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Mr_White
08-19-2016, 09:23 AM
Week 178: Mag Retrieval 500

Results may be posted until September 19th, 2016.

Designed by: Gabe White
Range: N/A
Target: N/A
Rounds Fired: 0

For this drill, all you need is your spare magazine in whatever you carry it in – no pistol, target, or safe direction is required (for purposes of the drill, if you are wearing a pistol it will remain holstered.)

When working for a faster reload, one of the areas where many people have an opportunity for gains is in more efficiently retrieving the spare magazine. This is a very simple drill for use in working to retrieve that magazine reliably and at the full speed you can move.

Start with your hands held out in front of you as if gripping a pistol, even though you are not actually holding a pistol. Retrieve your spare magazine with your support hand as rapidly as you can, taking care to acquire a consistent index on the magazine, and bring the magazine toward your strong hand as you would if you were going to reload a real pistol. Repeat ~ 500 times.

It's not important that you do exactly 500 repetitions. Do more or less if you prefer.

What is important: Explode into motion. Get moving as abruptly as you can and drive your hand to the magazine at the full speed you can move. Clear any concealment and acquire a clean and correct index on the magazine. One of the clearest kinds of feedback that you have not gotten a correct index on the magazine is having difficulty cleanly inserting it into the magazine well. Since inserting the magazine is not part of this particular drill, you need to be mentally disciplined in indexing the magazine properly. When you make a mistake, try to notice what you did wrong and pay attention to correcting it. If you carry more than one spare magazine, retrieve the spare magazine from all your pouches over the course of this drill.

Please report the magazine, magazine pouch, and concealment used (if any, concealment is optional), and anything you noticed during the drill.

Training with firearms is an inherently dangerous activity. Be sure to follow all safety protocols when using firearms or practicing these drills. These drills are provided for information purposes only. Use at your own risk.

Luke
08-19-2016, 08:29 PM
USPSA production gear.

Did not do 500 of them but did do them.

Also took this opportunity to work on my stage visualization. I would formulate a plan to shoot the array. Visualize it, then air gun it like I would at a match imagining the front sight. As soon as I broke that second shot I quickly retrieved my mag.

scw2
09-18-2016, 11:49 AM
I ran this today since I was focusing on reloads after not really doing as much work on reloads this past week. Worked with closed front garment and actually did a combination of Burkett reloads and seating mag and bringing gun back up to start shooting again.

I noticed while moving and trying to go my normal max reload speed, I can mess up the mag retrieval as well as the rest of the reload process, when normally doing static reloads the mag retrieval portion isn't an issue. That said, I tend to mess up the insertion more often. I noticed my 2nd mag pouch caused me more issues on both fronts since I've done less work from that position, so I did a lot of my dry practice today with the reload mag in the 2nd position.

I also did a lot of movement today. In addition to issues when moving at max speed, I tested different directions of movement. I did this using the clock drill, trying to reload and remount to shoot within 2 steps. I seemed to have the most fumbles initially going right to the 3 o'clock position. I think that was initially due to trying to turn my body in that direction, which causes misalignment of the mag with the magwell. I instead moved to a grapevine type movement by keeping my torso faced at the target and crossing my leg behind my plant leg, and that seemed to do better.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhILrSpMqFw

At some point I should practice moving for longer distances of movement which would incur more sloppiness in the reloads, and especially moving left due to position of the pouch and needing to not break the 180 with my gun causing more than normal misalignment of mag pouch and mag well.

Clobbersaurus
09-18-2016, 02:16 PM
scw2, good stuff. My reload practice is much the same as yours with a few exceptions.

I always practice with a mag in the gun. I used to practice like you do, without a mag in the gun, to save time and increase reps. I think that over time it caused me to get lazy with my mag button depression, and there were a few instances in life fire where I depressed the mag button and the mag failed to drop because I didn't get on it hard enough. I stopped dry practicing without a mag in the gun and that problem hasn't happened since

The other thing I don't do, and I think this is important; if I miss a reload I don't stop to assess. I fix it as fast as I can and jam the mag in the well. I saw you stop and asses a few times in your video when you bobbled a reload and I tend to think that may be a bad way to reinforce a bad reload, especially in a match or on da streetz.

I've seen others post videos in their training journals where they did the same thing when messing up a reload, so you are not the only one, but I don't think that is a habit you want to be ingrain into your subconscious over the long term.

I hope you take this as anything other than constructive feedback. I'm certainly no expert, I just see the dedication and drive you have to improve and wanted to note a few things that help me. Impressive stuff dude!

Clobbersaurus
09-18-2016, 07:27 PM
Damn I should not try to type fast. The first sentence in my last paragraph should read: "I hope you don't take this any way other than constructive feedback".

Sorry, I can't type!