Training Question (edit - IPSC/IDPA competition worthwhile for training?)

[Chris Rhines]

I've got a one word answer for this: Newhall. Unless the official reports or officer dying with the expended casings from their revolvers in their hands or in their pockets (whichever version you choose to belive) is totally false, you can't possibly make that statement and be credible.

Sorry, Jeff, but there's no indication that any of the officers involved in the Newhall shooting were competitive shooters. Further, there is no form of pistol competition anywhere that requires the shooter to pocket their expended brass. Just a silly range regulation that compounded poor offical training.

I stand on my previous statements.

- Chris

 

[ShackleMeNot]

I think I know of one example of an IPSC shooter using very poor tactics and getting killed in a gun fight. It was a story I heard about a year ago and I'm contacting the person who told me to get all the details straight.

 

[Chris Rhines]

SMN -

I'll be interested to hear.

- Chris

 

[GoRon]

This is especially evident in patrol rifle and tactical rifle training when you run every exercise as if it's a fight. The officer is used to working the weapon in his hand. Should he run out of ammunition or have a malfunction he'll most likely fumble with trying to load or clear the malfunction when his target is 7 meters away instead of transitioning to the handgun on his hip.

The individual I train under takes a group of us to Missouri every year for training at the club that houses Chapman Academy.

Just got back from there a couple of weeks ago.

He specifically told us on the shotgun stages that if we had issues with the shotgun, transition to the pistol instead of trying to get the gun working.

Sure enough, on two occasions the guys having issues played with the shotgun to get it working instead of staying in the fight.

Not only did they have the stress of malfunctions but they had Jack our instructor yelling to them to forget the shotgun and use the pistol!

 

[Matthew Temkin]

Jeff White..we have been down this road before.
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=177949&highlight=matthew+temkin
And I see the usual suspect(s) are back.

 

[BullfrogKen]

Oh no. . . .

 

[hydrashok407]

I'm actually writing an article on this very topic.

Regarding the "gun games", there are some very good training values that IPSC and IDPA matches can offer up to the shooter. The issue is not whether you do or do not get any good training out of the games, the issue is "what kind".

There are MANY factors in proficiently carrying a firearm. Most of those factors have to be honed individually. The gun games are excellent for working on quick target acquisition and firing on the move.

The fact is, the "gun games" aren't the be-all end-all of proficiency training. If you haven't already mastered the basics, then you shouldn't be participating in the matches yet, you should still be honing the fundamentals. The time and place for that would be on a "square range".

Just because you've mastered the basics, and are now participating in such matches does not mean you're finished, either. Your skills must be maintained.

The military training model utilizes the "crawl, walk, and run" phases. They start with basic marksmanship classes. They move on to the range phase. They move on to tactical movement techniques. They move on to dry fire CQC (close quarters combat). Then they conduct several different types of exercises. However, even after they've moved on to CQC live fire exercises, they still re-train on basic marksmanship.

Participate in the "gun games" matches, but don't forsake the range. You can also move on to force-on-force practice with either paintball or airsoft practice... that'll get you working on your cover and concealment

 

[Bix]

Ron,

Having shot with your crew a couple times, I wouldn't worry too much about engraining bad tactics. You have an excellent instructor.

During times when I don't have access to a dynamic range, I go to a square range and work on marksmanship: run dot drills, abbreviated quals and standards, etc. These exercises are devoid of -and distinct from- tactics. But they certainly have value.

I see competition shooting as the same thing - working on marksmanship skills on a square range. I incorporate tactics where possible [and occassionally get penalized for the relfexive lateral sprint out of the shooters' box on a reload]. But - just like shooting dots in the lanes at the gunshop - that's not the focus. I'm working on trigger press, target transition, calling my shots.

I've been to plenty of formal classes that make the same distinction. Some time is spent on simple gunhandling and marksmanship drills, without any tactical consdierations - and other time is spent 'training as you fight'.

I think if you approach competition as simply a venue to work on the marksmanship/skill-at-arms component of the survival hierarchy, and you are scrupulous about not neglecting the remaining components, you don't risk all that much - and you stand to gain quite a bit.

 

[Jeff White]

Chris Rhines said;

Further, there is no form of pistol competition anywhere that requires the shooter to pocket their expended brass. Just a silly range regulation that compounded poor offical training.

Don't you unload your weapon after every stage? Isn't that just a silly range regulation that you will likely automatically do under stress? Won't many repetitions of that compound poor training? Of course it will and you know that just as well as I do.

IPSC or IDPA are not gunfights. They are very poor simulations of dynamic encounters. They are scored on accuracy and time, not on how well the shooter actually solved the problem. It's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking you are good because you can shoot an El Presidente in a good time. All that proves is that you can shoot an El Presidente. That's it. It's no indication of how you will perform in a fight.

Matches like that are easy to score. So many "A" zone hits in so much time. There is much more to fighting. The problem is, judging who solved the problem best would be very subjective and lead to endless arguments. It would also be very time consuming. The only true way to learn is from a detailed after action review, ideally including video. You don't do that after every run through a stage in a match. The only feedback you get is on speed and accuracy. In a match you have so mny rounds to solve a shooting problem. If you drop your headshot low into the jaw when shooting a failure drill that's it, you only get so many rounds for that stage. In a fight, you're definately going to want to fix that mistake and shoot your attaker again. Matches make no provision for that. So once again, you're spending a lot of time and effort training to something you wouldn't want to do in a real fight. And, because you're training on a square range with other shooters of unknown safety habits, you are training on bad habits, like waiting for the buzzer to begin solving the problem and unloading your weapon at the end of every stage. Pat Rogers said that when he was competing, he used to drive the range officers crazy because at the end of a stage, he would tacload his pistol, holster, and only then go admin and unload his weapon.

I've seen enough people go on autopilot when on the range and automatically do things the way they've always done them instead of the way they are supposed to do them for a different iteration and read enough reports of actual gunfights that I am a firm believer in training how you will fight.

Competition is fun. You can learn to shoot fast and accurately from it. You can learn to handle your weapon well. But you aren't learning to to fight and because of the constraints of the game (so much ammunition per stage, reloads at unrealistic times, clearing all weapons at the end of a stage) you're training to do things that could get you killed in a real fight.

Of the three legs of the combat triad: Mindset, Marksmanship and Manipulation marksmanship is the least important. Yet it is the most important part of competition. Competition trains a competition mindset, not a fighting mindset. And the two are vastly different.

Jeff

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Of the three legs of the combat triad: Mindset, Marksmanship and Manipulation marksmanship is the least important.

Marksmanship may be the least important of the three of the combat triad, but if you need it, it is critical. It is hard to call something least important when it is critical.

I would offer not so much that it is least important any more than any three of the ABCs of medical rescue are least important (airway, breathing, cardio). They are all critical even if they have a normal sequence of being addressed.

Instead, I would offer up that of the combat triad, marksmanship may be the least often needed skill, not the least important.

Of course, that is semantic and was meant to be. I did appreciate the overall gist of what you wrote and agree.

 

[tford]

Marksmanship

I have, and do teach firearms marksmanship. I will tell you that no matter what other diciplines you may have, unless you can end the fight (hit the target,) all else is for naught!

An Englishman in the 1800's once said that the best way to improve marksmanship, is the bayonet drill! The advent of the "spray and pray" 15 round semi-auto pistol has ruined many a good shot, and shows no sign of letting up!

Back to the basics my friends, most gun fights (7 yards or less,) last less than three seconds, and use up less than 1.5 shots, so why the three clip's?

Tom

 

[10-Ring]

I like going to the occassional IDPA match just to shoot w/ a diff't set of guys and to shoot at more than a target down a lane...plus you can learn something about how you can react to some degree of pressure...and it's alot of fun!

 

[Chris Rhines]

Don't you unload your weapon after every stage?

Um, yeah, but that's kind of a far cry from putting the brass in my pocket when I reload.

Isn't that just a silly range regulation that you will likely automatically do under stress?

Is it a silly range regulation, yes. Were I in charge, all USPSA matches would be run as hot ranges (incidently, I made that same remark to a couple of professional USPSA shooters at the 2006 Summer Blast, and was surprised that they agreed with me.) Sadly, I'm not in charge.

Will I likely do it under stress? I've never had the occasion to attend a live gunfight. But I haven't at any of the hot-range force-ex simulations I've attended, nor any of the training classes I've been to. So, no.

Won't many repetitions of that compound poor training? Of course it will and you know that just as well as I do.

While it may be a problem for others, my experience indicates exactly the opposite.

IPSC or IDPA are not gunfights. They are very poor simulations of dynamic encounters. They are scored on accuracy and time, not on how well the shooter actually solved the problem.

Sigh.

In practical shooting, the "measure of how well you solved the problem" is your score, based on accuracy and time. Of course they're not gunfights, and nor are they training for them. I've never claimed otherwise. Anyone who treats USPSA or IDPA as a training exercise is a self-deluded idiot. Hence my original claim - if you're going to shoot in practical competition, shoot to win according to the rules. Otherwise you're wasting your time.

As for competition shooting ingraning bad habits, I can only offer my own experience on that - as I said above, it's never happened to me. By all accounts, USPSA shooters aren't exactly dying like flies out on the street.

- Chris

 

[Chris Rhines]

A couple of more general comments on training, speaking from my position as an interested bystander...

I intensly dislike the concept of "reflexive training" as applied to combat shooting. It seems, to me, ineffective and quite likely dangerous.

A gunfight is a very dynamic situation - no two will ever be alike. In order to prevail, the shooter has to process a huge amount of incoming information, discard the irrelevant, and act upon the important. And he has to do it faster than the other guy(s). Gunfights also have rules, just like on the range (or in a match.) Things like agency rules of engagement, laws regarding the use of lethal force, and so on. If you're out on the street doing it for real, the rules are important, because violating them means offical sanction, prison, or death. It's critical that the shooter at all times knows which set of rules he's operating under.

With that in mind, fighting cannot be instinctive. Within a micro sense, certain actions one takes in a fight should be instinctive - for example, one should not have to think about "front sight, press trigger, follow through." Or, "Tap, rack, assess..." Those kind of elements of marksmanship and gunhandling exist only within the sphere of the shooter and his personal sphere, and should be drilled to the point of subconcious performance. In the macro sence of the fighter interacting with his environment, this actions have to be thought out.

Comments?

- Chris

 

[AndyC]

My 2 cents - avoid or evade threats where possible. A fight avoided is a fight won, so awareness is my personal highest priority.

Second, accept the fact you can do everything right and still lose - that means you may die or be mutilated/crippled for life. You can be the baddest guy on the planet and still get taken out by an illiterate sheep-herder.

Third, if you can neither avoid nor evade you'll need to fight with all your skills and aggression while remaining switched-on enough to take the best actions to enhance (not guarantee) your chances of survival. There's a lovely concept called "unconscious competence" - taking the right actions without conscious thought. You can also screw-up - yet still win through by working the problem; what's past is past, work the "right now" and do something.

Fourth, relying on a single firearms-sport to train for real-life self-defence encounters is identical to relying on a single eastern martial-art for the same purpose; these are both sports fought in a controlled environment with agreed-upon rules in order to determine who is the best competitor at that game.

Does it mean that those sports are useless? Not to me, nope - but one has to decide what's valuable in them and discard the rest; that choice is an personal one and criticising someone else's choices is like criticising their taste in food. "I'm the only one who's going to taste this steak, so don't tell me how much salt and pepper it needs" kinda thing

It's only when the knives come out that we discover if we chose wisely - and, more importantly, of what we're made.

Edit: Observations above made from "been there, done that" experience.

 

[Jeff White]

tford said;

I have, and do teach firearms marksmanship. I will tell you that no matter what other diciplines you may have, unless you can end the fight (hit the target,) all else is for naught!

Marksmanship is the easiest of the three legs of the combat triad to learn and to teach. Yet it's the one leg that most people train the hardest at. Why? because it provides immediate feedback, makes the shooter feel good about himself and is much more fun then training the repetitive drills that you have to work on to be good at manipulation. If I have to pick someone to go with me in harms way, I'm going to select the guy who can think on his feet and who handles his weapons and equipment like he came out of the womb wearing them, but was only judged a competatnt marksman (by whatever criteria you use) over the master marksman who hasn't got the mindset and who fumbles his presentation and reloads.

Back to the basics my friends, most gun fights (7 yards or less,) last less than three seconds, and use up less than 1.5 shots, so why the three clip's?

Without the right mindset you'll never see the attack coming, without being able to manipulate your weapons and equipment, you'll never present your weapon in time to win the fight, Three magazines, because fights are dynamic, with a lot of movement. And let's not forget that handguns are poor fight stoppers, one or two rounds of anything smaller then oh say a 90mm recoiless rifle may not do the job. What do you do if you've expended all the ammunition in your weapon and the bad guy is still in the fight? What do you do if you know you've made what should be disabling hits and he's still coming and you have no more ammo? Until someone develops the perfect easy to carry weapon weapon that guarantees the mythical one shot stop, I'm carrying reloads.

Chris Rhines said;

As for competition shooting ingraning bad habits, I can only offer my own experience on that - as I said above, it's never happened to me. By all accounts, USPSA shooters aren't exactly dying like flies out on the street.

And just how many gunfights do you think USPSA shooters are involved in? Probably not many. Most gunfights in this country are between criminals or criminals or EDPs and the police. I would bet that the number of gunfights USPSA shooters are involved in each year is so small as to be statistically insignificant.

If you haven't ever not one time, defaulted to something you do in a match when training to actually fight, then you are a rare individual. I'm not saying that I doubt you, because there are some people who can switch between disciplines with no problems. It's been my experience based on years of training Infantrymen and police officers, that most of us aren't that good and we do bring admin habits that we learned on the square range into the fight. We have to watch out for developing our unconscous competance that AndyC mentioned into unconcious competance at the range and having that show up at the fight.

I intensly dislike the concept of "reflexive training" as applied to combat shooting. It seems, to me, ineffective and quite likely dangerous.

There are some things that demand reflexive training. You alluded to gunhandling skills and I agree. But there are also reactions to certain stimuli that need to be trained reflexively. In the Army we called them immediate action drills. You need to have some immediate action drills for the street too. You need to carefully assure that they meet all the legal and moral requirements for self defense where you are at, but you may not prevail if you're not prepared to act immediately when receiving the stimulus to fight.

As an example, you surprise an intruder in your home, he's 26 feet down the hall with his back turned when you turn the lights on. You have time (some, not a lot) to analyze the situation and maybe even issue a verbal challenge.

But you also have to be able to recognize an attack as it's happening and react without thinking about it. React to the stimulus, an immediate action drill. Training for such an event needs to cover all the things you have to consider when making your decision to use force.

Jeff

 

[expvideo]

Without the right mindset you'll never see the attack coming, without being able to manipulate your weapons and equipment, you'll never present your weapon in time to win the fight, Three magazines, because fights are dynamic, with a lot of movement. And let's not forget that handguns are poor fight stoppers, one or two rounds of anything smaller then oh say a 90mm recoiless rifle may not do the job. What do you do if you've expended all the ammunition in your weapon and the bad guy is still in the fight? What do you do if you know you've made what should be disabling hits and he's still coming and you have no more ammo? Until someone develops the perfect easy to carry weapon weapon that guarantees the mythical one shot stop, I'm carrying reloads.

Let me back you up a little bit on that. I always carry 1-2 spare mags and it's not because I doubt my marksmanship. Realistically in a fast paced close quarters gunfight, you can expect to hit with probably less than half of the shots you take. This can be better or worse, but let's just say you get in a gun fight and you average 50% hits. To effectively neutralize the threat you'll probably need about half of your mag if not more.

Now that's kind of a worst case scenario, but let's just say you've shot 10 times and effectively neutralized the threat, leaving 5 rounds in the mag. Personally, this is where I would reload a fresh mag, just in case mr. gangbanger had some friends.

So in my example here, it's not that I think I'll be needing more than 15 rounds to stop an attack, I just want to keep my gun in a ready condition in case the total threat is not over. It may be a little more than I need, but I'd rather have a few too many rounds than not quite enough. You never know when you'll need to shoot or what the situation will be like. You can only hope that the situation will never arrise in the first place.

This is just my take on it. I could be looking at this wrong, so if you have another view on the subject, make sure to share it.

 

[Jeff White]

expvideo said;

Realistically in a fast paced close quarters gunfight, you can expect to hit with probably less than half of the shots you take.

Where are you getting that figure from? LAPD Metro has a much higher hit percentage then that. Realisitically, with good training you can do much better then that. Isn't that the mark we strive to reach by training? It's kind of defeatist to say the best we can expect is a less then 50% hit ratio. The dismal hit ratios of armed citizens and many police departments are directly related to lack of training or inadequate training. What's adequate training is the subject of this thread.

Jeff

 

[kengrubb]

And just how many gunfights do you think USPSA shooters are involved in? Probably not many. Most gunfights in this country are between criminals or criminals or EDPs and the police. I would bet that the number of gunfights USPSA shooters are involved in each year is so small as to be statistically insignificant.

Aren't all that many justifiable homicides each year by private citizens of any shooting experience.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_13.html
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_14.html

The FBI's reporting of justifiable homicides by private citizens has been attacked by Professor Gary Kleck.
http://www.mcrkba.org/PhilLee2Weldon4.html Scroll down to the paragraph beginning "Even cases of DGUs ..."
http://www.claytoncramer.com/firing.html#T8

 

[expvideo]

Where are you getting that figure from? LAPD Metro has a much higher hit percentage then that. Realisitically, with good training you can do much better then that. Isn't that the mark we strive to reach by training? It's kind of defeatist to say the best we can expect is a less then 50% hit ratio. The dismal hit ratios of armed citizens and many police departments are directly related to lack of training or inadequate training. What's adequate training is the subject of this thread.

I guestimated 50% because I couldn't find a link to Crimson Trace's claim of 30% average for LEOs. I was being optimistic. I'm not talking about good circumstances at a well-lit range. Remember I said "worst case scenario". I would hope to get MUCH better than 50% hits, but if the person is close and swinging a bat in a very dark alley, I'll probably be scoring less perfect hits than at the range. Remember that any circumstance will be different from another, and you will not always have adaquite lighting, perfect sight picture, etc. Yes, you can accomplish much better than 50% in good conditions. But in bad conditions, this can vary greatly.

EDIT: I should clarify that I'm not just talking about a perfect weaver stance either. If you're shooting from the waist at a person running at you with a knife your object is generally to send as many bullets in his direction as quickly as possible, not to slowly aim and make sure your stance is correct.

 

[kengrubb]

OIS hit ratios

http://www.ncjrs.gov/app/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=203152
when an officer becomes involved in an OIS [officer-involved shooting] the hit ratio is somewhere around 12 to 18 percent.

Here's the article in it's entirety.
http://www.policemag.com/t_cipick.cfm?rank=89189

 

[expvideo]

Thank you Kengrubb.

 

[Jeff White]

Ken,
All anyone can do is guess at the number of defensive firearm uses where shots were not fired or shots were fired and no one was hit. There isn't ever going to be a reliable way to track those incidents. One also has to wonder how many of the justifiable homicides on the UCR were actual cases of a real good guy killing a real bad guy in self defense, and how many of them were two bad guys in a disagreement that wound up in a killing?

Contrary to what various factions in politics, the media, the pro and anti gun advocates would have you believe, we live in a pretty safe society. If you make some smart choices in your life, like picking the right neighborhoods to live in and conduct business in and picking the right people to associate with, your chance of becoming a victim of a violent attack is pretty slim.

when an officer becomes involved in an OIS [officer-involved shooting] the hit ratio is somewhere around 12 to 18 percent.

Neither the abstract or the article gives a source for that statistic. I suspect it's maybe as old as the late 1970s early 1980s. If I have time, I'll look for newer data at work tonight. Even if the 12-18% is still a valid number the only conclusion you can draw from it is that overall, police firerms training is woefully inadequate. I don't think anyone would argue that point. It wasn't until last year that the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board even required any department to even conduct any firearms training above the basic course (currently 40 hours). Until last year it was possible for an Illinois officer to fire his weapon in his basic class and never fire it again for the rest of his career. So you're drawing this 12-18% figure with no baseline of training to reference it against. Some departments and specialized units within departments that have effective training programs are hitting above 80% in actual gunfights.

I think we all can agree that this thread is discussing training methods so that we can rise above the average.

Jeff

 

[expvideo]

No offense Jeff, but you aren't quoting reliable sources either. the fact of the matter is that in intense close quarters gunfights, you can not expect 100% hits, even with adaquite training. We can only strive to obtain the highest percentage through training, but asking 80% is asking a lot. Again you have to understand that some gunfights will allow you to obtain good hit ratios, and some fights are over in a matter of seconds with relatively low hit ratios. There's never going to be an accurate way to measure this, since there is no "control" to measure against. In a fight of that close of quarters, you take the best shot you can. Sometimes that's one well aimed cerebral shot, and sometimes that's 6 quick and sloppy shots from the hip.

The problem with this arguement is that anyone could quote 10% with a reliable source, and anyone could quote 80% with a different reliable source. That's because there is no standard and there is no way to measure this. So I think we're beating a dead horse here. I was trying to give an example to reinforce your statement, not get in an arguement over semantics.

 

[BlackWidow]

Ron,

In my opinion you need to take the next step. You are very lucky that your instructor runs a hot range and teaches tactics like the police use. That is rare in the civilian realm. Maybe you could go up to the range and shoot with the Thurs. night guys, watch what "Chief" does. Now there is a cop who is both fast and tactical. There are lots of good shooters Thursday nights and another chance to practice. Another awesome police officer shooter that I have had the pleasure of shooting with is Rob Vogel see here: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQY/is_2_52/ai_n15978700/pg_1

I just shot on a squad at the Border Disorder with a police officer from Orlando who is an excellent shooter. I'm just saying that you can be tactical and good at the same time.

Maybe in the Spring you could shoot some of the local club matches for practice, you can find a match in the area most every weekend. You will surely see people that you know there.

Another thing that I have learned is that you can learn something from most everybody, take some classes with different instructors, you may pick up something you hadn't thought of. Here's a couple of local resources, again, both run by cops who are great shooters:

http://www.midwesttraininggroup.net

http://www.firearmstrng.com

Before the last match I shot, a friend started to push me, we had shot together many times and he made some keen observations about what I needed to do. I listened to him (sometimes you just need to hear it from someone new) and performed quite well at the match. (Thanks Chris)

You are already in the top three of our group so you can only get mo' better.

see ya,

I'm bringing cookies