Maybe the best training money I've spent...

[.38 Special]

Every weekday, I come home from work, take my carry gun out of the holster, and lock it away. Then I grab my training pistol, charge it from a can of "green gas", and pop it into the holster. In the garage, I set up a target or two, and then work from concealment. This mostly is an exercise in presentation, sight alignment, moving to cover, etc. rather than a marksmanship drill, but my opinion is that self-defense rarely is a marksmanship drill. Rather, it is likely to be more of a Chinese fire drill sort of thing, and a few minutes of daily practice, in work clothes, while tired, annoyed, and whatever else the day has brought, strikes me as invaluable.

The gun is from Amazon. It's the "Laser Ammo SureStrike Laser Enabled Training Device", which amounts to an Airsoft Glock 17 with a laser barrel. It takes a little pack of batteries which last for a couple of months of daily training and don't cost much of anything. The magazine is a gas reservoir, which is charged from canisters of compressed I-don't-know-what, also bought from Amazon. When fired, the slide snaps back and there is a bit of a "pop". This obviously is not quite like the real thing, but it does simulate it a bit.

All sorts of targets are available, and you can set up an impressive interactive range if your wallet allows. I bought a simple three-pack of targets, which communicate with each other and allow some semi-fancy "shoot/no shoot" drills, among other things. Honestly, I mostly just use a single target, and set it to flash or beep when it.

The whole catastrophe set me back about 600 bucks. And yeah, I could have bought a real gun for that. But - at least in my part of the world - there's no other way I could get ten or fifteen minutes of surprisingly realistic daily practice whenever I'm home. I consider it some of the best money I've spent on self defense.

 

[luzyfuerza]

Red laser or IR?

 

[.38 Special]

Red laser or IR?

This one is red laser. IR is an option, and as I train at a local place which uses similar technology, I considered it. For home use, I decided, the red laser fills the bill.

 

[The Night Rider]

Can you give us a ballpark price?

 

[.38 Special]

Can you give us a ballpark price?

I cleverly hid it in the post.

The gun goes for about $450 at the moment. With targets, gas, etc. I'm in for about $600. (2022 dollars. I think that's roughly eight grand today, but you should do your own math.)

 

[luzyfuerza]

Regular practice is a good thing, whether dry or live. Especially when it focuses on:

presentation, sight alignment, moving to cover, etc. rather than a marksmanship drill

And a tool like this that makes dry-practice more interesting seems like a very good thing.

Have you measured changes in your speed and/or accuracy on live-fire drills?

Have you noticed any tendency for your brain to shift away from a focus on the front sight toward more of a target focus because of the visible laser? If so, do you think that using the IR laser might be less likely to do this?

 

[.38 Special]

Regular practice is a good thing, whether dry or live. Especially when it focuses on:

And a tool like this that makes dry-practice more interesting seems like a very good thing.

Have you measured changes in your speed and/or accuracy on live-fire drills?

Have you noticed any tendency for your brain to shift away from a focus on the front sight toward more of a target focus because of the visible laser? If so, do you think that using the IR laser might be less likely to do this?

With a "steady on" laser or a dot sight, I do sometimes find my focus drifting to the target. Because this laser is only activated for a moment when the trigger is pulled, it doesn't pull my attention from the front sight.

I haven't compared times with dry-fire vs. live, as I'm honestly afraid of shooting myself when going warp speed from concealment, so I never go as fast as I possibly can during live fire. The training gun allows me to really screw up without any risk, and in the year or so I've been using it, I've scored two solid hits on my own leg.

I haven't seen any change in accuracy, honestly, but that's at least partly due to the fact that I don't care about it much, in this context. That is to say that at "typical" gunfight ranges (no more than ten yards or so, I figure) center-of-mass hits don't place any particular demands on precision. I count any hit on the target as "success", and any misses as reason to pull the trigger again! (The thing should be a fine aid to precision as well, for those who want to use it that way. Four little grub screws on the muzzle allow the laser to be zeroed with the sights, although at longer distances, the laser is somewhat flatter shooting than most cartridges...)

The biggest thing I notice is that the whole draw sequence - grabbing my shirt tail in the right place, sliding up to the grip in the right place, and producing the gun without snagging - happens flawlessly far more often now than it did before I bought the laser gun. At least as important, when I do make a mistake - my top two include grabbing too much shirt and getting it caught between my hand and the gun grip, and getting the gun hung up on some part of the shirt itself - I don't have to think about solving it, as it's become muscle memory now. If it ever comes time to do it under real stress, I'm far ahead of where I was prior to the experience.

 

[luzyfuerza]

Clearing concealment faster and more consistently, with a solid firing grip, is a great outcome.

Any changes over the last couple of years in your measured, live-fire, times-to-first-shot, when going at safe (impulse?) speed?

 

[.38 Special]

Clearing concealment faster and more consistently, with a solid firing grip, is a great outcome.

Any changes over the last couple of years in your measured, live-fire, times-to-first-shot, when going at safe (impulse?) speed?

Yes, but there's a lot of noise in the data. Among other things, I switched from an S&W Model 19 (a trusted friend I have carried and shot for decades) to a Glock 29 (which I initially hated and now grudgingly tolerate.)

Immediately after the switch, my times and scores went right into the toilet. It has only been the last few weeks that I started matching my old revolver times, although to be fair, I rarely practiced from true concealment with the revolver.

At any rate, from IWB holsters without a cover garment, my average draw-to-hit, including reaction time, has been a bit over 1.1 seconds with either gun. When I first got serious with the Glock, I was hitting just under two seconds, primarily because the grip angle had me hunting for the sight. Neither of those numbers include all the fumbles, though. Frankly, I wish I'd kept those numbers, but it's hard to be quite that honest!

The cover garment - usually a silk shirt - plays havoc. I'm at 1.7 average with both guns. That's roughly what I've always managed with revolvers, but it's down by nearly three quarters of a second from where I started with the Glock - and again, fumbles have decreased significantly, and truly disastrous fumbles have disappeared almost entirely.

That last bit is, I think, perhaps the most important: I'm not sure how many gunfights are won on draw speed, but I'm sure that dropping your gun, or getting it wrapped around your shirt, or simply shooting yourself in the knee, is a great way to lose one!

 

[luzyfuerza]

That's incredibly valuable insight! Thanks!

In particular, I love this observation:

fumbles have decreased significantly, and truly disastrous fumbles have disappeared almost entirely.

That last bit is, I think, perhaps the most important: I'm not sure how many gunfights are won on draw speed, but I'm sure that dropping your gun, or getting it wrapped around your shirt, or simply shooting yourself in the knee, is a great way to lose one!

I've been focusing on my presentation and time to first shot, too. But I've been doing almost all of my practice with live ammo, going out to my range to practice at least a couple times a week. I've always been pretty smooth, but slower than I would like.

My times are similar to yours. Right now I'm at about 1.60 seconds (iron sights, bottom feeder, seven yards, 9" paper plate, kydex strong-side IWB, from concealment). That's 0.20 seconds faster than what I was a few months ago. If I can, I want to cut another quarter second off.


For me, dry practice is mind-numbingly boring. So I don't do it very much. Using a setup like yours to reduce the boredom enough to squeeze in some practice when I can't head out to my live-fire range would be helpful.

I also like your routine: you practice when you come home from work, dressed in work attire, tired, distracted, etc. Just like you probably would be in a real gunfight. My range is only two minutes away, but by the time I get out there, my mind has had plenty of opportunity to shift gears from the mundane of the day. Being able to simply swap guns, set up a target about anywhere, and get to work sounds really helpful.