I was a range officer for a practical-type pistol match today.
Most of the participants had never shot any kind of a practical pistol match. So, to simplify things, there was no moving and no drawing. Competitors shot from one position and started from the low ready.
It immediately became obvious that "target shooting" (shooting straight ahead at a single target until the gun is empty) is poor preparation for even a restricted simulation of a shooting encounter like our carefully controlled "pseudo-IDPA" match.
Here are some of the common problems I saw.
Operating the slide after a reload even when the slide had not locked back. Most people were obviously conditioned to operate the slide after putting in a magazine. So in the situation where there was a mandatory reload, nearly all of them put in the fresh magazine and then racked the slide--dumping a live round into the dirt. Almost everyone did this at least once.
General failure of the shooters to shoot within their abilities as well as shooters somewhat lacking in basic shooting skills. One of the stages had the shooters breaking 6 clays at about 10 yards. They were allowed to use 2 magazines to accomplish this task. Several people left clays unbroken, and I think only one competitor managed to break all 6 with only 6 rounds. A big problem was that people were going too fast, but some took plenty of time and emptied both magazines without breaking them all.
General failure to grasp the idea that HITTING the targets is the MAIN point--NOT simply shooting the proper number of rounds (as in normal target shooting). Several competitors stopped shooting the stages with rounds left in the gun even though they had one or more misses. Since this never happened on the clays stage, I think this indicates the importance of reactive targets in this kind of training although clearly you don't want people getting into the idea that a single hit is good enough either.
Reloading problems galore including:
* An obvious reticence to let magazines fall to the ground during reloads while at the same time not knowing what to do with ejected mags. Some would pull them out with the weak hand and then drop them while others would pull them out and then fumble around a bit trying to figure out what to do with them before dropping them. I saw only one or two shooters who let their mag release do all the work.
* Some odd mag extraction and insertion techniques. One guy held the gun by the slide with his strong hand during reloads. Several others pointed the gun at the sky or off to the side during the reload. One guy seated the magazine by putting his fingers under the floorplate and his thumb over the slide and squeezing.
* Leaving finger on the trigger during a reload.
* Failure to properly seat a magazine during a reload resulting in malfunctions. This happened to several shooters and a couple had it happen more than once.
I think that nearly all of these problems are the result of self-training at the target shooting range. People were trying to do what they normally did when they shot at a single target and that was NOT good for their performance.
Most of the participants had never shot any kind of a practical pistol match. So, to simplify things, there was no moving and no drawing. Competitors shot from one position and started from the low ready.
It immediately became obvious that "target shooting" (shooting straight ahead at a single target until the gun is empty) is poor preparation for even a restricted simulation of a shooting encounter like our carefully controlled "pseudo-IDPA" match.
Here are some of the common problems I saw.
Operating the slide after a reload even when the slide had not locked back. Most people were obviously conditioned to operate the slide after putting in a magazine. So in the situation where there was a mandatory reload, nearly all of them put in the fresh magazine and then racked the slide--dumping a live round into the dirt. Almost everyone did this at least once.
General failure of the shooters to shoot within their abilities as well as shooters somewhat lacking in basic shooting skills. One of the stages had the shooters breaking 6 clays at about 10 yards. They were allowed to use 2 magazines to accomplish this task. Several people left clays unbroken, and I think only one competitor managed to break all 6 with only 6 rounds. A big problem was that people were going too fast, but some took plenty of time and emptied both magazines without breaking them all.
General failure to grasp the idea that HITTING the targets is the MAIN point--NOT simply shooting the proper number of rounds (as in normal target shooting). Several competitors stopped shooting the stages with rounds left in the gun even though they had one or more misses. Since this never happened on the clays stage, I think this indicates the importance of reactive targets in this kind of training although clearly you don't want people getting into the idea that a single hit is good enough either.
Reloading problems galore including:
* An obvious reticence to let magazines fall to the ground during reloads while at the same time not knowing what to do with ejected mags. Some would pull them out with the weak hand and then drop them while others would pull them out and then fumble around a bit trying to figure out what to do with them before dropping them. I saw only one or two shooters who let their mag release do all the work.
* Some odd mag extraction and insertion techniques. One guy held the gun by the slide with his strong hand during reloads. Several others pointed the gun at the sky or off to the side during the reload. One guy seated the magazine by putting his fingers under the floorplate and his thumb over the slide and squeezing.
* Leaving finger on the trigger during a reload.
* Failure to properly seat a magazine during a reload resulting in malfunctions. This happened to several shooters and a couple had it happen more than once.
I think that nearly all of these problems are the result of self-training at the target shooting range. People were trying to do what they normally did when they shot at a single target and that was NOT good for their performance.
