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Mr_White
09-02-2016, 09:24 AM
Week 180: Reload 5000

Results may be posted until October 2nd, 2016.

Now I bet when you saw the drill name, you thought it was going to be some insane thing like doing 5000 reloads. Not so – the name just makes the drill sound futuristic and cool. ;) We will reload far less than 5000 times in the course of this drill.

For this drill, you'll need your pistol, at least one magazine, and possibly at least one inert training cartridge (number of magazines and inert training cartridges needed depends on the exact drill format you choose), plus a safe direction. Concealment is optional.

At bare minimum, verify gun is unloaded, have no live ammo anywhere in the dry practice area, and keep muzzle in a safe direction. But there is more you can do to ensure safety in dry practice. Please also read Robust Dry Practice Safety Principles and Procedure following the drill description.

Designed by: Gabe White
Target: Shooter's choice
Range: Shooter's choice
Rounds: 0

Following the Mag Retrieval 500 drill from two weeks ago, we are going to work on a more complete dry reloading drill. You'll have two options for how exactly to do the drill, depending on what you want to emphasize. Instead of doing a certain number of repetitions, we'll practice for a certain amount of time, however many repetitions that ends up being.

Shooter's choice on target and distance. You might use an easier target. You might use a harder target. You might use multiple targets and vary them.

Option A: In battery reloads – start with the slide in battery, no magazine in the gun, aimed at the target, with finger on the trigger. The drill itself will be to put your trigger finger in register, retrieve and insert a new magazine, get the gun back on target and press the trigger in accordance with the sight picture. The magazine you load with can be empty, full of inert training cartridges, or a dedicated weighted dummy magazine. The benefit of Option A is efficiency. You will be able to do more repetitions for a given amount of time spent, you will make less noise doing your practice, and you will be effectively practicing in-battery speed reloads rather than a more complete slidelock reload.

Option B: Slidelock reloads – start with the slide locked back, empty magazine in the gun, aimed at the target, with finger on the trigger. The drill itself will be to put your trigger finger in register, eject the empty magazine, retrieve and insert a new magazine, close the slide, get the gun back on target and press the trigger in accordance with the sight picture. The magazine you load with can be empty (won't work if you overhand the slide to close it), a dedicated weighted dummy magazine, a magazine full of inert training cartridges (a little more prep to set up for the next repetition), or can have one inert training cartridge (prep for the next repetition can consist of fully retracting the slide, which will eject the one dummy cartridge and lock the slide back with a now-empty magazine in the gun, setting you up for the next repetition.) The benefit of Option B is the completeness of ejecting the empty magazine and closing the slide. You will have that completeness at the cost of fewer repetitions for a given amount of time spent and your practice will make more noise.

For either option, focus on driving your support hand toward and cleanly clearing concealment (if used), obtaining a consistent grip on the new magazine, driving the magazine to the gun, clean insertion of the new magazine, proper support hand grip on the gun, and pressing the trigger well and in accordance with the sight picture. Those are the essential elements. You can choose how hard you want to drive your speed in the drill. You might explore the ragged edge, you might work purely on consistency of execution, or you might look for a balance or bounce back and forth between extremes. All of those are worthwhile manners of practice.

Please report: gun, magazine, magazine pouch, and concealment (if any) used, how you chose to set up the drill (option A or B, inert training cartridges/dummy magazine/etc.), how much time you spent doing the drill, and anything you noticed.

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.

Robust Dry Practice Safety Principles and Procedure (the closer you follow this, the fewer opportunities you will have to ND)


Principles:

Allow no distractions – focus exclusively on the task at hand

Keep muzzle in a safe direction

Use correct trigger finger discipline

Verify no live ammo in gun, on person, or in the dry practice area

Use dedicated dry practice targets that are put away until you consciously choose to begin dry practice, and taken down when you consciously end dry practice

Use dedicated dry practice magazines and dummy rounds/inert training cartridges that stay in the dry practice area (if you use any magazine or cartridges)


Procedure:

Unload gun in a location other than the dry practice area

Leave live ammo, and magazines with live ammo, completely outside the dry practice area

Enter the dry practice area

Verify gun is unloaded, that any magazines do not contain live ammo, and that any cartridges present are inert/dummy cartridges

Consciously choose to begin dry practice

Put up dry practice targets

Do your dry practice

Take down dry practice targets and put them away

Consciously choose to end dry practice

Exit the dry practice area and do something unrelated for a few minutes

Return gun to location and condition of your choosing

Clusterfrack
09-04-2016, 01:04 PM
Gun, holster: Sig p320 GGI, USPSA Production rig.
Mags loaded with 10 full-weight dummy rounds with plastic orange dummy on top.
In-battery reloads, 30 minutes
Target: 1/3 scale USPSA classic ("turtle") at 5 yards (15 yds equivalent).
Par time: 1.20s for one shot to the A-zone after reload
Start position: sights on target, finger on trigger, trigger depressed.

I've been working on seeing the mag drop from the well, and getting the new one seated before the old one hits the ground--kind of feels like juggling. My best results are from an explosive attack to the mag pouch, and a fast, but decelerating movement toward the magwell. I think I like reloads almost as much as Gabe likes draws.

Clobbersaurus
09-05-2016, 11:49 AM
Beretta 92 Elite II, Blade-Tech competition gear, Blackhawk mag pouches.

I did 15 minutes of option A and B reloads.

I did very few static reloads and the vast majority on the move, left, right, forward and back. Standing reloads are a relatively rare thing in competition. I need to work on my transition/movement speed so I worked on exploding out of position and getting the mag in the gun as fast and as smooth as possible. Par time was 1 second, which was far too fast for my ability. I think it is a good thing to stretch for speed in practice. I made it a few times.

Some thoughts:
Having a "tense" support hand when inserting the mag into the well is bad.
Getting the base plate into the palm with index finger along the front face of the mag is good.
Looking the mag into the gun is a good.
Once the mag is in the well, it is critical to smash the mag into the gun to get it to seat properly.

So it goes, explode...look...relax...insert...explode....grip. That seems to work the best.

Nephrology
09-06-2016, 08:24 PM
Gun, holster:Gen 4 Glock 35; Armiger Solutions OWB holster w/ Ben Stoeger BOSS Plus Hanger; Comp-tac OWB magpouches
4 mags with 1 inert training round ea. for Option B; Empty for option A
Time: 15 minutes of option B (mildly distracted by my girlfriend who was talking about appliances); followed by 15 minutes of option A. ***
Target: Empty wall (envisioned like the Wall Drill)
Start position: sights on target, finger on trigger, trigger depressed +/- slide locked to the rear

Notes

Let me first state that despite my many years of formal education, I really cannot read English. I didn't see that there was to be a dry trigger press after pushing back out on target, so I spent all 30m focusing on just the reload itself.

and what a fruitful 30m it was! for the longest time, I've had this stupid habit during reloading where I flick my wrist to clear the mag out of the magwell. I swear on my life this was never intentionally developed. It's never really slowed me down per se but my reload par time with that technique is about 1.5 sec, and I know I can do better than that.

Starting Option B, I tried to consciously stop doing this. It was a lot harder than I thought; my left hand was so used to seating a magazine in a position that my dominant hand had just learned to accommodate for the longest time, so I kept bobbling slidelock reloads. Moving into Option A, I was able to stop thinking about the mag release or other components of the reload and just focused on where my arms and my eyes were. I brought the gun slightly closer to me but pulled it away from my body laterally a little bit. I used a gold paint marker to paint a dot on the inside of the magwell, and isolated making visual contact with the dot to index the magazine during the reload. Time immediately dropped to 1.3, and I sense opportunity for improvement if I just refine this and iron out my old bad habit.

This drill changed my life, Mr. White. Or at least my reload, which is of almost equal importance.

Mr_White
09-07-2016, 11:50 AM
That's great to hear Nephrology. Glad the drill did something for you! Or rather, helped you do something for yourself. Awesome!