Did you know that when a bullet richochets, its angle of exit is generally less than the angle of entry? That is, after the bullet strikes the surface, it winds up on a new trajectory that runs almost parallel to the surface it impacted. This is unlike say a bouncing ball, that will exit at about the same angle as it entered.

This is worthwhile knowledge to have, as it has both offensive and defensive implications.

Watch this video, starting at about 3:36:

Consider the implications, both offensively and defensively.

(h/t Gabe Suarez)

Not only is the August 2014 KR Training newsletter posted, but it comes with news of some incredible discounts on classes for this Fall.

Sign up and pay in full before Sept 1 for any of these combo deals at a discounted price!

August 30 – Long Gun and Pistol Skills Tuneup
Defensive Long Gun Essentials + Skill Builder – take both for $100 or one for $70

Sept 13 – Got your CHL? These are the next step
Defensive Pistol Essentials + Defensive Pistol Skills 1 – take both for $120 or one for $70

Sept 27 – Learn to shoot like the pros. Shoot a sample match to try IPSC, Steel and IDPA.
Beyond the Basics + Competition Pistol 1 – take both for $120 or one for $70

October 4 – Get Started Shooting. Pistol and Rifle (or Shotgun) training all in one day
Basic Pistol 1 + Defensive Long Gun Essentials – take both for $120 or one for $70

October 25 – Every armed citizen should train to this level. Our most important courses.
Defensive Pistol Skills 2 + AT-2 Force on Force + Low Light Shooting – all 3 for $180

Already taken these but haven’t practiced the skills in awhile? 
REFRESHER DISCOUNT: repeat any individual course you’ve taken before for $20 off.

Many courses will use the new shoot house and include shooting from a (stationary) vehicle.
We are bringing some ‘range cars’ out for the Vehicle Combatives class in September, and we’ll use them in some drills in our own classes this fall.

Students must register and pay tuition in full before Sept 1 to get these discounts.

I’ve been reading a lot of Claude Werner’s stuff lately. It’s been a good refresher on a few things.

Recently, Claude posted the curriculum to his Introduction to “J” frame revolver class. I spent a weekend with Claude a few years back, and many of the things in his posted intro curriculum ring bells of familiarity. While reading the curriculum is no substitute for taking the class, there are some things you can glean.

First, Claude emphasizes fundamentals. If you’ve ever played a sport, you should understand this. No matter how good you get, the only way to get good is to master the fundamentals.

Second, Claude puts a lot of emphasis on the draw and first shot. Why? Because it’s critically important.

Third, did you notice Claude put a “Methodology” section? Everything is done for an articulable reason, and class is kept to a focused scope. Sign of a good teacher.

Fourth, one entry in the Methodology lists a wonderful thing about revolvers: the built-in ability to do the ball-and-dummy drill by simply spinning the cylinder between shots.

• Ball and dummy is achieved by opening the cylinder after a few shots, spinning it, and then closing it without looking where the fired case(s) end up. Do this once or twice per cylinder.

Try that next time you’re at the range. Draw and fire one. After the string is over, spin the cylinder and reholster. Draw and fire one; if it goes click, keep firing until it doesn’t go click, and make sure your front sight never dips. The fun part is, after you fire a couple shots, you get more dummies than balls, so the “when will it fire?” could be 1 trigger press away or could be 4 away, and you have to keep going and keep the sights steady and trigger press smooth. It’s a good drill.

Fifth, reloading from loose ammo. One thing Claude emphasized in class was scanning the scene around you while you reload – something I still do every time I reload my snub.

I admit, I’ve been carrying my snub more this summer. Not so much because it’s hot, but because of my weight gain and clothing fit issues (sigh but resolve to this issue is forthcoming). So I’ve been practicing and dry firing with the snub a lot. It still sucks to draw from a pocket holster. Plus, I’m finding some flaws in pocket holsters… enough to make me wonder about fabrication. But, another discussion for another time.

In continuing with the discussion about if you should carry with a round in the chamber (or not), I’d like to offer some recently published hard data from Claude Werner.

Claude wrote an article on Gunhandling. In this article he discussed two recent experiences: one was shooting the Swiss concealed weapons qualification test, the other was regarding the handling of malfunctions at an IDPA match. While the malfunctions experience is worthy of discussion unto itself, it’s the Swiss test that I’m focusing on today.

I assert that one should carry with a round in the chamber. One key reason? Time matters. To have to rack a round into the chamber is going to cost you time. How much time? Claude writes:

To get an initial feel for the difference between chamber empty and loaded chamber start, I did five one shot unconcealed draws using each technique. Overall, chamber empty was slower to the tune of .48 seconds average. I was shooting my Beretta 92G Centurion from a Safariland 567 open top holster.

So drawing and having to rack one into the chamber cost him about half a second.

Note: this is Claude Werner. He’s a Master-class IDPA shooter, and was chief instructor at the elite Rogers Shooting School for a number of years. He’s also a guy that runs exercises such as “1000 days of dry fire” (yes, 1000 consecutive days, dry firing every day… you miss one day, you lose and have to start over — and he completes it). The point is, Claude’s level of skill and gun manipulation is far above average, and likely far above your skill level.

So if it takes a highly skilled person half a second, how long is it going to take you?

Let’s go back to the typical gunfight of “3 shots in 3 seconds within 3 yards”. So if you have 3 seconds, now you only have 2.5 seconds – if you’re Claude. If we’re talking 3 shots, again assuming a high level of skill and 0.20 seconds between shots (splits), that’s about 0.40 seconds to shoot 3 shots. So again, high level of skill, you’ve now got about 2 seconds to react to the stimulus, draw, and start shooting. A 1.5 second concealment draw is considered good. So, if you’ve got the skills, you might be able to pull all this off. But do you have such a high-level of skill? And if you are anything less than honest in your assessment, you’re doing yourself and your life a disservice.

In addition to time (speed), there is another consideration: accuracy. Claude writes:

Having established a baseline difference, I proceeded to shoot the Swiss qual course twice, once with the chamber empty and once with a loaded chamber. I used the same gear but also my favorite concealment vest, a construction worker’s fluorescent vest. What I found was that chamber empty was not only slower (0.48-0.67 seconds) but somewhat less accurate than having a round in the chamber. I had to work really hard to get the front sight on target after loading the chamber. Unlike a smooth loaded chamber drawstroke, there’s a lot of rotational movement of the pistol going during the period of driving the gun to the target. I didn’t have any trouble making the times, but it’s not exactly a cakewalk, either. Not long into the course, the safety ears were beginning to hurt my fingers, which may have had some effect on the results, too.

Years ago, I took a pistol course from Kelly McCann. He said that the Israelis just accept that they are going to throw away the first shot when using the chamber empty technique. After doing this exercise, I can see why. With all the gun movement, and if using the strict Israeli technique, 90 degrees of rotating of the gun, it’s hard to get even the muzzle indexed on target, much less get the front sight on it. Notice also the inclined to the low left classic group, indicating the trigger jerking that was going on. I expect this is because of the amount of complex (gross simultaneous with fine) motor skills that are involved.

Again, we’re talking Claude Werner level of shooting skill. While he was able to make the times, it was difficult. There’s so much going on, so much extraneous movement, and now there’s an increased level of difficulty in getting acceptable hits. Take a look at Claude’s targets.

BTW, I wouldn’t recommend the Israeli philosophy of throwing away the first shot. The first shot is too important (click through, read why)! While it’s not a wise thing to do, understand the reasoning – because all this fumbling around is likely going to equate to your first shot being unacceptable, and that… is unacceptable.

Compounding matters, if you take the issues of time, speed, accuracy, gunhandling, all of these things into account, and now throw in Paul Ford’s statistic that in a gunfight you’ll perform at 70% of your worst day on the range, can you see how not having a round in the chamber is going to magnify your troubles? How it’s going to really work against you?

If you still wish to carry without a round in the chamber, that’s your decision. Consider the above. Consider how much further it puts you behind the curve. Consider how it increases complexity.  Then consider, if it’s really the wisest decision to make.

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer:

I saw this posted on Facebook somewhere. The answer is “yes”.

Let’s put it another way: why would you NOT want a round in the chamber? For many, it’s because they are afraid. They are new to carrying a gun on their person, and they are afraid of what might happen. That the gun could “go off”. Well, modern handguns only “go off” in news stories and movies. Modern handguns are drop-safe, meaning you can drop them on the hard ground and they won’t go off from the impact. Guns don’t just magically fire; usually when they “go off” it’s because someone violated the rules. If the gun is securely in your holster and you aren’t fingering and fiddling with it, you have nothing to worry about.

So the fear is understandable (I went through it myself), but you must realize there is nothing to worry about, so long as you follow the rules. And a key rule is: holster it and stop fiddling with it.

I’ll put it yet another way. Do you know how fast an attack unfolds? Average gunfight lasts about 3 seconds. And given we’re the good guys, we only get to react thus we are behind the curve from the start. How much time does it take to rack one into the chamber? Maybe just a second, but if if you’ve got 3 seconds total to work with, that’s 1/3 of your time lost and you are that much further behind the curve; and that’s provided you don’t fumble. That’s unacceptable when every fraction of a second matters.

I’ve seen it over the years with some students that come to class with no round in the chamber. We have them perform some simple drills under modest but friendly pressure, and even giving them every advantage we can (e.g. round in the chamber, start from a ready position, fully mentally prepared). They often fail to take care of business within 3 seconds. So how can they be expected under extreme life-threatening pressure with far less advantage and head-start to be able to do what needs to be done? I had one student that actually had some conviction about no round in the chamber and racking on the draw. He held up modestly during class, but as the pressure of class increased, his skills decreased and I watched him fumble and fail numerous times. By the end of class, he was begrudgingly convinced that it was an unwise technique.

Yes, there are examples of people that can perform things like this wicked fast with fancy tricks. Great for YouTube videos, but just not a solid life safety technique.

In the end, I suppose you’re welcome to carry how you want. I would say if you don’t keep one in the chamber out of fear, I would recommend doing whatever it takes to overcome your fear, because when the flag flies, that fear is going to hold you back and slow you down far more than the lack of a round in the chamber (seek more professional training to become more comfortable and competent with your pistol). If you carry this way for other reasons, I would say to put your choice to the test. Take some Force-on-Force classes with Simunitions and try your technique out and see how it holds up under pressure. If you can make it work for you, more power to you. The key is ensuring you can have a technique set that truly works and covers the vast majority of cases. For most, a round in the chamber will serve them better.

When aiming a gun, it’s vital to aim at something.

But what should that something be?

When hunting, people talk about the “kill zone”. It varies from animal to animal, but they talk about a general area… a zone… a somewhat large space. Take a look at this feral hog kill zone:

Look at the description: behind the shoulder. While it’s true anywhere in the zone is good, that’s not really how you should aim.

When talking about defensive firearms skills, people often talk about the notion of “center of mass”. I don’t care for that phrase because it’s not accurate enough. The center of mass relative to what? If of the whole body, I guess the center is around the bellybutton. If just the torso, then it’s around the diaphragm. Neither of these are good places to aim for. Consider an article I wrote a few years ago about “ignoring the X-ring” on a B-27 target because it’s not anatomically correct. At the end I suggested a better aim point:

Thus if you’re using a B-27 target, aim at the target where the upper “8″ and “9″ are printed.

But since I wrote that, I’ve stopped offering that suggestion and offered a better one: to aim at the line between the 8 and 9 rings (really, it’s the 9-ring’s outline line). And I point to where to aim.

Why this? I’m trying to give a more specific aim point.

Claude Werner writes:

I tell my students that one element of my plan is that as soon as I meet someone, I pick out the spot on their body that I am going to aim at, should it become necessary to shoot them. Then I describe to each person in the class what the aiming point for them would be. This tends to generate considerable discomfort but makes the point very clear.

Pick out something specific. How about a button on their shirt? Or if it helps you visualize better, you know how a button tends to have 2 or 4 holes in it so you can sew the button to the shirt? Pick one of those holes – a smaller, more specific target. Granted, sometimes getting too small and too specific is tough because you cannot see it. But the intent is to impress in your mind a very specific target to aim at, not just “center of mass” or “the A-zone/-0 zone” or “within the 8-9-X rings”.

Trick shooters like Bob Munden and Tom Knapp knew that the center of a target, the center of a coin, the center of an aspirin — they were all the same size. That whole “aim small, miss small” thing.

Yes, there are trade-offs, yes there are different sorts of sight pictures (see: Brian Enos). But the key take-home here is that somehow, on some level, you do have to aim. And when you aim, aim at something specific.