22 May 2013

Gets Me Out of the House: Tactical Response Fighting Pistol

Suns Out, Guns Out
Missile Away!
Get Comfortable
Hey what are you doing in your free time?
Oh nothing much. Just, you know, stuff. Took some shooting classes.

Yeah like what?
Fighting Pistol with Tactical Response.

Was it good?
It was excellent. Highly recommended.

Got any pictures?
Yeah, a few.

Let's see 'em.
Ok.

Nice. Anything I should look for in these photos besides how amazing your ass looks in those pants?
No. Gaze in wonderment at the firmness of my posterior. I work out, if you hadn't heard. 

I was kidding about the pants. In related news: You're a douche.
Okay, yeah, couple points of interest.

As in?
Well, in the top photo, you can see my trigger finger is where it belongs, and the gun is coming straight up and out of the holster, elbow mostly back. It's actually not a bad draw. It's not textbook perfect, but I've seen worse.

What else?
This is slow aimed fire at 3 yards, and all my shots are in the 3.5" circle.

Is that good?
Depends how fast you're shooting, how far away you are, and if you're moving or not. In this case: no it's not good. It's just not bad. These DEA dots are a common baseline accuracy test. Class was basic level so there were a variety of skill levels among the students.

Are you just saying that? Because it looks good to me.
Shooting what you're aiming at always looks good. But: No, it's not 'good' in this instance. It's the equivalent of driving down the freeway in a car and not crashing. Yeah it takes some practice but almost anyone can do it.

Aww, is it that easy? 
For this type of shooting, yes. I will say that it's better than the guy to my left and right. See all the tape on their targets? You only tape the misses. No tape = you're doing something right. But: slow aimed fire at 3 yards, if you're missing a DEA dot you're either new or bad. The guy to my left was new; the guy on my right was struggling with his gun. His grip sucked, and I don't know that he ever really got it sorted out because he would fix it, then revert to his bad grip the next time he drew his gun.

What does a bad grip look like?
Funny you should ask. The picture of us seated shows a guy with a textbook firing grip on a Glock (black shirt, arms extended, foreground), a not very good grip from the shooter #3, my grip, and barely visible in the far distance you can make out the bad crossed-thumbs grip from the stout fellow to my right (aka shooter # 5). If you compare targets 2, 3, 4, and 5 in the second photo with the grips of shooters 2, 3, 4 and 5 you'll notice that the shooters with a good grip are hitting the target consistently, and the shooters with poor grips are not. This is not a coincidence.*

Wow I'm asleep. Can we talk about something else?
Uh yeah, sure. Did you see the new Star Trek movie?

ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
No? You still there?

*The seated photos were taken several hours later in the day than the first two but I promise that the targets looked consistent throughout.

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