THE NAKED
EMPEROR

The Emperor's New Clothes

• There is a children's story about a vain emperor who always had to have the most fashionable clothes. It got so ridiculous that some con men convinced him that they had sold him the latest style when he was actually wearing nothing. His courtiers and subjects were afraid to tell him the truth, so they went along with the scam, but when he went on parade to show off his latest attire, a small child, naïve to the concept of flattery, blurted out, "What new clothes? The emperor is naked!"
• This page began as an irreverent extension of this site's common sense page. It initially dealt with specific issues in the defensive-firearms community that I felt did not reflect common sense. My more recent comments seem to be of a more positive nature. I'm not sure if this is because I am mellowing with age or because I let all my subscriptions to gun magazines run out a few years ago.
• More than any other page on this site, this page is probably the one which can best serve as a forum for those visitors who would like to alert me to violations of common sense, on my part or on the part of other instructors or writers in this field.
• While I have no hesitation about updating any of these pages if I become aware of an error or a more useful point of view on the subject, this page, in particular, is definitely a work in progress. Don't hesitate to share your comments.
• Because this page is something of a loose collection of brief articles, I have placed an index with links below:

• An online business publication posted a list of 61 behavioral biases that screw up how you think. That prompted me to come up with a shorter list of some of the biases or attitudes that I believe mislead a lot of gun owners into thinking that they are prepared to protect themselves and their loved ones with firearms.
  • The gun as a talisman: A talisman can be defined as "an object held to act as a charm to avert evil and bring good fortune" or "something producing apparently magical or miraculous effects." All too many people buy firearms thinking that mere ownership will ward off evil, even if the firearm is back home in a drawer or safe.
  • Settling for the training that came in the box with the gun: While most manufacturers now provide some technical instructions for operation of the firearm and some listing of basic safety rules, that instruction manual does not normally address either the skills of marksmanship or the tactics necessary to avoid or to win a fight.
  • If I can hit a target at 25 yards, I can't miss at arm's length: Gunfights, even when the other guy has "only" brought a knife, are more fights than marksmanship competitions. Distances are more likely to be measured in feet than in yards and defenders often end up firing before the gun even reaches eye level. If you lack training in such techniques for close range, your tight groups fired at a target 25 yards away may prove of no value to you in such a fight. (Where I live, a common variant of this bias is the belief that shooting an unsuspecting deer or elk, with a scoped rifle, from a distance of 250 yards, prepares the gun owner to use a handgun in a life-or-death fight at arm's length.)
  • Stand and deliver: Many of us have read heroic tales of hunters on safari who stood their ground and dropped charging dangerous game mere feet from where they stood. Most of us, unless we are ensconced behind cover where we cannot be flanked, will be better served to "move off the X" where we are at the onset of the attack and to continue to "shoot and scoot." Animals such as lions, rhinos and bears do not fire bullets at us as they charge.
  • This is the technique that wins matches: Matches may be good for building shooting skills and for acclimation to shooting under stress but they are not realistic simulations of gunfights because the targets rarely attack you or shoot back. "Combat matches" often teach bad habits for the street because of the emphasis on "beating the clock."
  • Don't carry a handgun whose caliber does not begin with at least a "4": As with a great deal of "conventional wisdom," such pronouncements are more often convention than wisdom. I have had several students who felt quite comfortable shooting .40- or .45-caliber handguns under relaxed conditions at their home range discover that they could not handle them as well as they had thought in some of the one-handed, close-quarters drills that I taught. With modern ammunition, there is little that a .40 or .45 can do that a good 9mm or even .38 Special bullet cannot.
  • If I have a gun, I don't need other kinds of training: Very rarely is even a police officer justified to use deadly force. Most confrontations involve words, pushes and punches. Further, even when deadly force is appropriate, that justification may not be apparent until the assailant has insinuated himself into "bad-breath range." Thus, without some basic physical skills, you may not even be able to draw and fire in the rare case where you may need to.
• The above are some of the themes that I have covered on this website, including elsewhere on this page and very specifically on the Street vs. Range page. I have not even attempted to address misconceptions about what the law does and does not allow in the use of physical and deadly force.

• I have no problem with using a "cold range" for the opening session of beginners' classes. ("Cold range" means that the guns are unloaded until the shooters are on the line and given a command to load and fire a specific number of rounds, then show clear when done firing.) Once people learn to manipulate the gun, however, I feel that they are being deprived of valuable training if they cannot wear the gun on the range in the same manner that they would wear it on the street.
• I taught for several years with Lethal Force Institute (now Massad Ayoob Group), a school which ran cold ranges and advocated things like the tactical use of a high ready position (handgun pointed upward, about 45 degrees), which it would not permit on its own ranges for safety reasons!
• In January of 1993 I met Bert DuVernay, who became Director of the Smith & Wesson Academy, until S&W; was purchased by Saf-T-Hammer. Bert endeared himself to me with a single statement: "If we can't teach people how to do something safely on the range, it's not safe for them to do it on the street."
• I found Bert and his colleagues at the academy to be quite consistent in this regard. One point of which they made me aware is the safety violation of searching with the muzzle of the gun. This is a clear violation of Rule Two.
• People usually get taught to violate this basic rule in two ways:
  1. Scanning with the gun as a "third eye" while breaking tunnel vision after engaging a threat.
  2. Coupling the gun with the flashlight in some manner while searching with a flashlight (or gun-mounted light).
• Two major risks are posed by these techniques:
  1. Firing unintentionally if startled by what you find while searching.
  2. Crossing someone like a police officer responding to a "shots fired" call, who may shoot you in response to perceiving you as a threat.
  Some of my police students have disagreed with the latter because they only envision scenarios in uniform, but an off-duty officer looks just like any other armed citizen.
• I have come to prefer searching with the flashlight in the non-gun hand and the handgun in the gun hand, with the muzzle depressed in what I call the "navel position." I feel that most users should be able to score decent hits one-handed out to at least four yards. If the threat is beyond quick-reaction distance, there may be time to assume a more stable shooting platform, in which the hand with the flashlight is coupled with the gun hand.

• An instructor with his own website and forum asks:

  So let me ask you guys...have any of you pointed a gun at a bad guy...or suspected bad guy...or anyone you remotely thought you might really have to shoot with your finger OFF the trigger? I am not talking about "searching for the contact", nor "mid-fight movement", but rather the static times when you have challenged someone whom you thought you might have to shoot...but you didn't quite have enough information to press the trigger yet. Where was your finger?
  
  I am well aware of all so-called safety rules, but being anal retentive about this sort of thing only hurts your survivability in the real world for which we train.

• Rule Three is Jeff Cooper's update of the old NRA safety rule about keeping the finger off the trigger until one is prepared to fire. Cooper extended it to keeping the finger outside the trigger guard.
• As with some other things borrowed from Cooper, not everyone expresses it the same way.
• Most of us specify that the trigger finger rest on the frame, above the trigger guard. Some insist that it be straight.
• I believe that all of us require that the sights be on the target (or that the muzzle be aligned with it by some other method) as one of two requirements to move the finger to the trigger.
• It is the second requirement where instructors tend to differ. I know of at least one instructor who specifies that one must have made the decision to shoot before moving the finger to the trigger. Personally, I word it, "...and you're prepared to shoot."
• Thus, when I was forced to draw on an armed robber in a business location several years ago, I did not feel that I violated a safety rule by placing my finger on the trigger of my double-action revolver while he made the crucial decision whether to attempt a disarm or leave the store. I'm sure that the placement of my finger on the trigger helped him choose the latter option.
• Now let's look at some ramifications:
  • The above-quoted instructor chose to illustrate his comments with a WWII-era photo of Rex Applegate in stalking mode, with his finger on the trigger of a double-action revolver. In fact, Applegate and his doctrinal predecessors, Fairbairn and Sykes, taught stalking with the finger on the trigger of cocked-and-unlocked single-action pistols. In my mind, this is clearly a Rule Three violation as one cannot claim to have positively identified a target he is prepared to shoot - Rule Two - while still in stalking mode. In context, I'm sure that getting sued by Chinese bandits or Axis agents and soldiers - or even their heirs or innocent bystanders - was the farthest thing from the minds of those trainers.
  • On my Firearms Safety page, I caution against presuming that the longer, heavier stroke of a double-action trigger relieves you of the need to follow Rule Three. Granted that a large proportion of the unintended discharges of police double-action revolvers may have occurred in single-action mode (an issue addressed on some departments by rendering the revolvers double-action-only), an involuntary muscle contraction of the hand can easily generate 25 to 50 pounds of pressure, far beyond the typical poundage of a double-action trigger.
  • Factoring in the phenomenon that I know as "trigger affirmation" - unconsciously checking with the finger that the trigger is still there - with the likelihood that you will place your finger on the trigger if you take someone at gunpoint, I find little comfort in carrying a pistol with a short, light trigger stroke for what is referred to as "serious" use. Even a Glock pistol's trigger can be given a clearly palpable take-up phase by means of the New York trigger-return spring - preferably lighter the NY1 variant.

• Like most shooters, I was taught to shoot a handgun standing still, lining up the sights and striving to work the trigger smoothly. After all, that's the way to shoot small groups on paper targets. As time went by I learned things like shooting from unconventional positions, shooting while moving and even how to shoot using just the silhouette of the handgun as a visual index.
• As I began to develop as a firearms instructor I learned to teach the same way as I had been taught. I also learned that most gunfights occur at relatively close ranges and that it is difficult for most people under life-threatening stress to hit with a handgun beyond seven yards.
• In June 1997 I renewed a childhood acquaintance with the late Col. Rex Applegate. The ensuing relationship challenged me to re-examine what I had been taught and how I was teaching - Applegate was the American dean of point shooting. As I have said elsewhere, I don't believe that point shooting is superior to aimed fire, but I recognize that it is generally more realistic for sudden encounters at close range.
• When police officers are killed with handguns, it usually occurs at relatively close range, typically within one or two arm's lengths. At these distances the first person to point the gun and get off a shot usually gets the first crucial hit. The statistics demonstrating this have been used to argue for point shooting and the integration of martial arts of with close-quarters shooting techniques. There is merit to this argument.
• On the other hand, police officers do not lose all their gunfights. Traditional firearms instructors teach that time and distance favor the trained operator. When police officers can engage at the longer ranges, where they have spent most of their firearms training time, they may enjoy the advantage over those who haven't invested the time in aimed-fire training. This is particularly true if they have been able to take cover.
• Most shooting ranges are set up for shooting at aimed-fire distances. Most shooters enjoy the satisfaction of measurable results from the complex psychomotor task of aimed fire. The longer the range, the greater the satisfaction. Aimed fire has a definite place in the repertoire of defensive shooters; good tactics can give you the opportunity to use those skills.
• The other side of the coin is that the greatest likelihood is that when we become victims of life-threatening attacks they will occur at close range. This is as true for the police officer who has to "work in the hole" as it is for the armed citizen who must keep his or her firearm concealed until there is legal justification for its use.
• Few coin collectors would buy a precious coin only for one side. Don't spend all your training time on the "fun" stuff that produces small groups. Make sure that you also include the stuff which is more likely to save your bacon.

• As I mention elsewhere, Mike Conti played a significant role in my recognition that even a highly trained shooter is likely to have his focus diverted from the front sight to the threat when things happen quickly and at close range.
• For a while now I have been training my students in a continuum of techniques, from body-indexed point shooting, through crude visual index, on to formal sight picture. Where on the continuum one operates is usually based on the proximity of the threat and the availability or lack of cover to stop bullets or physical obstructions that will retard an attack with some form of contact weapon.
• More recently, Mike opened my eyes to something else. In his recent book The Officer's Guide to Police Pistolcraft, Mike discusses an account of a very close-range shooting that was shared with him the day after the discussion of point shooting at that crucial seminar.
• The officer in question and his partner had responded to the scene of a stabbing in progress. The officer who shared the account was reluctant to attempt the rescue shot, for fear that his shot might go through the assailant and strike his victim. It was clear, however, that his partner was counting on him to make the shot.
• "So what I did was, I lined up my sights as precisely as possible, and stared so hard at them that I could see dust particles on the front sight. The sights, in fact, looked huge to me as I fired... So how do you explain that? I was practically right on top of the guy and there's no doubt in my mind as to what I saw."
• Mike replied, "let me ask you this... At the moment you fired, did you feel that were in direct danger?"
• "You know, I never really thought about that before. But, actually, no, at that moment, I didn't. I mean she was the one catching the knife. I just wanted to save her."
• So what we see is that proximity is not necessarily the deciding factor in where the brain decides to focus the vision - whether or not we perceive ourselves as the object of an immediate threat also plays a significant role.
• Which brings me to a related point - I disagree vehemently with the "sports optometrists" who contend that activation of the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system will keep you from focusing on anything as close as your front sight, under stress.
• So, even if you don't expect to have to fire across a city street, there's still a role for aimed fire, just as there is a role for point shooting.

• ...is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." I have no idea if Abraham Maslow had self-defense in mind when he uttered or wrote those words, but they certainly are applicable.
• While a great many Americans have found that simply producing a firearm can quickly resolve a conflict, there are three potential problems with relying strictly on that "hammer":
  1. If the conflict does not involve a deadly threat, drawing a firearm may earn you a conviction for aggravated assault.
  2. If you are attacked by a determined assailant, at close range, you may not have the time to draw the firearm.
  3. If you are attacked when you don't have a firearm, you may not have any reliable alternative available.
• A few years ago, when I lived a few hundred miles from my current home, I was amazed to learn that a friend who runs the gun shop in that town was referring students to my CWP courses with the advice, "Forget all that kung-fu gunfighting Steve teaches and concentrate on the legal stuff." What was particularly surprising about that advice is that I knew that the man who was dispensing it had once survived an attack by grabbing and deflecting the muzzle of an AK-47, giving him the time to draw and fire his pistol. Since not everyone is as strong as he is, I try to teach some techniques that will accomplish the same end.
• All of this was brought into sharper focus for me when I read Ralph Mroz's book Tactical Defensive Training for Real-Life Encounters. While Ralph and I don't always come to identical conclusions, we tend to follow similar analytical thought processes.
• I'm not sure why this book is subtitled Practical Self-Preservation for Law Enforcement. While not every private citizen who reads it may have the level of physical fitness to follow through on all of Ralph's suggestions and implications, I can't believe that most private citizens who are concerned with self-defense won't find it worth reading.
• Section 1 is entitled "Self-Defense in Context." It puts self-defense in the perspective of the rest of our lives, including health maintenance. It also correctly points out the relatively limited utility of weapons, absent the empty-hand skills to survive long enough to deploy them.
• Section 2 is entitled "Self-Defense Software: The Mental Stuff." While Ralph and I have different views on the role of the color-code concept, I can't fault anyone who emphasizes the priority of software over hardware.
• Section 3 is entitled "Edged Weapons." It offers a refreshingly practical view of this area of self-defense.
• Section 4 is entitled "Firearms." I was amused to find a chapter entitled "The Revolver as a Superior Weapon." I can recall a phone call from Ralph, several years back, inquiring why I still carried revolvers!
• In short, this book is now the second on the list of recommended readings in my CWP and ASD course syllabus. (Modestly, I have listed my own book first.)

• One of the great pleasures in life is meeting someone and clicking right off the bat. I don't recall which year I met Rich Grassi at a seminar of the now-defunct American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers but it was one of those meetings. I do, however, have very specific recall of the invaluable lesson he taught me at the later 1996 ASLET seminar, for which he is briefly acknowledged in my book.
• I was reminded of this when Rich posted a five-years-after review of my book at The Tactical Wire, a site he now edits in his retirement from the Shawnee County [KS] Sheriff's Office, an agency he served as a sergeant and one of its key use-of-force trainers. As Paul Harvey used to say, "and now for the rest of the story..."
• The seminar was held in Grapevine, Texas, home to the massive DFW Airport. One afternoon found me and one other brave student out at the DFW DPS range, attending Rich's course on backup guns. The bravery part is that the temperature was 27 degrees, with a wind-chill factor of 22 below zero. All the other students who had signed up for the course decided to find indoor alternatives when they realized how bad the weather had turned.
• Anyhow, after Rich completed his lecture on the criteria one should consider for a backup gun, he explained that he gave the deputies on his department fairly free rein in their choices, so long as they could pass the standard department "qualification" with that gun. He then marched us out of the heated trailer and made us fire that course.
• I embarrassed myself turning in a score of 60% (I think 75% was the minimum score to "pass.") I spent some time rationalizing that I had been shooting an Airweight Centennial revolver, in my non-dominant hand, wearing gloves that did little for the cold but still encumbered my shooting. Further, the wind was gusting hard enough that I was literally having trouble keeping my sights anywhere on the target at the 25-yard line and anywhere near the center at the 15-yard line, for the length of time required to complete a double- action trigger stroke.
• Rationalization is still rationalization. Airweight Centennials were what I was carrying in those days. When I went home from the seminar I spent the next three months shooting nothing but those guns, dividing my range time equally between my right and left hands, with a large proportion of it shooting one-handed. When I finally felt that I had achieved competence with my carry guns, I discovered that I actually felt more comfortable shooting a J-frame S&W; revolver than one of the larger K-, L- or N-frame models that had previously consumed most of my range time.
• There's an old country saying about dating that refers to spotting a prettier girl at the dance than the one who had agreed to accompany you: "Dance with the one yah brung." If you regard shooting as a skill that you may need some dark night at a "party" for which you received no formal invitation, you'd better spend your range time "dancing with the one yer gonna bring."

• Once cops started training on silhouette targets instead of bullseye targets they were taught to aim for "center of mass." On most police silhouette targets the visual center of the body's mass, where one scores the highest points, is right around the stomach, in the upper abdomen. The rationale for this was most likely because a shot aimed at the "center of mass" has the greatest chance of staying on the silhouette if it strays from its point of aim.
• As time went by silhouette targets were developed which placed "center of mass" up in the chest, where the heart and the major vessels are located. Anatomically this makes more sense than shooting for the stomach but, as many hunters can attest, a large mammal may function for about 15 seconds after the heart is destroyed.
• Many instructors advocate head shots, usually as a secondary aiming point. There are a few problems with head shots:
  1. The head is a very mobile target. It is instinctive to swing it away from a perceived threat, making it particularly difficult to hit in actual combat.
  2. While a shot anywhere in the head of a paper target looks pretty good, there's a large amount of the head which does not include essential parts of the central nervous system.
  3. The essential parts of the central nervous system are encased in heavy bone. Bullets which meet the skull at less than a perpendicular angle may not penetrate it, particularly if hey have a rounded surface in their profile. Thus, even if one has the skill to hit the correct area of the head under stress, the shot may still not accomplish its purpose.
• Massad Ayoob advocates using the pelvis as a secondary aiming point and specifies three circumstances when one should aim there:
  1. When shots to the chest area have failed to produce any result;
  2. When the threat is with a contact weapon and one's firearm launches a projectile with enough energy to break the pelvis;
  3. Whenever one holds an assailant at gunpoint, to ensure visibility of the assailant's hands.
• Many of the point shooting advocates, from Fairbairn and Sykes to Bill Jordan, have advocated shooting your assailant in the belly. Jordan phrased it in terms of shooting in the vicinity of the belt buckle. Back in 2000, John Farnam, a fervent advocate of sighted fire, began arguing for placing the first shot into the navel.
• John's basic argument is that if you are aiming for the upper chest and the assailant ducks, you lose your sight picture. If you aim no higher than the navel, you'll still be able to see where the assailant is and score an initial hit. After that follow-up shots moving up into the chest should be relatively easy.
• I find qualified merit in John's argument. I am more persuaded by John's argument than those of the point shooters. If you're shooting with your gun around the level of your own navel, your shot is likely to be "adynamic." Unless you overcome the assailant's nervous system the shot may not have an immediate effect. If the gun is up around eye level, the shot to the navel is likely to angle down into the pelvis. If the pelvis is damaged the assailant's mobility may be compromised. However, the likelihood of damaging pelvic structure, stunning the nerves to the leg or lacerating a major artery or vein is greater if the shot is fired into the lateral pelvis than if it is aligned with the navel.
• Consider that in most jurisdictions a citizen cannot legally draw or even expose a concealed firearm until the justification actually exists to fire it at the assailant. This means that most encounters will occur at close enough ranges where limiting the assailant's mobility is likely to be your first priority, particularly if you are trying to move out of the path of the threat.
• Using the pelvis as the initial aiming point makes a lot of sense to me. This maximizes your visibility of the threat. If the assailant's mobility is your biggest concern you can place additional shots in the pelvis. If the assailant is armed with a firearm you can place additional shots in the chest. Arguably, if you're using a double-action handgun, you could even track the gun up the torso while rolling back the trigger.
• By the way, the preceding item on John's page linked above has a great deal of merit as well. It deals with moving and shooting, another topic near and dear to me.

• Ever since I have been teaching courses of my own design, I have emphasized initial shots to the pelvis, when tactically feasible. For many years, this has been based primarily on the concept that, at close range, a shot that impairs mobility is likely to be of greater value than a shot to the chest, which simply initiates a process of exsanguination (bleeding out) that could take as long as 15 seconds to affect the assailant's ability to function.
• A certain amount of my confidence in making this recommendation had been based on a report from Jim Cirillo that every felon who was shot in the pelvic area by members of the short-lived NYPD Stakeout Unit fell to the ground.
• In May 2007 I was finally able to attend a presentation on Tactical Anatomy, by James Williams, M.D., at the Annual Training Conference of the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors. Dr. Williams' presentation validated my recommendation of using the pelvis as a primary aiming point but added an important caveat.
• Dr. Williams specifies that it is the lateral pelvis that should be targeted, particularly with a handgun. The lateral pelvis is the area between the edge of the sacrum (the set of fused spinal vertebrae that form the central, rear portion of the pelvic frame) and the hip joint. The lateral border of the sacrum can be seen at the vertical groove in the upper, left corner of the illustration and the left hip joint can easily be distinguished where the ball enters its socket, near the left edge of the illustration.
  
  
  
• If you envision a triangle, with its vertical edge in that groove and its sharpest point at the inner edge of the ball, you will have marked off what is called the "weight-bearing triangle," the bone structure that is most vulnerable to damage from a handgun bullet, compromising the assailant's ability to remain standing or mobile.
• Further, this area also contains large blood vessels and nerves, which actually offer a relatively large target Thus, a shot in this lateral pelvic area may also initiate a fairly rapid process of exsanguination.
• In response to my question, Dr. Williams stated that he feels that it would take the added ballistic power of a long gun to provide a measure of reliability to a shot to the sacrum. However, I would add that a handgun shot that does strike the sacrum, while not ideal, may still be diverted into one of those large blood vessels or nerves. Additionally, the shock of a bullet passing close to one of those nerves can cause a temporary paralysis of the muscles it serves.

• The term "tactical reload" is generally used in relation to two concepts:
  1. Reloading your firearm when you choose to, as opposed to when you absolutely have to. This implies reloading before exhausting the ammo supply in the gun.
  2. Retaining the replaced magazine if your firearm uses detachable magazines. This implies not letting the replaced magazine fall to the ground during the process of reloading.
• Some of the more doctrinaire trainers make a big issue of never getting caught with your gun's slide or bolt locked back. Many of these trainers call a reload from this condition an "emergency reload."
• Other trainers believe that you may have more pressing concerns in a gunfight than keeping an exact count of rounds fired. They figure that since you are likely to shoot an autoloader to "slide lock," anyway, it may not be worth the effort to teach any reload other than this one, particularly if the tactical reload involves a bunch of digital (the finger kind) gymnastics which may fall apart under stress.
• Most trainers would agree that a tactical reload should be performed behind cover, yet not many of those who advocate tactical reloads actually provide some simulation of cover on the range for this purpose. Of course, not many trainers provide much cover on the range for any purpose!
• Personally, I like revolvers, but recognize that their weak point is reloading. This is not only an issue of speed, but also of position. Reloading a revolver while lying on your back and trying to remain behind cover is not an easy proposition.
• The fastest reload with a revolver (and sometimes with an autoloader) is a New York reload - drawing a second gun. Next fastest is a speedloader, but these are usually hard to conceal. On the other hand, it's not a difficult proposition to carry four single column magazines concealed for use in your autoloader.
• My point is that I believe that a tactical reload is a more critical issue for the user of the revolver than of the autoloader. If you're not carrying a whole bunch of speedloaders you may not want to dump two or three good rounds on the ground in order to get a full cylinder again.
  • Dean Caputo suggests a variation on the conventional tactical revolver reload, if you need to do a tactical reload with a speedloader:
    • Open the action and tilt the muzzle just high enough for the unfired rounds to slide out of their chambers, into the non-gun hand. The next sequence will depend on which hand you prefer to use to retain the gun during the remainder of the reload.
    • If you prefer to grasp the gun around the cylinder, in the non-gun hand - so that you can operate the speedloader with your dominant hand - stuff the unfired rounds into a pocket, for later use, then raise the muzzle skyward, stroke the ejector rod to get rid of the fired cases and proceed with a full reload with your speedloader.
    • If you prefer to retain the gun in the gun hand, close your fingers around the unfired rounds, raise the muzzle skyward, stroke the ejector rod with the fist and proceed as above.
  • If, on the other hand, you need to perform a tactical reload without a speedloader, here's the conventional technique:
    • Open the action and depress the muzzle 20 to 30 degrees below horizontal.
    • Depending on which hand is holding the gun, place the thumb or a finger of the gun hand in line with the center of the extractor star, to block its full stroke under stress.
    • Depending on which hand is not holding the gun, use a finger or the thumb of the non-gun hand to move the ejector rod through a partial stroke, then release. This will most likely leave the fired cases projecting from their chambers as the heavier, unfired rounds slide back into place. If the fired cases follow the extractor star back into place, repeat the partial extraction, identify them by the indented primer and pluck them out as you hold the ejector rod in place.
    • Pluck out the empty cases, letting them fall to the ground and replace them singly or in pairs from however you are carrying them, including in the aforementioned pocket.
• If you're using a five-round revolver of the .38/.357 persuasion the short crane may not give you enough clearance between the speedloader and the left grip panel to let you use a speedloader anyway. Since you may already be relying on something like a Speed Strip/QuickStrip, belt loops or a 2+2+2 pouch, why not learn how to reload on a fire-two/reload-two regimen?
• This doesn't mean that you would want to train yourself to a strict cadence of only firing two rounds before returning to cover to reload. There's no reason not to vary it and fire three or four rounds some of the time. My point is that lack of a magazine to cram more rounds into your gun means that you might want to work an extra drill to develop some compensatory skill.

• Several years ago, I posted an article - replaced by this one - questioning some of the claims that shooting can be viewed as an extension of traditional Asian martial arts. I made two major points:
  1. Massad Ayoob (and some instructors who have followed his lead) use karate�s rather elongated forward stance to create a platform for small students to manage the recoil of large-caliber handguns. This may work fine on the range, for "qualification" sessions, but such elongated, forward-leaning stances are generally not compatible with the need to be able to move laterally - in either direction - in a real gunfight.
  2. Many Asian martial artists � typically with no prior shooting experience � assume they can shoot handguns because they will point them accurately with their conditioned reflexes from their chosen martial art. That part may be true but the ones I have seen at ranges have terrible trigger control and need long sessions of dry fire to desensitize themselves from the anticipation of recoil.
• In fact, when I incorporated point shooting into the curriculum that I offered, I made extensive use of the centerline principle of my chosen martial art of wing chun kuen in teaching it. In my book, I simplify the concept and refer to it as the knife-edge principle.

• This principle, coupled with an understanding of the orientation of the muzzle when the gun is grasped, greatly facilitates learning the quarter-hip, half-hip and three-quarter-hip positions of point shooting as well as to give faster acquisition of a formal sight picture. However, it is crucial to realize that wing chun kuen's normal posture, with the pelvis forward of the shoulders, is the opposite of what is needed to manage recoil and to reduce the likelihood of anticipating the shot.
• As with the traditional martial arts, the forms are structures in which to learn the principles. Mastery includes the ability to execute the technique effectively when one is not in perfect form.

• My friend Andy Stanford once published an article entitled "Evolution of a Shooting Stance." In it he describes how he has transitioned from shooting from a Weaver "stance" to shooting from Ron Avery's version of an isosceles "stance."
• I put the word "stance" in quotation marks because I associate stance with a static position of the lower body. Most differences among shooting styles have more to do with arm position than with leg position. Andy's concept of stance appears to include details of finger and thumb placement. Andy is not a bad person because his semantics differ from mine; I will soon explain why I distinguish between upper and lower body positions.
• For whatever disagreements I may have with Massad Ayoob, I still credit him with teaching me that it is important to be able to shoot from more than one position. Bad things do not usually happen to good people on flat, square shooting ranges with stationary targets which don't shoot back.
• Darrell Mulroy, for example, compiled an extensive collection of photos and videos of real-life shooting incidents. One point that he made, on the basis of his studies, is that one does not usually see classic range "stances" in dynamic situations, particularly in the true sense of foot position.
• Darrell was also one of many students of combat who believed that a handgun-armed victim of a life-threatening attack will focus on the attacker, not the front sight. I have friends who have prevailed in gunfights. Some say that they used their sights and some say that they did not. I don't believe that either group has lied to me. I do believe that when things happen up close and quickly even the best trained gunfighter may fire without waiting to acquire the sights.
• Like Andy, I too have been trained to shoot "the one true way" at different times in my life. Like Andy's, my views have undergone evolution. I have long believed that different techniques work better for different people - that's why different techniques have evolved. The biggest challenge to my thinking about shooting handguns came when the late Rex Applegate pushed me to seriously examine point shooting. As a result I now lean toward shooting positions that have a good chance of working whether one focuses on the sights or on the threat.
• Because of this I favor positions which don't require leaning the head to one side, which don't absolutely require a specific foot position and which don't inhibit rapid movement. I believe that it is useful to be able to shoot with more than one arm position because that allows you to shoot under different circumstances. In particular I believe that the role of the wrist is a crucial one. I believe that if the handgun fits your hand so that that the gun points straight forward when the arm is brought to the body's midline it will make little difference if the gun is grasped in one hand or two or if the arms are bent or flexed.
• As in the traditional martial arts, I believe that true evolution of one's shooting position involves increasing freedom from fixed positions.

• In an amicable discussion with another instructor, over what he means by "combat proven, reality based professional firearms training," I found myself getting sucked into the old "Weaver versus isosceles" debate. At one point he stated, "I would be very interested in knowing what internal thought processes and experiences you went through that got you to convert from weaver derivative to isosceles derivative."
• I had actually already discussed some of this above, where I explain why I now prefer shooting positions which don't require leaning the head to one side, which don't absolutely require a specific foot position and which don't inhibit rapid movement. I am not so much concerned about arm position as I am about the role of the wrist and how the muzzle aligns in your hand.
• Apparently, prior to reading that discussion, he stated, "...I obviously have a personal preference for modified weaver, and an appreciation for the benefits of it. One of the primary advantages that has kept me anchored to the method is recoil control." Regardless of what he means by "modified weaver," that statement brought back some strong memories.
• I served the equivalent of an apprenticeship as a firearms instructor with the now-defunct Lethal Force Institute, a school that placed great emphasis on "recoil control." One of the school's selling points was that in successive courses the students shot the school's "qualification" course at increasingly higher speeds. My own experience was that emphasizing "recoil control" in order to make more holes in the target in less time encouraged me to anticipate the subsequent shots, driving them lower and lower.
• When I walked away from LFI, in November 1995, and stopped using its StressFire system of shooting, I began concentrating more on making each hit count and my shooting improved. This was around the time that I shifted from autoloaders to revolvers, where, with fewer rounds available between reloads, better hits are clearly more important than more hits.
• Over the next few years, while serving as a journeyman instructor with the now-defunct Defensive Combat Academy, I observed, analyzed and often corrected students shooting with different styles or methods. DCA did not have a method of its own to push so my mind was quite open during that period. I was particularly impressed by a couple of SWAT cops from Australia, who came through at different times.
• These guys were shooting from the "modern" or competition-derived isosceles position, where the arms retain a bit of flexion at the elbows. What impressed me was that I could see that even at distances of seven or ten yards, once the support hand joined the gun hand, they would have scored good, centered hits on the target had they fired before the gun reached the sighting plane. From that point, they reminded me of a car driving up the ramp from underground parking - it was a smooth continuum, with the muzzle indexed on the chosen aiming point all the way. They chose not to press the trigger until the "top of the ramp," where they had a visual sight picture, but it would have made little difference.
• I had heard and read of this flexed-elbow isosceles position but had ignored it for several years because of my training from LFI, which had claimed that the reaction to stress will result in full extension of the arms. I finally tried it in December 2001, at the urging of Andy Stanford. I made it a point to borrow a .45-caliber 1911 pistol from a friend, to test "recoil control" and was amazed to see that my sight was back on target as quickly with that method as with any other I had used. Advocates of this system make the point that it is irrelevant how high the muzzle may rise in recoil; what matters is how quickly it gets back on target.
• Still, I remain perplexed by those who seem to be more concerned about how quickly they can fire the second shot than by how quickly - and, at least as important - how well they can place the first shot. In my years of teaching I have found that recoil is best managed by relaxing and "slumping on the gun," known in some quarters as a "progressively aggressive stance." My students are advised to unlock their ankles, knees and hip joints and let the butt go back while the shoulders go forward, so that the shoulders are a few inches forward of the hip joints. (See the photo of the shooter in the article on Hand Strength and Handguns.) This. of course, assumes that the target is faced relatively squarely - bladed stances will require some sort of isometric relationship of the arms for quicker recovery from recoil.

• While reading Grant Cunningham's Gun Digest Book of the Revolver - one of the books I recommend to those who prefer to rely on a double-action revolver - I noticed a comment that the trigger finger slides across the face of the trigger during the trigger stroke. This did not sound like what I had been feeling for the past few decades so I made it a point to observe my own trigger stroke.
• What I actually observed is that - after my finger tightens against the face of the trigger - the proximal phalanx (the bone of the finger closest to the palm) rotates downward toward the other fingers that are grasping the gun. As I had always thought of trigger movement before as a movement to the rear, this intrigued me.
• Being the inquisitive guy that I am, I proceeded to concentrate on that phase of the motion in dry fire. I noticed that this not only gave me a smoother trigger stroke - with less disruption of the sight picture - with the double-action revolver, it also did the same for a pivoting single-action trigger, such as the one of the AR-15 clone I favor for home defense. The smoothening effect was most noticeable with the trigger stroke on a Kahr pistol, which resembles that of a double-action revolver but is not quite as smooth.
• I'm not arguing that the trigger finger does not actually move the trigger to the rear. What I'm suggesting is that if you use a firearm with a pivoting trigger, you may benefit from forming a different mental image of how you bring the trigger to the rear. After triple-checking that your firearm is unloaded and while it is pointed at a safe backstop, try some dry fire while consciously thinking of rotating the first bone of the trigger finger downward into the rest of the hand. It's given me a better sense of "rolling the trigger."

• Mike Rayburn, an adjunct instructor with Smith & Wesson Academy, has made some pretty bold statements about trigger control:
  
  
  • "Thousands of articles and reams of paper have been wasted on the fallacy of trigger control and how allegedly important it is to shooting skills. Numerous 'shooting gurus' have gone on record as stating that trigger control is the number one problem when it comes to shooting a handgun."
  • "That's a bunch of hogwash! Trigger control may be important to target shooting skills, but not to the type of shooting we do as law enforcement officers. As police officers we are combat shooters, or at least we better be. If your department is still one, of unfortunately many, that still practices target shooting skills for combat on the street, then maybe trigger control is a concern of yours. But even then, it's not the number one problem when it comes to shooting a handgun."
  
  
• Jeff Cooper referred to himself as "The Guru." a title I have never claimed for myself. I may not be the smartest bear in Jellystone Park but I think I'm smarter than the average bear and I will have to stick with the "numerous gurus" on this issue.
• Without questioning Rayburn's motivation. I will simply address what I believe to be the fallacy in his reasoning:
  
  
  1. Rayburn states, "The leading problem is anticipating the recoil of the firearm, resulting in a pre-ignition push, or PIP." In fact, post-ignition push also diverts the bullet from its intended point of impact.
  2. More importantly, trigger control and avoiding anticipation of the shot are two components of the same continuum, not distinct elements. People do not anticipate the shot until they initiate the pressure on the trigger, whether for a single-action press or a double-action "roll."
  3. Whether by intent or by poor analysis, I suspect that Rayburn has too closely associated the target-shooting concept of "surprise break" with the entire process of trigger control. I view the surprise break as a stage in training and a training tool similar to those of calling the shot and resetting the trigger.
  
  
• Many instructors speak of the stages of competence. A student acquiring a new skill is conscious of his incompetence. During the acquisition process, the student develops conscious competence; he can execute the skill if he thinks about the process. When the student has truly acquired the skill, he is unconsciously competent - he no longer needs to think about the process he is executing.
• Training aids, such as the surprise break, calling the shot and resetting the trigger, are conscious processes during the stage of conscious competence. Once the basic skills are acquired, these individual processes all merge into the single process of firing the shot.
• Under combat conditions one may only use a very coarse sight picture or even rely on some sort of unsighted index on the intended target (point shooting). The crucial component of placing the shot where the muzzle is pointed remains accomplishing the trigger stroke without significantly disturbing the alignment of the muzzle, whether the component of not jerking the muzzle off line as the pressure on the trigger is developed or of not pressing the muzzle off line in anticipation of recoil.

• Traditionally, shooters of handguns with double-action triggers have been advised to place the trigger finger so that the distal crease rests at the outer edge of the trigger. By tradition, handgun shooters have also been advised to center the back strap in the web of the hand and have the bore align with the bones of the forearm, a concept I challenge in my discussion of the role of the wrist.
• As I was preparing the updated edition of my book, it was pointed out to me that one of the original illustrations was anatomically incorrect. The illustration in question dealt with the observation of the instructors at the now-defunct Chapman Academy that greatest accuracy with handguns appeared to correlate with the middle phalanx (bone) of the trigger finger being perpendicular to the bore at the time the trigger releases the hammer or the striker.
• I went ahead and paid for one more drawing, to replace the incorrect one. (It was incorrect because it depicted the finger firing a double-action revolver in single-action mode, which is generally not advised in defensive use.) I was left with some doubt as to whether the concept was truly that important off a shooting range and whether I should even have left that discussion in the updated edition. Fortunately, that doubt went into that mysterious portion of my brain, where things are digested subconsciously and regurgitated at a later time.
• More recently I worked with a couple of women who purchased small-frame double-action revolvers. One has very small hands and one has hands the size of mine. Both have weak hands and arthritis. With the woman with small hands I used a technique from Jim Cirillo, a phenomenal shooter but one with stubby fingers. Jim called it tactical re-gripping. It consists making sure the gun is unloaded, then, while holding the barrel with the non-gun hand, placing the distal crease of the trigger finger at the outer edge of the trigger, then letting the rest of the hand establish the remainder of grip that maintains that finger placement. (Once that grip is established, one must remember it and acquire it normally, with the finger outside the trigger guard, in actual use.)
• With the other woman we sought a grip that covers the back strap, extending the reach to the trigger without seriously compromising concealment. This was done to maintain the same finger placement, for adequate leverage on the trigger, yet relieve the strain on muscles and tendons she was experiencing with a smaller grip.
• In the interim, I was making some observations of my own dry-fire with the small frame revolvers I carry, fitted with grips that do not extend the dimensions of the grip frame of the revolver. Over time I had noticed my trigger finger easing farther out of the trigger guard, to where I'm now contacting the trigger very near the tip of the finger, as is often recommended for a single-action pistol. A bit of analysis revealed that doing this leaves that middle phalanx perpendicular to the bore as the hammer drops and eliminates the slight "jump" of the front sight that I see if my finger gets closer to the conventional position for double-action shooting. Fortunately, several years of blue-collar work in my youth left me with pretty strong hands.

  If personalizing the grips, as discussed on the Handgun Selection page, does not produce optimal alignment of the middle phalanx of the trigger finger, you may wish to try altering your finger placement. Keep in mind that it usually takes greater hand strength, which you may need to develop, to work a trigger with the tip of the finger than by placing the crease of the distal joint next to the outer edge of the trigger. Inserting the finger past the edge of that joint is counter-productive for most shooters, partly because the tip of the finger is likely to hit the frame of the gun before the gun fires. (Illustration by Paige Robbins, from Defensive Use of Firearms: Revised and Updated, copyright © 2010, by Defensive Use of Firearms, LLC.)

• By my late 40's - after I gave up on the StressFire shooting techniques - I had gotten pretty accurate with two-inch (actually 1.875") S&W; J-frame revolvers, with the integral front sights that look as though they could double as table knives. By my early 60's, a sight picture with the same guns looked like the front sight simply filled the groove in the rear sight - I could no longer seen any space between the sides of the notches and the sides of the blades.
• The problem is the same one that prompts some people over 40 to comment that they realized that they needed reading glasses when their arms got too short for reading. The technical term is presbyopia - a progressive loss in the elasticity of the natural lens of the eye, making it increasingly difficult to focus on closer objects.
• Americans tend to be gadget-oriented, leading us to try to buy our way to better shooting. First, I'll talk about some handgun sights that may be friendlier to aging eyes:
  • Back when I was still enamored with luminescent tritium front sights, I had the pinned-in front sights on my 2.125" S&W; Centennials replaced with the Big Dot front sights from XS Sight Systems. On guns with replaceable rear sights, these are normally mated with a wide-V "express" sight at the rear but, on these short, fixed sight revolvers, the lower half of the white dot just "fits" visually into the groove in the top strap.
  • I see some folks posting in forums that they have regained the ability to see the front sight by going to a fiber-optic sight, such as the ones from Hi Viz. I've never seen any of the sights that couple fiber optic with tritium but I have seen a few students with plain fiber-optic sights. They seem to work great in bright sunlight and poorly once the sun starts over the yardarm. As I recall, most self-defense incidents occur in low light.
  • Some older shooters have gone to laser sights or the newer, smaller holographic red-dots sights on carry guns. Personally, after having seen a laser sight malfunction twice under range conditions, I prefer not to rely on such electronic gadgets on the street.
  • For decades, handgun shooters have been offered red front sights, with the promise of greater visibility under wider conditions. I always found the red, plastic inserts offered by S&W; and Ruger tougher to see than a black front sight. When I started testing different colors of paint, to make the front sight on my pocket gun - one of those 1.875" S&W; J-frame revolvers - more useable with my aging eyes, I noticed that red "bleeds" - making the front sight fill the rear notch, just as the stainless-steel or blackened sight did. On the other hand, I was quite pleased to see that a bright green restored a sliver of light on either side of the front sight. Others prefer yellow or orange but, to my eyes, yellow also filled the entire rear notch. (I never got around to testing any shades of blue, after finding that green did the trick for me.)
    • In his Secrets of the Snubby DVD, Claude Werner shows a scheme of combining an undercoat of white paint on the front sight with a brighter color only at the very top. Frankly, with such a short sight blade, I don't think that my eyes could distinguish such tiny segments although I find it useful - particularly when instructing new shooters - on the taller front-sight blades of revolvers with adjustable sights. I did follow his advice to blacken the vertical portion of the rear sight notch with a fine-point marking pen (only of value on a silver-colored gun) and second that advice.
    • If you would like my instructions for painting front-sight blades, feel free to e-mail me for them.
• One or more of the above alternatives may be useful to you but you could always end up needing to finish the fight with someone else's gun (or without the corrective lenses that you normally wear). Under those worst-case scenarios, it's always nice to have techniques to overcome equipment issues:
  • Among the techniques that Jim Cirillo taught as alternative sighting methods, is what he called the "weapon silhouette point." I describe it briefly on this site's Point Shooting page.
    • With the so-called square guns, you simply place the approximately rectangular silhouette of the autoloader's slide over what you want to hit and smoothly operate the trigger.
    • With the so-called wheelguns - at least at closer distances - you may do better if you place the top of the circular silhouette of the revolver's cylinder where you want to hit. This is very similar to what bullseye shooters call a six o'clock hold.
    • While Jim taught this technique primarily to reduce the time to make the shots, it also works well if there is insufficient light to distinguish your sights or if you're focused on the threat.
  • When we compared our impressions of that Claude Werner DVD, Dean Caputo commented that, rather than be concerned about the front sight climbing out of the notch, as Claude is, he actually shoots the "snubby" revolver that way by intent, at what I call intermediate distances.
    • Dean's technique - which I call the elevated-front-sight technique - is a derivation of the long-range technique used by many old-time revolvers shooter, including Elmer Keith. Those guys would memorize - and sometimes mark with narrow gold bars inlaid in the front-sight blade of their full-size revolvers - how much sight they needed to hold above the top of the blade of the rear sight for different distances beyond where the sights were zeroed.
    • In Dean's technique - which provides the precision of front-sight focus at higher speed with a small-frame, short-barrel revolver - the base of the front sight is positioned at the upper edge of the notch. I find that this is even easier if the front sight has been painted in a contrasting color, as described above. You'll have to find for yourself where the bullet impacts with your gun and your choice of load but expect it to strike around one inch high for each yard to the target. In other words, if you try it at five yards, look for your hits to be about five inches higher on the target than where you held the top of the sight. Adjust according to what you actually see at the range.
    • For those of us who tilt our heads forward in order to bring the eye in line with the sights, all that this technique requires is to tilt the head just a bit less downward. Try it - you may find that it's much easier on those aging eyes and you can always learn what adjustment you need to make in your point of aim if you need to use it at distances beyond ten yards.
  • Depending on how seriously your near vision is affected and how comfortable you are shooting with elbows flexed, a shooting position that brings the gun closer to the eyes may also help restore a bit of light at the sides of the front sight. A similar effect may also be gained by switching from a gun with nominally 2" barrel to one with a nominally 3" or longer barrel.

• George Patton liked to say that the perfect is the enemy of the good. He usually said it in the context that, in warfare, a good plan, executed vigorously and quickly, will prove superior to a perfect plan executed after a delay for the additional planning.
• As I�ve discussed elsewhere, I believe that serious users of firearms are best served by finding a gun that does a good job of meeting their needs for a defensive firearm. Once that choice is made, I recommend concentrating on honing the skill to use it and acquiring multiple copies of that gun. I contrast this with the ongoing quest to find the perfect gun. The reason to purchase multiple copies of the good gun that you select � aside from whether you heed my advice to carry more than one gun � is that a firearm used in self-defense will likely vanish into an evidence locker. Further, if your carry gun has to go in for repair � and that does happen � it�s nice to be able to go to the safe and pull out a duplicate that matches your trained reflexes and carry system.
• My friend Rich Grassi has described his experience with a modified S&W; Shield pistol. One of the modifications was the substitution of an Apex trigger for the factory trigger.
• Like Glock pistols, the Shield has a "safety" built into the trigger. Unlike the centrally mounted levers on the triggers of Glocks, the "safety" on the Shield takes the form of a hinged, two-piece trigger. The Apex trigger, on the other hand emulates the Glock trigger, with the "safety" lever centered on its face. As I understand the problem that Rich experienced, the placement of the distal crease of his trigger finger on the outer edge of the factory trigger worked fine but failed to depress the "safety" lever consistently with the Apex trigger. This necessitated what I take to be the placement of the pad of the finger over the center of the face of the trigger. Thankfully, the unintended consequence of this modification was discovered in the "sterile" environment of the range, not during a gunfight.
• By no means am I trying to suggest that all guns function perfectly out of the box and should never be modified. In fact, I am a proponent of Evan Marshall�s "one-year rule" � wait until a newly designed firearm is on the market for at least one year, to allow for debugging � before purchasing that new design. What I am trying to suggest is to evaluate very carefully any contemplated modifications. Ask yourself whether and how the contemplated modification will improve your use of the gun as a life-saving tool. Recognize that you may be challenged to defend any modification in court.
  • If your gun has an acceptable trigger, altering it to make it "crisper and lighter" may allow a hostile attorney � particularly in a civil case, where a finding of negligence, rather than intent, provides for access to your homeowner's liability insurance � to argue that you turned it into a "hair trigger."
  • By contrast, if you spend the money on aftermarket grips for a revolver or a "grip reduction" on a pistol, you may improve your ability to keep the muzzle aligned where you want to place your shot without affecting the mechanical operation of the gun. The same argument of reasonableness can be made for the substitution of aftermarket sights that better serve your needs.
• Most self-defense incidents take place at distances better measured in feet than in yards. While I would be wary of selecting a handgun that produces more of a pattern than a group, modifying a reliable pistol �such as a 1911 - to produce one-inch groups at 25 yards may compromise its reliability under less than ideal conditions.
• You may be able to find a gun that meets your defensive needs out of the box. Alternatively, you may find that you need to make some reasonable modifications of your chosen gun to improve its function in your hands. Either way, give the gun a realistic test of reliability. Before pistols were designed to feed hollowpoint rounds, the rule of thumb was that a pistol should be able to cycle a minimum of 200 rounds of your chosen carry load without a malfunction. I know of a state police agency that made a decision to switch to a relatively newly designed pistol, only to learn that the first lot that they received would not function reliably with the agency�s choice of duty round, requiring the manufacturer to reconfigure the feed ramp. Revolvers ought not to require as extensive testing but I read a blog posting from another instructor who had purchased a seven-shot revolver from a reputable manufacturer. "It fired exactly four rounds before breaking."

• Many years ago, when I was much less experienced and still believed most of the stuff I read in gun magazines, I jumped at a chance to purchase a then hard-to-find and much sought after Seecamp .32-caliber pistol. At that time, the Winchester Silvertip was considered the round to use in the admittedly marginal .32 ACP chambering and the Seecamp pistol was designed specifically to fire that round. While I never tried it, I recall that FMJ rounds were not even supposed to fit into the magazine.
• On top of that, that pistol was designed with a ring cut into the chamber. The function of the ring is to allow a controlled, annular expansion of the case, to delay the rearward movement of the slide and the extraction of the spent case. Thus, not only was the pistol limited to the use of only one specific cartridge at the time of its design, but the fired cases were not suitable for reloading.
• One of my last students showed up with a 9x19mm Kimber Solo pistol. Very shortly into the course, it began to malfunction. The pistol was jamming with an empty case only partially extracted from the chamber and the next round starting up the feed ramp.
• I was skeptical when the student explained that the pistol was designed to use loads with bullets weighting 124 gr. or more and that he had carelessly purchased 115 gr. loads for use in the course. Suspecting that the problem was operator-induced, I tried firing the pistol. The pistol still balked. Even after I had lubricated it, the problem persisted.
• Since I then carried a similarly sized 9x19mm Kahr pistol in my pocket, I was able to lend it to the student for completion of the course. For the second day I was even able to lend him an appropriate holster. My Kahr pistol had no problem cycling his UMC 115 gr. FMJ training ammo.
• After the course was concluded and the students were on their way home, I found my way to the Kimber website, where I was surprised to confirm the student's claim that the "Solo is designed to function optimally using premium hollow-point self-defense factory ammunition with bullet weights of 124 or 147 grains."
• Back when Walmart sold ammunition at all its stores, Evan Marshall coined the term "Walmart test." By that he meant that when he considered a defensive handgun, he asked himself, if he were traveling across the country and ran out of ammo, would he be able to stop at the local Walmart and find some in that caliber? Thus, if you apply the "Walmart test," you may want to avoid reliance on niche calibers, such as .357 SIG and 10mm, for defensive use.
• The 9x19mm cartridge is almost certainly the most ubiquitous pistol cartridge in the world. I'm under the impression that 115 gr. is still the most commonly sold bullet weight - at least in normal retail channels - in the US, both for FMJ and hollowpoints. While Speer appears to offer its "short-barrel" Gold Dot hollowpoint loads in three bullet weights, Speer ammunition is not stocked as widely as the "big three" brands and many people who evaluate these issues would still go with the lightest - 115 gr. - for use in a pistol with a 2.7-inch barrel, on the theory that lighter bullet will attain a higher percentage of its potential velocity out of such a short barrel. In fact, CorBon reportedly developed their 95 gr. DPX load specifically for these short-barrel pocket pistols in this chambering and Hornady offers a similar 100 gr. Critical Defense Lite load.
• Where am I going with all this?
  1. While it's perfectly plausible that any one firearm may give the best results with a specific load, with similar pistols available in the same caliber, I'm unclear why anyone would intentionally select a model that may not function reliably with the most common loads in the caliber.
  2. If you must go with a model that is so demanding of specific loads, remember the Great Ammo Shortage of 2009 and 2010 and stock up a lifetime supply of your chosen load. Further, to use a famous advertising slogan, "don't leave home without it." If the gun won't pass the Walmart test, be sure to stash a few extra boxes in every vehicle you own.
  3. I will cop to being a bit facetious here but I can't help pointing out that revolvers do not depend on factors such as bullet weight, bullet shape and pressure curves to cycle reliably. If you carry a .357 Magnum revolver, it will fire anything from a heavy Magnum hunting load to a powder-puff .38 Special target load, regardless of whether the bullet has a round, blunt or completely flat nose.

• I was working a table at a gun show, recruiting members for the Arizona Citizens Defense League, with two other volunteers I had just met that day. One of them was wearing a pistol, unloaded for the show, in an exposed holster.
• As I stepped back to the table, from speaking to someone in the aisle, I realized that one had just been explaining to the other the merits of his holster for open carry - a practice in which I have rarely engaged since my return to Arizona, in July 1999.
• When the man turned his side to me and asked me to try to draw his pistol, I glanced down to see if the holster had the release tab of a Serpa holster. Not seeing one, I asked, "What's the holster, a Fobus?"
• When he said it was, I took hold of his pistol, top down, the web of my hand in front of the rear sight and my last three fingers around the bottom of the covered trigger guard, checked the angle of the holster and drew the gun, albeit not in a firing grip.
• He was not very happy about that and requested that I try it again, the way that someone who did not know the holster might attempt. As I explained that if I were attempting a disarm from the holster, I would first upset the victim's balance, I feinted toward his shoulder, stepped around so that I could acquire a firing grip and, once again drew the pistol.
• I do not like the open-top Fobus holster - which will only permit the pistol to be drawn at a very precise angle - because I am concerned that it may do a more effective job of keeping the user than the assailant from drawing the gun. I have had a short-waisted, pudgy student who struggled to find the right combination of angle and leverage for an entire range session with a Fobus holster he had purchased the week before the course - because it was the only holster that was sold at the local gun shop. If the holster is that picky about body shape, what happens when you're rolled into a ball on the ground or backed up into a corner?
• While I believe that there are better retention holsters than the Fobus, there are two crucial points to keep in mind:
  • If you alternate between an open-top holster, when you carry discreetly, and have the insight to use a retention or security holster, when carrying openly, you run the risk of attempting the wrong draw technique at the most crucial moment. This is why I lean toward holsters that are confluent with the draw technique for an open-top holster for occasional open carry. (I discuss some of those offerings on my Holster Selection page. If you use a thumb-break holster for open carry, I recommend using the same system for discreet carry.
  • Regardless of how secure your holster, a security holster is nothing more than a delay factor. Personally, I have trained to "advanced trainer" level in weapon retention and disarming and taught the stuff for a few years. For reasons that have never been clear to me, since I left the school in which I did that training, I have never had a student express serious interest - beyond an inconclusive e-mail - in such training, even when offered. This training is particularly necessary when one invites a disarming attempt by carrying openly.
• If you absolutely must carry openly in an open-top holster, it will likely be easier to defend the gun in the appendix position or front-crossdraw position than it would be in the FBI position. Keep in mind that he angle of the holster on the belt should match the placement of the holster on the belt.

• "Car gun" is a term that has been around for ages. In my time it has generally referred to a gun that is stored in a vehicle indefinitely, in case one should ever need it. Typically, it is either an inexpensive gun to start with or one which will not suffer from further cosmetic wear from bouncing and sliding around wherever it is stashed in the vehicle.
• Historically minded visitors will recall the Ithaca Auto & Burglar Gun, now restricted under the National Firearms Act of 1934. This was basically a smoothbore, double-barrel pistol, produced mostly in 20 gauge, which, much like today's less potent Bond Arms .410 derringer, was advertised in a manner intended to convince the public that it was the best tool to deal with an assailant who approached your stopped vehicle.
• Until Arizona restored "constitutional carry" - no permit required to carry your weapons discreetly - in July 2010, it was not unusual to have two or three potential students a year tell me that they were only interested in being able to keep a firearm in the vehicle while driving somewhere other than "here."
• In such cases I have usually asked why they have felt a greater threat, traveling down a road at 65 mph, surrounded by at least 3,000 pounds of somewhat bullet-resistant steel and glass, than walking down a street, covered with a few layers of cloth.
• There certainly was a time when many citizens could not lawfully carry a gun on their person but could, under varying circumstances, keep one in the vehicle. This may still be the case for some people today, as they drive across states that may not recognize the carry permits they hold. In such cases, a gun in the vehicle may be better than a gun back home.
• Why have I emphasized "may"? There can be some liability to leaving a firearm in a vehicle while it is parked, should someone break in and steal it. And where in the vehicle will it be kept so that it could actually be accessed in an emergency? I recently saw a photograph posted online where someone had affixed a holster just below a steering wheel. Okay. That keeps the gun accessible to the driver and makes it less likely to have it make an unplanned trip around the vehicle in an accident.
• Here's a scenario: You are stopped at an intersection when another vehicle rear-ends you.
  • You get out to exchange information with the other driver and discover that he is armed and he wants you to let his companion depart in your vehicle. This is what is known as a "bump-and-rob" carjacking. Now you're out a vehicle and a handgun.
  • You get out to exchange information with the other driver and stuff your gun into your waistband as you do so. A few minutes later, a police car arrives on the scene and the other driver informs the officer that you intimidated him with a firearm. You are now arrested for aggravated assault or whatever they call it in your jurisdiction.
• This is why it is preferable to wear the firearm holstered on your person. But you argue, it's very hard to draw it while you're seated, with your safety belt buckled. Okay, I'm willing to discuss that but your vehicle, moving two or three mph faster than another vehicle that presents a threat to you, will generally make a much more powerful weapon than any firearm you can carry.
• Can't wear a conventional holster? Here's a possible compromise - the Safepacker is a disguised holster that can be worn in different ways, including, if you are right-handed, on the safety belt in the driver's seat. It can also be worn on a normal belt, slung on a shoulder strap or even, for brief periods, carried in the non-gun hand.
• Thus, if you are wearing it on your safety belt and holding it in your non-dominant had when you exit the vehicle in the above scenario, you can still draw the gun if needed but virtually no one will realize that the less-than fashionable purse in your hand holds a gun. In fact, you could keep copies of your driver license, vehicle registration and proof of insurance in the pocket in the flap.
• Similarly, if you are in a jurisdiction where you may not carry outside your vehicle, it will at least afford you discretion when you carry the gun between your vehicle in the driveway and your home, in the morning and the evening, rather than leaving the gun in the vehicle overnight, for a burglar. Further, from time to time, I see reports of children shooting themselves or others with guns that they find unsecured in vehicles.

• I received a bulk e-mailing from an instructor who proclaims, as do many others, "I train Navy SEAL's."
• To the best of my knowledge, SEAL's are trained primarily by other SEAL's. As with other special-operations personnel, they may take specialized training from other branches of the military and train with similar units from other nations. More importantly, I'm sure that they routinely send small numbers of SEAL's to sample what is being offered by instructors in the private sector.
• I'm equally sure that when those SEAL's return from any outside training, they are debriefed as to whether anything they learned is worthy of incorporation into their unit's own training. Even if it is, I think it is much more likely to become another "item on the menu," rather than completely new doctrine.
• I have some compelling evidence that portions of this website and of my book have been used In Powerpoint presentations for in-service SEAL training. So what? The same evidence suggests that they were used alongside other material, some of which they complemented and some of which they contradicted.
• Why would this have been done? Probably because not all tactics and techniques work equally well for all situations and for all people. When you have operators of that caliber, they are usually capable of making their own assessment of what will and what won't work for them.
• I am led to believe that when the military pays for special-operations personnel to attend private schools (a) they generally attend a course reserved for them and (b) the provider is generally under a non-disclosure agreement.
• SEAL's (as well as other military personnel) are generally free to take training of their own choice on their own time and their own dime. They may or may not be free to make their occupation known when they do so. While an individual SEAL's choice to spend his own time and money at a specific school may be regarded as a testimonial, it is hardly an official endorsement by the Department of the Navy or even of his team.
• Thus, I would take with a grain of salt any claim of "I train Navy SEAL's." There are probably more phony SEAL's out there than impersonators of service in any other units of the military. There are also some legitimate SEAL veterans who provide training in the private sector. If that type of training meets your needs, make sure you are not taking it from an impostor.