I’ve recently been seeing some chatter about how one should proceed in gunfight training. The recurring theme can be summarized in terms of depth of field and timeliness. It seems untidy to combine them but it appears to me that the two have a deep relationship.
I think back to my days on the job, how I tried to get the outfit to move to change gear to solve a problem. You and I know that gear isn’t the solution to these problems — but I’d given them the key to the city, the gold standard on how to sort these issues out -- training.
The problem? My solution was hard.
The scheduling for shifts, listening to the troops gripe, the expense; it was just a hill too high to scale.
Buying stuff? Oh yeah, that’ll work.
The problem, as I saw it, was that people were averaging three to five seconds to make the first hit on target during qualification. No one yelling, screaming, shooting back, no innocents running around the target line downrange.
Just “cotton ball clouds floating across impossibly blue skies,” to pilfer from a better trainer than I. I can imagine how one of our people would have reacted to an incipient assassination at 10 feet, in a mobile home out on ‘felony acres,’ with screaming toddlers running around, the smell of stale alcoholic sweat and cigarettes, with someone in their ear, on the radio, demanding their attention.
Sounds like a good way to get fitted up for a cheap funeral.
What took them so long to get that first solid hit? The time constraints on the qual course (literally all they shot) ranged from nonexistent to ‘measured by hourglass,’ for sequential mag dumps on a stationary TQ-15.
Real practical, right? (And people today complain about the ascendancy of the B-8 bullseye target repair center in training.)
The reason they took so long is because they had so long — and they were moving in slow motion. Did they shoot well, having taken so long?
No. Don’t confuse sloth for precision. People are taking lots of time to ensure the visual solution and convulsively clutch at the gun to try to make up time.
Me chanting “look at the front sight” or “don’t jerk the trigger” helped not at all. Especially when the problem was a convulsive clutch with the whole hand, arm, shoulder, waist … and likely their knees were knocking, driving the muzzle toward the ground preignition.
The problem is quite simple. Shoot him (solidly) before he shoots you.
Do that without shooting anyone else … those who will likely be hovering around on either side, in front of or behind the object of the exercise.
I said it was simple. I didn’t say it was easy.
So. What’s with vision? We’re guided largely by our eyes. We are oriented by what we see and often we mistake what we’re seeing; ever work with eye witnesses before? Were they ever accurate?
I rest my case.
Yeah. Simple. But not easy.
When you’re looking, you need to look at the target. Jeff Cooper told you that when you stepped around the corner and looked into the lion’s mouth, you’d know what to do. Your body will tell you to stare intently at the lion … while I’m telling you to admire the front sight.
I’m not quite sure that’s apt to happen as a matter of routine.
But at ten feet, you will be looking at the threat. The front sight will be ‘fuzzy.’
Okay. Put the fuzzy part over the 10-ring of that B-8 and keep the gun still as you can while you roll that trigger back.
“But the sight’s not in sharp focus!”
Yeah. Close enough. Just hold the damn gun still through ignition.
It’s what you’ll do with that new pistol-mounted optic that all the cool kids love. They’ll tell you “look at the target! Don’t look at the dot.”
If you can find that dot when the threat is a few feet away ... or after that stoppage clearance … or reload.
It doesn’t matter. Put the gun between you and your expiration date, hold it still through the ignition sequence. There are those who can hit regularly at considerable distance while looking at the target.
You just have to know what your limits are. Trying to get a fine sight picture on a large target up close wastes time; for duffers, it seems to encourage trying to rush the trigger at the last instant. You do need to see the target to ensure it’s something that needs shooting … assessment, I believe.
And that doesn’t mean doing ‘eye sprints’ between sights and target; it means it’s okay to let the sights blur some, as long as the gun is in the eye-target line. Then hold it still as you can.
That requires having the firmest grip BEFORE getting on the trigger; the harder the hold before the sear breaks, the less chance of a pre-ignition push.
GRIP first, LOOK (sights or not), then TRIGGER last. At distance or on a very small target, you have to work that visual solution without fouling up the handling aspects. On a coarse target at reasonably close distances, the visual firing solution is less critical – and the handling solution is still really important.
I’m working on the target focus thing, seeing how far back I can get and still get 100% hits without fail. That’s a range thing and I really should work on it.
It’s worth trying, the ‘target focus’ walk back.
-- Rich Grassi