Why is Reloading a Big Part of Many Drills/Standards?

[rob_s]

It’s a game. It doesn’t have to match “the real world”.

The greatest lie the devil ever told is that shooting games will hurt your ninja skills.

[JodyH]

It’s a game. It doesn’t have to match “the real world”.

The greatest lie the devil ever told is that shooting games will hurt your ninja skills.

Gotdamn i'm agreeing with rob_s... (time to reevaluate my life?).

Competition is simply a test of your technical gun handling skills under pressure. Period. Full stop.

[RJ]

And, since such arrays are spaced apart, the single stack era competitor's policy applies: "If my feet are moving, I am reloading."

I like this comment very much.

One gem of a takeaway I got from @GJM once was to conceptualize your stage plan as shooting different "arrays" of targets". Point being, you are shooting groups, then, as you transition from one group to another group, you do your reload.

Once I figured out that, you know, that makes a lot of sense, I've pretty much been doing every single stage ever since that way. And since I reload on the way from group to group, it really doesn't matter that I have a super fast reload, since basically at age 60, I am moving so slow I'd literally have to be so fumble fingered as to be ridiculous in order not to complete the reload before getting to the next group.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I hate:

1. Competition doesn't suit my view of the world.
2. Why carry extra ammo?

If you reach the level to post that here - then I'd say you are just in it for the 'troll' experience. Esp. with rather long posts. I expect such on the beginner level forums (as I moderate).

Why practice reloads without pages of blather:

1. Jams - they do happen. Yesterday - wasn't rare at the match. Changing mags is a solution.
2. The extreme event - yeah, the mode is the mugger that goes away from your J frame. However, horror exists in the world even if it is rare. I go to houses of worship and malls. I worked at a school - an intense event could happen.
3. Time in the fight - a concept by Tom Givens. How long until you are out of the fight with what you carry.
4. The match allows me to reload accurately at a reasonable speed, knowing how actually to do it as it is interspersed with firing the gun.

As far as limiting the number of shots - what a brilliant to fix our idiotic competitions. Except that we do that all the time in some stages and classes. NOT a new idea. I've been in unknown load stages and FOF runs. Am I special?

So BAH HUMBUG!

[John Hearne]

My goal is to be a competent gunman. Competency includes the ability to successfully deliver all of the needed manipulations of your handgun or longgun. Whether it's reloads, malfunction clearances, or this stuff with just one hand, you need to know how to do it to be serious. You can rank these tasks in order of likelihood - I don't spend much time on non-dominant hand double feed clearance - but even if you do, besides the presentation, reloading the gun is still seen in actual shootings - more on the LE side but they do exist.

There are drills that integrate other likely tasks like the DTI Dance or Tom Given's 3-M drill. Administratively, they quickly become problematic as you have to recover the dummy rounds off the deck. Dummy rounds really just want to be free and a few will run away and never be seen again every time you use them. If you are running the gun hard, the dummy will be far away. Try running this on a public range - it doesn't work well.

For practice and the development of mental focus, reloads can be very useful as they are free - just underload the magazine. If all you have to do if fire eight rounds from the ready, that is fairly simple task. Once it starts, you can just keep repeating the same action until you're done. As you add complexity, you increase the need for mental focus and the proper application of your attention. Right now, my favorite handgun drill is the Hateful 8. (Load 4 in the gun and two magazines of two. Target is a B-8 at 8 yards. You have 8 seconds to fire all 8 rounds. 1st level goal is everything in the 8 ring or bettter, 2nd level goal is everything in the black) That is a drill that does not represent any likely engagement scenario but, it kicks your ass. The short time constraint encourages you to do things faster than you can do them well. If you're shooting for the black of the B-8, you have to concentrate on shooting well. If you're reloading, you're hustling because there isn't much time. As soon as the reload is done, you have to make a hard shift of attention back to shooting well. If you start worrying about reloading while shooting or shooting while reloading, you will screw the drill up.

As I see it, the reloads are an easy way to add chaos and confusion while forcing the proper allocation of your attention resources. Another way to think of it, is that it forces the development of some mental resiliency as you work to solve the problem.

[BigT]

When you start competing, the reason you don't win won't be that everyone else reloads faster than you...


Reloading in a stage is part of the game and while probably not relevant to most gunfights , it is a great measure of general gun handling under pressure. You also probably wont shoot between 9 and 16 bad guys either, but shooting stages with that won't make you a worse shooter when it goes down for real.


It really sounds like you're making excuses not to compete. Go do it and you will learn things.


FWIW I have leader a type 3 malfunction in the really real world and here I am annoying people on the internet, so don't give up before it actually happens.

[Alpha Sierra]

When you start competing, the reason you don't win won't be that everyone else reloads faster than you...

I lost interest in giving any helpful advice when he said that he knows for damned sure that he's going to be penalized because others are reloading .25 sec faster than him.

Never mind that movement between positions, the ability to start shooting earlier during position entry, the ability to leave a position without delay, and that transitions and finding targets is where most people waste tons of time compared to a reload that mostly can be done during times that you can't be shooting anyway.

[YVK]

I effin hate reloads. With a passion.

That's why we have the divisions with 140 mm mags. And the divisions with Ray Charles-approved magwells. And the divisions with 140 mg mags AND Ray Charles-approved magwells.


If I get depressed when I dry practice reloads, I start thinking about them as a warm-up to sex later that night. It helps.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

TMI. Moving between shooting positions is a nonstarter as a worry for me when at 70 my knees are screwed. I mentioned I shot the last match with a totally screwed knee and walked like the Mummy between positions. I was more concerned with hitting the targets. When my gun double fed, gee - I knew what to do with alacrity. No standing there staring at it.

[Peally]

Using your time-exchange idea where every minute spent practicing reloads could be used practicing jam clearance, just take the 15 minutes of web surfing and practice anything and you'll improve.

I'm kinda hearing "I don't want to practice reloads because _____" as an excuse to ignore the single greatest fundamentals skill improvement system conceived so far, and that sounds pretty lame. Less excuses more shooting. Competitions aren't 100% all about defensive shooting scenarios (when they try you get wet fart clusterfucks like IDPA), they're about improving your skill with a firearm across the board.

You may never have to reload in an actual firefight. Chances are also ridiculously high that you will never fire a firearm in a firefight regardless. Fire firefight fire firearm fire fire.