Pistol-Training.Com

M&P Monday: Week Ten

20,971 rounds
2 stoppages, 0 malfunctions, 0 parts breakages

It was a very busy week in the M&P Torture Test. Before shooting began, an armorer performed the 20,000 round service interval. We also installed the new Performance Center sear, replacing the gunsmithed one. The result was a 6½ pound trigger pull which dropped down to 6¼ pounds after about 1,500 rounds.

So how is it shooting with the heavier trigger? Pretty well! Here on the left is a picture of the Dot Torture drill shot 50-for-50 at 8 yards, a new personal best for me. The high visibility tape on the front sight (mentioned last week) definitely made a difference in getting those hits.

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Posted in Gear, Range Reports | 5 Comments »

SCOTUS and 2A!

In what will no doubt be a much-debated decision, the Supreme Court of the United States today upheld the Second Amendment as an individual right based on self-defense. You can read the whole decision here.

This is a win for our side, folks, make no mistake about it. Let me be the first to nominate Justice Scalia for sainthood …

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

M&P Monday: Week Nine

18,857 rounds
2 stoppages, 0 malfunctions, 0 parts breakages

It was a 2,230 round week for the M&P9 Torture Test. Boringly, there is nothing to report in terms of function. The gun still hasn’t missed a beat. However, we did make one little change to the gun and then took it out to a local IDPA match to test things out… 

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Posted in Gear, Range Reports | 9 Comments »

Drill of the Week: Walkback Drill

Apparently, last week’s drill was not a successful one for most of you, since no one reported their results. Everyone here at pistol-training.com is very sad.

So as promised, this week we will stick with the accuracy drills. All you will need is a stack of 3×5 cards.

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Posted in DotW, Learning | 1 Comment »

Do’s and Don’ts of the “Correction Target”

Targets like the one pictured to the left, taken years ago from the now-defunct sportshooter.com website, are very popular among shooters. A few years ago I taught a class for a federal agency and they had a huge poster-size version up on the wall of their classroom. Supposedly, the target can diagnose why you aren’t hitting the center of your target

To an extent, it’s true. But it’s important to understand what the target is and isn’t intended to do.

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Posted in Learning, Teaching | 4 Comments »

M&P Monday: Week Eight

16,627 rounds
2 stoppages, 0 malfunctions, 0 parts breakages

Yes, we’re a day late … sorry about that, folks! Just over 2,500 rounds this past week with no real news to report. The recoil spring/guide was replaced per Smith’s recommendation. The gun is coming up on 20,000 pretty fast. It will get a complete inspection by an armorer at that point, and we’ll post pictures of various wear points on the gun so folks can see what things are looking like internally.

This week I’ll be shooting a local IDPA match and the IDPA Classifier with the M&P9 at the Anne Arundel Fish & Game IDPA Club. It will be the first time I’ve shot the Classifier with an M&P, so the results should be interesting!

Previous entries:

• Week One
• Week Two
• Week Three
• Week Four
• Week Five
• Week Six
• Week Six Accuracy Report
• Week Seven

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

Posted in Gear, Range Reports | No Comments »

Drill of the Week: 25yd Groups

Thanks again to Bryan Williams, first winner in our Design a Drill of the Week contest, for bringing us Triple Six last week. We’ve been getting some outstanding drills and we’ll be unveiling one a month.

One thing that Triple Six showed us is that quite a few folks were really struggling with the long shots. Come on, guys! Marksmanship fundamentals are the foundation for all handgun shooting. Being fast is great, but being fast without being accurate is a waste of time and bullets.

As a reminder for those who may not have read it in a while, we highly recommend Larry Vicker’s article Tactical Tips: Accuracy here at pistol-training.com.

And as punishment reinforcement, this week we’re going to shoot some nice, slow twenty-five yard groups.

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Posted in DotW, Learning | 3 Comments »

Teaching in Pittsburgh

pistol-training.com will be holding its first open-to-the-public class in Pittsburgh, 9-10 August, called Aim Fast, Hit Fast. Click here for details on what will be taught, location, price, and contact information.

Class is strictly limited to sixteen students. We hope to see you there.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

Posted in Teaching | No Comments »

Come on, seriously?

We’ve all seen some wild stuff at the range. The photo, left, was taken in 2006 at Ken Hackathorn’s 60th Birthday “Party” match, of a local shooter who, yes, uses spent cartridge cases for hearing protection.

Tonight at the range, there were two incidents that are really just too crazy to be made up.

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Posted in Learning, Teaching | 18 Comments »

M&P Monday: Week Seven

14,123 rounds
2 stoppages, 0 malfunctions, 0 parts breakages 

Another week, a little over twenty-four hundred rounds, and no problems of any kind.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Drill of the Week: Triple Six

This week’s drill comes from Bryan Williams, the first winner in our Design a Drill of the Week Contest. Thanks to Bryan for the great write-up. We hope you enjoy your new pistol-training.com hat!

For this drill, you will need three IPSC targets (or similar) and a shot timer. 

Bryan explains the drill as follows:

This drill was developed by Max Michel Jr. (pictured left; image linked from MaxMichel.com) of the U.S.Army Marksmanship Unit and USPSA Grandmaster.

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Posted in DotW, Learning | 13 Comments »

M&P report: Accuracy

It seems we left out an important piece of information this past Monday regarding the M&P Torture Test. Right past the 10,000 round mark, we repeated the accuracy test:
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Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

M&P Monday: Week Six

11,695 rounds
2 stoppages, 0 malfunctions, 0 parts breakages

This past week we hit the first stoppages during the M&P Torture Test.

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Posted in Gear, Range Reports | 2 Comments »

Drill of the Week: Switch Hitting II

Last week’s drill was about delivering precise hits strong and weak hand only under stress. Now it’s time to turn up the speed by a notch or two.

Set up two large targets (an 8″ paper plate is ideal) about two feet apart. Range is 3 yards. Put your shot timer on PAR with a setting of ten seconds, just like last time.

Holding the gun at your ready/retention position in your strong hand only, on the beep fire two shots at the target on the right. Then, switch to the left hand and fire two shots at the target on the left. Keep switching back and forth, engaging the appropriate target with two shots each time, until the PAR time runs out. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in DotW, Learning | No Comments »

Design a Drill of the Week Contest

Don’t forget the pistol-training.com Design a Drill of the Week contest. So far we’ve received less than a dozen entries. Come on, guys. We don’t charge for admission, we don’t ask for donations, so help us out with some drill ideas. And win a hat in the process!

Posted in Administrative | No Comments »

50,000 Visitors and Going Strong!

On Memorial Day, 26-May-08, pistol-training.com had its 50,000th visitor.

On behalf of everyone who has contributed to pistol-training.com over the past eight months, we would like to say thank you to all of the shooters, teachers & students alike, who have made us grow so fast in such a short time.  It took us six months to reach 25,000 … and just two more months to hit 50,000!

Thank you to all the contributors, subscribers, and comment posters who have created such rich content.  Without you, this site would be an empty shell.

Train hard & stay safe!  ToddG

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

M&P Monday: Week Five

10,057 rounds
0 stoppages, 0 malfunctions, 0 parts breakages

In only thirty-two days, we reached ten thousand rounds in the M&P Torture Test. As you can see, there have still been no problems with the pistol.

The recoil spring was changed at just a little past the recommended 7,500 mark.  The gun was running fine, but we’ll be following all of the recommended scheduled maintenance during the test.  At around 9,000 the pistol got its first serious cleaning.  While Militec-1 is the oil being used to keep the pistol going, for the action some TW25B was used to further smooth out the trigger pull.  Result: the trigger pull is now right at 5½ pounds, down ⅜ of pound.

Previous weekly reports:

• Week One
• Week Two
• Week Three
• Week Four

Happy Memorial Day, and thank you to all who’ve served our country!

Train hard & stay safe!  ToddG

Posted in Gear, Range Reports | 4 Comments »

Drill of the Week: Switch Hitting

Don’t forget the pistol-training.com Design a Drill of the Week contest!

A few weeks ago, we did some one-handed shooting for the Drill of the Week.  Response from readers was good, and there aren’t many people who don’t need to work on their one-handed shooting so we figured it was time to run another drill.  

You’ll need two 3×5 cards, one on the left and one on the right.  Start at a distance of three yards.

Set your shot timer to a PAR time of 10 seconds.

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Posted in DotW, Learning | 4 Comments »

New Article: Rogers Shooting School

As promised, a review of last week’s Rogers Shooting School class has now been added to the Articles section.  Check it out and let us know what you think!

Posted in Administrative | 2 Comments »

New Contest: Design a Drill of the Week

As the number of subscribers and participants at pistol-training.com continues to grow, we realize there is a huge resource of ideas that goes untapped.  In order to keep the Drill of the Week fresh and interesting, we’d like to tap into your ideas for some great training drills.  Therefore, we’re asking that you take a few moments to send us your ideas and some of the drills you use when you teach and/or train. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in DotW, Teaching | 6 Comments »