Ever since I started shooting seriously in the mid-1990s, I have known a truth. I have taught that truth consistently. I don’t know if someone else taught me that truth, or if I figured it out on my own, but it has been “mine” for as long as I can remember. Yesterday I violated that truth and today I suffered for it. What’s worse, I didn’t even realize what I had done. Thankfully, JAG was there to help me along.
When I first learned to shoot, I was still a student and could only afford to shoot 50 rds of centerfire ammo per week. I could afford basically unlimited .22LR in those days though, so I would do the bulk of my live fire practice with a .22, and then for the last 50 rds of the day, I would shoot my carry gun. This, combined with 30 mins of dry fire daily, allowed me to improve quickly.
My thought process was that I could ingrain a technique through dryfire, reinforce it and refine it with my .22LR pistol for 250-500 rds a week, then test myself and get some good reps with recoil using my carry gun and centerfire ammo. This worked out well and one of the key points was to shoot my carry gun as the last thing I did before leaving the range. This allowed me (and my unconscious) to have the most recent training occur using the gun that mattered the most to me. I have always told shooters who might be low on centerfire ammo to follow this practice, and those who have, have reported excellent results. In today’s ammo-starved environment, this is as good a plan as any. Dry fire, plus .22LR, plus whatever centerfire you can, will produce high-quality results.
Yesterday I went out to confirm zero on my G17/RMR that I use in Action Pistol. I was hitting the bottom of the X ring at 50 yards, so I adjusted my zero to be at the top of the X ring at 50 yards. BTW, I shot an all-time best group with that Glock yesterday, 2″ at 50 yards, from the prone. I’ve never shot Glocks very well, so that was pretty thrilling. No doubt it was just statistical probability at work, combined with some luck. Anyway, today I went to an Action Pistol match with JAG, KNOWING I would shoot very well.
My first stage was the mover, and at 10 yards, I normally have no issue keeping them in the X ring. Not today. All of them were low in the 10 ring, with one in the 8! What was going on? My dot was dropping low on every shot. After I consciously adapted and made sure to have a perfect trigger release, the issue went away. When the stage was over, JAG asked me if when I had zeroed my Glock yesterday, had I shot it first, or last, after the 100 or so rds I put through a new 1911. I had shot the Glock first, then finished the range session with the 1911. I left the range, unconsciously adapted to controlling .45 hardball recoil, rather than the 9mm I was carrying and competing with.
The old adage about the one gun man is pretty straightforward, but it doesn’t just have to do with the manual of arms or trigger pull. It also addresses grip angle and recoil control. These points are not insignificant, and I think I will make an effort only to shoot my Glock for a while. This will be hard to do as I have several posts coming up on some other guns. Not to mention hunting season is almost here and I need to get some practice in with my hunting pistol.
Excuses aside, if you only shoot one gun, you will be better off. If you have to shoot more than one gun, make sure you finish each session with some rounds from your carry gun. Otherwise, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise when you try to draw and shoot at an unconscious level.
That is definitely something that warrants serious consideration – thanks for posting.
Thank you, hopefully none of us make this mistake again!
This is timely, I am currently learning a new pistol, my first SAO with safeties, a CZ TS2 Racing Green, and I’ve installed flat safeties on it so I can grip it the same way I grip my Shadow 2s. Learning to flip the safety off during the draw and presentation has proven to be a, well, challenge. I finished up my live fire practice on Saturday with that gun, and then grabbed my S2 to just run it for a few mags, and man, my brain was all weird with the not needing to apply and then remove safeties, just as it had been weird to not decock the TS2 at the start with it. Then, today, I grabbed the TS2 to do some dry practice and completely messed everything up, reverting back to what I do with the S2. I did not expect this to be such drama.
It can definitely be an issue. Please let us know how it works out.
Spent the night shooting Steel Challenge at my club tonight, with only the TS2, first few passes were a bit rough, but I settled in decent by the second stage (we run the same stage all night on one range each week, so 8 weeks to get through them all). I am going to leave the S2 alone until after my next IPSC match, when I’ll pick it up and start practice for the World Shoot (is JAG going? if so, are you going?)
Neither of us will be at the world shoot, but enjoy it and good luck!
Are the safeties ergonomic for you? I switch between various guns fairly frequently, but it is certainly not an ideal practice. In my case, I had large chunks of my life where all I shot was 1911’s. Then all i shot were Glocks, then all I shot were DA/SA. I try to dryfire for a minute whenever I switch and that seems to help tremendously.
The safeties are definitely not ergonomic for me. They never are, on any gun I’ve ever tried. Hence the reason I’ve stayed with DA/SA guns for so long. But, with flush safeties, and proper beatings, I can learn to flip them off during the draw. Any of the oversized safeties that everyone else uses, results in my support hand jamming up into them as they are in the way of my grip. Flush safeties I can just have my normal grip and ignore them once my grip is established.
It’s one of the areas of firearms design that I still think is lacking. No one has updated the manual safeties and their position since the first guns, that are still popular today, first came out.
The only gun with a safety that is ergonomic for me is the 1911. The M&P is not too bad, but nothing else really comes close. Everyone”s hand is truly unique in dimension and so a medium glove may have a large palm and short fingers, or a small palm and long delicate fingers, or…you get the point. As long as you can make your choice of guns work, we can’t ask for much more. Being forced to use DA/SA guns is one of the better things in life, lol. I’m tempted to do a DA/SA only class some time, but I think I’d be on the line talking to myself!
1911’s are even worse for me, especially the grip safety, which I’d pin if I was forced to use one, but the thumb safeties are even worse than the CZ type. Although I’ve shot a couple of guns some friends have, that have really slim safeties that sit flush to the grip, but are easy to hit, so my grip works on them, but I don’t see a need to add one of them to the safe.