gauging progress

GAUGING PROGRESS AND PROFICIENCY

When engaging in athletics or any endeavor requiring skill building exercises we all wish to have a swift and reliable yardstick or our progress. I evaluated myself often. When I review handguns, I also push the pistol and myself to the limit in order to record the pistols advantages and the author's ability to handle a pistol outside of his favorite types. Like any professional I wish to be able to trust my judgment and not be deluded. I have to remain objective and not endorse or reject a product based on taste. We are all entitled to our own opinion but not our own facts and performance may be gauged. Taste is a subtle thing with no indisputable judge or critic and we all have it in one form or the other.

Before we move to evaluating our performance we need to examine our training. Training is a big concern. Like many of you I began training by distance education. I studied the work of Jeff Cooper. I have examined books by others who are widely circulated and who have attended lots of schools but they have no police or military experience. That does not give me confidence in their opinion. Some have talent and others are good shots. Some feel like a big talent dissipated in a minor post that never seems to go anywhere. It is not necessary to obliterate the past to build credentials. Much of what has been developed by Cooper and his associates remains the cutting edge of training. The basics are trigger press, sight picture, sight alignment, and follow through. A good trainer must have the capacity to describe what he has seen and present a better alternative. A good student is not always a good trainer but all good trainers were once good students. While there are differing notions among responsible trainers we need to reach embassy on the basics. This includes using sighted fire and looking at the whole picture, using cover intelligently and understanding tactical movement. There are trainers who have marred their work by a cavalier disregard for basics. Training must be relevant. Innovative is fine but daring may be dangerous and counter productive.

A good trainer will build upon a students abilities. All students do not proceed at the same rate. We must balance censure with praise. I have seen instructors put their hands on students and shake shoulders in police circles. I think going for the heart and mind works better. Students proceeding along a good path will reach a certain plateau and then they will practice on a regular basis to keep the edge. A question I am often asked is 'How to I gauge my progress?' Are there drills that will tell me if I have chosen a handgun or caliber appropriate for my use? Is there a drill that will tell us something about our personal balance of speed and accuracy? There are such drills. I did not invent them but I have adapted them to my personal training regimen. They may not be used exactly as envisioned by others but they work well. Logistics is one reason I have modified the program. In one test program, the Ohio State Patrol fired 228,000 rounds of ammunition. In the end they choose a reliable and effective service handgun. I thought the points made by the OSP so good I incorporated them into my own test program. Once you have reached a certain level of skill the OSP program works well in evaluating handgun performance. Some handguns may be too large for your hand or the action simply unsuited for you. The OSP drill helps in separating these.

(As I move along I am not always certain who invented which drill so I cannot give the proper credit. I hope their intent was to illuminate students and not to make themselves famous. ) First realize this-you will have the same problem on your hands whatever handgun you carry or whatever skill you have. The problem will not adapt to your skill your skill must adapt to the problem at hand. The threat may faint at the sight of your pistol or he may decide to feed the pistol to you with most responses somewhere in between. You may have a single adversary or a take over robbery on your hands. Nothing impresses the adversary like a solid hit. Carrying a Glock with two spare magazines or a snub .38 with no reloads, the threat you face will be the same.

Drills- Get Ready!

5/5/5

This is a simple drill that works well in testing your ability and performance with a given handgun. Five shots are fired in five seconds at a five inch square target. This is a pretty fair test of combat dexterity. The range should be three yards at first, moving to seven. Perhaps not a severe test for an accomplished shooter with a 1911 but taxing for concealment handguns. Keep all shots in the five or you are not controlling the pistol properly.

Bill Drill

This drill is attributed to Bill Wilson of Wilson Combat. You draw and fire at a silhouette target at 7 yards and fire six rounds as quickly as possible. All rounds must be in the A zone. (We used to cause this the kill zone before PC.) This drill may begin at a bit closer distance for beginners. A master level of proficiency is demonstrated at two seconds.

Hansen

This drill is named for an accomplished shooter and double Kevlar survivor. In my early days of writing I often wondered why the 25 yard five shot group seemed a standard for testing handguns. It seemed a good test for hunting handguns but less suited to automatic pistols which relied upon handling for efficiency as much if not more so than accuracy. For combat ability a bench rest grouping is irrelevant. Firing five to ten shots quickly at a silhouette target placed at ten yards tells us more about the handgun and shooter. This is a good drill for an accomplished shooter. You fire as quickly as you are able to control the handgun and bring the sights back into line. The cadence of fire is set by muzzle control and aligning the sights, not how quickly you are able to press the trigger. A four inch group is pretty decent with most concealed carry handguns.

Draw and Fire One Shot at Ten Yards

This drill is practiced by quite a few of us and works well. How fast is fast? How fast do we need to be? A balance of speed and accuracy is needed. Be certain you are familiar with draw and safety precautions. The goal of this drill is to draw, fire, and get a center hit in 1.5 seconds. This is an acceptable time. On occasion I have came in at .92 seconds, with my personal handgun and leather I carry and practice with most often. Quite a few of the under the shirt carry techniques fall apart under this drill.

OSP

The OSP drill has been modified to my needs into a good test of iron and sinew. Reliability is ten times more important than anything else and during the test any malfunctions disqualify the handgun. Remember, firing from a solid bench rest often produces a more solid platform. Firing off hand and especially with the weak hand will produce a malfunction in marginal handgun/ammunition combinations. Those who advise lighter springs in combat handguns for ease of handling and a light trigger press may be surprised to find malfunctions when the pistol is fired from a variety of positions.

A sixty round modified OSP test--

Five rounds weak hand shoulder point 5 yards

Ten rounds one hand shoulder point 5 yards

Ten rounds two hand 5 yards

Ten rounds one hand any style 7 yards

Ten rounds two hands any style 7 yards

Ten rounds two hands 10 yards

Five rounds two hand 10 yards

I do bench rest---

I often fire a five round group from a braced barricade or a bench rest for several reasons. First, the pistol needs to be properly sighted in. I need to know the relation between the sights and the point of impact. I also like to know how accurate a pistol may be. There are few handguns indeed capable of the proverbial 1 inch 25 yard five shot group but I do own a couple of 1911s that will register such a group often enough to make life interesting. Firing a pistol in a machine rest is a departure from reality for the personal defense shooter. I carefully place the pistol over a sand bag or rolled up range bag. I concentrate upon the sight picture, sight alignment and trigger press and then I carefully break the shot. The average of three five shot groups is the average accuracy the handgun, ammunition and shooter combination is capable of.

If you are going to engage in this type of shooting, you really need a reliable resource for inexpensive ammunition. I recommend Black Hills remanufactured loads in the Blue Box line. They are accurate, reliable and affordable. This is all we may ask.