Range Trip–12/31/2012

 

Last “trip” of the year – in my office, on the LaserLyte range.  Heavy sigh.  Yet, the day was just too busy – finishing up last day customer calls, packing for our overnight to a friend’s house for New Year’s Eve/Day.  Just too busy.  Still, I wanted to finish off the year with one last set.  You can see the results in the range log for today shown here.

You’ll note I have moved the distance back to “50ft” and extended the par time for aimed fire to 3 seconds.  Let’s talk a bit about “balance” in your practice – be it on a LaserLyte range or a live-fire range.

Engagement Distances:

As seen in the description of recent shootings, distances can vary a great deal – from an arm’s length to the old guy in Texas who dropped a shooter firing on a LEO with a single shot from his six-shooter at 150ft.  There are no guarantees what will be expected of you – only that your survival will depend on first hits and their combat effectiveness.  You need to work at all distances – period.

I seem to be splitting my time between the 15’ and 21’ distances and 50’.  My 15’ work is exclusively working on “Close Hip” engagements – draw, rotate, fire.  You could call this an immediate action drill to save your bacon! 

I spend a lot of time at 21’ as well using both 3/4-Hip extension and 2H-FH focal point engagements.  Initial drills are static followed my movement.  MOVEMENT is the gift of life.  If you have yet to incorporate movement into your drills, please, in 2013 – find a way to do so.  If you standin’ – your dyin’ – it’s that simple.

While reading over some accounts of mall shootings, it seems that armed civilians – willing to engage the shooter – made a real difference.  The distances were well beyond 21’ – hence my increase in 50’ work.  To be clear, my work is on combat effect hits – NOT bullseye shooting.  Given the distance – I add a second for aimed fire, yet the aiming is center mass, not center of the bullseye.  With the addition of a second’s worth of time, I can maintain my 80% goals at 50’.  Not a bad trade-off.

Time:

We all have limited time.  In fact, my LaserLyte range is one of my responses to simply being too busy with my “real job” to be able to hit the range as much as I would like.  Still – live fire time is simply a must.

To run through the above scenario on a live fire range takes me between an hour and an hours and a half.  It will usually include multiple weapons – my Ruger .22/.45 and either my Glock17 or my Springfield 1911.

Ammunition requirements are typically 120-150 rounds of .22 and another 100-150 of either 9mm or .45ACP.  It simply takes time to do each drill, to pause between each engagement to see how it “feels” and then to repeat – until I’m done.  That said . . . .

. . . . there is simply no substitute for live fire range time. 

If you carry, if you have made the decision to stand before the evil that has filled the news programs during the end of 2012 – then make sure you are as prepared as you can possibly be.  Attend a new training this year.   Dry fire frequently.  And – visit your local range as much as possible.

A threat will not announce themselves.  They will not stand still.  They will probably be armed.  And . . . . they can come at you from around a corner or down a hall way . . . . and any distance in between.

It is your responsibility to be able to meet this threat . . . .

. . . . regardless of the distance.