Front Sight, Press

Skill with handguns is a perishable commodity.

I attended our monthly match/training session at Dalton’s, presided over by Jim Higginbotham. I took two guns, a Springfield XD-9 Tactical and a Colt Combat Commander (my favorite practical shooting irons). I opted to begin the session with the XD. Before the stage began, Jim said, “This is your first gunfight of the day. They are the most important shots you will fire today because they show most clearly how you would do in a real fight.” The first string of fire was seven yards, three to the body, sidestep and reload, and two to the head. The buzzer went off and we fired the string. We then repeated the drill. After the guns were made safe and holstered, we went forward to read our targets. My target was awful. It was beyond embarrassing; it was upsetting. Most of my body shots were more-or-less in the A-zone, but I had two really wild fliers, and one shot that would have to be counted as a miss. The head shots were in the head area, but only one actually found its way into the ocular zone. Did I “win” my first gunfight of the day? Oh, maybe. I wouldn’t want to be that paper target, but it was sloppy and I felt bad as I pasted up the target. I switched to the Combat Commander and the rest of my stages printed nice, tight patterns. Later on, I switched back to the XD as I ran low on .45 ammo, and I also shot it well once I was warmed up, but I couldn’t shake the bad feeling of the first stage for the rest of day.

I could come up with a lot of excuses: I had been driving for nearly an hour and my hands were stiff and cold. I have been in a revolver thing lately and hadn’t fired the XD in two months. Maybe Jim had jinxed me with his speech. Maybe I just wasn’t concentrating and suffered from a bit of over-confidence. XD versus Combat Commander would definitely be a red herring. While I have been shooting 1911’s for many years, and they remain the most natural platform for me in this kind of shooting, I have found the XD to be an excellent shooter and match gun. It is newer to me, less than a year, but I’m certainly not going to blame the gun.

This is a no-excuses sort of business we’re in. We must solve the problem, not make excuses. What can be gleaned from this experience that will help to solve the problem? First of all, skill with handguns is a perishable commodity. I hadn’t fired this relatively new gun in two months. Back in October, I was outstanding with it because I had been working with it every week, putting bunches of rounds downrange, and I was generally tuned into it. But, I had let it lie dormant for two months while I was working with, writing about, and practicing with wheelguns. If I would have been thinking, I would have shot that first stage with a revolver. What jumps out at me about this experience is: practice with what you carry and carry what you practice with. Pistolcraft is not unlike playing a musical instrument If you don’t practice regularly, your skills will degrade fairly rapidly. Secondly, skill on a handgun is not necessarily transferable to another platform. Just because we were brilliant on the range with the tuned 1911 last week does not necessarily mean we will be good with the Glock or the snubby when the balloon goes up. I do know a few guys who seem to be able to shoot anything well, but most of us aren’t like that, and even the masters can be tripped up by little nuances like a longer trigger reset than they’re used to. If you can’t stand to practice with the gun you’ve chosen to carry, maybe it’s time to consider a different gun, because it’s really important that we practice with the gun we carry on a regular basis, and this generally means at least weekly.