Of course I scan! I've got to make sure everyone on the range saw how awesome I look with my Taurus Judge in its new SERPA holster and my tactical Mosin-Nagant.
Of course I scan! I've got to make sure everyone on the range saw how awesome I look with my Taurus Judge in its new SERPA holster and my tactical Mosin-Nagant.
I probably should scan and assess more than I do. I should do it often enough to not forget to do it. I've also seen two lines of thought on the scan/assess in the past year. At a CSAT rifle class w/Paul Howe, he had us scan front with the rifle and look to the rear. I just finished a pistol class with Scott Warren this past weekend and when asked about looking behind you during a scan/assess, he said if you have to look behind you to see if it is ok to holster your pistol, it isn't safe to do so. Meaning, your head and weapon should move together, so if you have to look behind you, your weapon should move that way too (finger off trigger). Obviously you cannot do a 360 scan/assess with your head and weapon at the range and things are always facts and circumstances driven. In the end, we did scan/assess to the front only moving head/weapon together.
PIX!Originally Posted by caleb
I don't have a lot to say about the value of scanning/assessing. I have noticed, though, that I seem to do a lot better in my drills if I really pretend like that target is armed and will kill me if I don't shoot him first. I've also noticed that when I do that, I tend to scan/assess automatically, and actually pay attention to what I'm scanning.
It seems to me that if I were in a real gunfight, I'd be feeling pretty vulnerable and scanning/assessing would come naturally, like it does when I'm pretending. Only more so.
$.02
The answer, it seems to me, is wrath. The mind cannot foresee its own advance. --FA Hayek Specialization is for insects.
Caleb; Some times you're just to much! LOL
In all seriousness, after all these years I have found myself a slave of muscle memory. So anything I want to do in a gun fight I do in training. Anything I don't want to do in a gunfight I avoid like the plague in training & competition.
For me to do a new technique takes hours and hours of repetitions and I still find that under stress the old technigues come out to play. LOL
Scott
Only Hits Count - The Faster the Hit the more it Counts!!!!!!; DELIVER THE SHOT!
Stephen Hillier - "An amateur practices until he can do it right, a professional practices until he can't do it wrong."
From personal experience and lots of reading, nope.I'd be feeling pretty vulnerable and scanning/assessing would come naturally
In general and IMHO & IME, your response to a lethal threat is going to be to focus on the threat with laser like intensity. Lots of folks preach scanning to prevent the threats buddy from sneaking around on our flanks and blindsiding us. I like to quick scan after shots fired, then a careful scan when my firearm moves from position 4 to position 3 and I get in a covered position.
zRxz's FAST mnemonic looks like a very good tool for organizing your game plan.
I generally do, but not always. In some cases, I've done something like blown a drill really badly partway through, realized it, thought about it, and then, honestly, I'm not putting my head back in the "just shot somebody" mode because that's just an unrealistic mental leap at that point.
I definitely agree that there is no point to doing the "fake scan".
In fact, what I do after almost every drill is ask myself a couple of questions, like:
How do my hits compare to the guy 3 lanes over?
Is anyone standing behind the line watching? How many people? One? Five?
Who is the closest person in a baseball hat?
I figure that way, I get a quick drill in shifting my brain to "really look around mode". Does it mean I'm the last guy to reholster? Well...usually, yes. But thankfully my ego is large enough to safely support the belief that I'm the most important guy there anyway.
I scan starting from a high ready, nearly fully extended, but I drop the gun enough to see 200% of the target stand because on the million to one chance I ever have to shoot somebody, if there's one thing I'm going to be really embarrassed about it's if I don't look past my gun enough to notice they are still trying to kill me, and then they do. How awkward!
Once I'm not checking over the target I go to a pretty compressed ready, sometimes a pretty Sul-ey position depending on what's around and how much I'm moving.
I use binos
Honestly, nothing screams "IDIOT" louder than watching someone "scan and assess" on the range. Maybe I'm not tacticool enough, but take for example, some of the "I want to be an idiot, too" shows on the Outdoor Channel and Sportsmen Channel. The first time I see somebody "scan and assess" I usually turn the channel. Once that occurs, their credibility is lost. Something about the "tacticool" attitude associated with the practice really irks me to no end. That and 5.11 pants. Really? Do people actually wear them outside the range environment?
I think that is an awesome drill for buddies shooting.
#RESIST
YupI'm not good on following the wind of fashion and I like lots of pockets.
#RESIST
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