Open enrollment expectations vary. A state mandated CCW course is open enrollment and practically nobody will do it. A two-day combative pistol class will have a few solid shooters in it. Out of 100 such students, I'd guess 5-7 can pull off a sub-5 second FAST.
No absolutely not. One of my pet peeves is labeling foundations skills as "advanced," ignoring them until later in a students development, and then watching them struggle to adjust to material that should be second nature. I'm running a similar class and my recommended minimum skill is the ability to hit an 8" circle from concealment in less than 2 seconds. Being able to put 5 rounds in a 5" circle at 5 yards from concealment is better but not required. Obviously, the better shooters will find the class easier but even someone who can only safely run their pistol will get a lot out of the class. Most importantly, it will show them what realistic standards are and how they'll need to work to get there.Wouldn't using the anatomical target (3D or otherwise) represent kind of an advanced skill to work on after you can comfortably handle a 5 second FAST? Do we have a bunch of intermediate and beginner students trying so hard to shoot the aorta when they should just be spending all their time getting multiple center of mass hits? Or is the target more to show them how successful that FAST drill would have been on real person?
Again, one of the under appreciated functions of a target is to calibrate the shooter's use of the trigger/sights to ensure hits. If you spend you're shooting career banging full size steel silhouettes, it will really suck when you have to display the sights/trigger/recoil control needed to hit a realistic target.
- It's not the odds, it's the stakes.
- If you aren't dry practicing every week, you're not serious.....
- "Tache-Psyche Effect - a polite way of saying 'You suck.' " - GG
I agree with your point for the most part. Building a solid grasp of the fundamentals of shooting, such as being able to call your shots, should be prioritized before worrying about the nuances of whether your chosen target is realistic enough.
I think that those known standards you referenced when talking about the strength of USPSA targets could be scaled to whatever size your target zone ends up being. The thing about those standards is that the USPSA A zone encompasses things that are good hits (the upper half) and things that aren’t (the lower half). While any hit in that A zone is scored the same for the purposes of the drills or skills tests, since were talking about superimposing these targets into human anatomy, not all of those hits are worth the same when trying to stop a human assailant. Hits in the top half of that lower A zone would be worth a lot more than hits in the bottom half of the lower A zone. A shot to the guts isn’t as physiologically as effective as a shot to the heart/lung/major vessels we’ve been discussing. The standards, as established, don’t account for that. For the purposes of scoring a Bill Drill or El Prez, all hits to the A zone count the same. For the purposes of making someone stop endangering your life, they absolutely don’t.
My posts only represent my personal opinion and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or official policies of any employer, past or present. Obvious spelling errors are likely the result of an iPhone keyboard.
Yes, but a good shooter still knows how much space he/she has to work with and adjusts.
For example, there are many classifiers with partial coverage with no shoots. Often with just the lower half of the A blocked. There are also ones with just heads exposed. Add to that matches were you see targets at every kind of distance and on the move, good shooters get good at scaling their speed and abilities to the available target.
These are some well known classifiers.
Last edited by JCN; 02-12-2021 at 12:09 AM.
Then we need to put clothing over it so you can't see the landmarks. Unless you're only training to gunfight in a nudist colony. #preciouszone
"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...
One of the things with USPSA targets is that you can index the chest A zone off the neck/head and extend the line downwards.
It’s kind of hard to describe, but instead of staring at the spot in the chest you’re aiming at (because it’s just a field of brown), you’re keeping the head/neck in alignment and referencing off that.
I would think that’d be reasonable for a heavy clothed individual.
Instead of staring at the button on their jacket and trying to hit that, you’d quickly assess where their axial skeleton / spine ran and aim in that general direction 5-9 inches down from the chin/neck.
This is true, but it's also true of just about any target with even a vaguely defined head/neck area, even a B-27.
If I ever have to do this for real, I'll be happy to hit center chest roughly at nipple/armpit level. I kinda doubt there'll be time for more precision. And since I'm still using iron sights, I won't be able to focus on a button.
Absolutely. It's mainly a training / marksmanship feedback thing (for me) to have straight vertical borders.
The QIT-97 is my favorite.
Maybe you'll be lucky enough that the criminal will be wearing this?