Range time: learning some things

Went to the range again today with Matt E. and his trained chimp, Sar'nt Johnson, or as we sometimes call him, The Big Johnson. Don't let the name calling fool you, though. TBJ is a gunfighter. He's who you want on your side in a fight to be sure.

I didn't shoot a whole lot of rounds, but I got some good training out of the ones I did fire.
Matt taught me some of the things he's been taught via several different classes. He's studied under the Magpul Dynamics guys, Larry Vickers, Pat Rogers, and has been to Midsouth as well. He's pretty dang good with his standard techniques. We went over clearing a couple of the most common malfunctions, speed and tactical reloads, and reinforced sight offset. Most of my rounds were low because I kept sighting into the middle and upper middle of the target, instead of holding on Osama Bin Laden's turban to drill 'em into his face.

I think I'm still in the Kyle Lamb school on the topic of tactical reloads. He uses the tactical reload when there's time to take out a partially used magazine, put it away, and reload with a fresh magazine, and rearrange the gear as necessary. Matt showed me a simple, quick way to do it that involves handling both mags at once. Basically, you have a magazine in the gun. You then make an "L" with a fresh mag against the bottom of the one in the gun, and grab both. Then you release the one in the gun and turn the hand 90 degrees to replace with the new one. Then you put the old one away, or in a pocket, or whatever ya gotta do. Its somewhat more simple than it sounds, and its fast. As I said, I'm not sure I want to use that method, but its another tool in the toolbox.

There's a vid of Matt at the Magpul Dynamics class at Camp Ares (we really need a separate website for the training facility, but I have no control over that) doing a speed reload. He's smoother than the vid makes him appear due to low resolution.


I did some more work on my Glock 19, too. I've been transitioning to more of an isosceles stance and away from the Weaver I've been using for a hundred years or so, and to a thumbs-forward grip. That's been difficult for me, since my hands are pretty dang big for a small-ish gun like the 19. I'm not as fast and accurate as I'd like to be yet, but I'm getting much better. If you wanna get good at shooting, actually bustin' primers is the best way to do it...and the most expensive. LOL!