There is all sorts of research out there talking about trusting your gut. When it comes to self defense, it is usually a good idea to trust your instincts when dealing with people who give you a bad “vibe”. There are times though, when you should not trust yourself.
We’ve all had this experience at one point or another. You pick up a friend’s gun and it just feels right. You might even shoot it better than your gun. So you buy the gun and you really like it but you can’t actually shoot it measurably better than your old one. Or you do shoot it slightly better than your old one and a month later, when you try your old one out, you realize you can shoot it just as well as the new one!
Aside from the well know “different gun syndrome”, what I’m getting at here is that as a relatively new or lower skilled shooter, you cannot trust your own opinion or experiences yet. This is not an insult, just a fact of life. I recently learned this lesson again with motorcycles. I was convinced one bike was too tall and too tippy for me (center of gravity was pretty high, doncha know), so I got another bike and rode it for a month. It was much heavier, but the weight was low. When I went back to the original bike, I didn’t notice any of the previous “tall tippyness”.
Did it go away? Was it not there to begin with? Of course not. What happened was that I became a better rider in that month. Maybe not much more technically skilled, and certainly not much more experienced (it was only a month, after all), but after getting acclimated to the heavier second bike, the first bike just didn’t seem very problematic any more. When I discussed this with a riding mentor of mine, he was not surprised to hear about it. After thinking about it for a minute, I was not surprised either. I just needed to relearn the truth that people with limited skill and experience, cannot trust their judgement yet.
With guns, the solution has always been simple to prescribe. Just stick with one gun and learn to shoot it very well. Once you get there, you can transfer that skill to any other gun. With bikes, I’m having a hard time following my own advice, but I’d probably be better off if I did.
You left out critical details of which bikes!
Too funny. The first bike is an F750GS. 500#’s, but fairly tall and tippy for me. The second bike is a Road King. 830ish pounds, but lower down. Now, both are a joy to use and do not feel awkward at all.
Not what I was expecting based on the pic. Looks like a YZF
I think it is a TT230. The pic is me, about to go off the rail at a course I was at.
Rode a lowered GS adventure today and loved it. A bit tall for me, but an awesome bike that i think I could get used to pretty easily. Also rode a police roadking and the seat really changes how the bike handles at low speed. Pretty interesting.
I recently had this moment while talking to an instructor friend about my habit of switching between several pistols platforms that I enjoy shooting. While I can shoot all of them proficiently I had stagnated in my training and hit a personal plateau in accuracy & speed. My current goal/challenge is to focus on one pistol platform for the next year both in classes & dryfire.
That sounds like a great idea, though I doubt any issues here are because you are too new to have a real opinion, lol.
Very timely post for me.
I’ve exclusively shot the Glock 17 (chopped for G19 mags) for carry and training for the last fifteen years.
Recently I picked up a Ruger RXM and have been shooting various drills side by side with my Glock.
I haven’t recorded any real differences in times or scores, but I “think” that the RXM points better for me.
I could probably draw the RXM a bit faster, but the index points for establishing grip still give me a little hiccup.
I’m still undecided if I’m going to switch carry guns.
Sounds reasonable to me. I shoot the Glock about the same as anything else (small differences), but regardless of performance, I find the HK points better for me than the Glock.