My first and last manhunts in law enforcement were both in the winter, in the early morning hours with below zero temps. I was 26 for the first one. I was 53 for the last one, six days before I retired. The physical difference was dramatic.
My first and last manhunts in law enforcement were both in the winter, in the early morning hours with below zero temps. I was 26 for the first one. I was 53 for the last one, six days before I retired. The physical difference was dramatic.
We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again.......
I grew up in NY, and the cold basically did not affect me. Moved away for 30 years, the majority of that in hotter climates. When I got stationed back in NY in 2012, my first experience with snow was fairly dramatic.Originally Posted by Trooper224
Now I make it a habit to get to the range once per week, as long as it's not raining, despite the temperature. Definitely getting some of my "sea legs" back on cold weather endurance. I will say I pussed out and skipped the range when it was -9 with -44 wind chill a couple of weeks ago...
Humidity is a huge factor here as well. NY (especially Long Island) is cold and DAMP - worst possible combination, IMHO. IN humidity still registers pretty high on the weather apps, but it doesn't FEEL damp (except when it's raining, which is damn near every f'ing day in the winter...)
A consideration is gun under or outside your clothing.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
Good article.
One thing that has forced this habit I have been doing a local three gun match every month for the last few years. And every month means all of the months. Actually they did cancel a couple of times, once after we were all there and already shooting, and one of the stages pretty much blew away after one squad shot it and the other hadn't, another time when there was some potentially dangerous severe weather, I forget exactly what (maybe highly probable tornado conditions, or something) and they canceled in advance (maybe morning of).
But this has forced me (peer pressure is a thing, even for adults...) to go out and shoot on days I might not otherwise go outside, and it can be telling. As mentioned, my hands are the biggest problem. At three gun we can wear mittens until it is your turn, also handy when resetting steel targets that are colder than hell. I have become (almost 64yo) very reliant on the handwarmer packets. On our normal pistol days on the weekends I make out pretty well by keeping my hands in my pockets when they are not busy. I also palm them and put them inside my gloves/mittens.
And rain is anther thing, once just by (un) luck of the draw it was my turn to shoot a stage when it started raining a deluge, hard enough I would have waited it out if I was just going to the range. ~90yd shot on 8" plates with a totally occluded optic was not the recipe for success, learning occurred...
As far as frozen equipment, Garrand Thumb did a stunt for video where they submerged a bunch of pistols and then froze them in a cooler full of dry ice. I think all but one (spoiler alert: I am an M&P fan...) needed to have a little water poured on them to thaw the internal ice. The hammer guns had it (understandably) the worst. Really just silly clickbait, but was rather interesting.
This all sounds terrible...
But... Maybe I should be doing tests of how sun/sand/salt affects guns?
http://instagram.com/p/Br54yYvHETH/
I remember my first winter back in Kansas, after spending a few years in Southern California. Ho boy. 😀
My harsh weather experience during my military service was primarily operating in arctic conditions, so I know how to stay warm. During my LE career I hardly ever put on a jacket, unless it was deep winter and I was going to be out of the car for an extended period. Cold really wasn't a concern. When I hit 50 all that seemed to change over night. You reach a point where life starts to catch up to you, where working smarter becomes more important than working harder.
We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again.......
So I understand than when you get cold your body prioritizes blood to your core which somewhat starves your limbs.
My hands are pretty sensitive to cold. They start to hurt a lot earlier than some folks it seems. Something I've observed anecdotally over and over is that if I go the range in cold weather and really bundle up for warmth my hands tolerate the cold noticeably better than if I'm just dressed at the edge of comfort.
The performance shooting tracks with this. More bundled up torso, hands and shooting better. Chilled torso and the hands hurt; the performance takes a bigger dump. Gloves or not btw
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
Another interesting thing that came up during that frigid night-vision class was the requirement to holster the handgun repeatedly in complete darkness with cold hands in gloves. When this issue came up, the first thing I thought was how glad I was to be using a hammer-fired TDA gun with a very ergonomic decocker. Even though I couldn't verify that the trigger guard or holster were clear of obstructions, I could feel that the hammer was down and remained down as I holstered the gun. If I'd been using a striker-fired gun without an SCD I'm pretty sure I would have removed a glove, and used white light every time I holstered. And I still wouldn't have been happy about it.
“There is no growth in the comfort zone.”--Jocko Willink
"You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
Ken and I were just talking about this a few days ago.
It was about 5? years ago we did a cold weather shoot and it warmed up to about 17 below zero. I remember it was in the mid -20s when I left the hotel in Salmon. I chose to stay in a nice warm(ish) hotel and not at my cabin as I wanted a hot shower and not have to mess with stoking my wood stove during the night.
I keep a fair bit of supplies in my old Land Cruiser during that time of year and it was a good thing as I needed to run my backpacker stove on the inside to defrost the windows in a timely manner since the Toyota straight 6 was just not cutting it.
A few takeaways besides human performance slowing down, which was significant with everyone, was that while rifle powders seem to do fine in the cold, many of the pistol powders were not performing well. We did not have a chronograph, but you could tell that the pistol ammo was not up to par and most the 9mm ammo felt like shooting a 380. I was running a Gen 3 G34 and while it ran fine due to the fact I was running 0w20 motor oil, for lube, the actual ammo was quite weak.
Lot of guys had significant problems getting their ARs to run until they removed the lubricants from them as much of it was gumming up. Lighter weight lube sparingly applied helped.
Aside from that, all I can say is that I tend to keep internal furnace going by eating higher fat content food when I am going to be in very cold environments. I eat a lot more peperoni sticks, jerky, cheese, nuts, and things like that when I am outside in very cold weather. That and more peanut butter than a normally would. There are no shortage of ways to meet a persons needs, but the point is that in below freezing temps your body consumes more calories. Plus you need more water.
If your body has warm food and liquid inside during cold weather, you will perform better, and be willing to go further, no matter what your objective is. At least that has been my experience.
I get that a TDA helps holstering in the dark with an appendix holster, but I think it is easy to look for things that reinforce our choices. The LEM guy will probably pop up and say the great thing about the LEM is it takes away the possibility of holstering a TDA in SA, when cold fingers in gloves are less sensitive! There are reasons we need to know how to safely work with all the different systems in difficult conditions. Sometimes that means no appendix holsters for a night course and using a retention holster that stands off your body. Or pulling your holster off by the clips, inserting the pistol and replacing the holster with the pistol inside.
For nearly ten years, this was my every day setup for five months of the year. LEM in a chest rig on snowshoes, and if my wife wasn't with me, a second pistol AIWB under my jacket.
And my wife's extreme cold setup.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
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