Preparing for after the election

I found this article to make some really good points and has great ideas that you guys might find useful. We need to be ready to Support and Defend the Constitution of these United States! Patriots it is time to prepare and to be ready when we are needed. We must do what we can to restore our Constitutional Republic!

There is a substantial risk that Hillary “Hitlery” Clinton will become our next President. She is notoriously anti-gun, and has made many promises to her gun-grabbing campaign donors to give “gun control” (read: civilian disarmament) her top priority.

Consider the guidance in this article just a contingency. You can simply ignore it, if Donald Trump is elected. (Since he is outspokenly pro-gun.) But if Clinton is indeed elected, then gun, ammunition, and magazine prices will surely start to rise immediately. And by the time she actually takes office, prices might well have already doubled or tripled, and shortages of some item–particularly standard military caliber ammunition and many 11+ round magazines–will be widespread.

I recommend that you take the following steps:

Get Ready…

• Withdraw some substantial cash (but not more that $9,700), and keep it well-hidden, at home.
• Pay off your credit card balances, so that you will have your full purchase credit limit available.
• Consult gun show calendars, and make plans to attend local shows. Note that many gun shows are now run as three-day shows, open Friday through Sunday. Check the advertised hours closely, and call to confirm days and show hours with the gun show management, before traveling. You will want to be there on Friday, to avoid the Saturday mob scene. Expend a vacation day from your work, if need be.

Get Set…

• Make prioritized shopping lists
• Set bookmarks in your browser for ordering the particular items that you have in mind to purchase.
• Make detailed comparison price lists (or an electronic spreadsheet, if you are so inclined),in descending order of prices so you that won’t pay too much for what you buy. This research takes time, but that translates into saving money, so it is time well spent.

…Go!

• On Election Night immediately after announcement that Hitlery is the projected winner in the Electoral College, go online and place orders with Internet sellers that take orders 24 hours per day, such as: CDNN Sports, GunMagWarehouse, Brownells, KeepShooting.com, CheaperThanDirt, Midway, Cabela’s (now part of Bass Pro Shops), J&G Sales, Bud’s Gun Shop, Dan’s Ammo, Lucky Gunner, Able Ammo, Ammunition Store, Ammunition Depot, Cope’s Distributing, Centerfire Systems, and GlockPro.
• Keep in mind that many manufacturers such as SIGArms, Beretta USA, and The Beta Company also take direct Internet orders.
• Stay up and complete as many of your planned orders as you can afford, late into the night. It you tarry and say: “I’ll do it tomorrow”, then you will probably be disappointed to to see “Out Of Stock” showing at many vendor web sites.

The Morning After

• Set your alarm clock, and start making calls to the mail order vendors that don’t take Internet orders, starting right at 8 AM, Eastern Time.
• Be outside the door of your local gun shop before it opens. Bring lots of cash.

In The Weeks Following

• Attend guns shows in your state. If it is possible under your state and local laws, buy used private party guns, with no paper trail. If that is not an option in your state, then buy a pre-1899 antique cartridge rifle, such as a 7mm Model 1895 Chilean Mauser. These are exempt from paperwork, in most states.)
•Watch auction sites such as GunBroker.com and GunAuction.com closely, for guns that are on your purchase list. Concentrate on “Buy It Now” items, since the multi-day auctions will probably be bid up to stratospheric heights, in the panic period following election day.

What To Buy

Start with your own needs, then with your children’s needs, and then with barter in mind, as follows:

•First Priority: Magazines and ammunition for your primary battle rifles
•Second Priority: Magazines and ammunition for your primary carry pistols
•Third Priority: Stripped AR-15 and AR-10 receivers (for later assembly)
•Fourth Priority: Secondary firearms, plus magazines and ammunition, to match
•Fifth Priority: Magazines and ammunition for planned acquisitions that will expand your battery of guns–including guns for children and grandchildren
•Sixth Priority: Magazines and ammunition for barter or re-sale.

Note: Be sure to buy only either original military contract or original factory-made full capacity magazines–don’t buy aftermarket junk (Magpul is not considered aftermarket for these purposes)!

Any extra magazines that are intended for barter should be of the types that will be in the highest demand. Examples include: AR-15/M16, M14, Mini-14, AR-10, FAL, Glock, S&W M&P, Beretta, and SIG. In particular, I predict that 33-round Glock magazines, 30-round Beretta Model 92 magazines, 100-round Beta C-MAGs, and 40-round Mag-Pul AR-15 PMAGs will all be in particularly high demand.)


Potential Resistance

In some families, a spouse might object to you making such purchases. Sit down and dispassionately show them the history of other “scare” and “ban”periods, and point out how much prices rose. (For example: stripped AR-15 lower receivers jumped from $60 each to $300 each, during the last big scare.) Tell them: “This is the equivalent of having the foreknowledge of what Dow Jones stocks will double or triple in price. It is wise to buy low and sell high.” If need be, promise your spouse that you will sell off half of what you plan to buy, after prices have doubled. That will leave the purchase cost of what you then retain, effectively at zero.

In Closing

Don’t panic, but recognize that Hitlery Clinton will probably act swiftly to restrict privately-owned firearms and accessories, using Executive Orders. Her transition team might even prepare them before she takes office. Most likely would be an import ban on magazines that can hold more than 10 cartridges, for civilians. Another likelihood is an import ban on military style firearms and/or parts sets. Another possibility is reclassifying 80% complete receivers. She might also direct the BATFE to expand the definition of “Destructive Devices” to include semi-automatic shotguns with detachable magazines. (Such as the Saiga-12, which is already import banned.) Plan accordingly.

And regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, you should have already spread out your guns, ammo, optics, and field gear between hidden places in several houses owned by members of your family, and in underground caches. DO NOT keep all your eggs in one basket! – JWR

Original article.

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Lifting the veil

Video shedding some light on and lifting the veil on militias. What they are, and why militia is not a bad word. The liberal main stream media has tried as hard as they can to demonize the militia and turn it into a negative term. The militia is called out for in the US Constitution, and almost all State Constitutions.

Training Plan Part 3

Developing a Practice Program, Part Three

Up to this point in this series, we’ve discussed the overall scheme of developing an annual training program, and we’ve covered some basic fundamental marksmanship drills for practice. In this installment, we will be covering basic Core Skills, and the drills we use to practice them. Core skills can be defined as those tasks that are fundamental to effective gun-handling and shooting that—along with marksmanship—are CORE to prosecuting a fight with the firearm. For the purposes of this installment, we will briefly cover reloading and other malfunction clearances. These are the skills that—programmed properly, as part of your training and practice—will allow you to fire each shot as a deliberate, conscious action, fast enough to solve whatever shooting—or non-shooting—problem that you find yourself confronted with.

General

A malfunction can be defined as any situation where the gun does something unexpected, or does not do what is expected. Generally speaking, the malfunctions we are concerned with are those that occur—for whatever reason—when we attempt to fire a round, and the weapon fails to do so, for whatever reason.

With contemporary fighting firearms, in my experience, the single most common reason for “click instead of bang,” is a simple one…the gun is not loaded. Whether that is a result of not having loaded it properly at the outset, or because you have run the gun dry, is irrelevant.

The second most common reason for malfunctions seems to be simple operator error (which is not to say that failure to fully seat a magazine or chamber a round is not operator error). In this regard, I am specifically considering things like an inexperienced shooter—or an experienced shooter who is an inexperienced fighter and suddenly finds themselves in an actual fight—messing things up. The reality is, shooting and gun-handling are relatively complicated tasks, when executed properly, and require higher order intelligence to manage. When you’re scared and your “reptilian” brain amygdala is screaming at you, it’s entirely possible to mess up even simple tasks like walking or chewing bubble gum.

Fortunately, over the last century-plus of semi-automatic weapons design and use, there has been enough experience accumulated in the practical shooting community (I’m using the term here to specify people who shoot for practical applications, like smoking bad guys, not for the shooting sport, although considering most of the skills advanced practical shooters use originated there, or vice versa, the two may as well be synonymous in this context), to have ready solutions to both of these issues.

Loading and Reloading

Administrative loading of a rifle or pistol of the semi-automatic variety SHOULD be reasonably straight forward. For our purposes, I’m going to limit myself to describing the methods I use to load my Glocks, my AR-variant rifles, and my Kalashnikovs. If you develop a set ritual for loading your weapons, then you KNOW, every single time, that you’ve done it the exact same way, every single time…

Glock

Loading the Glock pistol is the height of simplicity.

1. Ensure there is no magazine seated in the weapon. Lock the slide to the rear, and visually inspect the chamber and bore for obstructions.
2. Seat a full magazine in the magazine well, and slap it home firmly, with the heel of your hand. You should feel it click into place, but whether you do or not, grasp the baseplate of the magazine and tug it firmly to ensure that it is fully seated, and locked into the magazine well.
3. Reach up with your support-hand thumb and release the slide lock lever, allowing the gun to go into battery under the recoil spring tension. DO NOT “SLING SHOT” THE SLIDE!!! (Invariably, when I see people do this, they “ride the slide” forward with their hand. This may induce a failure, if it prevents the round from seating fully).
4. The weapon is now loaded and hot. PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU ARE DOING. FOLLOW THE SAFE FIREARMS HANDLING RULES!!!!!!
5. There are a couple of options to ensure that a round actually seated. The first is to use the loaded chamber indicator, sticking out of the ejection port side of the slide. That is, after all, what it is designed for. Theoretically, it is possible for this to get gummed up and not function properly. I’ve NEVER seen that happen, but… The second is to perform a “press check.” To perform the press check, simply pull the slide back, far enough to visually inspect the chamber and see the brass of the seated case. Allow the gun to go back into battery—under it’s own power—once you’ve done so. If you’re worried about the round not seating…with an AR-variant rifle, a) lube your gun better, and b) use the forward assist. That’s what it is there for. With an AK, slap the back of the charging handle. With a Glock, I make it part of my pattern to tap the back of the slide with the heel of my support hand, to ensure that it is fully seated, after doing my press check.
6. Voila! Your gun is loaded, and you KNOW it is loaded. Now, safely—looking the gun into the holster, go ahead and holster your gun. If you work with an instructor that tells you, “Never look at the holster when you’re holstering your gun,” I want you to do two things: a) call him out for being an idiot, and b) then ask him “why not?”
Generally, the reason given for this is “There might be other threats that you need to address.” If that is the case…WHY ARE YOU PUTTING THE GUN AWAY?” Another reason I’ve heard is, “Well, I need both hands to secure the detainee!” You should not be putting the gun away until you have physical control of the detainee anyway (something I cover in detail in classes and in The Reluctant Partisan) anyway, and if you have that control, you can take a second to look at the holster. Not looking is a really good way to shoot yourself with your own gun, when a piece of your cover garment gets caught between the trigger and holster.

AR-Variant Rifles

Loading the AR is also simple.

1. Lock the bolt-carrier group (BCG) to the rear. Insert the magazine firmly, feeling for the “click” as it seats.
2. Grasp the seated magazine and pull firmly, ensuring that it is seated. Failing to do this critical step is the single most common cause of malfunctions I see in students, period, bar-none.
3. Press the “ping-pong paddle” bolt release and allow the gun to go into battery.
4. Using the charging handle, pull the BCG back far enough to visually inspect that there is a round in the chamber. Tap the forward assist to ensure the gun goes back into battery.
5. Close the dust cover (Honestly, probably not the end of the world, but it drives me crazy).
6. Your rifle is now loaded.

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Training Plan Part 2b

After my first magazine, and establishment of a par time, I’ll move up the 50 meter line and do the exact same thing, on the same target. Now, the target appears to be twice as large. While it would be nice if my times were twice as fast, the reality of how the human brain works means that my par time for 50 meters averages around .6-.7 seconds. Then, I step up to the 25 meter line for a magazine. Now, I’m looking at sold half-second par times, occasionally dropping one to 0.45 seconds. I’ve gotten a 0.39 second shot, exactly once, as I recall, without poring through my shooting log (In the interest of intellectual honesty, that was a fluke. I actually called that shot a “miss” before I heard the steel ring). My tested “pure reaction speed” is generally around 0.18 seconds (I test this by running the timer. With the weapon pointed in a safe direction, safety selector switch on “FIRE,” and finger already on the trigger, not even worrying about actually hitting a target, all I have to do when the timer sounds is squeeze the trigger. Testing this in classes, the average has been between 0.19 and 0.22, with three or four people total, over the course of a dozen classes, being faster than 0.16. I’ve seen TWO people that were at 0.14. One was a former fighter pilot). That means, even at a 0.5 average, I’m moving the gun into position, recognizing an adequate sight picture, and breaking the shot in roughly 3/10ths of a second. In my forties? I’ll take that.

Finally, I’ll step back to the 100 meter line and push myself to go as absolutely fast as possible. While I—obviously—want all of my rounds to hit the target, I don’t get upset if I miss either. I’m trying to push the limits of my ability. I EXPECT to miss! On this iteration, again working my way through an entire magazine, I only record the times on shots that hit. The average may only drop 0.01 seconds, but guess what? That’s 0.01 second faster than I was before. Over time, that will increase. I’ll be faster, but still hitting an acceptably challenging accuracy and precision standard.
Realistically, being able to get fast, accurate hits on targets, inside of 100 meters is the most important aspect of real-world combat shooting with a rifle, that we need to be focusing on. It is the NUMBER ONE priority for your carbine/rifle training. If I have time afterwards, and the range is long enough to make it possible, I’ll step back to 200 meters and beyond, and I’ll work snap shots from positions other than standing. At 200 meters, I’ll drop to the squatting and work on breaking my shots in less than 1.5-2.0 seconds. I’ll push out to 300, 400, and 500, and working on dropping into the prone and breaking my first shot in less than 3.0 seconds.

This standard is based on the doctrinal “3-5 second rush.” Assuming the guy I’m fighting is trained, I’m going to assume he’s well-trained, practiced, and disciplined. From the moment he moves, when I have an opportunity to notice him moving, and move to acquire a sight picture and snap my first shot, to get a hit, I have…three to five seconds…
That is ALL I do for my rifle live-fire range work, once a week, the first two weeks of a quarterly training cycle. I’m not going to lie to you. It is BORING! Not that I’m super-gifted, because I’m not. I’ve worked very hard to develop those abilities. If you do the work, you will get the results you need to get.

The last two weeks of the first month of the training cycle, dedicated to marksmanship-specific training, I’ll continue doing the snaps, but I’ll generally just fire ten shots at each line, finishing the magazine with controlled pairs instead. This reinforces that my positions are not only adequate to get me on target, but are robust enough to allow follow-on shots, if necessary. The catch is, I do these the EXACT SAME WAY that I do the single shot snaps, and I record my times meticulously, just like the single shot snaps. The thing is, while I think a 0.15-0.2 split time between the first round and the second round in the controlled pair is eminently achievable at 100 meters, your split times only matter indirectly. If you punch a round into a dude’s head, or groin, with a rifle, inside of 100 meters, you’re going to have time to get a second one into him. The reason I note and record my split times is because it is indicative of the strength or weaknesses in my shooting position. If it is taking me longer this week to get my sights back into alignment to break my second shot, that tells me that my position is loose, because I’m not managing my recoil adequately.

For the handgun, “snap shooting” isn’t really “snap shooting” of course. We don’t—generally—walk around with a pistol in our hands. That’s why we carry them, every day, everywhere we go, right? Because, we can have it, in the holster, ready at hand, but out of sight to avoid scaring people, or giving away to a potential bad guy that we’re armed and prepared to respond. All Walter Mitty, Red Dawn fantasies of the coming conflagration aside—seriously, does anyone NOT realize we’re living in the midst of TEOTWAWKI, right now? Seriously—for the vast, majority of us, in the event that we have to (get to?) use a firearm in a contemporary context, outside of LEO or mil work, it’s going to be our concealed carry sidearm. Sure, I keep my MK18 in the truck with us, everywhere we go. But…I don’t carry it into the grocery store. I don’t walk into my mother’s house with my rifle slung over my shoulder (the poor woman is uncomfortable enough knowing that her “baby” is walking around with a Glock concealed somewhere on his person).

Being able to get to—and use—your pistol, at an expert level is, by any reasonable measure, inarguably more important than whatever your skill with a rifle. Most importantly is the FACT that you’re actually likely to have the pistol with you when Jamal Jihadi or Carlos Cartel kicks in the front door and starts shooting people. Second, skill with the pistol transfers across to the carbine a lot better than the reverse.

What is involved with “snap shooting” with the pistol? Obviously, sight picture/sight alignment and maintaining them via a steady position still matter, but just as important—perhaps more important—is being able to get the thing out, and into your hand, in a manner that will allow you to make your first shot break within the time standard you establish, and is robust enough to allow for rapid follow-up shot (because, it’s a pistol, and follow-up shots are WAY more likely to be needed than with any rifle).

“Snap shooting” with the pistol is the drawstroke to first shot break. Period. While a sub-1.0 second drawstroke from concealment, inside of 10 meters/30 feet (yeah, it’s actually 33 feet, I know.) is easily achievable with practice, I think being able to draw and hit a 3×5 index card, on demand, in less than 1.25 seconds is a reasonable standard. Yes, the “vital zone” of an adult male is significantly larger than that. If you’re happy with a six-inch circle, or an eight-inch circle, that’s fine, but a 3×5, working to develop the ability to put it into a 3×3 or even a 2×2 circle, at speed, especially at closer ranges (call it, inside of 15 feet?). It also gives you a greater margin for error when your hands are sweaty, and your shaking with nerves, because it just got real, and you’re concerned about not missing the bad guy and hitting the wrong person…

After shooting my groups with the pistol, I’ll start at the ten meter line, and do a simple draw from concealment to first shot break, on the timer. With a double-stack Glock 19 or 17, I’ll run through two full magazines. The first will be with both hands working the gun. The second is shot, still from a drawstroke, strong-hand only.

I do the exact same thing with the pistol that I did with the carbine, except I’m drawing the gun from concealment, instead of coming from a ready position. I’ll move up to the seven meter line, and then the three meter line. Finally, I’ll move back to the ten meter line.

I’ll finish up shooting a group at 25 meters, just to reinforce precision and accuracy, before winding up.

Like the rifle/carbine, this is the entirety of my live-fire range visit with the pistol for the first two weeks of the training cycle. The second two weeks of the cycle, I’ll split the first magazine at each distance, shooting half the magazine, one drawstroke at a time, with both hands, before transitioning to the strong-hand only for the second half of the magazine. The second magazine at each distance is dedicated solely to controlled pairs, for the exact same reason I do it with the carbine.

Conclusions

The single most important shot you can fire in a gunfight is the first shot you fire. It’s going to determine the course of the rest of the fight. You can either make it hit, on time, or you’re going to spend the rest of your life trying to catch up and fix your mistakes…

Spending a significant portion of your training cycle doing nothing but working snap shooting and first shot breaks from the concealed carry drawstroke will go a very, very long way towards ensuring that your first shot does what you need it to do.

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Gear for the American Patriot: The Tactical Patriot Store
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Training Plan Part 2a

———-Brief Interlude for a Rant about Target Selection———-

There is a common belief among many trainers that you have to use “humanoid” or photorealistic targets for “combat training.” This is a persistent belief that, as far as I know, is based on the same flawed SLA Marshall “research” from World War Two that has convinced most of America that killing bad people is “unnatural.” We “need” humanoid” and photorealistic targets, in order to “overcome” our “natural, innate reluctance” to kill other people. It’s Pavlovian Operant Conditioning.

I’m only going to say this once, so pay attention: IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT TARGET YOU USE, AS LONG AS YOUR MIND IS RIGHT!!!!

There is a reason that the best trainers out there switch back-and-forth between bulls-eye targets, silhouettes, colored dots, and even index cards. IT DOESN’T MATTER!!! What matters is that you can, on demand, place a shot—or every shot—in as small a place as you have determined is necessary. I tend to rely extensively on basic buff-and-white IPSC standard silhouettes, when I am teaching classes. To make smaller target zones, I use 3×5 index cards and/or a Sharpie marker pen. In large part that is because I end up hauling a lot of stuff around the country with me when I travel to teach. I don’t feel the need to carry eighteen flavors of targets as well. I also come from a background that favored improvisation for achieving training goals in austere conditions. I am all about the “making do” mindset. My personal favorite target for training is a simple IPSC silhouette with a 3×5 index taped or stapled on it somewhere. In the center of the index card, I draw a circle around a quarter ($0.25 coin) with a Sharpie, then fill in the outline, as an aiming point.

If the only targets you can get your hands on are basic little bulls-eye targets from Wal-Mart’s Sporting Goods section? You’ll be just fine. Don’t sweat it. Even better, for about $5.00, you can buy a package of 3×5 index cards, a roll of masking tape, and a Sharpie, over in the Home Office section, and you won’t run out of targets for a year or two.

If you WANT to drop the funds to buy super-duper, ultra high speed, photorealistic targets of Islamic jihadist “tangos” to make you feel all Tier One JSOC Jedi? More power to you. You’d be better off spending that money on ammunition though.

———-End of Rant———-

With the rifle/carbine, I like to start out shooting a group at 25 or 50 meters, followed by a “real” group at 100 meters (my optic is engineered to be zeroed at 100 meters, after all). I am looking for a legitimate two minute-of-angle group. If your personal or group standards mandate a 4MOA group, then that should be your goal. If your group standards are less stringent than 4MOA, you need to find a group that is more serious. If your personal standards are less stringent than 4MOA, you need to straighten up, and set some legitimate standards for performance.

With the pistol, I shoot my groups at 10 meters and 25 meters. I legitimately expect a three-inch or better group at both ranges. I also practice, and recommend, either after shooting your groups with the pistol, or alternating on different range trips, shooting these groups with the pistol strong-hand only and weak-hand only.

It is important to point out that there is a distinct, critical difference between precision and accuracy, and group shooting is where you have the opportunity to validate both of these, without the pressure of time constraints. Shooting a tight, 2MOA group, that impacts eight inches from the anticipated point-of-impact is precise, but it’s not accurate. Shooting a 10MOA group the center of which is dead center on the intended point-of-impact is accurate, but it’s not precise.

A precise group that is not accurate may be indicative of a sight misalignment, like my earlier reference, or it may be a matter of you making the same mistake every time (“Glocking” the trigger is a good example of the latter). Your group shooting should focus on achieving the perfection in both.

Task: “Snap Shooting”

The first shot you fire in a gunfight really will set the stage for the rest of the gunfight, for better or worse. It needs to be delivered with precision and accuracy, but it also needs to arrive in time. Snap shooting is the best method I know of to achieve that ability level. It is so important, the first month of each quarter, I will devote my entire range session weekly to nothing but snap shooting. I will literally, spend an entire hour—or two, when you count pistol—doing nothing but shooting single shot snaps (draw to first shot break with the pistol).

The hardest part of building speed and accuracy is getting into a good, solid firing position, with an effective grip on the gun that will allow you to break an accurate shot, as fast as possible. A very dear friend who happens to be a long-time instructor down at Gunsite, once pointed out to some mutual friends we were coaching one day, “it’s not about shooting faster. It’s about shooting sooner.”
That is SPOT-ON! It is going to take you—as an individual—a given amount of time to break the shot, without disrupting your sight picture/sight alignment in the process. That time will vary from individual to individual, and while it SHOULD get faster with practice, at any given moment in your development as a shooter, that time is non-negotiable. Trying to go faster means you mess up and miss. It’s going to take you the time it’s going to take you, to break an accurate shot.

What you CAN do however, is move faster getting to the point of breaking the shot. That practice is best achieved during dry-fire. The key to this, of course, is that your dry-fire “shots” have to be legitimate. Hitting the designated/desired position, and then yanking the trigger, without paying attention to the fact that your sights just jumped six inches on the end of your muzzle, is not doing you any good. It’s going to be detrimental. It will mess your shooting up. Dry-fire is only valid if it’s valid.

For my live-fire visits, with the rifle, I start on the 100M line. On the timer, I will fire an entire magazine, one shot at a time at the target of the day. For my snap shooting, I’ll generally shoot steel, because I’m lazy and don’t want to bother walking downrange after every single shot to note hits and misses and tape targets. I start the quarter shooting an eight-inch steel plate, and over the course of the month, if I am making my time goals, I’ll reduce the size of the steel to six-inch plates. (My long-term, ultimate goal is a sub 1 second snap shot, from the standing at 100 meters, to a four-inch plate.)

It’s important to point out that I record, in my shooting log, the time for every single shot. I note any misses as well. At the end of each range trip, I will average out those times to find my “par time” for dry-fire training for the next week. If I miss more than three shots out of a magazine, I know I’m pushing too fast and will deliberately slow down, taking my time. If I miss more than five shots, I’m obviously having a really bad day, so I’ll just turn the timer off and focus on slow, deliberate aimed fire from that position and distance for the duration of the magazine. Generally however, on an eight-inch plate, I’m at the point that I can consistently get 100% hits at speed. My average, on demand par time runs between 0.85-0.9 seconds.

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Gear for the American Patriot: The Tactical Patriot Store
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Training Plan Part 2

Developing a Training Plan, Part Two

Marksmanship Training

It has been correctly said that the most important shot you will make in a gunfight is the first round out of your gun. That shot can—and generally will—determine the course of the rest of the fight. Whether in a military/paramilitary context of small-unit combat, or an armed citizen context of concealed carry self-defense shooting, an accurate, precise first shot, well-delivered, can provide you with the time and reaction gap needed to allow you to deliver a second, third, or subsequent shots, as needed. A miss, on the converse, may well be just the motivation the bad guy needs to step up and deliver his “A game.”

This has led to the pithy cliché, parroted by so many, without thinking, that “speed is fine, but accuracy is final.” While there is a great deal of Truth in this old phrase, it has been too often misinterpreted by the corrupt and untalented, to intentionally obfuscate reality by convincing the ignorant that speed is completely irrelevant, as a way to absolve themselves of their incapability of teaching students to progress and shoot faster, while maintaining acceptable levels of accuracy. Training after all, has become an industry, and making money requires customers. Making students uncomfortable, by putting them in positions to fail, even in a learning environment, where they could learn from those failures, can lead to a loss of revenue when they decide to stay home and watch John Woo movies, instead of returning to be pushed to uncomfortable levels.

Worse yet, in my mind, are those who have, in some circles, long pushed the concept known as “combat accuracy,” that has been equally abused. I don’t know where this concept actually originated. I do know that I first heard it used by blindly loyal advocates of “pointshooting,” as an excuse for their inability to shoot with a degree of accuracy greater than “minute of the entire target.” Generally, in my experience, in the ensuing years, it has come to mean something along the lines of “well, if any of my guaranteed-lethal, buffalo-slaying, forty-something caliber bullets hit that bad guy anywhere, his head’s gonna get blown plumb off’n his neck! I’m ‘combat accurate’ and these here rounds is guaranteed to pole-ax a gol-durned horse!”

This is, on the face of it, ridiculous, and has been—rightfully–mocked among trained shooters of a…dare I say it….higher caliber. The real problem however, is that like so much within the modern discourse, neither conceptual approach is completely wrong, they’ve just been abused and malformed to fit certain narratives. It is true that, generally speaking, you cannot miss fast enough to win a gunfight. It is also generally true that, a couple of solid hits to a vital area of the human body will stop most threats from continuing their nefarious actions.

It demonstrably does not require the same level of precision to stop a carjacker crawling through the driver’s side window of your vehicle as it does to stop a rapist, holding a knife to your teenage daughter’s throat, across her bedroom. Within the training paradigm of marksmanship training then, we have to establish two separate, but balanced metrics of performance. We have to determine how accurate we need to be, and we need to determine how fast we need to be able to make those shots, on demand.

This is, at the most basic level, the single most fundamental determinate of skill-at-arms with personal firearms, whether sidearm or carbine. It’s not simply a matter of “can you make the shot you need to make, when you need to make it?” More accurately, it could be said that the important question is, “can you make the shots you need to make, in the time frame you need to make them in?”
If you cannot reach the standards for accuracy, within a given time standard, there is no reason to try and complete more complicated drills. If you can achieve the standards however—whatever your standards are—then achieving success in more advanced, complex drills is simply a matter of putting the marksmanship into application. Multiple shot strings are really no more than a matter of repeated individual shots, completed in rapid sequence. Multiple target engagements are simply a matter of repeated individual shots, on each target, completed in rapid sequence.

Regardless of the weapon in question—carbine, pistol, or shotgun, heck, even light machine gun, for that matter—marksmanship at speed is really comprised of a few interrelated things: your grip on the gun, your firing position, your presentation or drawstroke and presentation, sight picture/sight alignment, and breaking the shot in a manner that doesn’t disrupt your sight picture. It’s really that simple.

Basic Marksmanship Drills for Rifle and Pistol

Inarguably, it is extremely critical, at the beginning of every single range trip, to start out with a focus on basic, deliberate precision and accuracy. The best way to achieve this is to begin every range trip, whether with pistol or rifle, with shooting basic groups.

Task: Group Shooting

This will help you reinforce your focus, throughout the forthcoming range session, on things like pressing the trigger in a manner that will not disrupt your sight alignment, taking the time you need to get the accuracy you need, and—perhaps most importantly—it will validate, or invalidate your zero (as an example, on a recent “fun” trip to the range, my Glock 17 was hitting consistently to the left by six inches. Assuming that I was “Glocking” the trigger, I slowed down and shot a clover-leaf group at 10 meters, and the rounds were still six inches to the left. I fixed my sights, and brought the POI back to the center of the 3×5 index card. Had I followed my own advice and shot the group to begin the trip, this would never have been a problem).

Your group can be any number of shots. The Army, for the entire time I was in uniform, doctrinally mandated three-round groups. Most good trainers will advocate for at least a five round group, assuming that at least one will be a flier. I am comfortable, with my rifles, shooting a three-round group, unless I “call” one of my shots as a flier. If you’re not comfortable with your ability to “call” your shots, then shoot a minimum of five round groups. With my pistols, I actually like to shoot a ten-round group most of the time. A ten-shot, one-hole group, punching out the center of a 3×5 index card is a pretty good confidence boost before you even start shooting anything else.

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Training Plan Part 1a

Being Mindful
When you push to the point of making mistakes, then it’s time to stop and pay attention to what your failure point is, and start “being mindful” of how to fix the problem. I used to tell people to “slow down,” but found that simply telling them to “slow down,” didn’t fix anything. They still made the exact same mistake, they just did it slower. Instead, it’s about shifting your mental focus from “going fast” to “think about what you need to do.” Calling it “mindfulness” makes it sound like some sort of New Age, Zen, Hippie stuff, but it’s really not. Focus on the process, including the overarching reason for the process (killing someone before he kills you or someone else) and what you need to perform in order to achieve the purpose. It’s training for performance, rather than outcome. If you perform correctly, generally, you’ll achieve the outcome you are seeking.

Be In the Moment
This is closely tied to the mental-spiritual concepts we’ve talked about in some of my more recent articles. Sometimes, on your live-fire days, especially, you need to just relax, and shoot a scheduled drill without trying to push your limits. This is about just shooting the drill accurately, and seeing how you do. Don’t push yourself faster than what you feel you’re capable of doing flawlessly. Often, shooters—especially eager novices—feel like this is an utter waste of valuable, limited training time. There are two distinct reasons I believe that taking the time to just be in the moment is absolutely critical, though.The first is for your psychological resilience. Just like making advances in PT means occasionally backing off, lowering the weights, or slowing down your runs, to let your body recover, and avoid physical burn-out, your brain needs that rest from constantly pushing at its extreme limits occasionally too. This is why I cycle my training through the yearly quarters, and this is why we occasionally just chill out and shoot a drill to “see what we can do.”

The second reason is the “spiritual” part. When the time comes and it’s on you to “beat the bad guy,” you’re either going to be able to do so, or you’re not. Nothing you can do, in the moment, is going to change your skill level. You’ll either be good enough, or you won’t be good enough. If you’ve trained enough, and the other guy hasn’t trained as hard, or as smart, as you? You’ll probably be okay. Ultimately though, you’re going to have enough on your mind, ranging from “OH CRAP! THAT DUDE HAS A GUN AND IS SHOOTING PEOPLE!” to the cognitive process needed to process data and determine if you can take a shot or not, or if you need to move to take a shot, etc. Your body is going to receive the command to execute, and it’s going to do what it is capable of doing, predicated on your training up to that point, at its own pace. If you’ve let it do so in training, then two things result: A) you have mental confidence in your body’s ability to do what it needs to do, and you can focus on your information processing, and B) if you do feel yourself getting panicked into a rush, you can let yourself “be mindful” of the process, by focusing on performing, rather than worrying about the outcome. You really cannot miss fast enough to win. You can, however, miss fast enough to hit somebody’s six-year old kid nearby. Continuing to “push” yourself to push past the boundaries of your ability at that point will NOT fix the problem. You cannot fix the problem of smoking a kid by then shooting their playmates as well.

Speed
Drills come in two basic, distinct flavors, when it comes to time metrics. Some, like your marksmanship and core skills drills, will be set up in a specific way, and should generally always be set up the same way. These are drills designed to determine specific time and accuracy metrics, and this consistency in set-up allows you to assess improvements in your performance. In this article series, this type of drill will have very specific standards metrics, for both time and accuracy. The standards provided are all realistic, reasonable metrics, readily achievable in reasonable time frames; by anyone sufficiently motivated to train regularly (we’re talking like 10-20 minutes every day for dry-fire, and 45-60 minutes every week or every other week for live-fire range trips. Really, if you can’t slice 15 minutes out of your day to gain proficiency with your firearm, you have no business carrying a firearm any-damned-way!).

Many of the application skills drills however, are not designed to be set up in a specific way, and doing so actually detracts significantly from the value of the drill. This, of course, means that comparing time metrics from one set-up to another is largely pointless. For these, a general time frame of how long it should take competent shooters to complete the drill will be noted, but the best metric you can take note of on these are things like time to first shot/hit, split times between shots (how well are you managing recoil and driving your gun back on target?), and how clear your communications are between partners, or how correctly you executed your decision-making drills.

Conclusion
This is intended to be at least a four-part article series. Part Two will cover the drills I use for dry-fire and live-fire training to improve marksmanship, under the description provided in this Part One. Part Three will cover Core Skills and the drills I use for those. Part Four will cover Applications Skills and some of the drills I use for improving those. Part Five will be an actual layout of a quarterly training plan for pistol, carbine, or both (we’ll see how tired I am of writing this series by the time I get there…) In the meantime, I seriously urge you to consider some of the conceptual ideas covered in this Part of the series, as you go about whatever practice you are currently doing. I feel obligated to point out that being able to achieve a given task or skill component correctly, consistently, is a prerequisite to “pushing” your ability, however. If you can’t hit an eight-inch plate from the standing with your rifle at 100M, then there’s no point in trying to push to hit that eight-inch plate from the standing with your rifle at 100M, in <1.0 seconds. If you don’t have the basic motor pattern of your speed reload drilled in, so instead you fumble it regularly, then going faster is NOT going to fix it. Pushing can only come after you’re able to perform the skill on demand, under a time constraint. I’ll share one of my “Mosby’s Maxims:” “If you can’t do it on demand, then you can’t do it on demand.” So-called “game players” are an imaginary construct of people too lazy to show up and do the work. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Training Plan Part 1

Developing a Practice Plan, Part One, By John Mosby

(One of the most frequent questions I get asked in classes is, “How do we practice this stuff when we go home?” The short, easy answer, of course is simply to follow the appropriate POI course outlines in the appendices of Volumes One and Two of The Reluctant Partisan. They are laid out in a manner that allows you to use each block of instruction as a practice session. If you lay out the fundamental skills needed to complete each block, and use them for dry-fire practice, then when you go to the live-fire range, you can simply shoot the table of fire for that particular block. In a couple of months, you’ve worked through the entire program, and—hopefully—seen some impressive improvements in your skill set.

During the last block of classes however, I was asked at least once, in each individual class, to post an article specifically on how I set up my annual training plan and break it into cycles….This is the first installment of a Five-Part series on the subject. –JM)In short, I divide the year into four quarters of three months each, and then I work through a three-block cycle, with each month dedicated to a particular training block. The quarterly training cycle includes three basic training blocks that, for the sake of convenience, I will label “marksmanship,” “core skills,” and “application skills.” Most of my regular training is my daily training focused on dry-fire training in the marksmanship and core skills blocks. That is because these are the foundation of skill, and if those two blocks are dialed in, the application is cake.

A typical live-fire training session will be composed of shooting 2-3 repetitions each of 2-4 specific drills designed to focus on elements of the current block of emphasis. An efficient training session, of course, should be set up in such a way that requires minimal shifting of the range set-up. A) this saves time, making my training more time efficient, and B) especially on public ranges, the less trips I need to make downrange to change the set-up, the safer I am from some knucklehead trying to show off for his wife or girlfriend shooting me out of stupidity. I’ve got a lot of stuff on my plate, and I want my range trips to be effective, but I also need them to be efficient, so I make a concerted effort, if it’s a “working” range day, to be done in 45-60 minutes, at the outside (A “working” range day is when I’m there focused on my personal skills. A “non-working” range day is when I’m teaching the wife—although I generally try to maintain the same time constraints then—or when I’m at the range with friends and we’re just shooting different drills for fun and to spend time together, building frith (Fellowship/Comradarie/Team)

Every shooter with any length of experience is aware of some famous drills, has likely shot some of them, and probably has a favorite or two. It’s critical to understand however, that it is not this drill or that drill which is important. A properly designed practice drill is not about recreating specific combat situations. Instead, it is designed to achieve a specific training purpose. Generally, this is to measure your current level of skill and test your training progression, or to improve your skill. If a drill—no matter how well-loved—is not achieving that for your particular training focus, it’s pointless for anything beyond ego gratification.

Marksmanship

This block should focus on your ability to make progressively more difficult shots, at progressively faster speeds. Many shooters fall prey to the lazy hubris of believing since they can shoot an “acceptable” group, at a given distance, they are “good enough.” A popular one in “prepper” circles is the 4MOA standard of The Appleseed Project (Meanwhile, at the last rifle course, in AZ, I was publicly berating myself for shooting a 2” group at 50M, from the squatting position…until I realized we were actually shooting at the 100M line for that iteration). That’s just not an acceptable mindset in the real world of gunfighting. You should ALWAYS be striving to improve your accuracy and speed. Speaking objectively, there is no such thing as “accurate enough” or “fast enough.”

The balance between accuracy and speed is always going to be contextually subjective (that’s non-military speak for METT-TC dependent, by the way…).It’s subject to range, target presentation, and—above all—the limits of your personal skill and ability. This is why so much of your training time should emphasize making “impossible” shots in “impossible” times (Miss S, did you catch that?).

Core Skills

Core skills are those fundamental gunhandling and shooting skills that—along with marksmanship—are…wait for it…core to effectively prosecuting a fight with a firearm. This includes things like your drawstroke, or the presentation from ready with your rifle, reloading and other malfunction clearances, target transitions, and the other skills that will allow you to make each shot you fire a conscious action that occurs in a deliberate manner, but fast enough to solve the problem you are confronted with.

Application Skills

Application skills are those skills that allow you to translate your marksmanship and core skills into actual gunfight problem solving skills. This includes things like movement, use of cover and/or concealment, effective communication for working with a partner, safeguarding a principal like a non-combatant bystander or family member, while prosecuting the fight, and—the single most important skill in all of the gunfighting world—discrimination shooting with good, solid, accurate, rapid-fire thinking and decision-making under duress.

Critical Training Concepts

Perhaps the most critical training concept that you need to understand is that you’re going to mess up. That’s WHY we practice! Lots of shooters—and I’ve had a lot of them in classes—have this ridiculous notion that if they mess up in training and practice, that they’re a failure. It’s as if they mess up, such as blowing a shot, or even shooting a “no shoot,” in practice, that they are somehow indelibly imprinting training scars into their neural motor pathways. Incorrect! You ARE going to make mistakes. Even the experts make mistakes. THAT’S WHY WE PRACTICE!!!!!!

Make your mistake. Then, analyze why the mistake happened, and determine how to fix the deficiency, and then move on. That’s the point, people. Seriously. The first two times I fired for qualification in the Army, I failed to qualify and had to shoot it again (actually, the second time was as a private in the Ranger Regiment, and I had to shoot the qualification table FIVE TIMES that day before I finally managed to meet the standard!) Fortunately, I had good mentors who taught me to take the time to analyze the problems, and figure out how to fix them. Over the course of the rest of my career, I managed to never shoot less than Expert, and honestly? I’m ten times or more a better marksman and all-around shooter now than I was when I was a soldier.

Pushing Your Limits

Your dry-fire and live-fire practice should be about getting better. That means you generally have to push yourself to perform any given drill harder than you feel comfortable. If you’re not pushing out of your comfort margins, you’re simply not going to improve. When you push, you’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to blow some shots. You’re going to fumble and drop magazines during reloads. You’re going to trip, fall, and face plant in front of people (don’t ask…). You’re going to shoot “no shoots” as you push to go faster on discrimination shooting drills. The point is to push yourself to your failure point, and then to fix whatever deficiency created the failure. The majority of your training, both dry- and live-fire, should be of this type. It’s critical to understand though, that it’s not just a matter of “go faster!” You’re trying to determine when and how to move faster, but you’re also trying to determine how to modify your techniques to allow you to make the shots you need to make, in the times you need to make them.

It may be about accepting a “good enough” sight picture to get the shot you need to make. It may be a matter of changing where or how your reload magazine is carried to improve the efficiency of your biomechanics.

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Info you can use 1/4/2016

Obama is at it again, pretty soon he will cross the "Red Line" and it will begin Obama gun control

Now the Chinese are entering the fight against ISIS Chinese send elite troops

And our politicians want to bring refugees here! Muslin refugee crime wave

Do you have what it takes to live without power? EMP reality check

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Info you can use 12/30/15

Great information in the following links to enjoy.

Survival Blades Part 1

Survival Blades Part 2

Here they come! Cal gun confiscation law (effective 01 Jan 2016)

Here is a great force multiplier: Thermal evasion suit

You need to always have a PSK on, or close to you Video about personal survival kit

This is sweet, but it takes a prescription to get one: Wound stopping sponge gun

I hope you guys find this information useful or at least interesting. Thanks for reading this blog. If you enjoy it, please join up.

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Information of the day

I just wanted to post up some links to information that is relevant to us as Patriots.

Great podcast with tons of great information and years worth of episodes: Radio Free Redoubt

Fun read for those of us "crazy" preppers: 30 Reasons why you might be a crazy prepper nut job

What Thomas Jefferson had to say about taxes: Thomas Jefferson on Taxes

Great read about the relevance of the 2nd Amendment today: The Second Amendment and its relevance in todays society

I hope you guys like the information I am posting up, and the articles. Please make a comment if you have any feedback about this blog. Thanks.

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