Easing into the first 25 hours is one thing. No need to do 100 on the way home from the dealership, but if your wipers didn’t work, or the car would occasionally stall, you’d bring back a new car. And cars are significantly more intricate than a gun.
What I read there was that your buddy was a lousy shot with a .380 PPK. I suspect most people are. Those small, blowback 380s are nasty things to handle. The big advantage of the BG 2.0 and several other recent 380 offerings is that they used locked breech operation.
Halfmoonclip, this is not specifically for you but.....I must be very fortunate. I own more firearms "than Carter has pills" and I have only had one (1) that needed tweaking (and it turned out to be ammo specific). My firearms span from 1872 to present. My perspective (having professional carried for three decades, and performed maintenance on thousands of fighting firearms as an armorer) must be different. I load mags to capacity, shoot the "snot" out of most of them, carry some for personal defense, shoot others for fun and train law enforcement with others, as well. I shoot factory and reloaded ammo, new and old mags, obsolete and modern calibers, etc. Does an occasional problem occur...yes, but its usually my fault or something easily corrected. I was as aggravated as some, I would consider a new hobby. And as far as new cars are concerned, they should work as manufactured but put Kool-Aid in the tank instead of proper gasoline and see the result. And "break-in" periods are required for some firearm-types, even if we don't like it. (and "break-in" may be for the owner...familiarization, ammo selection, purpose of purchase, etc) Many gun owners know very little about maintenance or performance, so it becomes easy to complain about the manufacturer. Any mechanical object, be it a car, firearm, coffee maker or fork, will not long perform if used outside of its designed, engineered, or manufactured operational window. Clipping off spring coils, shaving followers, rubbing gravy on the finish or repeating incantations rarely "solve" operational problems. Best of luck and I hope you're able to enjoy the tools of your hobby (or profession).
Good thought about the civilian defense action/tactical reload. Most folks don't know what a tactical load is. As a police officer of 3-decades and a deadly force instructor, I can only recall a rare instance of a non-professional "topping off" after a defense event. Most people move to a safe area, call 911 and wait for help. A "tactical reload" is mostly unnecessary. As I teach nationally, I have found several police departments that have quit teaching the "tactical reload" and opted for a simple full-mag change, dropping the partially used mag instead of retaining it. Considering the template of self-defense evenrs, this option is not without merit.
Why discard a magazine with live ammo? I get dropping the mag in the unlikely event of reloading at all, but why drop a magazine with live ammo? Retaining it takes almost no effort.
I would like to know your thoughts on front-sight focus and trigger reset. What I've picked up from reading and range shooting is that in close quarters you aren't going to have time to line up a shot with both sights so the best you can do is to be sure the front-sight is overlaid on the out-of-focus target. I don't mean that is ideal but it's better than nothing. And I do spend time adjusting triggers (Glocks) to get a shorter reset with the thought that this just allows you to fire more rapidly. Is that wrong?
Good thoughts. My experience only: shooting and range-time have little to do with close-quarters gunfighting. A gunfight where an assailant is trying to murder you, not a condition that gives you space and time. Very few people have experienced the physical changes that occur in the body when under extreme stress of a violent death. God made humans as predators, not prey and our body responds likewise. Under great duress, our pupils dilate for a few seconds as the brain searches for information by increasing light and finding the threat. Blood is redirected to large muscle groups and away from extremities like fingers. Ever seen someone so upset/scared/excited that they can't dial a phone or put a key in a door? This is a similar neurological response. As the body prepares for "flight or fight" , these uncontrolled responses are mostly unavoidable. Under this duress, most people cannot physically focus on a textbook sight picture with a clearly focused and sharp front sight. Trigger reset is non-functional. Wiggling your trigger finger with hope of hitting reset point is not a fight-winning plan. And you couldn't perform it if you wanted. Hard sight focus and trigger reset are only modern conversations and almost non-existent in older gunfighters. We teach sighting, gripping and trigger manipulation in a more natural manner (meaning that no matter how much we train officers thier predatory behavior will take over so why not use those God-given traits to our advantage). They win gunfights having never obtained the perfect sighting and while crushing the trigger. You mentioned out of focused target...you will focus on whatever is trying kill you, not the sights. Front sight focus and trigger reset are impossible when you are falling down a grassy slope on a rainy interstate at 2am with a screwdriver embedded in your neck while being pursued by an assailant. Sorry for such a long response. After 36-years as a street-level deadly force instructor, these are my conclusions. Check out "Beyond the Muzzle".
Thank you for giving so much concrete detail. You make a lot of sense.
Agency firearms instructor for years thru the transition years from 64's to G-19's
There's a billion dollar a year industry that exists because they've convinced gun owners that they need to spend more on accessories for a gun, or a class to use the gun, than on the gun itself. In self defense, it's point and yank on the trigger. Buy a quality gun, a quality holster, use factory magazines, and spend the rest on ammo. Only exception I'll make is a laser grip. Don't even need to bring up the gun to fire.
Hi Lt.....I too started with revolvers and never felt under-gunned. My position is do what you feel is best but if you are an instructor, be honest about the results. I have found that if you have an opportunity to perform a "tac load", then you are not in an active gunfight. Do it when needed, forget it when not needed. Don't teach what works for you, teach what wins the fight for your students. Your fight observations are very correct. When the duress of a gunfight outweighs our training or mental preparation level, (which can happen in nano-seconds) we often are left with the "spray & pray" method, which we all know is not a winning plan. Great when it works, and not great when it doesn't. Law enforcement training has been in flux for several decades and, again, my observations as I teach around the country are that shooting instructors abound, while fight instructors are rare. I wasted so many years teaching officers to shoot instead of teaching them to fight. Shame on me. But the last 20-years or so have been different and I'll never go back. And funny enough, gunfighting is much simpler to teach than target shooting....simpler, not easier.
