One of the sayings at Front Sight, which applies to
anyone who is in the training business, is, "Sometimes an instructor;
always a student." I have no idea if that's written with a
semi-colon
or not. I just hear people say it and it makes sense. There
is always something new to learn. For example, many people have
problems taking the slide off of a Glock pistol. Once you know
how, it's pretty easy, but some people still have problems. The
accepted procedure
is to hold the pistol a certain way, move the slide back just a short
distance, and then pull down the slide release tabs on either side of
the frame. Once, while trying to help a person who was having
trouble with
this procedure, an armorer came up with another way to do it.
Pull
back the slide, move one of the tabs down, release the slide to hold
the
down tab in place, then reach to the other side and pull down the other
tab, and the slide comes right off. It is always a good idea to
stay
in the "student" mindset even when you are teaching someone else how to
do something.
It is somewhat simplistic to equate pistol shooting and martial arts
that do not involve firearms, but there are similarities. Martial
arts are mastered in degrees, moving from simple to complex, and that
is the way we learn to shoot and then to use pistols. Shooting
and using a pistol are two different activities, and the realization
these
are different comes with experience. One part of advancing in a
martial art is that things that were difficult become easy, and you can
set the bar higher and higher as time passes. For a long time,
several of us participated in a bowling pin and "popper" (metal falling
plates designed by a guy named Popper...no kidding) match. I had
not participated in one of these matches in a long time. After
two trips to Front Sight with pistols, first the Walther P99QA and then
a Glock 17, I set up the pins and poppers by myself just to see if I
could hit them. Everyone fell down on the first shot, and the
overall time was decent. What had been difficult before, was not
as difficult now.
Another discovery along this path was that the type of pistol doesn't
matter much. Looking back over years of writing on this Web page,
I guess there was a time when I thought the type, or some technical
characteristics, or someone else's opinions mattered. Now this
doesn't
seem quite as significant. For example, the Glock 17 or any
Glock,
is a pretty boring gun. It doesn't look like much; the grip angle
isn't my favorite; the plastic sights that come with the gun are a
joke;
and a new Glock needs a trip to Robar to get those stupid finger
grooves
sanded down. At the same time, if you practice with it, you can
be certain of your ability to deliver a couple of shots to a target
real
fast once you've decided that's necessary. "If you practice with
it" is the Insight, and the gun, type of gun, manufacturer, or some
other
variable is not as important.
There are exceptions to this general sweeping statement, of course.
One exception is that if the gun is not reliable, it's useless.
I had a chance to try some kind of
Taurus small .45
semi-automatic pistol the other day. I think the model
number was "145." I put UMC 230 grain round nose ammunition in
it, and the pistol had a number of failures to feed. The trigger
was a little odd, and the sights were much more narrow than necessary,
but those attributes didn't mean that much. Reliability, on the
other hand, was not good so I will never buy, borrow, own, or carry
whatever that thing was (Taurus 145?). I understand that Glock
kept their Model 36 single stack compact .45 off the market for about a
year until they were sure the design was realiable.
Good for them.
The most recent IPSC match was quite an event. I was all set to
use the Glock 17, but a friend needed it for the match. He has a
regular and ported model, and didn't have the regular model along.
The ported model would have placed him in the Open class,
competing against "race guns" with optical sights. I handed over
my Front Sight proven Model 17 and used the new
Springfield XD 40
with the
long slide instead. The XD comes with those annoying three
dot sights. I blackened the rear sight, but left the white dot
on the front sight just to experiment. My scores in the match
were
decent, and I like the front sight set up that way. I also like
the
sights to be all black, too. More experiments are needed, but
there
won't be many matches on the east coast until springtime. I
didn't
have a very good holster for the XD. The Comp-Tac holster is ok,
but
does not hold the gun in the right position for me. Blade-Tech is
making a holster for the long slide XD and that holster will solve the
problem.
Speaking of holsters, I decided to try the new
Galco Kydex
holster for the Glock 17 and this holster is useless until I can take a
Dremel tool to it and remove some of the area that goes beyond covering
the trigger guard. I say "goes beyond," because you never put a
Glock in a holster unless the holster covers the trigger. In this
case, when you grasp the gun with a firing grip (the first step in a
presentation or "draw"), your middle finger contacts the holster and
not the stock. As far as I'm concerned, the part of the middle
finger that grips the stock is very important to the presentation and
shooting. I wind up using adhesive tape and some fancy new
bandage material in that area in the course of a lengthy shooting
session, and this seems to help.
One of the best holsters for the Glock 17 is the inexpensive
Uncle Mike's Kydex holster. These holsters are great. I
have the paddle model and a belt model. Blade-Tech is maybe a
little higher quality, but the Uncle Mike's holsters get the job done.
The
Kahr T-9 pistol has been going to the range a lot.
It shoots great, but has some other characteristics I wish Kahr
would "address" (fix!). One is the magazine. When you do
a tactical reload, a process that involves removing a magazine with
some
ammunition left and replacing it with a full magazine, the round at the
top of the Kahr magazine comes loose in the stock so that when the
magazine
clears the stock there's good 9 mm round falling to the ground.
One
fo the rules followed by the Big Boys in the shooting business is that
you don't reuse ammunition that falls on the ground. Nine hundred
ninety nine times out of one thousand times this just does not matter,
but
Murphy's Law, a law that trumps everything else, says the round you
need
to save your life will be the one that is nicked when it falls onto the
gravel or concrete. So, if you're paying 25 cents per 9 mm round,
then each practice tactical reload of a Kahr costs a quarter. If
you
practice this as much and as often as you should, this can get
expensive.
On the other hand, and there's always another hand to think
about,
the chances of having to do a tactical reload in the civilian world are
just about zero. Statistics show the 9 rounds in the Kahr should
be sufficient to resolve any real world problem. In a situation
where you are firing a lot of rounds, there's more chance the gun will
run until it is empty and then it just needs a loaded magazine - in a
hurry.
The "feel," always an individual and subjective aspect of any
fiream, of the Kahr T-9 is, for me, great! For some reason, I
like the idea of a trigger that's somewhere between the "right now"
Glock
and the typical "how long is this going to take" trigger on a
decent
revolver. You can develop a smooth pace to shooting the Kahr T-9
and
then convert that smoothness to speed with more and more practice.
We
always teach double action revolver shooters to start and finish the
trigger
stroke in a smooth continuous manner, and this technique is just right
for
the Kahr.
The Kahr T-9 cleans up pretty good, too. Once apart, the gun is
simple and there are not a lot of nooks and crannys to clean. The
gun has a simple mechanism, and it is easy to see what all of the parts
are doing inside.
It is well into February, 2003 now... Our instructor group
has a new Web site w
ww.piedmontNRAInstructors.org.
The old name "piedmont.org" was transferred to a hospital in
Atlanta. It fits their corporate identity, and our new Web site
name is more descriptive of what our group does.
One of the new guns in the collection these days is the Kel-Tec
Sub 2000 9 mm rifle. This folding rifle comes in several versions
that use Glock 19, Glock 17, Beretta 92 (standard military pistol) and,
I guess, Kel-Tec magazines. I got the Beretta version because it
is easy to find inexpensive hi-capabity magazines for the Beretta
pistol.
I had the Kel-Tec rifle that used the Glock 17 magazines, but
sold
it. I liked the rifle, except for the trigger, so I got another
one. What, if anything, is the advantage of a Kel-Tec rifle over
an ordinary 9 mm pistol? There are several advantages, but the
main
one is that you can train someone to shoot a rifle and hit a target in
less
time than it takes to teach someone to shoot a pistol. This is
why
the M-1 Carbine was so popular for the support troops for many years.
Another new gun is a Springfield XD40. Wait a minute...wasn't
there another XD in the picture awhile back? Yes, indeed, there
was. The original XD40 with regular sights was traded for a long
slide model. The latest XD is the regular size [again], but with
very good factory installed night sights. The XD is a great
pistol.
The long slide is longer and heavier, and more suited for
competition
than anything else.
During a recent trip to Nevada, I decided to add a pistol to my
permit. In Nevada, you have to shoot a qualification course with
the gun that you plan to carry. I brought along a Glock 31 with
the .40 S&W barrel. With the right ammunition, the Model 31
in its original .357 SIG or .40 S&W calibers will do a good job.
The
qualification test involved shooting strong and weak handed at about 3
meters, then two handed at maybe 7 meters and at the end of the range
distance
(50 feet?). The test was easy. I got 357 out of 360 and
couldn't
see my front sight because the range was dark. During the test,
and
later when I did some experimenting, I discovered my strong side arm is
weak enough to cause some malfunctions when shooting with just one
hand.
With two hands, it's another story.
As noted in the philosophical section up the page, the type of gun
doesn't matter a lot if you know what you are doing. Now I have
to get some weights or something and strengthen by arm. Murphy's
Law says if I ever have to use the Glock for something important, I
will have to shoot one-handed.
SIG Sauer Model 229 .357 SIG
If you lived in a cave, you might have missed the "DC Sniper" story
last year. Although there was nothing anyone could have done
against a rifle at long range from a concealed position, more than a
few of us
decided to switch "carry guns" on the off chance one might be needed.
When the chips were down, I found that the SIG Sauer 229 (.357
SIG caliber) with laser grips was more comforting to hagve around than
anything else. I suppose I could put the Glock and Springfield
pistols in that category, but the bottom line was that when it got real
serious around the DC area, the "go to" gun was the SIG 229. I
can't shoot it as fast as I can the Glock 17 or the Springfield, but I
have hit targets at 200 meters from an offhand (two handed standing)
position with the 229. If someone with a rifle 200 meters away
makes himself known, I would like to be able to turn the tides and give
some truth to the saying, "When the enemy is in range, so are you."
Another saying I like is one I heard after qualifying with the Glock 31
for the Nevada permit, "This isn't your first time at the rodeo."
This past week (February 2003) was also not my first time in Orlando,
Florida. This year's Shooting Hunting Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show
was held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.
I wrote about some of the new guns at this
link.
Please come back here after you've read that page.
Are you back yet? There is always a sorting process after one of
these shows. Things seen at the show tend to fall into several
categories. The categories include: stuff I got to get as
soon as possible, stuff that's may be interesting to other people I
know,
stuff for training, stuff that's neat, but I'll never buy it, and so on.
The first category is the one that needs to be factored into the hobby
budget. This year I came away from the SHOW Show considering it
might be fun to have a Taurus .40 S&W revolver. On those
occasions when I carry a gun outside of a training environment, the gun
tends to be
a revolver. As much as I can appreciate Glocks, and the new
Springfield, and 1911s and all the rest, you pretty much know a
revolver is going to work. One of the problems with
revolvers is that the best calibers, like the .357 Magnum tend to be
implemented better in a pistol that shoots something similar - with the
.357 SIG being a good example. A small revolver that shoots a .40
S&W cartridge, even with moon clips, might be worth a try.
I've had one bad experience with a Taurus, and seen other Taurus
revolvers bind up and fail during classes. If I get one, it will
be for the novelty value until it has fired a lot of rounds and proven
to be worth carrying.
This doesn't mean the Glocks are all going to be put away anytime
soon. The new Model 37 which fires the .45 Glock cartridge looks
and feels like it will be a real winner. The .45 Clock caliber is
different from the much older .45 ACP; how different is yet to be
determined.
It may be something closer to the .45 Super, or it may be the
same
size as the .45 ACP, but with a stronger case; don't know yet and can't
wait to find out. I do know that the new Model 37 feels like a
Model
17 (22, 31) and that's good. I do know that the new Model 37
holds
10 rounds and that's good, too. There are various schools of
thought
about how many rounds you need in a pistol, or that you need to carry
and
be able to reload in a hurry. I don't think Congress should tell
us
how many rounds to carry (they have the Capitol Police and don't have
to
worry), but at the same time I'm not all that troubled by being limited
to
10 rounds. If you cannot solve a serious personal security crisis
with
10 rounds, you may not be able to solve it at all.
It was good to see Smith and Wesson and Colt back at the SHOT Show.
Both companies had new products, and each has a "custom shop."
S&W calls their custom shop the "Performance Center." I
think Colt calls their custom shop the Custom Shop - which eliminates
any possibility of confusion. The Performance Center always has
some wacky revolvers in
calibers and combinations that make no sense whatsoever, but are still
fun
to look at. Do you know anyone who needs a 686 in .38 Super with
a
4" barrel? Neither do I. Do you know anyone who needs an
"N" frame
625 with a 2" barrel that extends about an inch beyond the frame?
Neither do I. Ok, I guess I'd take one of those maybe, but
only because it looks
about as weird as a revolver can look with the barrel still pointing
forward.
March has arrived, but the cold weather continues in Northern
Virginia. The fabled cherry blossoms in Washington, DC may not be
in evidence in time for the already scheduled Cherry Blossom Festival.
The latest gun to check out is the Glock 26.
I've never had that much interest in the "baby Glock (Model 26)".
I've fired them, and also fired the Model 27 (.40) and Model 33
(.357 SIG). I decided to get a Model 26 to see what I was
missing, and it turns out this is a pretty neat pistol. With a
Pearce grip extender, your little
finger has a place to rest, and with a spare [expensive] Model 19
magazine
to reload, the little 26 can put quite a few rounds downrange in a
hurry
- in a pistol about the size of a 5 shot revolver. Model 26
holsters
are easy to find and Uncle Mike's makes a very good, very inexpensive
Kydex
holster for the Glock 26. Just for fun, the next time I go to an
IPSC
match, I'm going to use the Model 26 starting with a 10 round magazine,
then
reload with Model 19 magazines as necessary. If nothing else,
this
should provide a humorous spectacle for the onlookers.
As it turned out, I fired the Glock Model 31 (.357 SIG) at the latest
match at the orchard near Lebanon Church, Virginia. My overall
ranking in the match was terrible, but that's ok because I was going
against some pretty good IPSC shooters, all much better than me.
It was good practice to fire the gun until the slide locked open
and then reload, rather than "game" the stage and plan reloads ahead of
time. A slide lock reload is much closer to what happens in the
real world. The .357 SIG worked well, knocking over the steel
plates without delay.
If you read the latest "Shooting Story," you will have learned of a
recent trip to a cold, rain soaked Front Sight tactical shotgun class.
It was quite an experience. I was going to take a Remington
870 12 gauge shotgun, but students who had attended the course before
suggested a Mossberg 590 might be more appropriate. I already had
a 590 I'd bought on a
whim, and it was the "DA" model. The DA stands for "double
action."
The trigger on the shotgun has a trigger pull similar to that of
a
double action revolver. The theory is that a police officer who
is
used to firing a revolver would handle the trigger on this shotgun
better.
Another theory (since 90 percent of law enforcement officers seem
to
have Glocks these days) is that you are less apt to fire the shotgun by
mistake
if it has a longer and heavier trigger pull. Those are nice
theories,
but in the real world when it's time to shoot it doesn't much matter
how
the trigger works. You'll press it fast, reset it and press again
if
you've trained that way.
One of the neighbors happens to be a champion revolver shooter, so he
took a look at the long heavy stiff double action trigger, and fixed
it. Now the 590 has a very easy to press double action trigger.
Skipping ahead to the good part, when I checked in at Front sight
with the 590DA, the instructor said the double action trigger pull
might cause a problem on the speed portions of the course. He was
right. The first few times I went through the speed drills, I was
late hitting the last target. When it came time for the actual
test, I nailed all of the targets. The double action trigger just
takes practice.
Mossberg 590
As usual, I couldn't find the exact picture, but this
is pretty close to the 590 I was using. Imagine the trigger
forward
a bit inside the trigger guard. Imagine the stock looking more
like
the stock on the Mossberg 500 (below) without the "Speed Feed" hole.
I
did have a tactical sling on the shotgun. A "tac" sling looks
great,
but after the first day the only time I used the tactical sling was to
carry
the gun around. As soon as it was time to shoot, the tac sling
came
off and I went to a muzzle down, over the support side (left in my
case)
shoulder carry. This is also called the African carry, because
big
game hunting guides carry their rifles this way. If you grasp the
front
of the gun with your left hand, then bring it up and rotate the gun,
your
firing side hand goes to the right place and you're ready to go.
The "ghost ring" sights on the 590 helped a lot. I like sights
I can see. There were two exercises in the class that required
some
precise shooting, 35 and 50 meter slugs on a regular Front Sight
target,
and shots against "hostage takers" standing behind hostages.
The bad weather at Front Sight, a rare event, was a good test for
outdoor clothing and for the weather protection applied to our guns.
the
Mossberg 590 is "Parkerized." I'm not sure how Parkerizing works,
but a Google search comes up with words like "thin crystalline film
...corrosion
resistance and adhesion." Manganese is one of the materials used
in Parkerizing.
Mossberg 500
So if the 590 is so great, how come there's a picture
of the Model 500 here? The Model 500 has similar controls.
If
you can shoot a 590 with slugs outdoors, you can shoot a 500 with
birdshot
or buckshot indoors and not worry about the finish - unless your roof
leaks. The 500 comes in a number of versions. The one shown
here has a short barrel, bead front sight, and a lower capacity
magazine. The rangemaster (chief instructor) at Front Sight had a
Model 500 he uses in competition. He was able to demonstrate all
of the school drills with the gun, which means a 500 can be just as
effective as a 590 if you know
how to use one.
The old joke is that a pistol is something you use to defend yourself
until you can get to your shotgun. Having taken the four day long
tactical shotgun class at Front Sight, I get the joke now. Even
with "low recoil tactical" loads, the shotgun is a very impressive
firearm.
And now for something different...
Steyr M40 with test target.
What on earth is a Steyr M40, and why it being
mentioned here? As usual, I'm always looking for some new,
unusual, and maybe better pistol to try out. On impulse (it's a
hobby, ok?), I picked up a Steyr M40 (.40 S&W caliber). Since
mastering the Glock, I've started to check the trigger reset on
pistols. I picked up the Steyr and, lo and behold, it had a
decent trigger reset, which means it can be shot fast. The
trigger itself has a safety, but it wasn't uncomfortable at all.
The angle of the stock ("grip") is different from guns like the
1911, but it's more of an Olympic target type grip angle. The M40
has an interesting safety feature. Look at the digital image
above. See the white dot right in front of the trigger?
That's a mechanical safety. Right now the gun, as shown,
will not fire. The safety has to be pressed upward before the
trigger will fire the pistol. That's a little bit out of the
ordinary to say the least, and it does provide some comfort in the
event someone got unauthorized access to the pistol and did not know
how to operate the safety. There is a key lock on the pistol that
not only keeps it from firing, but also keeps it from being taken apart.
The sights on the M40 are strange. The front sight appears to be
a triangle. The rear sight outlines the sides of the triangle.
Those of us who believe in plain black traditional sights are
skeptical of new stuff, but I am now longer a skeptic. The group
in the "A" zone of the
target was a rapid fire group from 7 yards. I fired as soon as I
got
the trip of the triangle on the target. The smaller group above
the
"A" zone was an aimed group. The last shots were fired around the
perimeter
of the target. The last shot was right under the front end of the
magazine.
It's off a bit; my fault, not a problem with the sights.
At 25 yards, the point of the triangle is a great reference for precise
shooting. True, pistols are seldom a factor at 25 yards (a 25
yard
head start running away from a threat is a much better option), but
it's
nice to know the pistol is accurate and the sights facilitate accurate
shooting.
When the Steyr pistol was first imported to the U.S., I heard nothing
but bad news about it. Someone said that all of the samples at
that
year's SHOT Show were broken from ordinary handling at the end of the
show.
Then the pistols were recalled for a trigger problem. Then
the
U.S. importer in Alabama decided not to import the pistols any longer.
The problems appear to have been fixed. I've fired at least 100
rounds
with the pistol without a problem, and with the accuracy you can see in
the
picture. This isn't a bad gun. In fact, it may be a very
good
gun that, like the FN "FortyNine," has not done well in the
market
place because it got off to a slow start.
I've ordered a holster for the Steyr from Blade-Tech, and some extra
magazines from CDNN Investments. It will be fun to try the Steyr
at an IDPA or IPSC match this year.
More shotgun news.
Mossberg "Maverick" 88
Look close at the picture. There is no thumb
safety on top of the receiver. The safety is located on the front
of the
trigger guard. The slide release is the same as the Mossberg
500/590
(behind the trigger guard on the left side of the gun). In my
search
for a low end "home protection" gun, I discovered the Mossberg
"Maverick"
Model 88. I don't know the whole story, but it appears there was
a
U.S. firm called "Maverick" that made an inexpensive shotgun, and
Mossberg
bought this company. The Model 88 is very lightweight, and costs
so
little that it can go just about anywhere. If it gets a scratch
or
two, the world does not end and the sky does not fall. This
afternoon
(April 6, 2003) I went to the shotgun range at the Bull Run Shooting
Center
near Manassas, Virginia and shot two rounds of regular trap using a
Remington
1100 shotgun with a long barrel. The scores were 18 of 25 and 21
of
25; pretty good for an old guy. Then we went over to the "wobble
trap"
range where the targets come out at strange angles and elevations, and
you
need to engage the targets at shorter ranges. The Mossberg worked
great (18 of 25).
The way trap and wobble trap work, you wait for the guy who shoots
before you do to finish his shot(s) and then you're allowed to load
your gun and get ready. This way most of the time most of the
guns are unloaded. You can have a round in the ejection port, but
not in the chamber,
so when we got to the wobble trap range, I did an "ejection port load"
(left hand under the receiver, and the shell goes into the open port).
When it was my turn to fire two shots, all I had to do was move
the slide forward to chamber the round, and then do a "tactical reload"
and place the second round in the magazine from underneath the gun.
With 5 rounds from
5 different positions, this was a great way to practice an emergency
reload (ejection port) and tactical reloads.
You become a good operator (we don't shoot guns; we operate guns) by
perfect practice, so even though there was no need to be in a hurry or
do anything "tactical," the opportunity to practice these skills in a
sporting environment was an opportunity not to be missed.
Smith and Wesson Model 64
Imagine this picture with a 3 inch barrel rather than
the 2 inch barrel as shown. S&W seems to have taken all of
the revolver parts they have in the plant and made up some odd
combinations. The Model 64 (.38 Special) revolver with a 3 inch
barrel is a very nice, easy to handle revolver. It presents a
fascinating contrast with the Glock or the Steyr. The Austrian
polymer frame guns represent the state
of the art in firearms technology. The Model 64 represents a
computerized manufacturing version of a design that dates back over 100
years. With .38 Special +P Speer Gold Dot ammunition, the Model
64 does pretty well
in the muzzle energy department, and cannot be beat for reliability.
Hey, this page has gone on for almost a year. New adventures and
scheduled
for May, 2003 and this summer so it's time for another page to start.
To
get there, click on the link below.
