Gaming the Test: Rogers #7

by ToddG 8 Comments

Next in the Rogers Shooting School test series comes the weak hand only shooting…

Stage 7: weak hand only, from the ready loaded with exactly six rounds, 12.5 seconds
Maximum points: 9
Two to the body and knock over the head of T1, two to the body and knock over the head of T2, reload from slidelock, knock down T3-T5 at the wall

You saw this before when it was called stage four. The only difference is that now you get more than five seconds added to the time. Oh, and you have to do it all weak hand only, including the reload. All of the same advice for stage four applies here: be fast with the four body shots but don’t go so crazy you miss the huge steel chest plates; if you didn’t get both the heads (T1 or T2) during the first six shots come back and knock those over first thing after the reload before going for the targets at the wall.

Tip #1: Get a good weak hand only grip on the gun before the test starts. Don’t fidget or relax that grip. You want as much control as you can get on the pistol so your fast body shots on those gigantic chest plates will be quick hits, and you want your sights coming back down into alignment without having to search for them because your grip was too soft.

Tip #2: Mentally hit the brakes when you go from the chest plates to the heads. You want to do your best to fire one shot per head. Make up shots weak hand only will be slower than normal and you don’t want to take that extra time.

Tip #3: Don’t forget to come back to T1 and T2 after the reload if you missed either of them during the first six shots! You probably have the time and regardless they’re closer, easier targets.

Here is a video of me shooting it clean:

Everything really came together right for me on this run. As you can tell by the ongoing gunfire in the background, plenty of students were still trying to knock down those plates at the wall long after I was finished. By taking just a little extra time to guarantee my first six shots I was able to do a fast reload and be aimed in, slack out, on target before the T3 plate even came into view.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

8 comments

  1. Ronnie gave me an interesting piece of advice when he noticed that I was having trouble reloading in time to knock over the plates at the wall — you don’t have to shoot the gun dry in order to move to cover and reload.

    My strategy then changed to the following: Two to the body, knock over T1; Two to the body, reload WHO with one in the chamber to avoid taking the extra time needed for that reload, then knock over T2 and move to the wall.

    Worked for me early in the week until I got more confident in my WHO reloads.

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  2. Don’t you mean two to the body one to the head of T1 and then two to the body and one to the head of T2? It would be kinda hard to knock over the body. 😉

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  4. Todd, it’s kind of hard to see, but I’m guessing that you’re hitting the slide stop lever with your index finger to close the slide after the reload, correct?

    At my current level of skill and practice I’d probably run the slide by pressing it on my belt or some other hard surface. Are there any school rules/instruction/advice on the matter?

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  5. Among other things, Bill teaches a method whereby you pinch the weapon upside down between your knees on the slide after dropping the magazine, inserting the new magazine, re-acquire a grip on the weapon and push forward allowing the pinched slide stay stationary, thereby releasing the slide lock and allowing the slide to go forward.

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  6. Interesting on Tip #3 because when I went through the course a number of years ago, T1 and T2 went away after reaction speed timing so they were no longer available after the reload. If you didn’t get your first six hits with your first six shots you were SOL when you came back from the reload because you only had the targets on the wall to go for.

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  8. Thanks Smaug, those are good videos. I’ll have to watch some more stuff by that guy.

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