Triangle Tactical Podcast - Competitive Shooting, Mostly

Back in July I shot several matches, and it seemed like at every match I was having to DQ people for safety violations. After the last match where a shooter reacted unpredictably after the disqualification, I decided to take a break for a little while. 

A couple weeks went by, and I decided to just make this break my yearly off season from shooting. I started doing some Google searches from about taking an off season, and things to do during the off season. I came across this post that I thought had some interesting steps to take that relate to shooters as well as other athletes. 

I've been doing the video watching, as well as kind of doing the "strength" thing. I'm not working out, but I am getting back on the Paleo thing, which I've totally fallen off the wagon on the past couple months.

After a few months of considering my options, I've decided that this week will be the last week of Q&A podcast. We originally started the Q&A podcast because we had run out of room in the main podcast to answer listener questions. I've just simply run out of time to produce 5 podcasts a week, so I'm going to start answering your questions in the main podcast, just like we used to do. 

Most common thing I heard from people who are somewhat interested in the idea of competitive shooting is that they aren't good enough.

- If you can draw the gun, and walk around without pointing it at yourself or anyone else, and can do basic malfunction clearance, you have the skills needed to get started.

That's not to say that you're "good enough" though.

When you start, you're going to suck at it. It's that way with ANYTHING you do in life, so accept it.

- When I started cycling way back when, I was awful. When I picked it up again last fall, I was awful again. I'm still not great, but the more time I spend on the bike the more I'm learning and honing my skills.

- It was the same when I really took up shooting as a hobby. When I started I didn't have a clue what my sights looked like when the shot broke, and if I shot 10 rounds, and 5 of them were in the center of the target, and 5 were low and left, I couldn't tell you what was different on those shots. Now? I'll still pull a shot low/left now and then, but I know the very instant that the gun goes off that something went wrong. Because I've put in the time and practice to learn these things.

- There's a Swedish Psychologist named K Anders Ericcson who's literally wrote the book on this stuff. I haven't read the book yet (literally ordered it while working on these shownotes) but I've listened to him interviewed on the Freakonomics podcast a while back, as well as heard him referenced in many different audiobooks about mastery and things like that, and basically, the way I understand what I've heard about his research is that some people are born with somewhat of an advantage in their given field, but for the most part, if you want to master something, you've got to put in the work.

Not just "work" but deliberate practice.

I've found it to be incredibly rewarding for several reasons:

1. Not to sound cocky, but I've become one of the better shooters out there. If you put me and 10 random gun owners on the range, and have us shoot for accuracy with a handgun, I'll finish near the top, because I've practiced a LOT more than the average person.

2. I've built a level of confidence in myself, my gear, and my abilities that I didn't have before I became a competitor. Certainly before I was a competitor I would pretend I had confidence when talking to my buddies about shooting, but now that I shoot a lot, practice a lot, and know what I'm capable of (with the numbers to prove it) I'm very confident should I ever need to use my gun for self defense.

3. I've got to meet some of the best in the world at my craft. If I were a runner, I probably wouldn't meet Usain Bolt at a random 5K in North Carolina. If I were a competitive cyclist, the chances of rolling up to the line with Chris Froome just wouldn't happen. BUT, there's something about competitive shooting that's different. When we invited Chris Tilley to come over to Ben's house, and record a podcast around his kitchen table, he was happy to do it. When you roll up to the starting position and Todd Jarrett has the timer, chances are he's going to drop some knowledge on you at some point if he thinks you need it. When we had Ben Stoeger on the podcast, he invited us into his hotel room to record it. These are world class shooters, all of them, and they're available and approachable.

When we interviewed Tilley one of the things he said was that he loves teaching brand new shooters how to shoot. Not the A class guys who should practice more, and make excuses for not doing it, but the people who have never shot before. I think that's freaking cool.

All this to day: if you've EVER wanted to try competitive shooting, do it. If you've ever wanted to gain more confidence in your shooting, try competition. If you've ever heard that competitive shooting will get you killed on the streets, come try it, and if you're just looking for something to waste your Saturday's on, we'll see you on the range.

If you're looking to become a better shooter, you need a shot timer. If you're shooting drills on the range and you're not timing them, I think you're wasting ammo. Just get a Pocket Pro 2 timer, and be done with it.

Mike Vanderboegh passed away this week. He was a fervent 2A supporter, and he did a lot of good work. I'll miss him.

There were reports of an Active Shooter at Crabtree Valley Mall here in Raleigh in Saturday. At this point on Sunday there are a lot of conflicting reports from witnesses, some saying they heard a shot, some saying they heard 4 shots, others saying they heard 12-14 shots. The police still say they don't have any evidence of any shooting taking place. While it was all going down, apparently some dude approached the mall dressed in camo, carrying a rifle, and said that he was there to help the police.

There's a new way to contact the podcast. If you want to send in a voicemail through your phone, just dial 7817-BULLET and you'll be connected to the Triangle Tactical voicemail line. Boom.

Full shownotes at triangletactical.net/196

There's a LOT of information in the shownotes for this episode, so go look at it all here.

There are certain things that a shooter can do at a match that might not be against the rules, but are certain to make the range officer nervous. As it happens, there are a few things that bother me, that don't seem to bother other RO's and there are a couple things that other ROs get bent out of shape about that don't bother me at all.

Unpredictable shooters. Most of the time I can tell from a shooters walkthrough how they're going to shoot a stage, and position myself accordingly, no big deal. Every now and then though, something either goes wrong with their stage plan, or they don't give me any indication of what they're going to do, or they just have a crazy stage plan where they're running all over the place, so I might not be positioned optimally for that.

Putting your hand on your gun before the Make Ready command. This makes me especially nervous on stages with table starts. I've seen a lot of DQ's where the shooter plopped their gat down on the table for a table start before being told to do so. When I RO on a stage with a table start, if possible, I like to stay close to the table to try and keep this from happening.

Trying to find your ejected round at unload and show clear before you holster your gun. Just slap it in the holster first so I can call the range clear, and then find your round later. It'll still be there in 5 seconds after your gun is in the holster, and I might even help you look for it.

Folks that just don't quite understand what to do. Listen, if you're not clear on what to do, just stop and ask. Ask the Range Officer, or anyone that that looks like they know what they're doing. It's way better to just ask than it is to make a mistake.

The flip-and-catch. This is where the shooter racks the slide back in a way that makes the ejected round fly into the air a little, and they the round is caught by his weak hand. A lot of RO types get real bent out of shape about this claiming that it's more likely to have an accidental discharge, or more likely to sweep yourself, etc. None of this has been my experience AND I've noticed that the shooters that tend to flip-and-catch are the shooters who actually practice. I'm really not concerned about a well practiced shooter doing something that he's practiced over and over and over again that doesn't break any safety rules.

Shooters who take a sight picture at load and make ready. Generally this becomes a thing when someone who is used to ROing at IDPA matches comes to a USPSA or outlaw match. This isn't allowed in IDPA, but in most outlaw matches I've shot it's legal, as well as in USPSA. The argument is "what if they have an AD?" well… what if they have an AD at any other point in the course of fire? They get DQ'd and that's the end of it. Oh, and when they're in the start position taking their sight picture, they're pointing the gun at the berm, so even if they do AD, it's not leaving the bay.

I mentioned on the show a while back that I was going to pick up a CAT tourniquet for my range bag. Well, a bunch of folks who have experience using TQ's told me to look at the SOFT-T Wide tourniquet. Amazon just notified me that it had a small price drop, so if you've been thinking about getting one as well, now is a good time.

** Editors Note: In this episode I said "Massachusetts" exactly one time, and then started saying "Maryland" over and over. I meant Massachusetts. My bad.

Last week the Attorney General in Mass "clarified" their assault weapons bad to basically ban ANY AR-15 in the state, among other semi-automatic rifles. I went through and read the actual text of the law, and I think she's able to do this because it's incredibly vague. The law uses terms like "similar to" "copies" and "duplicates". The words copy and duplicate are pretty specific in my opinion, and they don't define "similar to" in the law, which is now being interpreted by the AG. It's a bad law, now being made worse because it's vague and un-defined, in my non-lawyer, college dropout opinion.

This recent episode of That Shooting Show has stuck with me all week. Steve said something like "How can you expect to have a consistent match performance when you don't have consistent practice."

Yep.

I recently asked my friends about where to send someone for training with a pistol and an AR-15. I received multiple messages saying that I should just bring whoever needs the training out to a match, and they'll figure out what works and what doesn't.

I don't think this is the right answer. We should encourage folks to get training if they feel like they need it. Certainly there are people who train WAY too much, but I think they're in the minority.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg put her foot in her mouth last week during an interview with the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog picked up on it, and there's some interesting discussion about how she may now have to recuse herself from any 2A cases going forward since she wasn't impartial during the interview.

Pokemon Go released this week. It's a video game that requires people to get up off their butt and actually do things, and go places to advance in the game. Mostly it has you go to public places, but the data set they have for the game does sometimes have landmarks setup near peoples homes. In a case in Florida, some jackass fired shots at some Pokemon players driving away from his residence. 

Listen, if you're playing the game, respect private property. If you see people playing the game, don't be an asshole unless it's warranted.

There are a few things that I've found that tend to confuse the crud out of new shooters when they're getting started in the shooting sports.

• You can shoot matches at clubs that you aren't a member at. This really seems to confuse people, because around here there really aren't any outdoor ranges that are open to the public for practice. Just about every place requires a membership, and most clubs have waiting lists that are literally years long. A lot of folks get confused thinking that they need to be a member at these ranges to shoot the match there. That's not the case if it's a sanctioned USPSA or IDPA match. Some clubs might have outlaw matches that are members only, so it it doesn't say IDPA or USPSA, check with the club.
• "I have all these "race" parts, why isn't my gun legal?" Yep, I've seen it several times where someone who hasn't ever shot a match builds a "race gun" that either isn't legal for ANY division in a game, or isn't competitive in the division. That Open Division gun you built out of your Ruger P95? Yeah, that's going to get you stomped 100% of the time. If you're just there to have fun, great, but if you're there to be competitive, you're gonna have a bad time.

• Believe it or not, vests are not required in IDPA. You're required to have your gun and gear concealed, but there's nothing in the rulebook about vests. I've heard people express concern about not wanting to shell out $75 for a vest before their first match, and they almost didn't believe me when I told them they don't need one.

Gear That Doesn't Suck

If you carry a gun, have a gun for self protection, or are just curious about what the heck terms like "stand your ground" and "castle doctrine" actually mean, you NEED to read this book.

I don't remember when I heard Andrew say it, but he once said something to the effect of "After reading this book, you'll never be able to participate in an online discussion of self defense law ever again."

He was right. Seriously, read the book.

Also, if you're local to Raleigh, he's coming to town to give a Law of Self Defense seminar on August 7th at Triangle Shooting Academy. Here's the details. (Use the code Triangle at checkout to save a little money.)

Triangle Tactical shirts are still available until mid-week this week. If you haven't ordered one yet, use this link to get free shipping on your order. 

If you've got anything for me, shoot me an email at [email protected].

"Range Officers need to remember everybody is there to have fun."

Is that a true statement? Maybe, but I think "fun" is defined very differently for different levels of shooters. Some folks get their fun by just showing up and shooting, and others have fun by playing the game within the rules (sometimes pushing them as far as they can) and others have fun by shooting to the best of their ability, and winning. 

For me, it's changed over the years, and it's something that makes me appreciate a range officer who just enforces the rules, per the rulebook. I think some people are under the impression that some rules shouldn't be enforced/don't need to be enforced at a club match, and I don't agree with that at all. 

There's a new run of Triangle Tactical shirts going on right now at Teespring.com. I think this is the 4th time I've used Teespring, and I'm really excited about this newest run of shirts. They're available from today (7/4/2016) until 7/14/2016. If you want one, head over to Teespring.com to place your order.

I've been reading a bunch of headlines saying something to the effect of "California bans most handguns!". Yes, a package of really bad bills were passed and signed into law by the Governor in California, but this rhetoric that "most handguns" were banned isn't exactly factual. 

The bills in question are SB880 and AB1663. Here's what they both say:

Total honesty and transparency here: I was a little unprepared for this weeks podcast. I'm on vacation from work this week, and in my excitement for taking some time off, I neglected to prepare the podcast shownotes.

Y'all came through for me though with some questions on Facebook which I answered in this episode.

If you need some ideas of what to work on in practice, or ideas of how to work on a certain skill, Ben Stoeger's Skills and Drills book is really good for this. My copy lives in the side pocket of my range bag and I reference it regularly. I'd highly recommend it.

If you've got anything for me, hit the comment sections below, or shoot me an email at [email protected].

Tom in Ferguson sent in a question last week asking about some of my favorite shooting stories with my dad and Grandpa. Since today is Father's Day, and last week marked one year since Gramps passed, I thought I'd take this episode to tell a few of my favorite stories from growing up.

Gear That Doesn't Suck

I've become a lot more aware of chemicals that I'm exposed to as I've grown older and a (a little) more mature. When I'm at work, I'm super anal about wearing proper PPE, and I'm trying to be just as careful at home as well.

I've started using these nitrile gloves while reloading and sorting brass to keep lead off my hands and (hopefully) out of my blood stream. I bought the black ones, because I think they're cooler looking than purple or green.

Plug of the Week:

There's two things I think you should read this week.

Caleb is back at Gunnuts, and I think you should read his post "Not Like This."

Also, this post by Greg Ellifritz.

Contact

If you've got anything for me, shoot me an email at [email protected].