CALGUNS.NET has a discussion, available to the public, on our previous post entitled The SIMP Principle. The theory: “A shooter’s skill seems to be in inverse proportion to the number of guns that he brings to the range.” Check out the CALGUNS.NET discussion to see people on both sides of the debate.
I’ve read through the thread on the other board. Some observations.
A few posters focused on the number of guns “owned” rather than “practice with” or something similar. The criticism is trivial, however, because the original article was about guns taken to the range, or in other words, practiced with. Even though “owned” ended up in the other forum’s thread title, it should have been obvious what the true question was.
Many of the posters missed fundamental points when they replied to the question or were guilty of faulty logic.
My reactions to the comments in no particular order.
1. Claim: Not all shooters are equally skilled, and a shooter who is highly skilled with one gun may be more proficient with a second, unfamiliar gun than someone who practices with the second gun all the time.
This is another trivial observation. The SIMP principle relates to development of an individual’s personal proficiency, not to someone else’s proficiency. Mr. A may practice the piano once a month and be better than Mr. B who practices daily; that has no bearing on whether B benefits by practicing every day.
2. Claim: Shooting fundamentals are the same and practice with one gun provides the skills necessary to shoot all guns well.
This is so strange it’s difficult to take it seriously or even know how to respond. In short, though, it’s true there are similarities among guns. Most, for example, have triggers that function in basically the same way. But although both my AR-15s and my Winchester model 52 target rifle have single action triggers, for example, the skills I developed with the .22 target rifle have little relevance to what’s needed for close range, rapid fire with an AR. There’s much more to the latter than a slow, deliberate trigger press while holding a heavy rifle steady on a tiny target. In combat-style pistol shooting, there’s much more to proficiency than sight alignment and trigger control. In addition, the sight usage and trigger control that’s necessary in combat-style shooting is usually very different than that used by precision bull’s-eye shooters.
3. Claim: It may be necessary to experiment with different firearms to determine which one works best for the individual shooter for a particular application.
That wasn’t what the SIMP article was referring to. The claim is true, but it demonstrates a misunderstanding of the point.
4. Claim: Different guns are necessary for different purposes.
Again this is obviously true, but the truism has no bearing on the original point of the SIMP article. Virtually all courses of instruction that cover diverse subjects are broken up into complete blocks to help ensure mastery of one before moving on to something different. I present a day-long orientation course for new department hires on the operation of the SIG P220 pistol and shotgun, but I don’t teach an hour on the pistol, an hour on the shotgun, and then back to another hour on the pistol.