Dry Practicing Safely
It's good to see that there is a solid consensus on the importance of dry practice. Trainers of all backgrounds are recommending it to their students. There is a lot of discussion about what to practice sans gunfire and how to practice. What does not get touched on is the lead-up to it. In other words, how to do it safely. Wording—I'm not normally a fan of changes to long-standing terms. However, the switch from [...]
A BUG From My Pocket
While revolvers are filling a retro niche these days, they are often overlooked and unappreciated by a fair amount of law enforcement. And there are many generational and equipment reliability reasons behind that. Reasons When I started, there were three definite reasons that backup guns (henceforth BUG) were as [...]
50 ROUNDS | A Minimalist Approach To Practice
It’s a constant mantra for American police, “Do more with less.” Today, with officers taking pay and benefit cuts it can be trying for LEOs to stay motivated and focused on training. Addressing personal fitness some-times does not garner the attention it deserves for individual officer safety. Firearms and tactics [...]
Why? Why did they choose their gun? Why do they continue training?
Why anyone makes the decisions they make is an interesting topic. What are the Whys behind the firearm someone chooses, taking their first class, venturing across the country to train once, and then doing it again? One of the advantages of teaching at Gunsite is having access to a student [...]
Mantis Blackbeard AR-15 Dry Fire Training System: Now Available with Integrated MantisX
Although dry fire training is essential to improving one's skills as a shooter, dry fire with most semi-autos has its issues. Racking the slide or charging handle after every trigger press to reset the hammer restricts training and introduces concerns about operating a semi-auto firearm by those who may not [...]
A Practical Reload – topping off your pistol while retaining rounds
This third article will cover the mechanics of a tactical reload in both forms. The desired end state is a pistol, carbine, or sub-gun with a round in the chamber, a full magazine in the gun, and whatever rounds were left in the magazine retained in your gear. One issue [...]
Working the Thumb Safety for new 1911/2011 Shooters
It has been interesting to watch the re-invention of STI into Staccato and, simultaneously, see the resurrection of a 1911-style pistol into the police duty-use world. I used a 1911 pistol on patrol and in investigations for over twenty years. I carried, competed, and taught with one. And I did [...]
Roka Arms’ Downrange Tab and Training for Off-body Carry
Most of us carry concealed firearms in or on our beltline, whether with a strong side hip holster, inside the waistband, or “appendix-ish” carry. At least one American Cop writer advocates for carrying smaller revolvers in pocket holsters. All those options are great until you can’t carry them that way [...]
See The Threat Or Hear It?:Training for visual stimulus with Reactionary Gap’s Muzzle Flash Simulation System
Do we respond more quickly to an auditory stimulus or a visual one? A significant amount of the research I’ve looked at, including two papers linked at the end of the article, says we respond quicker to sounds. By how much? 140-160 milliseconds for the sound and 180-200 milliseconds for [...]
STOPPING THE THREAT | Pairing Natural Response with Engagement Method
To incapacitate a threat as quickly as possible, many will agree shot placement is a key factor, accomplishing this with the double tap or controlled pair, (two aimed shots) into a vital area being taught spending an extraordinary amount time focusing on super tight accuracy, so one can place the [...]
MANTIS LASER ACADEMY | Affordable High-Tech Firearms Training at Home
It takes time and practice to become proficient with firearms. It’s an art that needs to be developed. And no matter how finely tuned a shooter you have become, shooting is a perishable skill. This is especially true with handguns. DRY-FIRE TRAINING The current ammo shortages and corresponding high ammo [...]