Training

One of the people who comments here made the comment that no shooter should ever dry fire a firearm. I would say that if you are not making dry fire a part of your training regimen, you are missing out on an important training tool that will make your trigger control much better.

It isn’t just me who says that. The shooting instructors at the Sig Sauer academy recommend it:

“The key to shooting is manipulating that trigger to the rear without adding movement to that front sight,” says SIG SAUER Academy instructor Allison Glassick. “That’s the secret to shooting.”

For beginners, the blast and recoil of a live round often causes a natural human reaction to flinch or anticipate the shot which can disrupt their grip and trigger manipulation. But taking away those live fire distractions and working through some drills with an empty handgun can pay dividends when it’s time to head to the range.

“The bang inevitably will disrupt my senses and my ability to focus in on what’s important—that slow, deliberate process of pulling the trigger from front to rear while managing that sight alignment,” says SIG SAUER Academy instructor Justin Christopher. “The best possible way to train your body how to do this is without any bullets in the gun.”

Even the people at the US Concealed Carry Association recommend it, as long as it is done in a safe manner. When I dry fire, I make sure that there is no live ammunition in the same room. That way, you are less likely to have an ND (I learned that one the hard way- I once shot my dresser when dry firing) because you aren’t tempted to load and then pull a trigger on a loaded firearm. From the USCCA, dry fire safety rules:

1 No interruptions! Turn the ringer off the phone and make sure the front door is locked. If you are interrupted, start again from the beginning rather than picking up where you think you left off.

2 Unload your gun.

3 Check that the gun is unloaded. Use both your eyes and your fingertips. Lock the action open and then run your pinky into the empty chamber to be sure it’s really empty. If you have a revolver, run your finger across each hole in the cylinder. Count the empty holes to be sure you touched them all.

4 Remove all ammunition. Get it out of the room and out of sight. I even go so far as to lock the door to the room where the ammunition is kept so that it takes several deliberate steps to get the ammunition back together with the gun.

5 Choose a safe backstop. A backstop is anything that will reliably stop a bullet from the most powerful load that your gun is capable of firing. Never dry-fire without a solid backstop.

6 Place a target in front of your backstop. To avoid a “just one more” mishap, do not dry-fire directly at anything that will remain in the room. Use a target that will be taken down when you are done.

7 Double-check that the gun is still unloaded.

8 Mental shift to practice. Say to yourself, “This is practice. I have checked and double-checked the gun. Ammunition is not present. This is only practice.” Say it out loud, and if you find yourself wondering if it’s really true, go back and check again.

9 Dry fire. Ten to 15 minutes is as much dry-fire practice as most people can safely handle. If your mind begins to wander, stop immediately. That’s a sign that you are not paying attention to what you are doing — an important red flag.

10 Take the target down immediately — before leaving the room and before reloading the gun. Never leave the target up after you are done practicing. As you take the target down, say aloud, “Practice is over. No more dry fire. Practice is over.” This helps you make the important mental shift back to the real world and prevents the infamous “just one more” mishap.

11 Put your gun in the safe or if you are unwilling to lock your defense gun away for an hour or two, at least get yourself out of the practice room. Stay out of that area until your conditioning to pull the trigger there has been replaced by conscious thought.

12 Reload out loud. When do you reload the gun, say aloud, “This gun is loaded. It will fire if I pull the trigger. This gun is loaded.” Say it three times and say it out loud. This allows you to think, speak and hear that the gun is no longer in dry-fire condition.

If you want to do it on the cheap, balance a coin on your front sight. Pull the trigger without losing the coin. It’s a good way to learn to pull the trigger without moving your point of aim. Once you see the improvement, you can try a training system like MantisX.

Once you are proficient with dry fire from a prepared stance, you can advance to trying it while drawing.

In summary, dry fire is an important part of my firearms training. Maybe you should make it a part of yours.

Yesterday was shotguns. Continuing the series on defensive firearms, we explore carbines. I’m going to use this definition for carbines as opposed to rifles: A carbine is a a compact, short-barreled rifle that has a barrel length of less than 20 inches.

Most self defense shootings happen at a range of less than 7 yards. For that reason, it’s my opinion that rifles are not effective as self defense weapons, because they are too long to be wielded in close quarters. However, if you were to tell me that I could only pick one firearm to own for all purposes for the remainder of my life, I would go with a carbine. They are the Swiss Army knives of firearms.

Carbines have rifle-level muzzle energy, good accuracy out to a hundred meters or more, and can be effectively used inside of a building or from inside of a vehicle. The most popular of all of these in the US today (by a fair margin) is the AR patterned carbine- the M4gery. Parts and accessories are widely available. You can still even roll your own with an 80 percent lower, and they are relatively easy to repair and maintain. Lightweight, low recoil versions in .223 or 5.56mm are handled well by both women and children. Ammunition is light enough that a large amount can be carried.

I build my ARs with a 1:8 twist rate. That way, the rifling is optimized for bullet weights of 55, 62, or 77 grains, giving me a fair amount of latitude on ammunition selection. If I am planning on using the AR mostly in close quarters, I mount a holographic sight on it, like an EOTech. Those are good sights out to 100 yards or so and are fast to use. If I am anticipating medium to long range work, then there are other options like an LPVO or ACOGs.

Another mention is what I referred to as my “skirmish rifle.” Using the definition of carbine from above, the rifle that I built to this spec is a carbine. It’s on an AR10 receiver and chambered for .308 with an 18 inch barrel. Weighing in at only 7.65 pounds without a scope, it is lighter than many of my AR15’s. It shoots like a dream with a LPVO scope on it, I am getting 3 inch groups at 100 yards. Not bad from an 18 inch barrel. The bonus is that, being .308, it will defeat most body armor, especially at close range.

I once owned an M-1 carbine. I am sorry I got rid of it, because it was fun to shoot.

I am going to also include my Scorpion EVO in this category, even though the ATF says it’s a pistol. Mostly because it shares with carbines the disadvantage of being too large to conceal. Pistol caliber carbines, even though they are less powerful than their rifle caliber brethren, share many of the attributes of other carbines. I regularly mount a suppressor on mine, and when firing it with subsonic ammunition like 147grain hollowpoints, it’s report is about as loud as dropping a large book on the floor. Sure, there is less power at those muzzle velocities, but I have the 32 round magazines for it, so I plan on making up for that with fast, accurate follow on hits. Three or four headshots with 147grain 9mm hollowpoints will do a number on a home invader.

Of course, the disadvantage to any long gun in a self defense situation is that it cannot be concealed and is difficult to carry everywhere. Still, if I had to be in a gunfight, I would not feel undergunned with a carbine and a couple of magazines.

These posts are not intended to be a complete discussion of all of the merits, but are intended to be food for thought. There aren’t enough pixels on the Internet to completely discuss every facet of every type of defensive firearm.

This began as a single post, but quickly became too long for one post. So let’s make it a series.

Yesterday’s post talked about stopping power and how it is a myth. Today I want to tackle the topic of what you should be using for self defense. Remember that a bullet is simply a means of transferring energy from gunpowder to target.

Lets start with shotguns.

Shotguns are a great self defense weapon for short to medium range, say 10 to 50 feet. They aren’t the cone of doom that many people think they are-the rule for shotgun patterning is that you usually get about 1 inch of spread for every yard from the target. So at 50 feet, you get a 16 inch pattern. In the distances involved inside of an average house, say 21 feet, you are looking at a pattern that is only about 7 inches.

In shotguns, the most effective self defense loads are not birdshot, as many people claim. The problem with lighter shot is that it frequently doesn’t penetrate. To me, the lightest shot that is suitable for self defense work is number four shot. So let’s take a look:

• Number 4 buck has 20 grain pellets that are 0.24″ in diameter travelling at ~1300 feet per second.
• #0 shot has 49 grain pellets that are 0.32″ in diameter and travelling at ~1200 feet per second.
• #00 shot has 70 grain pellets that are 0.36″ in diameter and travelling at ~1100 feet per second.

My opinion, #0 buck is the best for home defense, especially when being fired from a 12ga with a 3″ chamber. Why?

Remember that our goal is to cause one of three things: a hit to the CNS, massive and rapid blood loss, or disabling shots. #0 buck offers enough penetration to reach vital organs, and 15 of them means having a high enough pellet count to punch lots of holes in the vascular system.

If you are going to consider slugs, I think that a rifle or a pistol caliber carbine is a better choice. We will talk about this in a later post.

The main disadvantages to shotguns are that they are long and difficult to work in tight spaces, and are not precise in the event that you need to shoot at targets that are located in close proximity to non-threats unless you are using slugs.

I prefer pump actions, but I can easily imagine the pure shock and awe of firing a semi-auto magazine fed 12 gauge. I will admit that I don’t own a mag fed semi-auto shotgun, but I have thought about it from time to time. Still, for home defense, a shotgun is a great choice for home defense, but I would not use a break open in that role. I would go with either a pump action or a semi-auto.