Low light shooting

[NETim]

I have added a thick rubber band to my daily carry pocket light. The band keeps the light more securely in my pocket of pants with shallower pockets, keeps the light from rolling off tables, and most importantly makes it a lot easier to use with the Rogers technique.

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Sorry but yellow appears nowhere in the tactical spectrum. I must question your sincerity.

[Dagga Boy]

True. I'm not a huge fan of the Rogers technique, thus the light's incompatibility isn't an issue for me.

I'm with you on a lot of this, along with your thoughts on WML's on CCW pistols.

Harries-Its more of I have to show you than type it. I trained with Mike Harries for many years and used the technique daily for most of my adult life, so I am biased. Most people don't get the Isometric mechanics and went to apply and not apply pressure. If anyone is going to be at the Rangemaster Tactical Conference, I will be teaching handheld stuff with Wayne Dobbs who will be covering the WML side.

Running a light in street scenarios with all of the pitfalls, and liability of getting things wrong has massive consequences, is a real art in itself. If its just for IDPA or some competitive thing where painting a piece of cardboard isn't an assault, then just get the WML as it is the most efficient way to simply shoot in low light.

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If the light is small enough, try just keeping it in your support hand. I can easily do reloads (in the dark, on the move, under stress) while keeping my Foursevens 1-cell Quark Tactical in my hand. I wrap my pinky and ring finger around the light and use my middle, index, and thumb to handle the magazine.

While I can clear a malf that way, it's awkward and not something I'd want to count on under less than ideal conditions particularly if my hands or the gun was wet. I'll tap-rack using my SHO technique. If that doesn't solve the problem, then getting someplace that will give me the time for a more involved procedure is the priority.

Todd, when you do that, does it look more like this:

or this:


Kenan, the instructor, has it set up so that the light should pivot out like the top picture, giving you a decent amount of grasping power for whatever manipulation you need to do, but I have found the E1B to be too small to effectively pivot in my hand, so it winds up like the bottom picture, which I have found to compromise my grip on the magazine or slide (he was using a Surefire LX2 LumaMax, while the other student using a Surefire G2Z with combat rings didn't seem to have any issues with this practice either). I currently am of the idea to simply drop the light if need be, since I always have a WML, although I also have a lanyard attached to it now so that if I have time to slip it on, I don't lose the light when dropping it (although having something swinging on one's wrist could be a whole set of new problems). I am curious though, if your position is like the bottom picture, as it suggests can be something overcome with training and/or practice.

[ToddG]

This flashlight is a little bigger than the one I actually use, but the concept is the same. Apologies for the blurry photos; my cellphone camera has apparently lost the ability to autofocus.

Normal way I hold a light:


Light and mag in hand at same time:


If I'm going fast sometimes the light doesn't move completely out of the way of the mag (as in your second photo); I've found it to have no impact on the actual manipulation.

edited to add: perhaps the easiest way to try this is to hold your light in your hand normally, and then simply grab your mag from your pouch without thinking about or doing anything with the light. Unless the light is huge or your fingers are tiny, odds are it will work out just fine.

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If I'm going fast sometimes the light doesn't move completely out of the way of the mag (as in your second photo); I've found it to have no impact on the actual manipulation.

edited to add: perhaps the easiest way to try this is to hold your light in your hand normally, and then simply grab your mag from your pouch without thinking about or doing anything with the light. Unless the light is huge or your fingers are tiny, odds are it will work out just fine.

Yeah, that's what I went back to doing during the course after finding that Kenan's way didn't work very well for me, but I still fumbled the reloads quite a bit. Probably just a familiarity issue and/or me just going too fast for something I had zero prior experience in (although having to rack the slide after each reload didn't help, either, due to the aggressive riding of the safety which lead to me hitting the slide release), although the way I see it, if I have to reload, and I have a WML, clearly I'm already shooting, why not just switch to that? Or, Hell, drop the light upon recognizing the threat and revert to WML usage once the decision to fire is made, assuming I have the time to do that. Do you think there anything wrong with that particular thought process?

[Dagga Boy]

Yeah, that's what I went back to doing during the course after finding that Kenan's way didn't work very well for me, but I still fumbled the reloads quite a bit. Probably just a familiarity issue and/or me just going too fast for something I had zero prior experience in (although having to rack the slide after each reload didn't help, either, due to the aggressive riding of the safety which lead to me hitting the slide release), although the way I see it, if I have to reload, and I have a WML, clearly I'm already shooting, why not just switch to that? Or, Hell, drop the light upon recognizing the threat and revert to WML usage once the decision to fire is made, assuming I have the time to do that. Do you think there anything wrong with that particular thought process?

So you have now met Murphy. Murphy almost always shows up in a real fight. If he shows up in practice under blue skies, puffy clouds and menacing cardboard targets, you may have real problems in the chaos of a low light encounter. I am trying not to blow my entire class for the Rangemaster event, but suffice to say that in 19 years of working weekend nights as a cop, all of my low light stuff is literally "retard simple" because "retard simple" (oops......special needs based...) is going to be high speed low drag when you are getting hit in the face in the dark while trying to do this stuff.

[Jay Cunningham]

I like the sound of that!

[Jackdog]

So you have now met Murphy. Murphy almost always shows up in a real fight. If he shows up in practice under blue skies, puffy clouds and menacing cardboard targets, you may have real problems in the chaos of a low light encounter. I am trying not to blow my entire class for the Rangemaster event, but suffice to say that in 19 years of working weekend nights as a cop, all of my low light stuff is literally "retard simple" because "retard simple" (oops......special needs based...) is going to be high speed low drag when you are getting hit in the face in the dark while trying to do this stuff.

Looking forward to y'all's block of instruction at Rangemaster. My lowlight training is very minimal now a days.