksmanship-practice/
Although New Jersey made a strong try to keep people from getting their License To Carry, the qualification course itself is a decent practice regimen. It’s also a useful metric for measuring your skill periodically.
Try shooting it on an IALEFI-Q and score it by the rings. Center ring gets 5 points, next ring get 4 points, balance of the Q receives 3 points. Hits inside the face circle score 5 points. Anything outside the Q scores 0. A Possible would be 250 points (5 x50 shots). If you don’t have an IALEFI target, just trace around a paper plate in approximately the same place on your silhouette. Your scoring is then 5 points for the circle and 3 points for the rest of the silhouette.
To make it a good tune-up and personal evaluation, shoot the course as a version of Jimmy Cirillo’s 1-2-3-6 drill. Instead of 6, fire 4 shots for the final string. Start loaded with 6 rounds only. Draw and fire 1 shot, reholster, draw and fire 2 shots, reholster, draw and fire 3 shots, reload, and immediately fire 4 shots. Bear in mind that the second most missed shot in shooting is the shot immediately following clearing a stoppage. The reality of transitioning back to trigger control after doing a gross motor manipulation can be tricky.
Since CCARE starts at 3 yards, at that distance shoot all face shots. Repeat the same sequence at 5 yards, 7 yards, 10 yards, and 15 yards but shoot for the 8 inch circle. After shooting each distance, tape your hits before moving to the next distance. At the end of the course of fire, place your pistol in whatever condition you wish to when you leave the range.
Although the CCARE is rather stringent for a CCW qualification, it has value as a practice regimen. It includes a minimum of 10 presentations to the target or 15 if you use the 1-2-3-4 sequence. There are multiple opportunities to practice reloading, and it’s highly manageable with wheelguns. Even J-Frames can work, just reload in a slightly different sequence. It’s a good use for a box of practice ammo.
Pushing The Limits of Smaller Guns
#LCPproject
Pushing The Limits of Smaller Guns is my October 2024 article in Shooting Illustrated.
https://www.shootingillustrated.com/content/pushing-the-limits-of-smaller-guns/
I shot the entire program with my Ruger LCP Max, which I bought with my own money. The gun is stock out of the box.
The results contradict the myth that smaller guns as being suitable for only “arm’s length” encounters. Pictures tell the story of the results of the three courses that were shot.
Kansas Concealed Carry License Qualification
Twenty-five hits out of 25 shots. Pass.
Shootist’s Challenge
All hits inside the square, two hits on the stamp. ‘Good’ by Wild Bill and fellow Shootists’ standard.
Bakersfield Police Qualification
Bakersfield Stage Times
- 2.01
- 2.27
- 6.96
- 2.78
Bakersfield Scores
- 10 point (A) zone – 7 70 points
- 9 point (C) zone – 2 18 points
- 6 point (D) zone – 1 6 points
94 points total – Pass
It’s only an “arm’s length gun” if you’re don’t know how to shoot it.
If you like my work, join me on Patreon where I post more in-depth articles about shooting, marksmanship, and incident analysis.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – August 2024
The August edition showcases mindset and tactics. This month, I’m including some supplemental incidents that came to light after the initial post.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/good-bad-and-111172309
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – August 2024
The Good
Robbery suspect pepper-sprayed Norwalk store owner, who shot him
Just because you start out behind the Power Curve, that doesn’t mean you can’t regain the initiative. Keep your wits about you and fight through it.
The Bad
DC man who said he shot 13-year-old boy in self-defense convicted of manslaughter
In military terminology, if you go outside, you have turned a Defense, in which you have a 3 to 1 advantage, into a Movement to Contact, in which the odds are, at best, even and possibly against you. In legal concept, the odds definitely turn against you. Maintain your advantage, don’t squander it.
The Ugly
Suspect shot by Bystander during Attempted Carjacking
The original incident is a candidate for the Good. But the comments on the Yahoo article are Ugly.
Enjoy!
If you like my work, join me on Patreon where I post more in-depth articles about shooting, marksmanship, and incident analysis.
https://www.patreon.com/TacticalProfessor
The GBU isn’t drawn from The Armed Citizen column of the official NRA Journals but the August edition of The Armed Citizen is attached. Rather than an obsessive interest in ‘the worst case scenario,’ it shows what the vast majority of Defensive Gun Uses really look like.
Some relevant incidents from August surfaced later.
Good
SELF-DEFENSE: Boy who killed Cape Coral mother’s boyfriend will not be charged
“Police say when the brother got to the home, Mess Jr. was standing outside with a solid wooden rod and brass knuckles.
Detectives say Mess Jr. started beating up the brother in front of the young boy.
According to police, the boy got a gun and pointed it at Mess Jr. as a warning. However, police say the man kept beating the boy’s uncle.
‘At that point, the son was in fear for his uncle’s life,’ police said.
The young boy fired multiple shots, killing Mess Jr.”
Sad that the boy had to kill the man but Good that the facts of the case vindicated him.
Bad
Cincinnati area smoke shop manager sentenced for role in fatal shooting during break-in
“CINCINNATI (WKRC) – The manager of a Delhi Township smoke shop was sentenced to eight to nine years in prison for firing on a group of burglars during a break-in.
Thacker opened fire immediately and kept firing while the burglars were running and driving away.”
https://local12.com/news/local/cincinnati-area-smoke-shop-manager-sentenced-role-fatal-shooting-during-break-in-delhi-township-tony-thacker-vip-travis-johnson-amontae-carter-crime-accomplice-prison
Chasing criminals and shooting at them after they have broken contact places a righteous defender in a very precarious legal situation. Once they remember they’re late for their root canal, let them go, lock the door if you can, call the POlice, and get your gun out of sight. Preplan and mentally rehearse your post-confrontation actions just as much as your actions during the confrontation.
A 2-year-old accidentally shot and wounded his mother’s boyfriend, police say
“According to a preliminary investigation, the man was getting ready to leave the house Monday morning and had put the gun on a nearby chair when the toddler accidentally fired the gun”
Firearms are relentlessly unforgiving of even the smallest lapse of attention, such as putting a gun down on a nearby chair.
‘Smart and loving’: Colerain family mourns teen killed by friend in apparent accident
“My friend has a .2 long rifle. [sic] There was a bullet in, right, and you need to shoot it to prime it, and I didn’t know it was primed, and I had it, and I accidentally pulled the trigger.”
Rule #1 – All guns are always loaded
Ugly
Detective: Liberty Township grandmother said ‘sorry not sorry’ after shooting 6-month-old granddaughter
“I asked her, ‘Why her grandbaby?’ And she said, ‘That was not my grandbaby.’ And at one point she said, ‘Sorry, not sorry,'” [the detective] said.
She pleaded guilty to felonious assault last month.
https://www.fox19.com/2024/09/17/grandma-pleads-guilty-after-shooting-5-month-old-grandchild-2023/
I have no words.
A Real Hero Story
#walkbackwednesday
My favorite story from Real Shootouts of the LAPD is a hero story. Recently, it’s become fashionable to berate POlice officers, imply that everything they do is horrible and corrupt, and call for the POlice to be ‘defunded.’ Rarely does the media focus on the heroic acts that officers are sometimes called upon to do for the public. This story is one example.
OFFICER-INVOLVED ANIMAL SHOOTING – 035-14
Link to LAPD Categorical Use of Force Report
The entire Public Report is available at the link above. Here’s a synopsis of the incident.
Officer A, later identified as Officer Jennifer Aguila, and her companion Officer B were off duty and had just arrived home from grocery shopping. When they arrived home, Officer Aguila noticed two neighbors outside their home acting frantically.
Officer Aguila went over and asked if they needed help. One neighbor replied that he was locked out of his house and his pit bull dog was attacking his four year old child inside. The neighbor said the back door was open but apparently it was not readily accessible from the front of the house because rose bushes blocked off the back yard. Officer Aguila immediately took action. She jumped over the neighbor’s fence and picked up a small stick.
Since the animal was a pit bull, Officer Aguila told Officer B to bring her an off-duty snub nose revolver from the car. Officer B brought the revolver and tossed it over the fence to Officer Aguila. She then made her way to the back. To get to the back door, she had to plow through the rose bushes that blocked off the yard.
Through the partially open sliding back door, Officer Aguila observed that the floor was covered in blood and the pit bull was next to the child, attacking it. According to the Board of POlice Commissioner’s report, “the pit bull was removing and eating the child’s flesh.”
Office Aguila discarded the stick and scanned the room for other dogs but saw none. The BOPC report reads:
Officer A moved into the living room with the revolver in a two-hand low-ready position. In defense of the child’s life, Officer A fired four shots at the pit bull in a northwest direction at a downward angle. Officer A fired on the move, from a decreasing distance of approximately twelve to seven feet.
LAPD Board of POlice Commissioners
To save a child’s life, she made entry, closed with, and did battle with a large, vicious, literally ‘man-eating’ dog. Her weapon was what is commonly referred to as an “arm’s length gun,” a snub nose revolver.
After the first four shots, the badly injured child stood up and, in a disoriented manner, began to walk toward the dog. Fearing the wounded animal would again attack the child, Officer Aguila then closed to within three feet of the dog and used her final round to deliver a coup de grâce into the dog’s rib cage.
Officer Aguila then picked up the child, went outside, gave it to its parent, and had them call for a Rescue Ambulance. When the parent was unable to provide first aid for the child, Officer Aguila took the child back and applied direct pressure to the child’s wounds until the ambulance arrived.
If that’s not a hero, I don’t know who is.
News reports https://www.dailybulletin.com/2014/07/08/fontana-family-pit-bull-mauls-4-year-old-child/ indicate that the child was badly injured in the attack. Both his ears were severed, one completely, and one left hanging by a strip of flesh. The severed ear was found under the dog by another officer. The child also had numerous puncture wounds to the head and face. Odds are that without Officer Aguila’s intervention, he would have been killed. The severed ear was successfully re-attached by surgeons because the officer who found it immediately put it on ice and took it to the hospital.
The BOPC Public Report says the Officer Aguila had been an LAPD officer for 2 years and 7 months.
Not all the stories in the book are hero stories but that one is. I enjoy stories about real heroes so I had to include that one.
Link to my store
Get some structured practice in
Things are starting to open back up, so we can get back to the range. To help you use your time and other resources productively when you go to shoot, here’s a package deal of my three most popular shooting workbooks:
- Indoor Range Practice Sessions
- Concealed Carry Skills and Drills
- Shooting Your Black Rifle
Ordinarily, these three together would sell for $23.97 but as a package, they are 20% off at only $18.99.
As an added Bonus, the ebook Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make is included at no extra charge. It’s a free gift with a value of $7.99.
The package is available as an immediate download of all four ebooks at this link:
https://store.payloadz.com/details/2644448-ebooks-sports-shooting-drills-package.html
At one time, shooting was the American pastime, let’s get back to it.
Vallejo Parking Lot Shooting – Collateral Action
off-duty cop shoots and kills father-of-six
How about that as a way to describe a convicted felon who kept “a semi-automatic handgun with a 30-round magazine [in] its hiding place under the hood”
Hat tip to my friend and colleague Greg Ellifritz https://www.activeresponsetraining.net for bringing up the incident. Greg mentioned the fact that concealing weapons [and drugs] underneath the hood is a common technique for the criminal element.
The Vallejo POlice Department posted several videos of the incident on YouTube.
Video #4 is very useful from the collateral action (avoidance of becoming collateral damage) perspective.
It wasn’t these folks’ first rodeo; you don’t see them trying to get video for WorldStar.
Worst Possible Case and 100 percent Standards
#Fridayfundamentals
Last night, I had an interesting conversation with John Daub of KR Training about the new NRA CCW Course. KR Training is one of, if not the, premier provider of firearms training in Texas, so his thoughts about the CCW Instructor Course he and Karl recently completed were something I wanted to hear. One of the most interesting items of the conversation was that the NRA has adopted a 100 percent hit standard for the NRA’s Qualification Course, if instructors choose to use the NRA’s Qual Course.
I’ve been a big believer in 100 percent standards for a long time. The importance of an exacting standard was emphasized by a recent Incident where a woman in Oroville, California shot and paralyzed her husband as a result of taking a Hostage Rescue shot on a home invader. Although she killed the home invader when she “emptied the clip” at him, her husband is now paralyzed for life. That incident reminded me of how imprecisely we use the term Worst Possible Case.
‘Worst Possible Case’ discussions inevitably devolve to one of two possibilities; TODD, the heavily armed criminal who is as impervious to gunfire as Superman or becoming involved in an entangled fight. However, there are numerous possibilities of what could be the Worst Possible Case as listed in Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make. So there actually is no single Worst Possible Case, there are various Negative Outcomes; it’s situationally dependent. The situation will dictate which of the possible Negative Outcomes is the ‘worst.’
It’s very important for us to understand our capabilities. The CAN, MAY, SHOULD, MUST paradigm developed by Steve Harris, Esq. puts CAN first for a reason. CAN, what are you able to accomplish at that moment?, has two components – Mental and physical. The Oroville woman had the mental part of CAN but not the physical. Let’s compare and contrast her incident with that of Meghan Brown, who also shot and killed a home invader during a struggle. Ms. Brown had been to the range with her pink Taurus revolver and knew she was not a very good shot. As a result her strategy was to close with the struggle and take the shot at a point where she was sure she could make her hits.
The ‘Downrange problem,’ in which an innocent person is downrange of the shooter, is far more common than we think. Those who keep a firearm for Personal Protection need to keep in mind that the situation may not be ‘self-defense’ but rather protecting another person.
How to put this into practice becomes the question. The Decisional Exercise Family taken hostage from Concealed Carry Skills and Drills is one example. Simply use two sheets of paper as the hostage. Put them on the same side as your Support Hand so you maximize your opportunity to hit them if you jerk the trigger. If you hit those two sheets of paper, assume you seriously wounded or killed a member of your family.
To add some realism, you can put a facial photo of a family member above the printed sheets or just draw a face above them. Here’s a Non-threat PDF Printable Non threat Silhouette torso that is included in Advanced Pistol Practice and Shooting Your Black Rifle. When practicing on an indoor range, you probably won’t be able to set up the full scenario but you can still do the individual strings.
What’s the Worst Possible Case? It’s a situationally dependent individual decision. Using a little forethought and doing some practice may help you solve it without a Negative Outcome. Going to the range and figuring what distance YOU can make 100 percent hits will give you a very important piece of information in the context of Personal Protection.
tacticalprofessor 
You must be logged in to post a comment.