How are you for carry gear? Happily, JM makes some good holsters for the Glock 19, and Mastermind Tactics some good carry belts.
A good belt & holster combo is key to comfortable & safe concealed carry- and it doesn't cost too much more than the derp tier stuff.
"You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
"I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI
I'm a little late to the party, but will try to catch up.
You have received excellent advice, and you are lucky that you found Pistol-Forum. Most other places online have way higher levels of chest thumping ignorance mascarading as knowledge.
I used to be 100% in this camp. I still am, with the caveat that it might not be the best if you have Whopper Jr. sized hands.Originally Posted by HCM
Spot on.
Other post/points that I was going to comment on you have already taken to heart.
I may be putting the cart before the horse, so to speak, but since you mentioned your previous shooting experience, I'd like you to take a look at this video, which is discussed in-depth elsewhere here on PF. I want you understand this concept of how to use your sights when you attend that first training class (the folks in the video are active members here) :
Last edited by Chuck Whitlock; 01-29-2024 at 11:28 PM.
"It's surprising how often you start wondering just how featureless a desert some people's inner landscapes must be."
-Maple Syrup Actual
@Chuck Whitlock I found this video very helpful, thank you.
FWIW, I seem to have made significant progress even in advance of my first live class. Before discovering pistol forum and deciding against airsoft training I acquired an airsoft blowback gun and put a clip through it after watching a couple of "equal height, equal light" type videos and a few beginner grip videos. I was hoping to improve my accuracy from the 20% hit rate on a 12" box at 5 yards that was my family ranch experience to something at least a little better. My very first clip on the airsoft was mostly at 7 yards with a half dozen 10 and 15 yard plinks plus a couple of one-handed shots. Each shot did take about 10 or 15 seconds to line up, which is where I think the "see what you need to see" concept explained so well by Tim and Ashton could immediately help, but overall I was pleasantly surprised at the level of improvement I could achieve with just this little bit of knowledge. Most of the shots were aimed at the nearest red box, with a few intentionally aimed to the middle line between boxes.
Not saying I'll be the next Christopher Scott Kyle, but this does give me hope that I might actually develop some competence with proper training and practice.
I’ll apologize in advance for being a “boomer” and unsure how to post links. But, please go to YouTube and search for “Aiming is useless”, Rob Leatham. I think it’s 6 minutes well spent.@Chuck Whitlock I found this video very helpful, thank you.
FWIW, I seem to have made significant progress even in advance of my first live class. Before discovering pistol forum and deciding against airsoft training I acquired an airsoft blowback gun and put a clip through it after watching a couple of "equal height, equal light" type videos and a few beginner grip videos. I was hoping to improve my accuracy from the 20% hit rate on a 12" box at 5 yards that was my family ranch experience to something at least a little better. My very first clip on the airsoft was mostly at 7 yards with a half dozen 10 and 15 yard plinks plus a couple of one-handed shots. Each shot did take about 10 or 15 seconds to line up, which is where I think the "see what you need to see" concept explained so well by Tim and Ashton could immediately help, but overall I was pleasantly surprised at the level of improvement I could achieve with just this little bit of knowledge. Most of the shots were aimed at the nearest red box, with a few intentionally aimed to the middle line between boxes.
Not saying I'll be the next Christopher Scott Kyle, but this does give me hope that I might actually develop some competence with proper training and practice.
And a minor nomenclature note: magazine or “mags” instead of clip…
Dang, so much to learn. I found this video incredibly interesting, though it definitely didn't make anything easier regarding how I proceed in learning this art. As with many advanced skillsets there is a divergence of opinions that can be hard to sort through as a newbie. On the one hand, get the fundamentals right first, then learn where to deviate; on the other, as I understand this video, sometimes the old school fundamentals are flat out wrong and you should go with the newer approach that benefits from science and real-world learnings.
I honestly don't know how to take this. As an afficionado approaching 10k hours in two other hobbies-- classical piano and the game of Go (think Chess++) -- I am biased towards learning the established best practices first through slow perfection, then speeding up through muscle memory or pattern recognition, but I can definitely empathize with the notion of learning quickly something that is good enough over learning how to speed up 'perfection'.
For me, in this context, I'm more interested in being able to hit a 6" box at 10 yards within 2 seconds than I'm interested in being able to hit a 1" box within 10 seconds at 25 yards. This is more about realistic personal and family defense situations than about ideal marksmanship skills. So the question for me is, do I best achieve this goal through slow perfection followed by speed-up of the fundamentals, or through optimizing speed first at the expense of limited accuracy?
Last thought, thanks for the nomenclature guidance. I really appreciate giving guidance now vs. me continuing to use cringe-worthy language that I only learn much later to correct.
Well sir, I am past 70 now, and still trying to learn. One can’t go wrong by working the fundamentals as you dry practice and shoot. I return again to the theme that actual instruction will seve you well. Get it as soon as you possibly can. Your objectives are commendable and from my perspective I would try to achieve a balance of speed and accuracy, always trying to improve both. Jeff Cooper, who contributed a lot in the 20th century described defensive pistol craft as a balance between accuracy, power and speed. These elements, along with attitude or mindset, are necessary for success. One of our LE moderators, @BehindBlueIs, has studied self defense shootings in his midwestern city. One of his takeaways is that a defender will run out of time before ammo, etc. That suggests to me leaning a bit toward a fast, “coarse” hit. For example, one standard would be 5 rounds into a five inch circle at 5 yards to work toward. Check out the Rangemaster newsletter linked to on this site. But you gotta start somewhere and some good coaching will see to that.
You have a good firearm(and I’ll admit to being a fan and user of Glocks). Get a good belt, holster and a few mag carriers for your shooting training. Focus on safely living with the gun and carry on!
I think the Rob Leatham "aiming is useless" video isn't actually saying that aiming is useless. Aiming becomes fairly useless IF you can't break the shot without shoving the gun out of alignment at the last couple milliseconds because you are anticipating the recoil. If you wildly disturb that carefully constructed sight alignment, especially with a flailing pre-ignition angular deflection, it was a waste of time. It's probably most often referred to as "flinching", but some would say that isn't the most accurate description of what is actually happening.
Pure horizontal or pure vertical movement of the gun/sights doesn't matter too much. There are drills that help illustrate this. Some consist of things like moving the gun in a circular motion around the center of the target while shooting (hard to explain, easy to demonstrate), or shaking quite hard on purpose while shooting. Movement in the sights, or some types of sight misalignment, don't necessarily cause a bad miss. What will cause a very bad miss is convulsive angular misalignment of the sights that tends to happen so close to the instant of recoil that one has a hard time perceiving it.
Developing a very good, strong, technically sound grip, and learning to accept the recoil without having this convulsive pre-ignition angular deflection, is the trick here. Many people struggle with some degree of recoil anticipation. I am one of them. Heck, Chuck Pressburg is even one of them. I believe he coined the term "the flinchies" or something like that. This is why I recommended thinking of dryfire practice as grip strength training in your other thread. It's good to learn these terms and concepts to try to make this issue a "known unknown" vs a "unknown unknown" if you get that reference. This is part of what a good instructor should be able to diagnose and remediate to some degree. Nip it in the bud, so to speak.
Edit to add: To summarize, grip may be more fundamental than sight alignment to the extent that the former often allows you to accomplish the latter without spastic destruction of the later. In this regard, one could consider grip a prerequisite to sight alignment and trigger control. Certainly an oversimplification, but probably a useful one in this case.
Last edited by frozentundra; 02-01-2024 at 12:24 AM.
You've gotten enough shooting advice that you don't need any from me. What I think you're missing is that shooting isn't going to have that much to do with keeping yourself safe. My first question is why you're leaning hard toward home/car defense. Do you live in a crime ridden neighborhood? Are you in the drug trade? Live with a crazy, homicidal redhead? If not, it's pretty unlikely that you'll ever need to shoot in your house. Second, how do you think a gun in your car is going to help you? If you get jacked, it will be on your way to the car, getting in/out. You need your pistol on your person. More importantly, you need to avoid a fight, or at least see it coming.
SouthNarc (Craig Douglas) on this forum, and Ed Calderone (YouTube) are great resources for you.
Here's one thread:
https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....pliance-Pistol
Read the last few pages of this thread, looking out for BehindBlueI's post with the NYPD study on marksmanship vs outcome.
https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....ll-Predictions
None of what I'm posting should be taken as though I am not in favor of shooting well, but don't start out with the misconception that shooting ability alone will save you.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
Hey Paul -
I'll throw this in - What is your hand size? It can have an effect on fitment of the gun to you. While most can shoot a Glock 19 just fine, if your hands are particularly large, or particularly small, you may find other options to match your hand size better.
If you want a specific number, use the distance from the heel of your palm to the tip of your index finger on your shooting hand. If you can provide this value, I can tell you where you fall in terms of centile, as well as suggest a range of example guns that "should" be a good fit, based on their grip circumference.
I am kinda a numbers nerd, and recently conducted an online study of handgun hand to gun fit, numerically.
Here's a worksheet with the study in a nutshell:
Get_a_Grip_SAE.pdf
The 19 is more than adequate. Training, hardening doors/locks, motion lights, then a long gun would be my order of priorities.
"It was the fuck aroundest of times, it was the find outest of times."- 45dotACP
Reply With Quote