Then as now - Speed, surprise, and overwhelming violence of action.Originally Posted by DueSpada
Then as now - Speed, surprise, and overwhelming violence of action.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The snap shot below is from Texas Ranger by John Boessenecker which focuses on the life of Frank Hamer. I think they fit within the discussion of this thread.
These are Captain Hamer's comments to a reporter so grain of salt....
Hamer’s comments mimic many of those I have interviewed and talked to in concept. He is talking about mindset, and he is describing the deliberateness and assume that speed I have discussed often. It also places an equal level of importance of marksmanship and how critical it is to sink rounds in the center of the biggest part of an adversary. What is described as the stomach is essentially the area where the stomach meets the chest, and not the belly button. I have pictures of targets used by accomplished gunfighters of the era and that is what they are using. I missed his discussion on splits.....
There is also very much something to the invoking of religion and righteousness. I have found that criminal attacks tend to be chaotic and emotionally driven (anger, revenge, vendetta, etc.) while I have found a calmness shared by many that you are putting down evil and doing righteous work. I have seen and discussed often the detriment of emotional shooting by law enforcement officers who tend to hit nothing on emotional shooting (that tends to be fear, and panic based). My circle of people use the terms “righteous cop” and “righteous gunfighter” for a reason.
Just a Hairy Special Snowflake supply clerk with no field experience, shooting an Asymetric carbine as a Try Hard. Snarky and easily butt hurt. Favorite animal is the Cape Buffalo....likely indicative of a personality disorder.
"If I had a grandpa, he would look like Delbert Belton".
While I think that is definitely true. I also want to point out, that we handicap ourselves with our audible vs. visual timers for shooting. I know we've talked about this before, "old school times" like those of Bryce and McGivern, they often utilized visual cues, not audible ones, to begin shooting. The end result is probably another two-tenths shaved off of their reaction/split times and thus they were "even faster". Where many of us could probably get close.
I've been experimenting with this for awhile, using a drag racing tree timer in dryfire. With a visual signal I can draw, align, and drop the hammer in ~.38 seconds (open top competition holster). From the audible .58 of a second is the fastest I can do. I think we often don't consider the "measurement biases" when thinking about the old school. We're, in many respects, focused on the individual instead of the sum of the parts.
ETA: I know that folks have cited the studies that auditory stimuli take fewer steps to get to the brain and thus reaction times are lower. Several of those studies have bad stats and controls associated with them. I've found far more conflicting results in biomechanical studies that suggest that you can take your pick for which is faster. Interestingly visual signals often work slightly faster, when someone is primed to react in a specific direction and they are facing that direction. Auditory work faster if you are required to rotate towards a source.
Not in my experience. Whether round ball of conical ball, the soft lead of the projectile gets swaged both into the chamber and again into the barrel. Those projectiles tends to bite deep into the rifling and have excellent accuracy. Round balls do open up more than CB, but 4-5" groups at 50-yards is not unreasonable. Remember too, the revolvers of yore had longer barrels than what we typically use today. Today it's a 2-4" barrel, in the past it was a 5-8" barrel.
I think I've mentioned this before. My master's thesis supervisor has several gold medals and plenty of hardware from mid-to-long range blackpowder rifle matches. When forced to use production powder, he only uses Swiss/German powder that they make for blackpowder Schützhenfests. Otherwise, he has a notebook of homemade recipes for making his own. Black powder is, sometimes, more black magic, than science, in my experience. And more so than a shotgun with shot, BP rifles and pistols are load specific.
Last edited by RevolverRob; 06-26-2019 at 03:01 PM.
Interesting take on the old school fighters vs. the new, and the visual/auditory thing. Looking at it from the perspective of my profession, I tend to agree with that. Visual seems to be processed much quicker and with less error.
...Then again, I’ve been accused on more than one occasion of eating crayons.
Working diligently to enlarge my group size.
Bryce gets more attention but another example of a naturally gifted shooter enhanced by hard work was FBI Agent and Olympic shooter Walter Walsh. Walsh was shooting competitively into his 80s and still did not need glasses.
https://progunfighter.com/walterrwalsh/
Damn. I need cheaters just to see the roll of toilet paper in the bathroom!
Good on him. What an amazing life.
Working diligently to enlarge my group size.
Yes, I bought it a year or two ago and have read it many times. Highly recommended.
Doggone you, Rich - you beat me to this, too! Warning! Thread drift ahead! While I'm on the subject of you beating me to stuff, two weeks ago, I bought a Gen5 G19 - do ya believe that? It has become my edc, too.
Ha! Seriously?! Well, cool.
Hope it shoots well for ya. Mine is going on over 4,400 rounds or something. Still chugging along. I've been taking a break from USPSA over the summer since its so daggone hot here in Central FL lately (it was 109 in the car this afternoon - yikes) plus work has been busy - a good thing.
Hope all are well at home.
PS I don't think the guys will mind a little thread drift.
PPS but that book by @Mas is really really good - very enjoyable. I keep it on my Kindle and read it from time to time.
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