Originally Posted by
ssb
So, I work in the criminal justice system and I think that initially biases me towards a lot of what certain trainers — forum member Dagga Boy comes to mind — preach. In broad strokes, my concerns as a self defense shooter are:
1) Accountability for rounds fired. Missing the target when my backstop is the people in the Wal Mart parking lot is suboptimal and potentially legally perilous.
2) Completing the engagement with a minimal amount of rounds fired. To my line of thinking, this means placing the rounds in B8 sized targets on the human body. My experience has been that the more force is used (different from level), the more scrutiny arrives from the public, some law enforcement, and some prosecutors. Put another way, 60 stabs look worse than 3.
3) Not “over shooting.” In other words, I want to avoid firing rounds after the threat has gone away. See 1).
4) Having a core skill set (draw, first best shot, follow up shots, accuracy at speed) that is fast and accurate enough to matter. John Murphy discusses time vs. timing: you may have a 1 second window and a 1.5 second solution to the problem… which means that isn’t the time for you to use your 1.5 second solution, and you need to wait until you have a larger window. My goal is to minimize the instances where my solution is slower than the time I have available. Part of that is tactics (starting with a gun in your hand and waiting your turn is a hell of a lot easier than drawing and firing), but part of that is skillset.
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I don’t know that I personally buy the “C zone is still pretty effective” line he gave towards the end, even though I am certain he has far more experience applying lethal force than I do. I am curious how much this is informed by the fact that his primary weapon is a rifle, and rifle bullets at rifle velocities do some really cool stuff inside the human body that pistol bullets simply don’t do. From my own experience, I’ve met — or at least been in the same room with them — dozens people with marginal pistol GSWs. I’ve had the opportunity to view some of those marginal GSWs occur on video. Some result in people fleeing, but while what ASP calls the “FIBS” factor is a real thing, it’s been my observation that people tend to flee at the sound of gunfire just as readily. Others, the victim doesn’t appear to realize he’s been shot (and indeed, many testify in that manner). My own mindset remains that I cannot guarantee that somebody will quit once I inflict pain and injury (or “damage per second,” as he calls it); accordingly, I’m seeking to hold myself to more anatomically significant hits.
HOWEVER…
What I took from the podcast is that “slow down and get your hits” really means “in training, push the limits to improve and then dial it back to where the hits are acceptable for the situation.”
His discussion of the El Presidente drill and the strive for perfect accuracy leading to unrealistic (slow) engagement speeds resonates with me (~6min, ~11min). That is what I’ve been doing for years. I’m certainly not at the level as the average member of the organization this guy works at, but the point remains the same — I’ve been going at the speed I need to draw and hit the B8 at X yards and no faster; I’ve been going at the speed I need to get high 90s on The Test and no faster; I’ve been going at the speed I need to…. You get the point.
That has been my experience with the SWYNTS stuff: the hits mostly have been a bit less than what I’d prefer, but they’re not that bad (though I’d prefer smaller, an 8.5x11 sized paper is on the top end of what I consider a good target) and I’m seeing and doing things that I simply haven’t done before. Allowing myself to “fail” — by hitting something bigger than what I’m used to, or even by missing — has improved my performance. I saw this when shooting my normal drills after doing SWYNTS live.
I wrote about this in an AAR of a force-on-force class, but specific to using a RDS in that application, I distinctly recall being able to process more because the shooting process was simpler. I had less to worry about on the gun side, so I gave more of my attention to what was in front of me. This resulted in one scenario where I resolved the matter without gunfire, precisely because I processed that I was in a “may shoot” category, but not necessarily a “must shoot” category. I think this is the real benefit of SWYNTS for the defensive shooter: less time and mental process spent screwing with the gun = more time focusing on the aggressor’s actions, more time spent focusing on taking a difficult shot (think of the pace Jack Wilson shot that active shooter in the head at 15 yards in 2019), etc.
Dry firing before live firing has been hugely beneficial in my experience and I need to remember to incorporate more often. Every good training class I’ve taken does that, FWIW.
I remain concerned about the real world application of .20 splits. I think that’s highly dependent upon what some have called “processor speed.” The ability to tap the brakes during the shooting process remains important for me, and having done drills where the visual “shoot” stimulus changed during the drill (simulating “hey, he’s not a threat anymore”), I simply cannot make that decision at the speed of low .20 splits. Some guy who does Delta Force stuff all day may differ. However, the benefits from being able to fire a good, accurate pair of doubles seem like they’d still be beneficial because the skills used there (grip, trigger press at speed) are still applicable.
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