[trooper]

Hi guys,

here's another question from someone living in gunhater's paradise (and I'm not talking about someplace that's 2A-friendly like CA :-)

Our local range where I usually train has only a couple 25yd lanes. We're not allowed to shoot from shorter distances. Drawing from from concealment (or from any kind of holster, for that matter) is also a big no-no. We can basically take our gun to the lane, load it, shoot at the bullseye target in whatever fashion we like, check our score and that's about it.

Can you suggest any drills or interesting exercises that fit into these circumstances AND have some defensive value? I know it's far from being sufficient but I want to make the best of it. Any input will be greatly appreciated.


Thanks in advance,

Trooper

[Glamdring]

Do you have a basement or other area with concrete or brick walls you can use? If so you can dry fire at targets (pictures from mags make good reduced size targets). You can also practice drawing there with dryfire. The brick/concrete walls will provide good backstop for most handguns in cause you screwup and dryfire a loaded gun.

I don't know about handloading in your country but speer makes plastics practice bullets that use just a primer (no gunpowder) with care you can shoot these indoors. The bullets can be reused several times.

[trooper]

Yeah, I do dry-firing exercises every now and then. It's amazing how you can improve in some areas by dry-firing your gun.

However, I was actually thinking about what kind of live-fire drills or exercises I could do on the above mentioned range. When I started training I stayed with slow, static bullseye shooting for a while. Recently I started to do some quick shots, starting from the low ready position, working towards controlled pairs.

Any suggestions?


Regards,

Trooper

[Glamdring]

For live fire changing size of target makes a fair substitute for changing range.

Using a larger target will simulate target being closer. Smaller target simulate greater distance.

I use dryfire for most of my practice. It is cheaper and I think much safer to practice drawing, room clearing, etc with dryfire practice. I don't have a huge budget, so I can't afford to practice many things safely with live fire.

Example, every house or apartment I have lived in, I have practiced clearing with both handguns and long gun. Also get behind cover and think about lines of fire from each position (both mine and goblins).

[Al Thompson]

Trooper, have you considered finding another range? I know IPSC has some participants in Europe. Perhaps a quick visit to their web site could get you some contact information about matches. Go to a couple of matches and find like minded folks.

[trooper]

Nice idea, Al, but unfortunately I'm in a small town in the middle of nowhere close to the Polish border :(

I'm looking forward to moving after my probation time is over, but right now I'm afraid I'll have to make do.


Trooper

[ACP230]

Do you practice shooting your pistol with your weak hand?
A static range is a good place to work on that.

[Double Naught Spy]

We have a couple of ranges nearby like that in Germany. What a pain. Even so, that does not mean you can't get some good drills in that would be beneficial for defensive shooting gun skills.

First, you can work on strong and weak hand firing. Since you are limited in the types of shooting you can do or would do if you could, work on those drills you might otherwise not practice much. Now would be a good time to work on developing your off/weak hand one-handed shooting skills.

One of the critical aspects of the draw occurs after the gun is out of the holster. This drill will work on that aspect, but also be applicable to general gun handling as well. So you start with the gun in your strong hand and to the side of your body as if you had just drawn the gun and rotated to horizontal over the holster. Smoothly and keeping level, bring the gun to the midline of the body where it will mate with the of hand. With the gun captured between the two hands in a proper two-handed hold, thrust it forward to sighted shooting position. It is very important you keep the gun level and pointed toward your target. You should have no bowling arm action or fishing rod casting action. The gun stays level. As the gun goes forward and level, it is being brought up to alignment with the eye. Ideally, the gun's sights will be brought into alignment with the eye and the looking at the target such that you could pull the trigger at that very millisecond. It takes a lot of reps to get this right and to get it consistent. In my case, having the sights properly leveled and aligned at the end of the thrust is not as good as I would like and sometimes I am forced to make a correction before firing. Often, it is just the bobble at the end of the thrust that I have to let settle before pulling the trigger. Slight correction or bobble settling may only take a quarter or half second, but that is a quarter or half I would rather not lose.

A shorter version to work on the end of the draw is to just work from the center of your chest where the hands have joined with the gun, thrust forward to proper shooting position, discharge, and then retract to the center of the chest. Repeat.

Folks noted dry fire drills, and the above can be done as a dry fire drill as well, but live fire is better so that you can see that when the arms reach shooting position that the gun is discharged and ideally the round will be in the center of the target. Repeat until things are smooth, level, and perfectly timed.

----

While shooting, practice getting a second sight picture after firing as you may need to shoot again in real life. Also, don't be quick to pull your gun off target. Shoot, get second sight picture, do a quick scan to verify your situation, then retract the gun. In real life and in competition, folks will shoot and then either be transitioning the gun to another target or reholstering when in fact the target what not neutralized or more targets appear. So get in the habit on not gettng off target too quickly.

-----

Can you combat reload magazines? Put one or two rounds in every mag. Drill (such as above) until lockback and drop the old mag and insert a new mag and drop the slide. Or, drill, draw new mag, reach up and remove partial mag, insert new mag, pocket partial mag.

-----

So you are in a less than ideal situation, you can still make it very helpful to skills development. Since you aren't going to be spending a lot of time drawing, shooting on the move, rapid fire, double taps, etc., you should be able to work on becoming a shooter with an absolutely fantastic first shot all the time and every time, something we all want. You should be able to work on off/weak hand skills until they are nearly as good or as good as strong hand firing...something else we would all like to be able to do.

[Mikul]

Can you bring your own target stands and set targets up closer than 25 yards?

[trooper]

Can you bring your own target stands and set targets up closer than 25 yards?

Nope, unfortunately not. I have to use the full 25yd. lane.

[RustyHammer]

Other than the basic drills (off hand shooting, dry firing, etc.), there are a games that I have made up that I like to play from time-to-time.

(1) "William Tale" ... take a target and see how close you and a buddy can get to the 10 ring without touching it. Assign point values for rings closet to it and add them together for your score. The ring next to the 10 ring get's the highest score. (Sort of a risk vs. reward sort of thing.) Rounds hitting the 10 ring take a huge point penalty. Best score wins. Separate targets of identical size/points for each user make scoring easy.

(2) Moving target ... wiggle the wire holding the target so it dances. Score points based upon target hits. Shots must be taked with "x" number of seconds of wiggling the wire. If that doesn't work, try walking (sort of) in place. i.e. shooting while moving slightly.

(3) Quick load and fire. Sit empty magazine, 20 rounds of ammo and handgun on bench. Contest is for shooter to load 10-rounds in magazine and get off two shots in target area. First one to get off two shots in target area (what ever is decided upon) wins.

(4) Concentration. Make one 8" circle to be target. Each shooter shoots until they miss circle. Most shots in circle (consecutively) wins.

(5) Tick-tack-toe. Make tick-tack-toe target and alternate in three shot sets. First shooter to complete ANY three boxes in a row wins. (No matter who closed / hit the first two.)

(6) 8-ball. Place 8 target stickers on a file folder in random locations (and/or sizes, colors, etc.). First user to hit all 8 stickers wins. High, low, left right, ... vary the targets.

.... just a few "games", but keeps it interesting.

[T.Stahl]

Trooper, just like you I have to make do with a DSB-conformal 25m range.
The berm in front of the target line is pretty low and so we can use longer, more oval shaped targets (No, of course they aren't "Mannscheiben"! ;) Some just call them that.).
Depending on who's present (shooters and RO), we set up the larger targets and practise double taps, reloads or malfunction drills (with blanks or dummies). Shooting bowling pins is also popular.

Is your range indoors or outdoors? Can you shoot at low light conditions? You're a LEO, you can even bring a flashlight. :cool: