I wanted to get back to competition shooting, but it seems Middle TN does not have an active club that runs either IDPA or USPS that I could find. There are allegedly clubs over an hour away from the Boro, but the one I checked turned out to be 3 guys showing up to bullshit about everything and anything rather than a formal match.
About the only competition is over Outpost Armory, but it is one Thursday afternoon a month and I am working then.
“Why don’t you start your own club?” Because it is not cheap, I am done working for free and people who work matches rarely get to shoot in them. If I am not going to shoot, I rather save the aggravation and money.
Anyway, I guess I will have to trespass over my BiL and SiL, set up some targets and send some lead in their property one of these days.
Without shooting the horses.
You might find these interesting as a training aid:
https://drillindex.net/products/the-original-drill-index
Might check out Royal Range in Nashville. I believe they have occasional matches
Who says you need to shoot a match? I’m still running drills in my backyard (CO2 pistols to save nitrocellulose for the real thing and Ukraine). Lots of drills where 10 – 12m is long range. I’ll be switching to the real deal in June at my club.
Shooting matches gives you something unique.. OK maybe more.
You shoot under stress. It is not Life or Death stress, but you will feel pressure as you do not want to fuck up in front of people and under the clock. Triple that if the people know you enough to give you shit for bad shooting. What you end up getting is inoculated from stress which comes handy when the caca flies for real.
The other thing is that you test equipment. Holster, mag pouches, gun and even the ammo. If something fails, it better be in a controlled situation.
And the other benefit is that somebody around will always know something you do. You get to watch better shooters or at least somebody solving an issue in a novel way you could use to improve your own shooting.
Good reason to ‘tune up your skills..’
https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2024/05/14/marine-arrested-for-mass-shooting-plot-picked-gun-free-zone-as-target-n1224894
From the article:
“I have a location in mind already which I have frequented for the past year and I am certain nobody there is armed to be able to stop me from spraying them to the ground.”
Competition shooting is recreational in nature and therefore a much lesser form of ‘stress’. It however does provide the beginnings of acquiring both physical and metal muscle memory under duress. Learning to run a gun on the clock is essential for the development of trigger control and accuracy and malfunction disciplines.
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Once the shooter has matured enough to know they can run their gun proficiently during competitive stress, I recommend a force on force, do or die, simulated training regimen. The cheapest alternative to simunitions is a barrel and magazine block system with a cheap rail mounted laser, which most S.D. pistol owners have. If you’re not familiar (which I believe everyone on this forum already is familiar) with this type of system, it is completely safe and completely prohibits malfunctions from occurring.
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And since the majority of personal attacks occur in low light, dark conditions, the lasers work well. I have both red and green laser units and prefer the green for daytime sessions. Going head-to-head with multiple mock assailants in a variety of real-life scenarios I find provides the person with as close to the real thing as possible.
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Of course, simunitions introduces a pain penalty to the scenario but the cost factor negates this option for most people. To keep costs down and provide a higher level of serious training for the average gun owner I opt for the barrel-mag block system. It’s always a treat however to work with an individual who chooses to shell out the additional funds.
Back in the day, many years ago when I worked for a LGS, I used to assist with firearm qualifications for the local PD, County Sheriffs, and Department of Corrections officers. I have witnessed many officers, of all levels of experience shoot the qualification course to re-certify to carry their duty weapon. Most would pass, some would fail and have to go back to school before trying again to re-qualify.
Almost all of them hated the stress course we ran at night. Almost all of the ones who failed to qualify did so because they folded under pressure when running the night course. It combined movement, transitioning from Shotgun to Pistol, and use of handheld flashlight for target identification. This was before red dots and weapon mounted lights became mainstream in law enforcement (it was the early 90s). The students mostly were shooting Glock 17s. I usually shot my Colt Officers model that I carried daily in the shop.
It was an invaluable learning experience and helped me develop a strong foundation of skills that I continue to use in completion and daily carry.
And the best part was I got paid for it.
BraulerBob what you describe is also the norm I’ve seen here in Central Florida. And because of that ‘norm’, fourteen years ago I based my business on the premise that all everyday carry individuals are only as good as the failures they have fixed. Which begged the question, “What failures have you fixed lately?”
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I have always believed that every time a person secures their firearm on their person their mindset must be based on their weaknesses; knowing where improvement is needed and thereby knowing their limitations in a moment of violence, should it occur that day. A person’s strengths are internally known if they can tell themselves the truth of their own reality, therefore no effort need to be spent on one’s best abilities.
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When it comes to arming oneself with a deadly force tool, ‘violence management ability’, must be front and center in the mind. Therefore, it becomes a natural process to desire to address one’s weakness, one’s failure rate, in order to advance into that ‘failure to manage violence’, purposed to fix it using trial and error until a greater ability of management is produced.
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Every day in the life of a conceal carrying individual, is a gift, another opportunity to discover where we are weak, where we will fail if tested, and therefore where we will endeavor to continue advancing our ability to prevail in the worthiest effort of responsibly exercising our God given right to defend ourselves and our loved ones from violence.
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Anyone who believes that violence never solved anything, doesn’t know that violence solved everything. And how one does anything, is how they will do everything. One’s very existence is due to violence being solved repeatedly by morally superior violence.
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When I interview someone as a potential customer or client, they key question I pose is, “How do you feel about failure?”
I Couldn’t agree more.
I know my limitations and work on those every time I go to the range or dryfire at home. I practice failure drills, shooting non dominant hand and even without my corrective glasses. I can’t spend as much on live fire as I would like but use a ManitsX trainer to help practice. The app it uses has a lot of good training scenarios and drills to fill in the gaps. I always try to be realistic in accessing my performance and capabilities, but I’m not in my 20’s like I was when I shot competition.
Keeping my skills sharp as I get older is of vital importance for the safety of my family, but someday, age will catch up to all of us. But, I’m not going down without a fight.