After kicking around the shooting business for the past 35 years or so, I have noted a few trends. Most are for the better, and today’s modern ‘gunner’ has benefited from both training and small arms designs. Today’s gunners shoot more rounds in practice and training than those of past generations even dreamed of. The demand for and supply system for ammo in the USA exceeds anything we could have dreamed of 40 or 50 years ago. Go to most shooting ranges in the US today and look at the amounts of spent .223/5.56, 7.62X39, 9X19mm, 40S&W, and .45acp brass littering the ground. Most gun club/shooting ranges are having record memberships. Gun sales have been off the chart for the past few years (much thanks to the current anti-gun administration).

We now have extremely wide spread exposure of guns and shooting events on both the internet and TV. Action shooting competition is popular beyond belief. While traditional bullseye and high power rifle events are still going strong, they have been surpassed by the newer games of IPSC/USPSA, IDPA, Cowboy and the latest craze of three-gun.

If there is one disturbing trend that I see is the obsession of ‘speed and accuracy’. What it should be is ‘accuracy & speed’. The mindset of today’s competition gunner is often totally overshadowed by the time element versus the accuracy requirements. Now, I get the part about going fast being great fun. Sadly, I see the speed part of the equation overwhelming the accuracy requirements.

I don’t see this trend changing much for a couple of reasons. First, is that most of the current group of ‘action style shooters’ love runnin’ and gunnin’. Second, by placing a heavy reward for fast times vs accuracy, you can place well often times with less than stellar accuracy. Many of the very best top level shooters have managed to achieve skill at shooting accurately and quickly, unfortunately many of the other competitors have developed the fast part of the skill set, but skipped the accuracy part. I fear that anytime you reward the speed over the accuracy element, marksmanship takes it on the chin.

The other annoying habit I see is the near obsession of action shooters to want to make ‘sight checks’ prior to shooting a drill or practice session. This is the process where the shooter draws his sidearm or mounts his long gun to get a sight picture on the target or targets prior to actually shooting. For lack of a better term they want to do a rehearsal of the skill or test they are about to do. Since we do not get a chance to do this in the ‘Real World’, I’m not so sure that it is really a good practice. Just my view.

In classes, before a shooter runs a skill test, I am often asked “Can I check my sights?”, meaning they want to the do the above aiming in exercise. My answer is always “NO!”; they were on the gun the last time you looked at them weren’t they? This seems to disturb them a bit. Like most things in life, they’ll get over it. The other practice that gets me is the obsessive ‘press check’ of the pistol or carbine when they prepare to shoot a drill or stage. If you loaded before you placed in in your holster or before you put the safety on the carbine; they don’t secretly unload themselves before you fire it again. Stop doing these stupid moves. Man up and act like a professional gun handler. ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED. Treat them accordingly, and once you load it, learn to trust the fact that it is ready to go bang; don’t keep fingering it doing ‘press checks’.

Enjoy the benefits of these shooting games, but beware of those practices that do nothing for you except to mimic
the big boys simply because they look cool.

– Ken Hackathorn

Ken Hackathorn has served as a US Army Special Forces Small Arms Instructor, Gunsite Instructor, and NRA Police Firearms Instructor. He is currently an FBI Certified Firearms Instructor, Certified Deputy Sheriff with Washington County SO, Ohio, and a SRT member and Special Response Team trainer. Ken has trained US Military Special Operations forces, Marine FAST and SOTG units and is a contract small arms trainer to FBI SWAT and HRT.

Ken has provided training to Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies and been active in small arms training for the past 25 years. He has written firearms related material for Guns & Ammo, Combat Handguns, Soldier Of Fortune, and currently American Handgunner and contributed to at least six other gun/shooting journals. Ken was also a founding member of IPSC and IDPA.

To see Ken’s Training Class Schedule visit aliastraining.com.

Gunfighter Moment is a weekly feature brought to you by Alias Training & Security Services. Each week Alias brings us a different Trainer and in turn they offer SSD readers hard earned words of wisdom.