How often have you heard someone denounce “square range” training as being unrealistic and impractical? It’s become almost a sport unto itself… mostly among those who don’t have the guts to try shooting sports, but that’s another issue.
The argument essentially boils down to this: Because there are other things in addition to raw shooting skill that matter “in a fight,” raw shooting skill doesn’t matter.
In formal logic, they refer to such a thought process as stucking fupid. (ok, maybe they don’t really but…)
The idea apparently is that spending time on the range improving your hard skills is a waste of time. Shooting to a standard is a waste of time. Basically, shooting well is a waste of time.
To borrow a line from a friend who, as a retired Indianapolis cop has been involved in a number of gunfights: There are a lot of things I can’t control in a fight. One thing I can control is my shooting skill. I may not need a fast draw or fast reload. I may not need to take a low percentage shot. But how will I know until I get there? In almost two decades as a serious student, in over a hundred classes taken or taught, in countless hours talking to gunfight victors, I’ve yet to meet one who said he felt like he had wasted time practicing too much.
The “square range is bad” crowd usually calls upon one or more of the following arguments:
- my [insert favorite gimmicky piece of gear] doesn’t work well on the range but it’s not intended for the range, it’s intended for killin’ zombies! If your gear cannot even hack it on a square range under minimal pressure, how in the world will it get better under life-and-death stress?
- it doesn’t matter how well you shoot on the range, what matters is how you do [in a shoot house, in FOF, when your hair is on fire]! Just like saying your gear somehow magically gets better under stress, now your own shooting skill is actually going to improve when your life in in danger?
- standing on the range punching holes in paper is nothing like being shot at! Being shot at without being able to return fire effectively is probably nothing like shooting the other guy first, either, stud.
If you take classes from — or just read AARs about — instructors who come from Tier One military backgrounds you’ll see a universally common theme. Every single one of them stresses very high level gun handling skills. Every single one of them has objective square range standards involving a balance of speed and accuracy. They’ve seen first hand that “square range” skill is the foundation upon which all the rest is built.
It doesn’t mean that shoot houses and force-on-force are bad. It doesn’t mean that your planned, calm, 1-second draw from concealment on the range will translate into a 1-second draw when you’re ambushed by muggers. It doesn’t mean that classes dealing with tactics and mindset and such should be ignored. But people with brain cells and experience all seem to come to the same conclusion: the better you shoot, the better you’ll shoot.
Or to steal a line from my friend Jack Leuba of F2S Consulting — a veteran Marine with multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan — “Good hits really fast is a great tactic.”
Who am I to argue with that?
(photo courtesy JV)
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
Preach it Todd!
I note that Jim Cirillo got his initial “experience” being a PPC shooter and using handguns to hunt deer. PPC is one of the gun games that make people invent other gun games that were more “tactical” because it wasn’t tactical enough and wasn’t “realistic”.
Apparently being able to hit a very small target repeatedly from the 50 yard line while using a barricade isn’t tactical.
The fact that Jim was consistently able to shoot bad guys when presented the opportunity to do so (often on small fleeting partial targets), and shoot them before they shot him, proved to be a great tactic.
The entire shooting sport can be summed up as MAKING HOLES WHERE THEY COUNT.
All other things being equal, when it becomes necessary to put bullets into the anatomy of bad people to preserve your life, more skill is always going to be better than less.
This post rocks, and will be linked to a lot.
Amen! I heard this just last week as we qualified.
I think it’s a uniquely male thing. I figured that since I was a dude I would automatically be a really good track driver. It turns out I wasn’t – and my “real world” driving got WAY better after I received track instruction and experience. It’s the same way with shooting. Everyone you talk to “grew up around guns” and figures they have an innate natural ability that will save them, just as I figured that driving since I was 14 would make me a good driver on a proper track.
The same thing also happened when MMA came around and showed everyone that a lot of traditional martial arts are severely lacking when it comes to fight training. A lot of men who figured they were good fighters via the fact that they were men (and maybe trained as kids or something) fell back on the excuse that “MMA is for sport, my fighting style is for the street!” Mmm hmm. I’m sure not practicing – or practicing the wrong things – will really help you when your life depends on it.
Now, let me tell you about the time I thought that as a man I would automatically be good at fencing, and I agreed to a match against a guy from the university fencing club… It did not go well…
“There are a lot of things I can’t control in a fight. One thing I can control is my shooting skill.”
Quality stuff.
Epic post! Thanks!
I get the feeling that “range practice and gun games are unrealistic” is shorthand for “I can’t even hit the berm from 7 yards, and need a calender to time my draws and reloads”.
You know, kind of like how “acceptable combat accuracy” = “groups like a shotgun pattern”.
The other day i was at the range and saw this annoying, loud little dude acting as if he was the second coming of Dave Sevigny. The idiot was trying to teach a girl how to shoot she was doing pretty decent until this idiot got a hold of her told her to death grip the gun with her strong hand and to lean away from the gun. Next he picked up the gun to show her how it was done and was managing incredible 8 inch groups at the amazing distance of 5 yards. It was just hillarious to hear this dude gloat about his supposedly superhuman shooting abalities, how much he thought he knew about guns and the reason why he wears gloves in 90 degree weather. Not happy with that he began to tell the young lady how all shooting sports are a waste of time yards and how shooting beyond five yards is a waste of ammo. A direct knock at us as he saw how we were wearing IPCS gear and praticing transitions from 10, 15 and 25 yards. We just dimissed as very special and laughed our asses off. We’re think about giving him a bicycle helmet so he can complete his very special look.
I would be very interested in your take on the time and resource split between skill and tactics assuming one is only able to attend training once, maybe twice a year.
But will square range work prepare me to make head shots on the run from the “half hip” (point shooting position) with my airsoft trainer? 😉
I appreciate the post. I’ve been hitting the range more from the persuasive nature of this webpage. I’m learning much and my shooting is improving (at least based on my IDPA scores).
In a few weeks, I’m even taking a pistol survival class from some weird tall dude named Ken Hackasomthing. But, I think in this one, its not a square range we on. Instead, he’s got us shooting at real life zombies wandering around eating Hot Pockets. Practical stuff.
“Being shot at without being able to return fire effectively is probably nothing like shooting the other guy first, either, stud.”
Priceless.
Darn — you mean in a crisis we won’t rise to the occasion, but rather default to our level of training.
Great post. ““square range” skill is the foundation upon which all the rest is built” That’s right. Square range training is not simunition force-on-force or whatever you think is the ultimate. You have to walk before you can run. If you can’t hit a target standing still you won’t magically be able to hit it when you’re moving. The stress of someone trying to kill you will make your performance worse, not better.
Ken, Brian Searcy of Tigerswan was quote in SWAT some time back saying “it all begins with the ability to hit a single target with one round” (or words to that effect). I always liked that quote.
That said, the “tactical” vs. “game” vs. “drills” debates get a little tiresome overall, and there is certainly room in each for blame, and oftentimes people cherry-pick items here and there just to have things to run down the other group(s).
Lou261 — First, I think you need to define what “tactics” means. The word gets overused (tactical pistol, tactical pen, tactical toilet paper). Let’s look at shooting on the move:
Is shooting on the move a “tactic?” Of course. But it’s also a technical skill. Teaching someone how best to shoot on the move is technique; teaching someone when to shoot on the move, where to move to, and why are “tactics.”
The training philosophy of which Todd comments upon seems to be doctrine at most LE agencies of immediate concern to me.
Jesus wept.
A quote I stole off of Southnarc’s site;
“You can’t go as deep training as in a race or a fight. If you don’t compete it’s easy to convince yourself you’re going hard. You’re not.” Mark Twight
My military trainers (most of whom had in country time in Vietnam) seemed to think the better you could shoot the less necessity there would be to use one’s running ability.
I felt that wasn’t the whole story and added IPSC competition to the mix for the muscle memory training in drawing and firing accurately… as well as volunteer time on the range as RO training others and conducting events..
A mix of target shooting, combat pistol competition, and informal plinking at various ranges seems to keep my hand and eyes in sync these days..
I wouldn’t know how all that affects my shooting abilities in “Read Life” since the four or five incidents I’ve been in were solved by the mere presence of weapons in the hands of the Good
Guys…
One happened as my hand was already on my carry gun getting ready to pull it out of the box and drop it in my holster, two were thieves breaking in to my house and car who listened very carefully to my instructions while watching the pistol in my hand as if it had a will of it’s own, and two were solved by muggers becoming aware that I was armed and willing to hurt them much worse than they wanted to experience that particular day…
With decades of experience training others, practice on practical and “square” ranges, carrying firearms daily, competing in target and practical events, and hunting in season… I’m not sure I feel qualified to critique anyone’s preferences in training regimens…
My bottom line is that in the last 58 years not only did I have the means to defend, but I’ve never run across anyone who wanted to hurt me as badly as they were afraid of getting hurt themselves…
Just lucky I guess!
Todd:
Thirty five years ago, large parts of the Army had the same philosophy, though I never heard the “square range” term. Firefights were different, you see, and besides artillery won battles, so much of our infantry was never taught to shoot their M-16’s accurately. They fired some rounds at pop-up targets, were then “qualified” and fired maybe 60 rounds a year thereafter on annual “qualifications.” They could not hit the broad side of a barn, of course.
Contrast that with a Navy SEAL named R.J. Thomas who won the Navy Cross in 1969. You can find differing accounts, but essentially the helicopter Thomas was on was shot down, Thomas was wounded and armed only with a .45 but protected the badly wounded pilot and himself from being overrun by the VC with that .45, hitting VC from 100 meters on in.
Thomas was able to do this because he was a “square range” expert. He was a member of the Navy’s pistol team at the National Matches, and his skill at 25 yards allowed him to hit at 100. He held off several squads of VC with nothing more than a .45 precisely because he could hit accurately and at long range.
If you want to be really good at something you have to be really good at the basics and Thomas was one of many who have shown just how important that can be.
Yawn… are people still debating “square range shooting vs FoF or point shooting?
Anyone that carries a gun on the street to protect their life and the lives of others must realize that traditional training methods along with FoF and point shooting specific training is going to produce a better, more capable shooter that competition is not able to replicate.
I have participated in all of these things and find merit in all of them. I think the nay sayers have simply never done the very training that they dump on, as a
sorry, I accidently submitted my last comments before I was done.
As I was saying…..I have participated in all of these things and find merit in all of them. I think the nay sayers have simply never done the very training that they dump on, as a well run training course in Modern Technique, Force on Force and Point Shooting will change the way you look at and approach the different shooting disiplines.
Whenever people dump on fundamentals in anything, I just yawn and walk away.
Maybe some people are “Too good for the basics”.
I’m not.
square range practice is great and yes, you must master the fundamentals before moving on. But it also important that you can train your guys to employ those mechanical fundamentals in a practical setting. This is the biggest challenge Ive encountered training my guys.
WoW, people still crying that a square range training session is not valid for real life shooters????? Dang, I missed the boat.
I’ve had 3 officers involved in shootings come in and thank me for making them practice, practice, practice “square” range drills until they could do them in their sleep…. saved their lives.
Now, I do believe that FoF and tactical training needs to be part of your training, to provide them “tactical” skills on how to recognize they are about to be in a shooting, how to recognize how to look for cover and move to it while shooting, how to shoot at moving targets while moving etc. A well rounded training program will give an officer confidence and skills to shoot well. I’ll take a “square” range drill day anytime to keep my fundamentals sharp. Then use them when doing FoF drills. Sure hate to go up against me in a gunfight.
I think you have gone in the wrong direction with this. The gripe to which I believe you are referring really comes down to people going to the range, firing 50 rounds at a target and then going home believing they’re prepared for an actual fight. Worse, they think they’re prepared for any encounter, including the one where the bad guy has them in a clinch and is trying to stab them.
What you’re talking about is a whole different level of performance…one those people cannot even begin to entertain.