Joe Merchant tells of his experiences in a urban rifle course.

Reminds me of KR Training’s Defensive Long Gun course.

It reads like Joe went through a similar thing as I did. That combat shooting and bullseye/accuracy shooting are two different things. We do so much shooting against paper targets and there’s so much ingrained in us for whatever reason, that when we shoot we want to shoot fast and try to put every bullet through the same hole on the paper. That we want these really tight and small groups. If we don’t shoot that, we’re a terrible shot. Well, this is true if what you’re shooting for us slow accuracy. But if what you’re trying to do is defensively shoot and stop the bad guy from attacking you, then you need to shoot faster and have combat accuracy.

That is, fast or accurate? Which do you want? You can’t have both. Sure you can and should have both to some extent, but ultimately the faster you go the harder it will be to be pin-point accurate, and the more accurate you strive to be the slower you will be. So say in a combat situation, to get them all in the A-Zone of an IPSC target is acceptable: that’s still getting it in vital areas… maybe not through all the same hole, but it’s also arguable that’s better because it’s spreading the trauma out over a larger area and ultimately doing more damage than if you put ’em all through the same hole.

Bottom line: this is a mental matter that you have to come to terms with. That when you’re shooting and evaluating your results, you have to consider what your goal is and if you’re meeting that goal. If you’re shooting for combat, don’t be upset if you’re not making a 1″ group… be upset if you’re not hitting the A-Zone, but if they’re all there and there fast enough, then you’re doing OK.