Backward compatibilty of your improvements

[mcoliver]

Just thinking out loud.

You've been using your concealment rig (holster and mag pouches) for quite sometime and have been noting your progress and improvement in your skill (draws & reloads) with it.  Now you think you're getting stuck with their limited adjustability and feel the need to upgrade to adjustable mag pouches and a speed holster. You get the holsters and pouches you want.  Set them up the way you want. Then note the improvements they give.  You notice you're faster now with your draws and your reloads.  One day you don on your old concelament rig and realize after a few moments you're also capable of such speeds even with them.

Question:  Would you have attained this new found speed with your old rig alone?  Did the new experience brought about by your new rig help pave the way in setting up a higher standard/capability than you thought possible?

********

Next I'll be thinking out loud again about optics

[tightloop]

It is the Indian, not the arrow.

[Flexmoney]

Question:  Would you have attained this new found speed with your old rig alone?  Did the new experience brought about by your new rig help pave the way in setting up a higher standard/capability than you thought possible?

I agree with TL...it is the shooter that ultimately makes the difference.  When I was learning though, the new equipment paved the way.

{edit}  I hope that I am still learning, and will constantly do so.  I'll take my gains where I can get them.  I think those gains will come less and less from eqipment.

(Edited by Flexmoney at 11:37 am on Nov. 22, 2002)

[Ron Ankeny]

I'll use an example from my own experience. I switched to a dot gun several months ago. I have been working very hard on the draw. My dot pistol is a boat anchor of a pig and it weighs a ton. While I was doing all of the dry fire and live fire with the Open gun, my IDPA pistol was being refurbished.

I put my Kydex holster on the other day, and headed to the range to shoot my IDPA pistol, a 1911 Les Baer. I am now scary fast out of that rig. I attribute the improvement to drawing a pistol that weighs twice as much thousands of times, and working my butt off to get faster with the Open gun. Would I have seen such improvements if I would have stayed with the IDPA rig? I guess I'll never know.

(Edited by Ron Ankeny at 10:02 am on Nov. 22, 2002)

[Steve Anderson]

It has to do with self imposed limitations.

We tell ourselves a one second draw is "good enough" for a production or IDPA rig, but that one second is "unacceptable" out of a full race open rig.

My experience is identical to Ron's. I work the open blaster for an hour, then strap on the Beretta and things stay at the same pace, Far above my ususal production practice session.

The only limits are the ones we acknowledge.

SA

[benos]

But when the arrow flies, so does the Indian.

[tightloop]

Benos

I don't mean to be shallow, but you overshot my backstop with that one.

[Duane Thomas]

mc,

I think you're right. This is something I've given some thought. I'm pretty sure it's mostly a mental game we're playing on ourselves. It's almost like, using a holster/mag pouch set-up that allows a higher level of performance, we give ourselves permission to be that good. And then, when switch back to the low-tech equipment, the higher skill level very much does stay with us.

Steve,

I think that may be some of what Brian's saying - though he's expressing it much more elegantly, of course.

[SiG Lady]

Perhaps not as complex a parallel as all the aforementioned, but when I began shooting with my 9mm I eventually reached a point where I thought I'd flattened out in terms of skill and progress. Then I bought the .40S&W and worked with that one awhile. Went back to the 9mm and felt like I'd picked up an entirely new gun...! One had given me perspective on the other. Now I enjoy both, of course, but the addition of the extra gun in the learning curve made a helluva difference.

[Flexmoney]

Here is another angle...

In weight lifting, the muscles adapt to the stimulus of lifting the weights by growing.  After a period of time, you have to change the manner of the stimulus...so that the muscles have to adapt in a different way (and continue to grow).

The same can be said of the nervous system and it's ability to fire the muscles in a specific manner (coordination).

The human body has a fantastic ability to adapt.

[Ron Ankeny]

Flex:

I know exactly what you mean. That's why I switched from cans to bottles.

[Flexmoney]

Yep...soon you will have to move from 12oz. to pints...then to the double-deuce.

 

[Steve Moneypenny]

I think there is more than just the muscles working here, that is a good portion of it, but I've also noticed when I switch gear I also want to practice more with that gear. so I believe it gives the shooter a new mental attitude kind of like a freshness about their training and they pay more attention to the little things, and it becomes less "same old"  practice times.

[Steve Anderson]

Excellent point moneypenny.

Enthusiasm goes a long way.

SA

[benos]

What an excellent (group participation) thread!

be

tl,

[JFD]

I must have failed somewhere along the line.  There's no way I can draw as fast out of my Wilson Practical IDPA holster as I can out of my Ghost.  Nor can I reload as fast from my IDPA mag pouches compared to my IPSC pouches.

Must be the arthritis or something...

[Duane Thomas]

A year or so ago, I conducted tests to measure my draw time from both my Safariland 010 and the Blade-Tech Standard Belt holster I wear every day. Also measured reloads out of my Safariland 771s and Blade-Tech double mag pouch. Did 10 draws, 10 reloads, target at, I don't remember, something close, 5 yards, 7 yards, like that.

My average draw time from the Safariland race rig was 1.01 seconds, from the concealment rig it was 1.09 seconds. A whopping 8/100ths of a second difference there. It was a bit more, comparing the competition mag pouch on my belly to the concealment mag pouch behind my hip. Don't remember the numbers (I wasn't exactly setting the world on fire in either case) but I do remember the entire difference in average times was .18 faster with the comp mag pouch. It's just a longer distance for your hand to travel, reaching around your hip to draw from the concealment pouch versus a "belly button reload" from the comp rig.