Practice with what you carry?

How do you train at the range?

  • Only practice with what you carry for defense

    Votes: 5 5.0%

  • A mix of defensive ammo and target ammo

    Votes: 59 58.4%

  • Exclusively target ammo after you sight your gun for defensive ammo

    Votes: 14 13.9%

  • I reload and only use my own ammo

    Votes: 23 22.8%
  • Total voters
    101
BabaBlueJay

BabaBlueJay

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I have had mixed feelings on this over the years. I prefer to practice exclusively with the ammo I carry for defense, but I have found if I want to shoot as much as I do this just isn't realistic. As of right now I'll shoot a little defensive ammo, usually first 6-12 shots cold to simulate real world situation where I have no warm up shots with my carry ammo then do more obscure drills with FMJ or LRN or whatever cheap ammo was on hand that day. In my mind, it seems best practice would be to use your defensive ammo at all times to truly familiarize yourself with it, and this has led me to look for reliable defensive ammo that is also affordable in bulk.

To shorten this down to a sentence, do you practice exclusively with defensive ammo or do you use a mix of defensive and target ammo?
 
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BabaBlueJay said:
.....

To shorten this down to a sentence, do you practice exclusively with defensive ammo or do you use a mix of defensive and target ammo?
Click to expand...

I can shorten it down to just one WORD, NO!
You see people recommend this all the time but they never make a cogent reason for it, just excuses!

Do you really believe that you will know the difference in a defensive shooting situation? I can guarantee that you will not even hear the report or feel the recoil in an actual defensive situation. It is unlikely you will even know how many rounds you have fired!

There is absolutely no point in shooting expensive defensive ammunition for practice of any type. An argument could be made for using the same bullet weight as your defensive ammunition though.

The reason is that for any practical purpose you will not be able to tell the difference in either muzzle blast or volume or recoil. At distances where self defense use of a firearm is justifiable there will be no significant difference in point of impact between your defense ammunition and the most generic "range ammo" or preferably the cheapest alternate your own hand-loads. The truth is most people will not even see their gun's sights no matter how much they believe they will, so precise relationship between POA and POI means little most of the time. The majority of defensive shootings occur at only "across a telephone booth" distances.

So, using 124 gr. 9mm as an example, just practice with the less expensive ammunition and carry whatever you feel best serves your needs for defensive ammunition in your gun. Shoot enough of the expensive stuff to satisfy yourself that it is dependable in your gun and leave it at that. Save your money so you can shoot more.
 
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I answered that I reload, but I have the rounds I load for practice, which gets done on one of the progressive presses that are more or less permanently setup for practice loads, and spend some extra time for the carry rounds on a turret press with the auto charger.

Once a week I will go through what I have been carrying to rotate the carry inventory, but the practice rounds are what is used most of the time.

On the topic of are there any benefits to using the carry rounds for practice, based off of my experiences since the Covid shutdown in 2020, I would say it doesn't matter that much.

When everything was shutdown in 2020 I pulled out the old pellet gun and setup my home range for the first time in 20ish years. Being trapped at home with nothing else to do, I was putting at least a hundred pellets down range every day, which has since dropped of to 2 or 3 times a week now. This also kind of sucked me into airguns as another way to spend money :)

The repetition in lining up the sights and pulling a trigger, even though the majority of it is done with airguns that effectively have no recoil, has me shooting the firearms more consistently than I have in a long time, even with the hotter loads that move my hands around when they go off.

So getting back to the OP's question, I would say use the cheap stuff if it means you can get more practice in :)
 
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At times I use only my own ammo. Sometimes I load ammo which h replicas carry ammo and practice with/carry it. The replies a ammo I load not only duplicates the felt recoil but the feel of the recoil too.

If you don't reload my suggestion would be to practice with similar range ammo to you carry ammo and at the end of the practice shoot a cylinder/magazine of your carry ammo to leave that mussel memory being your last shots. Of course this is just my opinion...
 
Good SD ammo is EXPENSIVE. Too expensive for practice.
Once you determine what SD ammo to use for a particular gun, reload or find a factory loading that has comparable recoil and POI and practice with that.
 
I voted mix, but I agree with ALK8944 on your physical reaction in a shooting situation. When I was OTJ we qualified twice a year. The longer day fire course was done with range magazines and low cost practice ammo. The night fire was with issued mags and duty ammo. That way you had fresh ammo and tested your mags at least twice a year.

Long since retired and almost exclusively carrying a J frame I'll fire a cylinder full of carry ammo maybe every couple of months. Other than that I shoot my favorite 148 gr. wadcutter load regularly. Which BTW is rather expensive now a days. Way more than 132gr. white box FMJ.
 
If I decide to try a different brand or weight of carry ammo I shoot 100 rounds of it through any pistol I will carry with it before I consider it reliable. Maybe as few as 50 rounds in a particularly reliable handgun that has gone thousands of rounds without a failure with any type of ammo. After that, once or maybe twice a year I shoot the loaded magazines to refresh the carry ammo and test the magazine it is in. The rest is target ammo.

I do try to avoid weak ammo like Winchester white box though since I carry +P 9mm. It feels a little different. NATO spec and Speer Lawman is loaded a bit stronger, feels more like the ammo I carry and doesn't cost more so I typically use it for target ammo. But if I see a great deal on some other brand I will sometimes buy it, not that I have seen a lot of great deals in the past few years.
 
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I use a mix ... but usually begin and end a practice session with the ammo I carry .

Practice with your non-carry ammo beats not practicing with anything Seven Ways To Sunday .

I'm like you ... I cant afford to shoot all the factory ammo I want ...
I realized in 1967 I was going to have to reload to shoot anywhere near as much as I like to shoot ... So casting bullets , reloading and shooting became my hobbies and ... it's still fun !
Gary
 
Been shooting ~ box/week of my lead boolit, powder-coated reloads through my Glock 42. It gets carried with Winchester factory RNFP. My reloads have the same profile and dimensions.

The barrel gets brushed after every practice session.
 
About once a year we use up our duty ammo to get new stuff. I have also used self defense type ammo in what I carry off duty. Shoot what you are betting your life on to see what happens before the POOP hits the fan and you won't be surprised.

Just sayin
 
ArchAngelCD said:
At times I use only my own ammo. Sometimes I load ammo which h replicas carry ammo and practice with/carry it. The replies a ammo I load not only duplicates the felt recoil but the feel of the recoil too.

If you don't reload my suggestion would be to practice with similar range ammo to you carry ammo and at the end of the practice shoot a cylinder/magazine of your carry ammo to leave that mussel memory being your last shots. Of course this is just my opinion...
Click to expand...

I have a single stage press but I don't reload a lot yet still taking my time doing things exactly right until I learn to go faster safely. I supplement this with Armscor which is cheap and what my LGS stocks for FMJ.
 
I voted mix.

#1 find a SD ammo that works 100% and that you trust.

#2 have a light practice load with the same POI to improve your skills.

If you have lots of $$$$
#2 is not needed.
 
Alk8944 said:
There is absolutely no point in shooting expensive defensive ammunition for practice of any type. An argument could be made for using the same bullet weight as your defensive ammunition though.
Click to expand...

I completely disagree.:eek: I think that anyone that doesn't shoot their carry ammo at least once is a fool. You may not notice the difference when you are in a life and death situation but, your weapon might. You don't know how it will react unless you shoot it at least once. But, to say that it is a waste of money to do it when you train on a regular basis is just wrong. You lose nothing but, a couple of bucks more a box.

Also, it doesn't hurt that you get a feel for it in what you are carrying. If your main reasoning is because you don't want to waste the money on training with carry ammo then, um well, I can't help you. Maybe you need to get a second job to pay for training with what you carry. I see absolutely no downside to training with carry ammo and training ammo whether you are a LEO or a civilian.
 
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Do you really need to practice with what you carry. I would say no. Why you ask? Well in a shooting situation you probably won't hear the gun go off or really feel it go off. Just practice hitting center mass with whatever gun and whatever ammo you are using. What I have in the nightstand is not what I carry. I probably have about 20 different handguns that I own. I would say that I can hit the 10ring with all of them in slow fire. In rapid fire I will keep all in the torso at a defensive range.
 
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