Bill Wilson and Ken Hackathon's Crystal Ball Predictions

[joshs]

One thing that is strictly a theory of mine, is that it's a little easier to "course correct" a poor index from a compromised draw position with irons than it is from a dot.

STRICTLY a theory and I acknowledge I have no data to support this and more often than not the actual answers to things are counterintuitive.

That's consistent with my experience. For example, when a USPSA stage has weak hand only (especially from a compromised position like though a port or around a barricade), I spend a lot more time visualizing what I need to do to pick up the dot cleanly during the draw/transfer. I likely have substantially more reps (and a more refined index) shooting weak hand only than any newer shooter would have shooting in their normal two handed grip/stance.

On your question of target focus even with irons, I've definitely shifted more towards just driving some of my attention to the front sight rather than trying to shift my vision. I can't really snap my vision between different focal distances anymore, so it's partially out of necessity due to changing vision, but I've found some of the same benefits of picking a very clearly defined target "spot" when shooting irons as I do shooting a dot.

[joshs]

I think a major difference between the two sighting systems is iron sights are continuous shades of gray where the dot is a more binary, yes/no.

With irons at close range, you can be front sight or target focused, with the sights perfectly aligned, grossly misaligned or in between, and none of that will stop you from firing a shot and likely hitting a generous target. If the dot is out of the window, for less experienced shooters that may be a stop sign moment where they either freeze or start looking FOR the dot with a bunch of wrist articulation.

Right, I'd bet most of the strings on the FAM Qual could be shot with the dot off and no irons with perfect hits on the giant scoring area of the Q target. Once shooters make the jump to treating the optic housing and rear of the slide like misaligned irons, the time delta on close range targets tends to go away. But, you have to learn to listen to Obi-Wan's voice in your head saying "trust your feelings."

[Borderland]

Your full description of your experience on this subject closely mirrors my own over a longer period, say 3 years. That 3-7 yard distance is where I have never seen a true "timers and targets" dot advantage, and on certain days I am simply not in the groove and it is materially slower by tenths. My dominant hand, non-dominant hand is something I am working on a lot, but my performance still gets much worse in terms of index consistency. Past 10-12 yards that whole timers and targets thing flips and gets better the further I go.

I continue to work on all of it, and plan to do so for the years left in my shooting life, I find it enjoyable and challenging. Something where dry and live fire delivers improvement on all aspects of it.

Something I never read or hear discussed in all of this is the differences in hand/eye coordination that exist in humans, and how that influences our ability to index well and consistently. Being part of that 1%, or the ease with which it is achieved most certainly has something to do with this. We are not all the same.

I always sucked at shooting a basketball, no matter how hard I practiced or wanted to (growing up in KY everybody wanted to) or how many coaches worked with me. But I could aim my whole body well enough to excel at football when it came to tackling or blocking. I am not in any top group of hand/eye skills, and I am convinced that pistol shooting, especially the indexed dot has a lot to do with what level of what we often refer to as hand/eye coordination you have in terms of how easy, or how hard this is. And of course how hard you have to work, how many reps, how often, etc. you must put in Vs what somebody else can do to achieve the same level of proficiency.

The whole "all you need is XXX number dry reps" thing I have heard mouthed by some is simply not true for everybody. It may be for some, but not for me.

For now irons are more frequently in my holster because my irons performance more closely aligns with the scenarios I am most likely to face in a defensive shooting. Not the "Dicken Drill".

I believe that accurate first shot hit is the most critical thing in terms of time in any defensive scenario. I have come to the conclusion that hiking in the national forest is where a dot is now my preferred side arm, because the defensive distances for that first shot could quite easily spread out.

I like the sports anaogy here. No matter how good a baseball player is, some will never be a 280 hitter. Has everything to do with hand eye coordination. Then the timing thing comes into play here just like shooting with a timer. Some players can't hit a 95 mph fast ball. The analogy is the time it takes to align the target with the sight and the time it takes to judge the speed of a fastball. Take the timer away and everyone is a good hitter or shooter.

I see it a lot with average trap shooters, me included. You simply can't wait until the target gets too far along it's trajectory to take the shot, even though it makes sense to your computer brain to track it.


Yeah, I know this is a pistol-toaster forum.

[BN]

Does anybody know what the original FAM qual was? I seem to remember that it was very hard. These videos all seem to be shooting something different and with different targets and different scoring. Sort of like "what is the real El Prez".

Back when the Air Marshal thing started, I RO'd a squad of real life Air Marshals at a state USPSA match on staff day. It was sort of QT because their identity was secret then. They were all solid B Class shooters, but no M or GM.

And what about laser sights? I have them on some of my snubbies.

I don't really disagree with anything Ken and Paul said.

[ST911]

When everyone is saying "FAM qual" I understand that to mean the old TPC. Then there are the differences in targets that seem to prompt disagreement, QIT 97 or 99, IALEFI Q, etc. Then, is the 5 the rectangle or the internal bottle or the 8" on whatever target we're talking about. With those variables, passing the TPC may be more or less exception depending on these variables. Would be nice to have some consistency.

[BehindBlueI's]

I think when @BehindBlueI's has stated that he has never investigated a dead body with an empty J-frame laying next to it, may be a relevant data point.

With the qualifier of 'random violence', this is correct. The needed level of fundamentals is generally pretty low. Or, failing that, so high it's basically unwinnable and the good guy was down before the gun was dry. Shot in the back by the 3rd guy he never saw while shooting at the two he did see sort of scenarios.

Targeted violence, I've had people shoot the gun dry to include Glocks with extended magazines, those pistol/rifle hybrid things, etc. Sometimes they were dead anyway, like the guy who was center punched twice, emptied his gun at the fleeing car, then died in the middle of the street with his pants around his ankles. He got hit for fucking someone else's girl, but the pants thing was just due to oversized pants and not holding them up while run/shooting.

[BehindBlueI's]

Quals and drills help us measure our improvement over time, but will any of that matter much when trying not to get stabbed up behind the Tasty Freeze?

From NYPD's SOP-9 reports:

The Disconnect Between Range Marksmanship & Combat Hitsmanship

It has been assumed that if a man can hit a target at 50 yards he can
certainly do the same at three feet. That assumption is not borne out by the
reports.

An attempt was made to relate an officer's ability to strike a target in a
combat situation to his range qualification scores. After making over 200
such comparisons, no firm conclusion was reached.

To this writer's mind, the study result establishes that there is indeed a disconnect between the
two. If there was a connection between range marksmanship and combat
hitsmanship, one would expect the combat hit potential percentages, to be
well above the dismal ones reported. That is because the shooting distance
was less than 20 feet in 75 percent of the 4000 encounters studied.

To me, that means either the training is so unrealistic as to be useless, the range scores are so easy as to be useless, or there's so little difference that it's overwhelmed by the myriad of other variables. Regardless of which mixture of the above is true, there was no direct connection between range scores and real world outcomes.

I still believe that once a certain floor of proficiency is met, simunitions and similar training has much more value than another tenth off your split time or what-have-you.

[GJM]

When everyone is saying "FAM qual" I understand that to mean the old TPC. Then there are the differences in targets that seem to prompt disagreement, QIT 97 or 99, IALEFI Q, etc. Then, is the 5 the rectangle or the internal bottle or the 8" on whatever target we're talking about. With those variables, passing the TPC may be more or less exception depending on these variables. Would be nice to have some consistency.

That is exactly why I requested Ken tell us his version.

[GJM]

Right, I'd bet most of the strings on the FAM Qual could be shot with the dot off and no irons with perfect hits on the giant scoring area of the Q target. Once shooters make the jump to treating the optic housing and rear of the slide like misaligned irons, the time delta on close range targets tends to go away. But, you have to learn to listen to Obi-Wan's voice in your head saying "trust your feelings."

Taking it a step further, I was thinking it could be shot with a bare slide, no dot or irons, but that would need to be tested.

[mmc45414]

He got hit for fucking someone else's girl, but the pants thing was just due to oversized pants and not holding them up while run/shooting.

Get Off The X, well unless you would trip because your pants are around your ankles.
And here we all are, debating between Wilderness and Tenicor...