Maintaining minimum proficiency for the average joe

[Gaxicus]

Im writing this to a mixed audience. If it doesnt apply to you, its ok, let it slide.

While lots of us shoot thousands of rounds per year, most people barely shoot at all. Whether its just that other things occupy their time, the expense, or they just dont think about it, most people that own firearms shoot very little.

Chances are good that when the average Joe (or Juliette) bought the gun it was to add a sense of security to their home. They bought it, shot it a few times, hopefully they received some training, shot it a few more times, then it gets packed away and forgotten until something scares them. Months, even years.

The difference in performance in a good and experienced shooter after a few months without a gun in their hand can be remarkable. I notice a big difference after only 90 days. For an inexperienced gun owner it is less about group size or speed, its about safety.

I have been working on a realistic and easy little schedule that will help keep even the most grissled shooter at about 70% and and busy inexperienced shooter comfortable and confident.

First, if you havent had any training at all, get some. You dont need thunder ranch to defend your home but instruction about safe operation and the legal ramifications of using a gun to defend your home is a must.

Its cheesy but it works like this.

TV PRACTICE when you make your house payment

HOUSE PRACTICE on the week of your birthday

SHOOT on the week of everyone else in the houses birthday.

Everyone already remembers their house payment (insert foreclosure joke here) and everyone should remember the birthdays in the house. Not so hard to make into a habit.

TV PRACTICE: Inspect the gun, work the action a few dozen times, clean if necessary. Load, Unload, put all live ammo in another room, load snap caps. Now turn on your favorite show and wait for a commercial. When the commercial comes on snap cap shoot each person in the commercial just as soon as they say something. When the commercials stop, clear the gun, load snap caps, watch your show until the next commercial break and start over. You'd be surprised how weak those weird shooting muscles can get. After an hour, you will be sore.

HOUSE PRACTICE: Done with a deck of cards and some tape in an empty house with the blinds drawn and snap caps. Inspect and work the action as you would in the TV practice. Put all loaded clips/mags and live ammo away in a secure location. Go to your bedroom. Shuffle the deck of cards, cut it, place the top card under your gun on the bed without looking at it. Now grab some tape and place a card in locations around your house in plain sight, behind doors, behind furniture, basically anywhere a human could be. Do that until the deck is gone. Go to your bedroom, check the gun to make sure snap caps are loaded and look at the card. It determines the bad guy color. Red, or black. Now move through the house shooting three times at each bad guy card. If you accidentally shoot the wrong color card, stop what you are doing, place it in your back pocket, and continue through the house. Rinse and repeat until you can do it without killing the wrong color.

SHOOT: Inspect as with the other practices. Go to the range. Load up at least two clips or pocket two full cylinders of ammo. Start with the target at 15 yards and slow fire through your clips or cylinders with a slow deliberate reload. Do this step twice. If you are shaky or nervous, repeat as until you are not. Then load up again and set a new target at 5 yards. Start with the gun pointed at the ground under the target but look at the target. Take 3 quick breaths, raise the gun into your sight line and fire 3 times in about the time it takes to say the words "second amendment" then return the gun to the lowered position. Repeat through at least 2 fast reloads. You should be able to keep 2 out of 3 shots in a torso sized target. If you cant, try 2 more clips/cylinders. If you still cant, call it a day and schedule some range time for the following week to try again.

Muscle memory and familiarity are tackled with TV practice. The gun gets inspected, we know where everything is.. This is good. Hand-eye, pointing, and the obnoxious commercial people eat lead.

House practice is to get people to put the gun to use for the intention they probably bought it. Those cards are small and not so easy to discern color in bad light. It imparts target discernment habits in the shooter. This exercise will also teach them that moving around the house with a gun needs to be deliberate and careful process. Tripping and knocking stuff over is pretty common. Be careful, this aint the movies.

The Shooting practice is all about comfort, sight alignment, and familiarity of recoil at first, then it gets into "stopping an attack" by rolling three rounds at a time into the target. Bad guys dont stop with one shot (usually) and normal shooters dont usually hit very often. The three quick breaths and rapid shots add stress and pressure. If you will ever really need the gun, you will be breathing hard and stressed. Practice how you play I always say.

Anyway. This is my little maintenance schedule for regular Joes. Any tips, questions, or improvements, please feel free to post. If your someone wanting to flex your ego or bloviate about your credentials, please just move on.

[erwos]

Interesting idea. I actually think the problem area is wider than you think... I know, at least in my case, that my home defense guns are not the same as my standard range guns. In fact, my HD guns are DAO whereas my range guns are SA/DA or SAO, so there's quite a lot of difference in how they shoot. Ergo, I have to be careful to fire off a few magazines (not clips!) with my HD guns every once in a while to be sure I'm still maintaining reasonable proficiency.

Your actual advice on how to accomplish this seems rather dramatic. Ultimately, I don't know if there's a substitute for frequent range time. I'm certainly dubious about whether card and TV drills are going to do anything useful. Why not just put a standard target at the end of a long room and just dry-fire at that?

[Vanya]

Point gun at TV... pull trigger... repeat.

Point gun at random locations around house... pull trigger... repeat.

Umm.... NO.

Rule I: All guns are always loaded.
Rule II: Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
Rule III: Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
Rule IV: Be sure of your target, and of what lies beyond it on the trajectory of the bullet.

Where a "target," by definition, is something you are willing to destroy that has a safe backstop behind it. Not the TV, not around the house "anywhere a human could be."

Dry fire practice, or practice with snap caps, is a terrific idea, but you need to be following the Four Rules at all times, which means you're doing it ONLY where there's a suitable target and and a safe backstop. Anything else is irresponsible.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Where a "target," by definition, is something you are willing to destroy that has a safe backstop behind it. Not the TV, not around the house "anywhere a human could be."

Actually, the old tube TVs are pretty effective backstops. That thick glass screen will do dramatic things to a bullet. I watched a 28" tube TV stop an FMJ 7.62x39 round fired from less than 10' at it. Big mess; but didn't exit the TV.

If you don't mind losing the TV, they do make for good practice since they have a constantly changing background (target movement, target recognition, etc.) and they can be a good backstop in the event there is a mistake.

[Shakazulu]

I have a few CO2 pistols I practice with in my basement.

It's easy as a few cardboard boxes for stops.

Cheap paper targets and even cheaper ammo. Besides...it's fun.

[Vanya]

Originally Posted by Bartholomew Roberts

I watched a 28" tube TV stop an FMJ 7.62x39 round fired from less than 10' at it. Big mess; but didn't exit the TV.

Eeee. I'd like to have seen that. I've often wanted to shoot the TV...

And there's something almost zen-like about the question of whether something can be both target and backstop... I'd say no, m'self. You've still gotta worry about what's behind the TV...

Originally Posted by Shakazulu

I have a few CO2 pistols I practice with in my basement.
It's easy as a few cardboard boxes for stops.
Cheap paper targets and even cheaper ammo. Besides...it's fun.

Yes, indeedy. I shoot airguns in the basement a lot, using a box stuffed with carpet scraps as a pellet trap. And it's a fine place to practice dry firing, too...

[LightningJoe]

Rule I: All guns are always loaded.

Hmmm. Removing human judgment from this rule would prevent us from cleaning our guns.


I think this rule requires a degree of common sense. If we must elaborate in the text of the rule, then it would be something like "Treat all guns as loaded unless you've just now checked them" or something like that.


Without human intelligence, there aren't any rules that will make gun-handling safe. The 4 rules, I think, are predicated on the assumption that you will use human judgment. Otherwise, guns aren't for you.

[Gaxicus]

Rule I: All guns are always loaded.

How do you clean a gun that is always loaded safely.
How do you repair a gun that is always loaded?

Rule II: Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.

How can you possibly want to destroy your holster, your gun case, or anything else that loaded gun might be pointing at.

Rule III: Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.

Like this one.

Rule IV: Be sure of your target, and of what lies beyond it on the trajectory of the bullet.

Like this one too but in this case there is no bullet.


Point is, the first two, if one is absolutely rigid, preclude handling or storing a firearm in any way. They are good rules when applied to the proper circumstance. If one can only handle a firearm at the range, everyone needs a locker there to store the gun with the muzzle pointed down range (rule #1 and 2).

If we are reasonable about the situation, we can be safe handling a firearm and make it inert by unloading it, adding snap caps, and placing any live ammo in a seperate room. Walk into any gun store. They routinely "safe" a gun and hand it to a customer to fondle. I cant tell you how many times I have been swept with a muzzle at the gun store. It still creeps me out but I deal with it. So does the poor salesman.....all day long.

The simple act of regularly familiarizing youself with the function and the feel of your home defense gun. Raising it, holding it in a firing position, etc builds muscle conditioning, muscle memory, and overall familiarity with the gun.

I believe it is actually safer to have people who are confident and familiar with the operation of their firearm by snap capping the TV than it is to have millions of firearms out there that their owners havent touched because they "should only handle it at the range". The simple overwhelming fact is that they dont go to the range. Regardless of why, they dont. That is what the TV drill is meant to address.

Better idea? Buy other toy guns that dont operate like, or feel like their home defense gun? Right. That isnt going to happen and you know it. It also does very little to increase familiarity with function and feel. Its a toy. I will say however that there are some airsoft guns that really do feel and sort of operate like the real thing. Even the weight is close. Those of you with glocks and sigs might look into it. I use an FN P-45 so I am SOL. Regardless, it is important to be familiar with the function as well as the feel.

If the goal is to keep a minimum proficiency and your only answer is range time, you exclude (im guessing) 85% of the people out there with a gun in the home who havent been to the range in at least a year, often several. Many probably dont know exactly where that gun they bought 10 years ago actually is.

The TV drill also brings the gun off the WAY back burner of their mind and brings it up to the front once a month. I think this increases the chance that they might actually make time to go to the range. At least they will know where the darn thing is and make sure its stored safely. They might start looking fortward to birthdays.

All the rules you mentioned have their place but I dont think they should be used to exclude handling a firearm to the range only.

If you shoot once per month or less. Try the TV drill a day or two before you go next time. I noticed a pretty big difference in my scoring, speed, and overall enjoyment of my range time. I didnt have to go through 5 mags just to get my sense of feel and point. I was ready to go when I got there. My TVs are fine, and there are no bullet holes in my house.

[Gaxicus]

In fact, my HD guns are DAO whereas my range guns are SA/DA or SAO, so there's quite a lot of difference in how they shoot. Ergo, I have to be careful to fire off a few magazines (not clips!) with my HD guns every once in a while to be sure I'm still maintaining reasonable proficiency.

This precisely why I think its a good idea to do the TV drilll etc with your home defense gun. Most people will only have one gun for that purpose. Most people on this board probably have several, I know I do. These drills and routine is primarily aimed at them but I shoot fairly regularly and the TV drill still helps me.

Your actual advice on how to accomplish this seems rather dramatic. Ultimately, I don't know if there's a substitute for frequent range time. I'm certainly dubious about whether card and TV drills are going to do anything useful. Why not just put a standard target at the end of a long room and just dry-fire at that?

You are skeptical. Fair enough. Most people stand in a stall at an indoor range and barely move at all with a gun in their hand. As I am sure you know, movement can be the difference between life and death. Moving with a gun in your hand and watching for targets is hard. Not something you should be doing for the first time in your life when there is a bad guy in your house, or with a loaded weapon for that matter.

It teaches familiarity and educates you on angles, use of mirrors, places you can trip and fall, etc. I think its worth giving it a run through at least once a year. Knowing the terrain is a huge tactical advantage, Being able to exploit that knowledge is a big plus.

The TV drill is awesome for me. I choose only males, only females, only people that talk, etc. There is movement, although not a terrific amount, but you still have to move the gun. After an hour episode and lots of commercials, my shoulders are tired and my arms are really feeling it. I get pointing practice, shooting muscle conditioning, and a pretty good sense of feel. Try it a day or two before you go shooting, I think you will notice a difference. I sure do. How many times have you been a bit achey the day after the range? Those muscles get out of shape fast.

[orionengnr]

You know, this is an interesting approach. I think I'm going to try this.
I shoot almost every week, but there are a number of areas in which I can improve.
Moving while shooting, for instance, is something I cannot practice at my local indoor range. Likewise double and triple taps.

[Edward429451]

This is one of those things that you're not supposed to talk about. It does violate some rules, but in order to maintain a level of proficiency in said pursuit, one must do what one must do. The depression doesn't help any either.

Cooper said I need my Tele, but I need my skills more...Do I do it? Of course not.

[Deaf Smith]

Average Joe..... I hate that term. Average is 50 percentile. It’s mediocre. You fail test with 50 percent grades.

Strive to be better than an 'average joe'. Especially at defensive skills.

[Gaxicus]

I am going to go ahead and challenge anyone who feels that they can safely perform the TV drill to do so and get back to the forum on what you think. The real result will be seen at the range a day or two later but Im interested in your impressions even if you dont go to the range.

Did you develop "Point"?
Did you develop "Feel"?
Did your shooting muscles get a work out?
Do you feel like you could perform better with your defense gun after the drill?
Is your TV still working?
Comments?

Come on and just do it. It gives you an excuse to pull out betsy and you like her dont you?

Im interested in the results of the other drills too. Especially the card drill. <see instructions above,be safe, and dont freak your neighbors out>

Moving through your house with a gun in your hand is harder than you thought isnt it?
Trip and Fall?
Break stuff?
Put nicks in the wall with your gun?
Shoulders on fire from holding the gun up?
Bump your head?

[jjyergler]

Vanya, I agree with you most of the time, and in principle, I do here as well. However, while in the Army, we used our M-16s for MILES training, and now they use simunitions as well. I know of more than one occasion when improperly installed blank adaptor almost resulted in injury.

These rules are generally applicable, but, in certain circumstances, with specific precautions, those rules can be put aside. I would caution, that the safety procedures must be ironclad and followed religiously.

[Vanya]

Originally Posted by jjyergler

These rules are generally applicable, but, in certain circumstances, with specific precautions, those rules can be put aside. I would caution, that the safety procedures must be ironclad and followed religiously.

Sure -- The four rules didn't come down from the mountain on a stone tablet, they're the product of human thought, and you can invent some other set of precautions, or rules, and be fine as long as you don't screw up. But we all have those rules pretty much ingrained, or should, and the cost of following them is pretty small.

We're human. We make mistakes. In most negligent discharges, the person who had the ND was sure the gun was unloaded; and the consequences can be tragic, as in the case in Nebraska a few months ago, of the young man who killed his new wife while they were practicing "clearing the house." He thought he was dry-firing, and he was wrong. Had he followed even one of the rules, it wouldn't have happened. It seems arrogant and foolhardy to decide that those rules apply to other people, but not to oneself, or that they apply only some of the time.

And before someone says "Of course we're not stupid enough to do that!" I'd ask, "How do you decide where to draw the line?" If you point a gun at the wall of your living room and pull the trigger, are you sure there's not a kid playing across the street?

Of course it's not literally true that "All guns are always loaded." There's a sense in which the four rules are just guidelines, and some of the time, such as when cleaning a gun, it's not possible to follow them all. This is obvious. But following them when possible just seems like common sense. If I'm cleaning a gun, I know it's not loaded -- but I still don't put the muzzle up to my eye to see how the barrel is looking.

Do your dry-fire or snap cap practice in the basement, or somewhere else there's a decent backstop, fergoshsakes. Set up a course where it's safe -- how hard is that, really?

(For anyone who remembers that Nebraska case, here's a quick followup: the husband pled no contest to second-degree assault and was sentenced to 3-5 years in prison. Link here.)

[Gaxicus]

This happened last month at a gun range and a simple google will pull up lots of them.

Shooting accidents can happen anywhere, the range is no different. Most of the time its user error. If that is to be used to prevent handling your firearm at home, why couldnt it be used to prevent us from handling them at all?

Most of the guns purchases made this, and every year, are made by people who are not going to be active shooters. The guns end up in a closet somewhere collecting dust where they could be found by a child/adolescent and taken, case and all, and the parents wouldnt notice until their kid is involved in a shooting.

Even if the this doesnt happen, a bump in the night sends the owner rummaging to the closet for a gun they dont know how to operate, have no confidence with, and certainly dont know how to use to defend themselves or others in their home with. This, at least to me, seems to be far more dangerous than calm and safety conscous practice at home.

Creating a routine that would maintain a minimum level of proficiency that is convenient enough, cheap enough, and realistic enough that may involve relying on the gun owner to be conscious of safety to be safe enough is a better alternative.

It seams that in the same breath you may say "people have the right to own firearms" you are saying "people are not smart enough to handle them". The reason you give is that accidents happen.

To say they are likely to happen at the range less than they would at home completely skips two big points.....

1. These kind of people dont go to the range.

2. These people are nervous, incompetent, and pressured even if they do eventually go. Range accident waiting to happen.

When someone is at home without all of the loud noises, funny glasses and earmuffs, and pressure to look like they know what they are doing they are much likely to be safe while familiarizing themselves with their firearm and much more likely to consult the manual.

How often do you see someone disassembling and reassembling their gun with the manual open in a shooting stall at the range unless they are in a class?

I have to admit to doing it because of a malfunction while we were shooting but I didnt go there to tear the gun down. I went there to shoot it.

I, like most people, familiarize myself with a new gun, or one I havent shot in a while at home. Its calm, quiet , I move at my own pace, and I dont have someone waiting for my spot or looking over my shouder all the time.

If thats acceptable at home, snap caps should be acceptable at home too.

[Vanya]

Gaxicus, if the above is a response to my last post, you haven't read it at all attentively.

I never said "Don't handle your firearm at home." What I said was, "Do your dry fire or snap cap practice where it's safe," which isn't remotely the same thing.

And yes, people do have accidents at home, at the range, outside... not because they're "not smart enough to handle them," but because they're, oh, tired, distracted, or just having a moment's inattention. Search this forum for "negligent discharge" or AD/ND, and you'll find loads of examples self-reported by members of this board, all of whom, it goes without saying, are highly intelligent.

Your point that many gun purchases are made by people who aren't going to practice enough is a good one; but the conclusion I'd draw from that is that people who aren't doing much training are the very ones who most need to be conscientious about following safety rules in whatever practice they do get. And if they're following an accepted set of rules, rather than making up their own, they're that much more likely to be safe.

Actually, though, I worry less about complete novices, who, if they've done their homework, are apt to be very conscientious about safe handling practices. I worry more about the people in the middle of the experience continuum, those who are familiar enough with guns that they're starting to take safety for granted, so that safe handling is less a matter for conscious thought. They're the ones who may then start thinking like this: "I know what I'm doing, so those inconvenient rules don't have to apply to me all the time..."

It's much more a matter of overconfidence than of lack of intelligence.

It's also a matter of maintaining good habits, so that they'll be ingrained when it counts. I don't run red lights late at night when there's no traffic, not because I think there's anything intrinsically wrong with doing so, or even because I'm worried about getting a ticket. I do it because I want the habit of stopping for red lights to be so ingrained that it's a reflex rather than something I think about. Handling guns is no different. If you practice safe handling in a consistent way, those are the reflexes you'll have when it matters: when the gun really is loaded, whether you think it is or not.

[Double Naught Spy]

Maintaining minimum proficiency for the average joe
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While lots of us shoot thousands of rounds per year, most people barely shoot at all. Whether its just that other things occupy their time, the expense, or they just dont think about it, most people that own firearms shoot very little.

While having a maintenance schedule is good, I don't see how it offsets the problems of other things occupying time or the fact that they don't think about practicing.

With that said, the schedule seems a bit overly complicated. Practicing different ways when other unrelated events occur sounds tough to remember.

[Gaxicus]

The hope is to associate some kind of training with common things they have to remember.

Going to a range can be a big deal sometimes. Some people only get weekends off and the ranges are packed, far away, or just expensive with the price of ammo.

Snap capping in front of the TV and associating a trip to the range on birthdays can make it an event and a reasonable and realistic schedule.

I do my TV drill in my room during my evening shows. No kids see it so Im not teaching them to play with guns. Im not playing but it would sure look like that to a kid.

1. A bithday in the house, you practice.
2. Make a house payment, TV Drill.

I dont see how that is complicated or hard to remember.

All totalled, a typical person would house drill once, shoot 4 times per year, and TV drill once a month. Not a lot of shooting but with the familiarity of function, feel, and point, their level of proficiency and safety is going to be several times that of someone who has a gun in a closet somewhere.

[Gaxicus]

They're the ones who may then start thinking like this: "I know what I'm doing, so those inconvenient rules don't have to apply to me all the time..."

I agree with what I was getting out of your last post overall.

Rules are important. Good habits are just as important. In this case, you make rules to keep you safe while you "break" another.

Emergency vehicals run red lights all the time but they have other rules and procedures that come into play when they need to.

Im not trying to say gun drills like this are as important as emergency vehicals getting where they need to go, just pointing out that every rule has its exceptions and additional considerations. You used red lights as an example, so I just kept with that one.

I NEVER have live rounds in the same room as I snap cap unless they are locked away and difficult to get to. I also NEVER snap-cap drill in front of kids. It looks like too much fun and may get them thinking its OK for them to do.

Try the drill if you think you can do it safely. You will see that it can be done with little inconvenience and its benefits will be obvious, even if you shoot weekly.