Train or Train Not; There is No Magic

"Do or do not...." the wise old Master Yoda once told a disparaged Luke Skywalker when trying to impart Jedi knowledge. "...There is no try." 

While us Earthlings lack hokey tricks like the Force or light sabers and clairvoyance we do have trusty blasters.  But, these blasters also come with a wise caveat for our ever mortal endeavors: Train or Train Not, There is No Magic.

When we choose to take up arms, we do not do so lightly.  It is no trivial task to take personal charge of your safety.  It should not be taken lightly nor without due regard.

Yet, as an observation, many who do fail to secure proper training with their newfound instrument of self-defense.  Or, perhaps, after obtaining a paltry 3-16 hours of train fail to obtain more or even practice what was learned.

Shooting is a perishable skill.  That is fact.  Indisputable, cold, hard fact.  Even more so is the art of gun fighting.  Oh, you may possess the will, but muscles that do not remember are a cold comfort to the mind that wishes victory and finds performance...lacking.

Creasy Bear taught us that there is no such thing as tough. Only trained and untrained.  Is that true?  Am I not a badass because I believe it so?  I mean, am I not a badass because I own all the right gear?  That is to say, I am a badass because I took a class in classical bad assery some moons ago.

Sadly, internet commandos, armchair generals, and YouTube operators might have you believing something as silly as, "By buying Product X, currently being fielded in country by Unit Y, that you can achieve the same stellar results."

This is not to say quality gear doesn't have a place or worth.  On the contrary, good gear is good.  But good gear doesn't make a bad shooter an instant "two-way range" bad ass like Revolver Ocelot.

Frankly, there is no substitute for good training.  But good training, like a fruit bearing tree, needs pruning, care, and watering to bring forth good fruit.  You have to maintain training standards. Constantly seek to improve yourself. Seek out new training without believing you have the answers and know everything there is to know.

Beware the man with one gun, for he surely knows how to use it.

Train or Train Not; There is No Magic.

Just because you want it so badly, doesn't mean the combat fairy will come and wave her magic wand over your head when the wolf knocks at your door.  It has been said by better men than I, you will not rise to the occasion, but fall to the highest level of training you have maintained proficiency at.

And that, friends, will happen regardless of what brand pants you're wearing.

The key is constant refreshing.  Constant pushing and improvement.  In a gunfight you most likely won't be able to pick your opponent.  You don't know their level of training or proficiency. But, honestly, that doesn't matter. You are competing against yourself, your last personal best. Your smoothest draw. Your smoothest reload.  

You have to constantly best yourself, because that's your only chance at besting your opponent.

Train hard and train often, but most importantly train (correctly).

Fire Clean Update 8/25/14

So, I have treated my Glock 19 as well as a couple AR15's with Fire Clean and I have to say it does work wonders on carbon.  I still use a bore cleaner (I like MPro-7 or Otis brand), though.  I went shooting today and shot quite a bit.  Speer Lawman 124gr 9mm.  Here are some photos:

Just disassembled the weapon and yes that is a bit of carbon.

I see carbon.  Also, I can see where the bullet nose hits the feed ramp on chambering

This is after wiping with a paper towel.  No brushes yet.  You can see it did a good job just with wiping.  I did later use a brush and Q-tips to clean the deeper nooks.

Again, lots of carbon.

And, again, just wiping it off with a paper towel.

Now, this is not to say that all you need to do is wipe it down and you're good.  I still needed to use Q-tips and a nylon brush to clean the slide and frame, but it took 1/4 of the time to do so since the carbon just wiped away.

Supposedly it treats the surfaces making subsequent cleanings easier.  Time will tell.

Train hard and train often.

Sunday Thought 8/10/14

Just a quick thought today as I already pushed out a decent review of the Griffon Industries HMMS.

Speaking of gear and equipment, particularly with the AR15 platform and variants and then handguns my piece of advice would be this:

Don't be in a rush to add the latest tacti-COOL piece of hardware or upgrade to your weapon.  The fundamentals never change.

I am firm advocate of training to use your AR15 with iron sights before learning how to shoot with an optic.  If you can fight effectively with just irons, then when you "upgrade" to a red dot or holosight, that's just icing on the cake to take your mastered fundamentals to the next level.

Same with handgun upgrades.  Unless you bought a brick like a Hi-Point, there really isn't anything you should be gunning to upgrade at once except for sights on a handgun, especially the Glock.  Stock sights on a Glock should be upgraded at the time your buy your Glock.  That's about the only caveat to gear.

Triggers, optics, barrels (for handguns) should only be explored after you have a firm grasp of the fundamentals and make a stock gun run.  After that the upgrades become enhancements and not crutches.

Train Hard, Train Often.

Sunday Thought

Sitting here, winding the day down after a good, home-cooked meal, thinking as I listen to some music.  I'm thinking a regular Sunday Thoughts might be a good addition to the blog.  We'll see it how it goes.

I've been benched with some injuries preventing me from getting out and shooting some videos, photos, and reviews or training ideas.

So, a thought crosses my mind as I'm reading on the internet (generally a bad idea as the current modern culture seems to have elevated the amateur to the rank of expert with nothing more than a YouTube account, but that's for another day).

Maybe we get too hung up the latest buzz word, dynamic, critical incident, disruptive, tactical or what have you.  While these are all good descriptors, does it matter?

When the metal meets the meat are you dynamic?  Do you find yourself in a critical incident evolving in a disruptive tactical environment?  Does the thought even cross your mind?  Or, do you do as your body tells you and either fight or run?

I'm a big, perhaps the biggest, unknown proponent of training.  I think anyone who carries a gun should train, should get training, and continue to train.  There's no excuse. (This is not a rights discussion.  It's a right, that's a given.  I'm talking about something else here).

But, as I look around and take training, get trained, watch training, read training what I'm finding is a mass opaque lens clouding the vision of many.

Maybe I'm not clear with this.  It is just mostly, rambling thoughts on a Sunday evening.  Here's what I'm getting at:

A gun is a gun.  A bullet is a bullet.  When it breaks flesh it doesn't matter what you call it.  Bullets obey the laws of physics.  A gun can't do anything the laws of nature don't allow.  Cool names are a cold comfort six feet under the earth.  My trigger finger mechanically pulls a trigger causing the gun to mechanical in a variety of ways to strike a primer igniting the gun powder sending a ball of metal towards the target.

You've heard it said: the only things that matter are trigger control and sight alignment.  Two mechanics that are 100% mental when the stress is on.  When the wheels fly off during a stressful situation it's because the driver lost his mind.

Mindset matters perhaps above all else.  Yes, you have to know your gun and how to shoot it, but that is all useless when the metal meets the meat.

I agree there are better ways to do things, this isn't a tactics discussion.  But, if you obtain the superior tactical position, yet freak out and dump rounds no where near the bad guy, while he just stands there calm as a breeze and smokes you, what good did it do?

We, those who live by the gun, need to be physically fit, we need training and to rehearse the training often. But, we cannot neglect the mind.  How do we do this?

I don't know, I'm not a psychologist.  But, I think we do it by training under stress as a start.  Even perhaps as equally important is talking with and hanging out with other warriors who carry the same traits as we do.  Group discussion, group debrief, group hanging out.

Like our ancestors before, gathering around the fire at night and sharing war stories.  Talking shit to each other.  Listening to those who have experience.  Learning from each others mistakes.

We each have to win our own battles and stand on our own when our mettle is tested, but we shouldn't exist outside the culture of warriors.

So, I guess my thoughts are rambling, but that's ok.  One of the perks of this being my blog.  Seek out good training, but don't get caught up on buzzwords.  Buzzwords don't put bullets on target. Focus does.  Discipline does.  Hard work does.  The latest brand touted by X, Y, or Z won't make you the next Elvis of gunfighting.

Gear supports need, but never dictates it.  I don't become a better shooter by shortcut.

Owning a gun does not make you a gunfighter, any more than owning a guitar makes you a rockstar.

Train hard. Train often.

Combat Accuracy

"At least, it's combat accurate...."
"I'm working on combat accuracy...."

Combat accuracy.  Combat accurate.  If you do any kind of firearms training or even purview videos on YouTube about anyone with a word to say about "tactical" firearms training or shooting you're bound to hear these terms being tossed around.

But, what does it mean?  Unfortunately, especially for beginners, the concept of COMBAT ACCURACY is one of the most dangerous and detrimental training scars in the shooting world.

Let me explain:
Here's a common "tactical"paper range drill:
From 5-10 yards draw, lateral step, and engage the target as quickly as you can.  Use a shot timer.

Here's the most common result:
A shotgun effect of rounds all over the torso of the target that, under any other circumstance, would have the objective observer wondering if the shooter even had sights on the gun?

But, hey, that's "combat accurate."

Here's some truth.  That's piss poor shooting, unless the target is jumping all around and shooting back at you.  On the paper range you're not being shot at.  The target rarely jumps around.  Even with movement on a static paper non-aggressive target, you should be able to do better than a shotgun effect with rounds scattered around like you have no sights on your gun.

Here's the caveat:  If you manage to get similar results in a Simunitions scenario, that's "combat accurate".

In my opinion, the use of the term combat accurate is detrimental to learning to fight with and shoot a gun.  It is not something that should be trained for specifically, i.e. you shouldn't go to the paper range with the expectation of loosing rounds all over the place and be satisfied with the end result.

Combat accuracy is more accurately (see what I did there?) used as a descriptor for a post force-on-force scenario/incident evaluation.

Fast is fine, accuracy is final.  At the bare minimum you, as a trained shooter, should be able to hit what you're aiming at.  No excuses. No misses from 25 yards and in, at a minimum.  That's a simple demonstration of a solid understanding of the fundamentals of marksmanship.  Trigger control never changes.  Slow, fast it is always smooth and controlled.  That is why we train.  We train and we train and we master the basics so that the basics look like magic to the untrained.

Shooting a man-sized silhouette from 50 yards isn't magic, but to the untrained it sure looks like it is.  In fact, you will hear some say impossible, impractical, not realistic, and to that I say it's a demonstration that that person knows how to shoot his gun.  Even more so from 100 yards.  I got asked once when speaking with a group of friends about shooting from 100 yards with a handgun if the rounds fell into the ground around 60 or 70 yards.  I'll just leave that right there.  It's not magic and it's not rocket science.

It has been said that there are no advanced techniques only masterful execution of the basics.  There is some truth to that.  Trigger control and sight alignment.  If you can't do these consistently, don't bother being fancy and calling your piss poor shots "combat accurate".  It's on a paper range with non-aggressive pictures.

This is not a tactics article, this is a concept article, so I won't go into detail on advanced shooting techniques, that's not the point of this post.  Simply put, it is better to be able to call every shot than to practice a piss poor result and call it "combat accurate".

I was told once by a great instructor that training translates the following way on most occasions:

If you're great in training, you will be good in reality.If you're good in training, you will be OK in reality.If you're OK in training, you will suck in reality.If you suck in training, you better train some more before reality calls.

Lt. Col. Grossman put it as follows: you will not rise to the occasion, but fall to your highest level of training.  If your training is to sloppily shoot at a paper non-aggressive target and call it "combat accurate", you're failing to see the point.

Range training is a chance to master your gun.  To be able to call your shots, consistently.  Force-on-force training is the place to see if your training has paid off in "combat accuracy".

Definitely push yourself in training to see where the wheels fall off.  But don't settle for less and call it sufficient.

Combat accuracy should only be used to describe the end result of either a force-on-force scenario or an actual incident.  Not a term used to describe the end result of a paper range training scenario.

If you push yourself and the wheels start to come off then back off a little and keep training.  Keep pushing.  There is literally no limit.  You're only competing against yourself.  Even in a gunfight you're fighting against yourself.  Because you have no way of knowing the training level of your opponent.  All you know is yourself.  All you can do is beat your personal best to win the fight.

Remember on the training range you should strive for nothing less than perfection, which is simply defined as your personal best, which I already said has no real limit.  Time and effort along with quality training can bring you very far on your path.

I tell persons new to shooting (mostly because they're not indoctrinated by some other mindset) that the most important thing you can learn to do is to put bullets where you want them at will with minimal effort.

Once you can do that everything else is gravy.  Shooting from cover, turning, moving, clearing corners, slicing the pie, reloads, malfunctions training, all of that means little if you can't call your shots and the only way you do that is work.

A little perspective: your ability to perform a tactical speed reload means little if the bullets you're feeding your smoke wagon aren't finding their mark.  You're fighting yourself because you don't know how good of a shot the other guy is.  The idea is to put bullets on him faster than he puts bullets on you.  And more than he does.  I like to imagine in training against a paper target that the bad guy is super man and can outshoot me any day of the week.  I want to win and continue to enjoy the 4 F's of life.  So that means I need to be faster but also more accurate faster.  Think about it.

So, the whole point of this is don't short change your training by labeling a piss poor result as "combat accurate".  Change the way you think about that term.  It has a place, for sure, but it's not on a static one-way range.  And if you let yourself fall into that trap, you're only hurting yourself and anyone who depends on you.

Train hard, train often, amigos.

Musashi Quote?

I did not make this. I cannot take credit for it. Unfortunately, I do not remember where I first saw it. I like it and I'm sharing it. In fact, I don't even know if Musashi even said it. It has been too long since I last read The Book of Five Rings. But the quote and painting are awesome.