Competition gets you killed on the streets.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I went to read this thread and kept getting a database error. I can read everything else on p-f, so I'm trying this response to see if it breaks that message - might be cached.

Magnets will get you killed on the street if you face a Knight of the Round table or Iron Man. Test prose!

PS - yes, that broke it. I can see the thread. BTW, if you think you are going to get into a fight, do you have time to visualize it 20 times and have a walk through?

Ignore this silly post.

[Caballoflaco]

I went to read this thread and kept getting a database error. I can read everything else on p-f, so I'm trying this response to see if it breaks that message - might be cached.

Magnets will get you killed on the street if you face a Knight of the Round table or Iron Man. Test prose!

PS - yes, that broke it. I can see the thread. BTW, if you think you are going to get into a fight, do you have time to visualize it 20 times and have a walk through?

Ignore this silly post.

Not twenty times, but I did have time to make a plan and pre-visualize my draw stroke/movement while I was waiting my turn and talking my way into an opening.

More recently I did some pre visualization/planning when a car drove by me in a parking lot and stopped for a second, then reversed and blocked me in my parking space while I was getting on my motorcycle. By the time the front and rear passenger doors were opening I had taken my strong hand glove off, unzipped my jacket and gotten off the bike and had the bike between myself and the car. They quickly shut their doors and drove off. I don’t know for sure those guys were trying to rob me, maybe they just wanted to talk motorcycles at 22:00.

Neither of those incident were the same as pre-planning a match. But having some situational awareness and doing some if/then as a situation develops can at least keep you in the OODA loop.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Not twenty times, but I did have time to make a plan and pre-visualize my draw stroke/movement while I was waiting my turn and talking my way into an opening.

More recently I did some pre visualization/planning when a car drove by me in a parking lot and stopped for a second, then reversed and blocked me in my parking space while I was getting on my motorcycle. By the time the front and rear passenger doors were opening I had taken my strong hand glove off, unzipped my jacket and gotten off the bike and had the bike between myself and the car. They quickly shut their doors and drove off. I don’t know for sure those guys were trying to rob me, maybe they just wanted to talk motorcycles at 22:00.

Neither of those incident were the same as pre-planning a match. But having some situational awareness and doing some if/then as a situation develops can at least keep you in the OODA loop.

I do believe in imaging the visual and motor components of firearms usage as go up to the line for a match. The research shows that motor imaging activates the same motor pathways as the real movements. In a couple of incidents, which fortunately did not go to a bad place due to reasonable avoidance and alertness, I did visualize how I might have to shoot. Both were probably criminal interrogations in which they were convinced to move on.

[MickAK]

For example, at a match yesterday, yet more 1911s failed in ways that could get you killed in the streets. And, there was a guy there shooting Lim10 with a Sig 220 .45. He had a mag over-insertion issue that required two people to remedy. A few matches ago another guy had the dreaded mag over insertion in his p320 Legion, which bent the ejector.

Anyone else have observations worth mentioning?

You don't have to game to benefit from the tough equipment testing that goes on during matches. If you're concerned about how a piece of equipment will hold up in certain climate conditions for example, you can usually find a match where somebody ran it under the same conditions. You have a larger sample size of people to look for weaknesses in your gear that you need to be aware of. A single weapon torture test often won't show things that a 500 gun sample will. Gamers save me a lot of money and give me a lot of peace of mind.

[Archer1440]

You don't have to game to benefit from the tough equipment testing that goes on during matches. If you're concerned about how a piece of equipment will hold up in certain climate conditions for example, you can usually find a match where somebody ran it under the same conditions. You have a larger sample size of people to look for weaknesses in your gear that you need to be aware of. A single weapon torture test often won't show things that a 500 gun sample will. Gamers save me a lot of money and give me a lot of peace of mind.

So long as you remember that gamers often tweak their pistols in ways that may make them more susceptible to failures compared to what people actually carry as defensive arms.

Case in point: Aftermarket mag bases that fit the USPSA box, but allow enough slop to allow a heavy-handed shooter to bend a P320 ejector on a slide-lock reload. SIG factory mags don’t tend to allow that mishap quite as much.

[Clusterfrack]

At a USPSA match today, I observed an interesting "killed in the streets" (KITS) malfunction: a new shooter (a LEO) was shooting his first match, with a stock CZ SP-01, in Production. He is a solid dude, and I wanted him to have a good match. Unfortunately, on his second stage, he had a series of failure to fire malfunctions and stopped before completing the stage. When I inspected his gun, I discovered that the firing pin and FP spring were missing--ejected from the gun, never to be found. I asked, "so... have you been doing a lot of dryfire?" He responded, "Yeah, how did you know?" He was unaware that most CZs are not designed to dryfire without protecting the FP with a cushion. The dude had dry fired like a maniac, prepping for his first match, and had damaged the FP retaining pin to the extent that it sheared off on both sides, leaving the FP free to fly away during recoil.

There's no doubt that USPSA & IPSC have greatly advanced handgun shooting and technology. They are also an excellent testing ground for equipment. It's interesting to observe what doesn't work and why. Over my years in the sport, strong patterns have emerged that have informed my decisions about what guns I trust as life-safety equipment.

For example, at a match yesterday, yet more 1911s failed in ways that could get you killed in the streets. And, there was a guy there shooting Lim10 with a Sig 220 .45. He had a mag over-insertion issue that required two people to remedy. A few matches ago another guy had the dreaded mag over insertion in his p320 Legion, which bent the ejector.

Anyone else have observations worth mentioning?

[Bergeron]

Not twenty times, but I did have time to make a plan and pre-visualize my draw stroke/movement while I was waiting my turn and talking my way into an opening.

Neither of those incident were the same as pre-planning a match. But having some situational awareness and doing some if/then as a situation develops can at least keep you in the OODA loop.

While I've never had to take real self-defense action to save my life, I've certainly planned and pre-visualized what I thought were some pretty serious "Condition Orange" situations, and it's quite a confidence building activity.

[cheby]

To my great amusement, I just discovered that this thread is still alive and the topic is still being debated... I think it's beyond repair. No rational arguments will work.

[Clusterfrack]

To my great amusement, I just discovered that this thread is still alive and the topic is still being debated... I think it's beyond repair. No rational arguments will work.

I don’t think anyone is debating this anymore? Don’t we now all agree that competition helps us not get KITS?

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I think magnets will get you killed if you swim in water with magnetic mines. Shot my second USPSA match today. Didn't see anything that would get me killed in the street. See targets, shoot them in the right areas. Draw the gun, sights on target, good trigger pull. Can't get used to dropping mags with ammo, IDPA habit.