I can't say I disagree with you. I think the best thing someone can have is a combat mindset and the awareness that comes with it. The only time I have even considered drawing while in Montana I was able to deescalate with flashlight from 20 yards because I saw him coming. But I did recently hear Tom Givens say on ballistic radio that a speedy draw is important. so idk.Originally Posted by SLG
Last edited by breakingtime91; 10-08-2015 at 10:28 AM.
C'mon... It was a little funny. I apologize.
Well I appreciate the guesses!
#1 is real, huge, and real huge. I would think that a GM must have faced that many times to become a GM. But then I wonder how much the specific setting or venue plays into it. Maybe a lot? I think you are right about caring. If you stand to gain or lose and you care about the outcome, and especially in front of people, stress can be pretty bad.
#2 If a person doesn't practice from concealment, I agree that can mess them up if they are suddenly using it. I think competitive shooting still offers a lot of benefit to shooting, gunhandling, and performance under pressure outside the competition, even if the competition is shot with a different gun and rig than is carried. How much benefit does probably depend somewhat on how similar they are. Concealment doesn't have to add a lot of time, but it definitely increases the disaster factor.
#3. I guess that's something I've not noticed. I know I've seen a few GMs down a ways in match results, but they sure seem persistently and consistently clumped up at the top in general. When you've not thought GMs have produced GM-level performance in a match, what do you mean? They shot penalties, and you'd expect them not to? Some percentage of points they didn't reach? They didn't place better than almost all the other shooters? Something else?
Just trying to get an idea of the specifics of that one, because the way you phrase it reminds me of something I've seen said in discussions among USPSA people about match percentage vs. classification percentage. Sometimes people take the position that a person isn't a true GM if they don't shoot 95% in a Nationals-level match. The problem there is that would mean that there are only about five or so "true" GMs in a given division, because very few actually shoot 95%+ of the person who won. Anyway, just intrigued by what part of their performance you've seen that you don't think is GM-worthy.
Depending on the person and their priorities, this can be entirely rational. Reloads are a bigger issue in USPSA than draws, especially in reload-heavy divisions like Production. If a person's interest is solely USPSA it would make a lot of sense to emphasize reloads over draws in practice.
If self defense is the priority then yes, I'd agree that draw > reload.
Agree. A great draw is only going to save maybe a second. Tactics applied well can produce a lot more time advantage. Awareness can produce even more time advantage. Sometimes awareness or tactics won't work, either through our failure or the adversaries' luck or diligence, or just lousy circumstance. In some circumstances, only awareness or tactics are going to be enough, and sometimes nothing is going to get it done but skill in execution, though that is probably considerably less often. Like you, I still want a fast draw though.
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I shoot Single Stack Major/CDP and SSR for IDPA, so if there's one thing I do a lot of...its reloads
As a game player, I don't see a fast draw as an enormous competitive advantage. I mean, I draw once per stage and sometimes not even then. Then again, I generally suck at shooting in general and fast draws so I could stand to practice a good bit more than I usually do.
I am picking up what you're putting down re: draw speed though. Of all the gunhandling skills, the one I'd value most for CCW would be getting to my gun.
Of course situational awareness will be a big deal, as will accurate and fast hits under pressure, in the dark, naked or on fire, to quote a fairly awesome shotgun thread here...but as far as gun handling skills I can practice in my basement or at a match; good hits from a fast, yet accurate draw that lends itself well to different situations/environments would be a useful skill.
I really appreciate you taking time to put all that together. I had noticed myself doing something similar, and my default assumption was that I had just boned the rep, because I couldn't recreate the error consistently. I never could diagnose why that kept happening, when it's evidently a natural thing that happens to most people. Not an excuse to get sloppy of course, but at least when it happens, I'll know what I'm looking at.
"Sapiens dicit: 'Ignoscere divinum est, sed noli pretium plenum pro pizza sero allata solvere.'" - Michelangelo
I think #1 is very individual specific. Some people react to a pressure to perform by really bearing down and focusing, thus increasing their performance; others cave under the pressure and their performance degrades.
A personal anecdote on that comes from the only real shooting class I've taken, skills and drills from Ben Stoeger. One of the things we did was a competition involving shooting 2" dots. Essentially a walkback drill testing consistency under pressure. It started at 3 yards, where we drew and shot 2 rounds with a generous par time of 3s. I believe if you missed three times, you were out. From time to time, Ben would have everyone take a step back to make things harder for those that continued in the game. Once we got out a ways, 7-10 yards, there were only a couple of us left, at which point Ben started applying even more pressure. Ultimately, I was the last shooter on the line after everyone else dropped out. All the pressure really forced me to bear down on exactly what I needed to do to accomplish the task, but it had the opposite effect for a lot of people.
Interestingly, I am not particularly good at shooting dots normally, especially on my own without some sort of external pressure applied (I have never cleaned the garcia dot drill at any distance, for instance).
As to #3: Isn't SLG on the east coast? I hear they reshoot classifiers a lot out there, which might explain the GM's that can't perform
I certainly agree that awareness combined with being willing are extremely important. But we are all human and have the potential to miss clues and warning signs or just have an event go from 0 - 60 without much warning. When that happens, speed from the holster and getting 1st round hits probably becomes the most important thing at the moment.
I wish I had access to the number from my old job, but I don't, so this is antidotal only. I'm aware of a number of shootings that speed from the holster with hits decided the issue. Most of these were uniform guy reacting at traffic stops or answering calls. Wish I could quantity the percentage, but can't. You are likely right, that they are a fairly small % of our overall shootings. Much like the law of averages, it's all good until you are the exception.
For the CCW person, I'd guess they were more likely to be surprised that an officer working.
The issue there is that LEO typically end up reacting to shots already being fired, while the typical civilian robbery victim actually has the ability to initiate when the perpetrator's attention is focussed elsewhere.
Valid comment Talionis. I was thinking along the lines of officers interact with folks they should expect to cause trouble vs the CCW person being the focus of the trouble. Probably didn't explains that well in my earlier post.
I believe Tom Givens said" In uniformed police encounters the officer starts the encounter and the bad guy initiates the fight. In CCW encounters the bad guy starts the contact and the CCW holder initiates the fight." In the CCW case the bad guy expects compliance with a threat, when the CCW guy draws it is a surprise.
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