Practical Shooting

[Patrick Sweeney]

One canard is that as soon as you enter any scoring system you severely decrease "practicality." Not so. the scoring type determines practicality.

As I've mentioned before, and Mike also pointed out, those of us who learned the martial arts from the hard-core old timers (my instructor validated the instruction he was receiving in Korea by going out and picking fights with GIs) ended up getting thrown out of tournaments for excessive contact. Even full-contact tournaments.

An example of a non-practical and closed scoring system is the Army pop-up rifle course. Hit sensitive targets out to 300 meters. Each pops up, waits for an appointed time, and then falls. If you hit it before time runs out, it falls to the hit and you get scored for a hit. Twenty targets, twenty shots. There is nothing practical about it, and it does not teach marksmanship basics. it simply tests in a crude and easy scale. (I've scored 20/20 with everything but handguns and 9mm smg's)

If you want to make it practical, score on elapsed time. How fast can you hose down 20 targets? Use number of shots fired as the tie-breaker.

Why does the Army not use a more-valid scoring system? Because they're deathly afraid of loose ammo, sloppy accounting, and the possibility that partially-loaded magazines might be retained. So they call what they do "practical" and try to find expensive simulation systems to avoid handling ammo.

Practical shooting is what teaches you the skills to survive. However, practical shooting focuses us on shooting as a solution. That is one weakness he all share.

[wlktheduk]

SmittyFL's post describes my opinion on practical shooting.

Any type of shooting that helps you to shoot "fast and accurate" is practical.

I try not to knock any of the shooting sports. Claiming that (fill in the blanks) is the only "true" way to learn practical shooting, and that doing anything else leads you down the path to defeat, doom, disaster, etc... leads me to this question:

Just think how well people such as Jim Cirillo, Bill Allard, Charles Askins, Bill Jordan, (to name a few examples) would have handled their "practical shooting" problems had they been "properly" trained, rather then wasting their time on PPC, Bullseye, etc?

[Loves2Shoot]

Just think how well people such as Jim Cirillo, Bill Allard, Charles Askins, Bill Jordan, (to name a few examples) would have handled their "practical shooting" problems had they been "properly" trained, rather then wasting their time on PPC, Bullseye, etc?

If you are shooting anything, why would you call that a waste? An arguement might be made that different training might produce a higher overall skill level, but I think your statement assumes too many things that are falacious.

[wlktheduk]

The "wasting their time on PPC, Bullseye, etc?" was meant to be sarcastic. (Should have put LOL after wasting, maybe?)

The people I named did very well indeed, without the benefit of the latest techniques/fad/equipment/schools,etc

They did have one thing in common, they all shot in competition, and some of them shot a lot. Askins, for example said that he fired 334,000 rounds in a 10 year period, while he won the US individual pistol championship, national pistol and revolver grand aggregate, and a host of other trophies (bullseye/National Match courses) (from "The Pistol Shooters Book", by Charles Askins, The Stackpole Company, copyright 1961, Chapter 20, pg.234)

IMHO, whatever you're shooting, if you enjoy it, if you are accurate, safe, competent with your gear, and fast enough, then you are a practical shooter, if the standard for being a practical shooter is to be fast and accurate.

Since this thread started with a reference to a type of shooting that claims to be the only practical shooting sport, I just wanted to point out that you can shoot another sport, and still do well, when it comes time to be "practical"

[benos]

My old American Heritage Dictionary has eight definitions of "practical":

1. Of, relating to, governed by, or acquired through practice or action, rather than theory, speculation, or ideals.

2. Manifested in or involving practice.

4. Capable of being used or put into effect - useful.

5. Designed to serve a purpose without elaboration: practical, low-heeled shoes. [My add: ] Reliable, efficient, lethal, easy to carry or transport stock-type firearm.

7. Level-headed, efficient, and un-speculative.

The founders would appear to have chosen the perfect word to describe the sport or challenge of Practical Shooting.

To me the word practical implies a question - Under these conditions at this instant, what would be or is my most appropriate response?

be

[Steve H]

I shoot both and enjoy both, if I had to choose between the two (which I don't) I would choose IPSC as it is more fun for me and that is why I do both. I try to get alot of my co-workers (law enforcement) to shoot all the matches in the area........we have Tuesday steel matches, and 3 IPSC, 1 Single Stack match and 1 IDPA match a month and one rifle/shotgun match! The other club I belong to has 2 IDPA matchs a month. The way I describe the IDPA is that "you shoot the stages the way the match director says" and the way I describe IPSC is "read the stage description and shoot it the best way for you"!

I will keep doing both as long as I can.

Steve

[AikiDale]

A good example of "The Real Practical Shooting Sport" is going on right now in Iraq. The competitors only play for medals, there are no cash awards and there are no second place winners. Its a field course with no walk throughs and lots of no-shoots. There is no 180 rule. Sweeping is common. Competitors and spectators alike come at their own risk and are asked to be alert since the competition will be conducted on a hot range. Being hit gets you DQ'd. There are no appeals.

I wish all the shooting sports could be as friendly as IPSC, USPSA, IDPA, ICORE, SASS.....

[tightloop]

Please...

real combat and any other form of shooting, cannot be compared.

[Skywalker]

I'm still convinced no shooting sport can be deemed as "practical".

I can agree with some of you that each shooting sport can teach you something useful regarding practicality, but I'm still convinced that whenever we try to bound an activity with rules, practicality is going to be lost.

A shooting sport (ultimately a game) like IPSC or IDPA is a simplified representation of real life where rules are enforced to ensure everybody played the same way, and the winner is the one who performed better according to the rules, not the one who ended up standing on his/her feet.

In real life armed confrontations there are no rules; or, better, the only rule is "keep alive".

I like shooting sports a lot ( ) but I take them for what they are, sports exactly.

In this sense, it cannot be said that a sport is more practical than another.

[Loves2Shoot]

In this sense, it cannot be said that a sport is more practical than another.

I think that is an easy way out, and falacious.

For instace I having to shoot to slide lock. Having that requirement as the rule of a game is in what way "practical?" If you could choose change a magazine when the time was appropriate for you, would that not be more "practical."

If you are presented with a series of target and you had to engage them in a certain order or get a FTDR penalty is that more practical than shooting them the way that you feel is most effective?

If you have to retain a magazine after shooting all of the rounds (or most all) instead of just dropping it, is that more "practical" than making the choice what you do with the spent mag?

I think it is practical to say that people given a choice will attemt to solve problem in the way they best see fit. If there is a sport that lets the competitor choose the way to solve the problem (stage) then that would be more practical than forcing everyone to solve the problem in the same way.

Choice can help make a sport better. Just my 2 cents.

[Patrick Sweeney]

Do not forget, real-life shooting incidents have rules, too. Some are legal, in that breaking some rule affords you the opportunity to be housed, clothed and fed at public expense for a few years. Some are in the realm of physics; you can't shoot through hard cover, and some people don't fall even when tagged with a solid "A" hit. And some are tactical; climbing the berm to get a better angle on the "targets" also exposes you to their response.

To say that all shooting sports are non-practical is to define "practical" so narrowly that nothing is practical.

Problem: You have to jump out of a helicopter in a hot LZ. You have the choice of two groups to take with you: a group of handgun metallic sihouette shooters, or a bunch of IPSC shooters. If you selected the IPSC shooters, you have just assigned relative value to the practicality of the sports.

To rank activities on relative value to a related activity is not to say that the highest-valued one is the best it could be. We can be more practical. It just won't be easy.

[vincent]

I mostly shoot IDPA and I have to agree that at most clubs it has degraded to providing a single allowable way to shoot each scenario. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Especially at the club level. On the other hand there is nothing in the rules that says a club MUST run scenarios in this fashion. A number of shooters in this area are trying to get more generic course descriptions. The main problem we are encountering is that everyone shooting after the first "enlightened" shooter gets the benefit of their wisdom. Therefore their score does not accurately reflect their ability to figure out the stage. Instead it is based on the luck of the shooting order. Blind/secret stages solve this problem but they are very slow to run. Anyone have a good solution to this problem?

[THS]

Patrick

If that hot LZ is in the desert where max stand off distance is king, the handgun metallic silhouette shooters, who routinely shoot full power rifle size cartridges at targets out to 200 yards, and shoot perfect scores, might be a better choice!

Don't assume they lack speed skills either. Some, like me, have played MANY of the shooting games.

Tom

[Flexmoney]

THS...that goes to show Patricks point, I believe. You have changed the "game", thus defined what might be practical in that situation. Good stuff.

Vincent, the solution is experience and learning. If there are no options, then there is no "new way and better way". If I don't figure out a new and better way...or learn it from someone else...then I don't progress. I think figuring out the stage (by whatever means possible) is a big part of practical shooting.

[Loves2Shoot]

Patrick

If that hot LZ is in the desert where max stand off distance is king, the handgun metallic silhouette shooters, who routinely shoot full power rifle size cartridges at targets out to 200 yards, and shoot perfect scores, might be a better choice!

Don't assume they lack speed skills either.  Some, like me, have played MANY of the shooting games.

Tom

Tom,

I hate to state the obvious, but if you missed the point Patrick was making I'll try to help.

Give me rifle shooters any day at 200 yards, preferable full auto saws. Nah just give me a chopper, hell just give me a nuke.

Pistols are close combat weapons. That was their intent when they were designed. Yes I can shoot at 200 yards also with my .38 super or .40 or .45. Is it practical? I think not.

Flex,

I agree.

[AikiDale]

Please...

real combat and any other form of shooting, cannot be compared.

It would seem to me most of this discussion has been about comparing the shooting sports with real combat.

When those who advocate one of the shooting sports over another as "more practical" the implication is that one form of play would lend itself more readily to combat training than another. If one engages in a shooting sport as training for real combat, the sport one chooses is most likely the best to prepare for combat as one imagines it to be.

For example, if I were to imagine a scenario where [tongue firmly in cheek] UN forces under the leadership of the French military had occupied the USA to impose their concept of civilization on us dumb gun toting hillbillys I might spend more time at the high power rifle competitions to sharpen up my sniper skills.

On the other hand, were I to imagine myself as a DEA agent caught in a drug buy gone bad in the middle of an abandoned, empty warehouse with me and 8 bad guys I might just want to spend more time at the USPSA matches running and gunning.

My suppositions about combat shooting may of course be far from reality, but the sport I choose for combat training will be the one which most resembles combat as I imagine it.

If we forget about combat and want to play with guns because they are fun for their own sake then we need to remember Brian's dictionary. Practical has to do with doing, rather than theorizing. As a side benefit, any amount of trigger time spent learning to locate a target, aiming at that target, and holding that aim until after the shot has been released might prove practical regardless of the original intent should combat shooting become necessary.

In my present circumstances practical shooting is going to the range to shoot to learn to shoot....

[Duane Thomas]

An example of a non-practical and closed scoring system is the Army pop-up rifle course. Hit sensitive targets out to 300 meters. Each pops up, waits for an appointed time, and then falls. If you hit it before time runs out, it falls to the hit and you get scored for a hit. Twenty targets, twenty shots."

Interesting. When I was in the Army, the rifle course was 40 shots to hit 40 targets - 36 or above scored Expert, the highest rating. I shot Expert with the M16. For officers, the pistol course was 40 rounds to hit 30 targets (what can I say - officers), anything over 21 made Expert. It's an easy course, the longest shot is 25 yards. I qualified Expert on the .45 auto five years in a row. The only time I didn't get 30 out of 30 hits was when one of the electronic panels malfunctioned. I hit that sucker twice with .45 hardball - I mean, you could see dirt flying out from behind the target, but the scorer still wouldn't give it to me because that malfunctioning piece of electronic trash didn't fall. He said, "What do you care, you still got 29 out of 30, you still shot Expert." To my reply, "That's not the point; this is a matter of principle," he just laughed. As that great sage Bugs Bunny would say, "Wotta maroon."

Amazingly enough, later, back at the unit, I heard the same guy bragging on me: "You should have seen Sergeant Thomas shoot the pistol qual. It was like watching a shooting gallery. As soon as the targets popped up they went down." Strange.

[Duane Thomas]

I mostly shoot IDPA and I have to agree that at most clubs it has degraded to providing a single allowable way to shoot each scenario. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Especially at the club level. On the other hand there is nothing in the rules that says a club MUST run scenarios in this fashion.

Maybe I'm lucky, but that doesn't happen at my IDPA club. What I do notice is that most people can't figure out the best way to shoot the stage. I don't know if it's because the less experienced shooters are just playing "follow the leader" and doing it the way they saw the first guy do it, or if they only see the one - obvious - way to shoot it, but when you then come up and do it a different way, you blow them away. They look at you like you're some sort of tactical/shooting genius, when you're not - you just saw a better way to solve the problem.

A number of shooters in this area are trying to get more generic course descriptions. The main problem we are encountering is that everyone shooting after the first "enlightened" shooter gets the benefit of their wisdom. Therefore their score does not accurately reflect their ability to figure out the stage. Instead it is based on the luck of the shooting order.

Or....you could the "enlightened" shooter. Then it wouldn't matter where in the shooting order you fell.

[Skywalker]

OK,

since I lack law enforcement or military tactical training, I may be missing something important, but I respectfully disagree with those of you that expressed the opinion that a shooting sport is practical.

Mine is a conceptual argumentation not a "practical" (pardon the pun) one.

What is a sport?

A sport is a competition among people, in which there are rules to make sure everybody plays it fairly and equitably, that will eventually determine a winner, on the basis of how well he performed against other competitors that all played by the same rules.

This is not going to be a good simulation of real life.

In an armed confrontation there is no such loyal or fair stuff. Those rules intended to level the playground and force competitors to confront on the same skills and actions, are simply not present.

As I said before, probably some useful (from a practical point of view) aspects can be found in each shooting sport, but I still think that (given the conceptual enormous difference between sport and real life I expressed above) there is no such thing as a "practical" sport.

[Julien Boit]

For example, if I were to imagine a scenario where [tongue firmly in cheek]  UN forces under the leadership of the French military had occupied the USA to impose their concept of civilization on us dumb gun toting hillbillys I might spend more time at the high power rifle competitions to sharpen up my sniper skills.

We'll take charge of all the "anti-gun" community , don't be afraid

BTW, I'll take Texas and STI and SV plants

[Irishlad]

As a civilian, I think both sports can be practical... to me anyway.

You can learn how to properly, quickly and safely draw a weapon and hit what you are supposed to hit. From what I read( in civilian encounters), you need to be able to do that quickly and by reflex, if needed, because it's going to be over very soon.

If I can do that, without shooting myself or anyone else that I shouldn't, I'd be real happy since, in real life, you will be held responsible for your actions, good or bad.

Anything beyond that, i.e. multiple reloads, cover, lot's of targets, etc. is entering the " I like to shoot" stage, which is good. Trigger time is important and fun, that's why I'm there. The more I shoot, the better I will be- I hope!

I have a slim chance of ever needing a handgun for self defense, but it's nice to know.

I have a better chance of getting hit by an asteroid then being involved in a running gun battle with reloads, etc. I'm not a LEO, Military , etc.

However, I do think open and limited shooters grow accustomed to equipment that just won't be there if they need it.

But, most criminals aren't the "sharpest tacks on the wall", maybe they would try to rob the club while a shoot is going on

[Patrick Sweeney]

Duane,

The NG base I go to has the range programmed for 20 targets at a run. For qual they run it twice, for 40 targets. Once on a whim I tried to see if I could pad my score by hitting the targets twice. The hit sensors will register a hit as long as you can hit it, so if you whack the target again before it has a chance to fall, you get scored for two hits. I posted a 27 out of 20 targets. That is the kind of scoring that makes things more practical, even with an unimaginative course. (I later teamed up with Jeff Chudwin to hammer the course, and shooting as a team we post 37 of 20. Yee-ha!)

Your pistol targets must have been really tired, and you were shooting through holes in the plastic. Been there, done that.

Practical is what gets the job done. More trigger time is better, but some types of trigger time are better than others.

To dismiss all shooting as a game, irrelevant to combat (law enforcement, street encounters, etc.) is to miss the point. If all practice was irrelelvant, what Army would spend time on the range? After all, you only learn by combat, so after the first few battles we'll have a well-trained Army, right?

Which is exactly the approach taken by some "martial artists" who claim that dojo work is valueless, and only real-life fighting teaches you to fight. Mister bar fighter, may I introduce you to my cousin, the Golden Gloves boxer?

[Skywalker]

Pat,

forgive me if I have not been such clear in my precedent posts, maybe my english is not so good.

I'm not stating that practice is irrelevant. Nor would I say that time spent on the range is not useful.

I have an extensive background in simulations, mainly in the aereonautical field, and I have learned through the years that a simulation can have various degrees of "reality": the cheapest simulations are those that have little in common with real aircraft behaviour (usually they are used for games), while the more complex ones nearly resemble the actual aircrafts they model. These latter simulations are the ones used in training simulators for pilots and maintenace crew.

To make a comparison with a shooting sport, I would say that, if you really intend to train for combat situations, the simulation that a shooting sport can give you is the least effective.

With practical training in mind, you'd better routinely attend courses at LFI, Thunder Ranch, Gunsite, S&W Academy, etc. They provide a better simulation of real confrontations.

A sport, or a game, can teach you or keep you proficient with the fundamentals of marksmaship, safe gun handling, maybe coping with stress and shooting on the move with a good degree of accuracy, but the practicality of this ends here.

The simulation a shooting sport can provide is really limited when compared to other kind of practical training.

And, BTW, it is my understanding that is this latter training that all special units are being given. Otherwise they would all be competing in IPSC or IDPA instead of training with their corps.

[Duane Thomas]

To make a comparison with a shooting sport, I would say that, if you really intend to train for combat situations, the simulation that a shooting sport can give you is the least effective.

With practical training in mind, you'd better routinely attend courses at LFI, Thunder Ranch, Gunsite, S&W Academy, etc. They provide a better simulation of real confrontations.

Well, speaking as someone who has attended multiple classes from LFI (Massad Ayoob), InSights Training Center (multi-National Tactical Invitationals winner Greg Hamilton), the Firearms Academy of Seattle (Marty Hayes), Defensive Training International (John Farnam), and one apiece from Delta International (Bill Burrus, Pierce County Sheriff's Deputy and president of the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Committee) and Jim Cirillo (need I say more) and is an A-class IPSC shooter and Expert rated in three of the four IDPA divisions, I feel I can comment with some degree of experience on the relative merits of school versus match training.

Frankly, in my experience, matches just bury the schools. IMHO firearms school training is good to teach the basics, but the stuff that is routinely done every week at IPSC and IDPA matches (shooting while moving, putting multiple shots rapid fire on a target, multiple target work, fast transitions, use of cover, movement with a hot gun in your hands, etc.) is considered advanced training at all shooting schools - assuming you can find one teaching this stuff at all.

Consider the fact there may not be a firearms trainer with a truly advanced skill level teaching in your area. If you can find one, the going rate for instruction seems to be about $200 a day. That's what I charge for an all-day class. But if there's an IDPA or IPSC club in your area, you have ready access to people with a level of shooting skill far, far better than just about any firearms instructor who is not also a high-level competitor, for about 12 to 20 bucks a match. If you ask, they will share this information with you. Any self-defense oriented shooter who honestly believes he has nothing to learn from an IPSC Grand Master is a frickin' idiot. Many competition shooters have a much, much higher level of "tactical" skill than you might think. The fact we choose not to do it that way at a match doesn't mean we don't know how to do it.

Once you've completed a training class, do you have access to the props (walls, barricades, humanoid targets, target stands, etc.) to actually practice what you've been taught in a live fire, scenario based fashion? Probably not. But your local practical pistol club, be it IPSC or IDPA, has all that stuff. They'll even, thoughtfully, set it up for you. If you live in an area with an active shooting schedule, instead of your once a year training class, you can go out and practice stuff way more advanced than most school-trained only shooters will ever be exposed to - every weekend.

You won't be allowed to practice/do only the stuff you like to do, or think you need to know. You will be forced by the course designers to do things, and uncover weaknesses in your shooting, you never would have otherwise. Then you have a choice: suck at the matches or get better. Ken Hackathorn has commented that one trait of people under extreme stress - and he sees this again and again in people who get into gunfights - is they will almost never attempt to do anything they don't already know they can do well. You really don't want to wait until you've been shot in an arm to get good at one-handed shooting.

In The Book, Brian Enos analogizes having a high level of competition shooting ability to another life-saving skill, swimming. I'm paraphrasing here, but the quote goes something like, "If you were standing on the bank of a raging river, watching a little girl being swept downstream, would you want to have the skills of an Olympic swimmer or not?"

When I recounted this statement to my friend, multiple black belt Gray Cassidy, he made what I feel was a very insightful comment, "If you're standing on the banks of a raging river, watching a little girl being swept downstream, the person who's going to have the best chance of saving her is someone who's been trained to rescue little girls from raging rivers." IOW, in a real fight involving firearms, the person best able to survive is the one who's been trained to win gunfights.

And while that's true, I don't think it goes far enough. I said to him, "Well, if we take that idea to its logical conclusion, we would have to conclude that if you're standing on the bank of a raging river, watching a little girl being swept downstream, you're going to have the maximum chance of saving her life if you've been trained to rescue little girls from raging rivers and you have the skills of an Olympic swimmer." Meaning, of course, the person with the best chance of wining a gunfight is the one who has a good handle on tactics, probably learned at a shooting school, and the level of fast, reflexive gun handling and ability to fire accurately with extreme speed learned and honed in practical pistol competition. Rather than being diametrically opposed, or an either/or "I have to choose one and bet my survival on it alone" prospect, you can have both. And the two work very well together.

It works for me. I started out as a school trained shooter. I went though, oh, 20 reasonably high-level training classes, mostly related to the defensive handgun, before I ever shot my first match. And I practiced what they taught - dry fire at home, live fire on the range. Nice thing about all that training, I won the first match I ever attended. Strange but true. Then I got seriously into competition. And today, though I still appreciate the place of the handgun as a defensive tool, and carry daily, I must admit my focus has shifted from primarily self-defense to the fun, competitive use of the handgun. But I'm also well aware that my skill with a handgun has improved immensely over the past several years. And when I go to a "tactical" training class, the old skills are still there. I just execute them while shooting a hell of a lot faster, and with better accuracy, than I could before.

[Skywalker]

Well, speaking as someone who has attended multiple classes from LFI (Massad Ayoob), InSights Training Center (multi-National Tactical Invitationals winner Greg Hamilton), the Firearms Academy of Seattle (Marty Hayes), Defensive Training International (John Farnam), and one apiece from Delta International (Bill Burrus, Pierce County Sheriff's Deputy and president of the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Committee) and Jim Cirillo (need I say more) and is an A-class IPSC shooter and Expert rated in three of the four IDPA divisions, I feel I can comment with some degree of experience on the relative merits of school versus match training.