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How to practice in Iraq?


UpYoursPal

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Hey guys.  I work for the government (non-military) and they've determined that I should spend my summer vacation in the desert!  How fun!  Anyway, I want to stay current with shooting for when I get back in the fall, but all I'm going to have to work with is a compact Sig (M11 if you're curious).  As an Open shooter, that's gonna take some adjustment.  What kind of practice routine should I use for the few months I'm out there with practically zero live fire?

 

Thanks in advance for your input.

Edited by UpYoursPal
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Well, if you can't do live fire, at the very least you can work on your movement and mag changes.  If you can master reloading that little guy, you can surely reload your open gun.  Sorry you are stuck out of the Country, but thanks for doing what you do.  FWIW, when I was working out of town a bunch, I found that dry firing inside my motel room what teaching me to accept an unacceptable front sight picture, because the lighting in my room sucked.  

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There might be a bunch of other guys in your exact situation, and would

LOVE to get a group together to practice live fire once / week, or so.

 

See if you can find one officer who feels the same way, and "help" him

push this concept thru ….    :) 

 

You might actually be able to convince someone in charge that there could

possibly be a military benefit to practicing your shooting abilities, just in case

Iraq ever becomes a dangerous place to be   ….   oh, wait a minute   …. it is, isn't it ?

Edited by Hi-Power Jack
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Unfortunately, this has been the story of my shooting journey. I started back in 2015. Everytime i was getting somewhere, Uncle Sam deployed me again. So, i printed out a bunch of scaled down ipsc targets and taped it throughout my living space in our tents. We created blanket walls to give us some borders (commonly known as spank tanks). Guys would look at me funny but ended up challenging me to mag changes and transition drills.

 

fast forward, im still having to compromise. Im now in korea where no one is allowed to have guns. Reading Cha-lee's posts inspired me to work on my grip strength. I also bought a ton of uspsa training books.  So im pretty much focusing on every other aspect of shooting besides the shooting.

 

i did get to go to an olympic skeet shooting and indoor range. Although it was expensive, it was worth it. Fired the glock 17, instructor was telling me to stop canting my left wrist forward. I continued to do so. Target came back from the 25 yard line with a 2.5" grouping in the center. I just smiled back.

 

as for my workouts, I purposely turned then into uspsa driven exercises. I make them explosive while i grip onto a 5lb dumbell. I used my grip trainer as a pistol and dryfire the targets taped all over in my room.

 

 

Edited by Jcgatus
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I have a couple of questions-

 

Most importantly, are you armed? Hard to get any time in at all if youre not authorized a sidearm at the very least. If you arent, there isnt much I can do to help you. 

 

If you are, which compound are you on, and do you have the ability to get to either BDSC or the BEC? I just quit contracting in May and I still know the guys involved in Baghdad Practical Shooters Assoc. We had a few USPSA matches last year. Youre welcome to PM me if this info is not for publix consumption.  

 

Pat

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2 hours ago, Pfiddy said:

I have a couple of questions-

 

Most importantly, are you armed? Hard to get any time in at all if youre not authorized a sidearm at the very least. If you arent, there isnt much I can do to help you. 

 

If you are, which compound are you on, and do you have the ability to get to either BDSC or the BEC? I just quit contracting in May and I still know the guys involved in Baghdad Practical Shooters Assoc. We had a few USPSA matches last year. Youre welcome to PM me if this info is not for publix consumption.  

 

Pat

Yeah, I'll be armed.  I'll also be in Baghdad, but I'm not familiar with BDSC or BEC.

I'll send a PM.

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I'd do dry-fire dot drills (ideally with a SIRT or laser, or at least using a coin or an empty case on the front site to check for trigger control), plus Ben's 15-min. dry fire program. I find it helpful to use both 1" dots and 1/3 or 1/6 size IPSC targets (you can just print these out on paper). Then, if you get range time, maybe Travis Haley's Venti 100 = a lot of fundamentals in just 100 rounds.

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  • 3 weeks later...
4 minutes ago, rowdyb said:

There is a club in Baghdad  or was. Also there is ipsc in a few of the gulf states if you can fly out for a weekend.

Yeah I saw that.  They have a practiscore listing, but haven't posted anything new since the summer.  Hopefully they're still running matches.  

I don't think I'll be able to fly out with my issued weapons, unfortunately.

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People I met there were willing to loan out entire set ups in the GCCS area. Just saying....

 

Of you're an open shooter just order an airsoft gun and knock off red dot and dry fire the hell out of it.

 

Or solely the power of positive mental imagery. I've shot a swinger probably a thousand times in my mind perfectly.

 

I say just work and enjoy other stuff there. It's a part of the world I enjoy.

IMG_20130512_084332.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

Well guys, bad news: they stuck me in Kuwait for a period to be determined, but likely for the entire time I'm out here.  To add onto that, all of our pistols are locked away in an armory somewhere.

 

So now the question is....how do I maintain practice without even so much as a gun? 🤣

 

EDIT: I realize that I could get an airsoft gun to match the one I have, but it seems like the 2011s with red dots installed are $$$

Unless I'm overlooking something, is there a manufacturer out there that makes 2011-esque guns that won't break the bank?

Edited by UpYoursPal
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guess it depends how desperate you are. Id send it and buy an airsoft open gun. When I was in Iraq we only had a range part of our deployment. But the time I didn't I was doing about 1.5-2 hours of dry fires a day with my a limited set up. 

You could do a SIRT pistol but in my opinion theyre not similar enough in feel. And If youre shooting limited I think they could cause bad training scars focusing on the laser...instead of the sights.

And theyre pretty expensive as well. I think you can get more bang for your buck with an airsoft pistol.

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9 hours ago, elguapo said:

Aren't any real "matches" still going on over there?

I think I get what you mean, and sure there are.  But as I said in the first post, I'm a civilian (so non-combatant) and in subsequent posts I said that I'm going to be stuck in Kuwait, likely with no weapon at all, for the whole time.

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You can always practice movement from point A to B and try to get your time down from shot to shot. Not necessarily worried about the follow up shot or transitions with your non open gun. That will transfer back over instantaneously when you get back stateside. Work outs dedicated to explosive movement/grip strength. Dry fire even if it isn't your open gun. It won't take long for you to get back in the groove with the open gun when you get back despite what you may think.  

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