Was that fast?

I thought that was fast, did you think that was fast? I can’t embed videos from the WordPress iPhone app, otherwise I would.

The video at the link is of the fastest mover I’ve ever seen, designed to simulate the Tueller drill. You’ll notice that the target crosses the distance to the shooter in about 3 seconds, and that the shooter manages to get 4 rounds off in 1.80 seconds. Assuming a 1 second draw, that means his average split was around 0.2 seconds, which is right in the ballpack for a High B/low A class shooter.

This stage also illustrates one of the reasons I don’t really believe in pepper spray for civilians – if you’re being charged, that’s how long you have to react, maybe three seconds. In that time you need to categorize the treat, decide what action to take (move, fight, move and fight, etc), and then execute that plan. All in less that three seconds. For the average person, that by itself is an incredibly complex decision tree, and adding another element to it will only increase the odds that they’ll hesitate.

The time spent buying that pepper spray would have been better spent going to a class, such as Mike Janich’s Martial Blade Concepts that teaches you to move off the line of attack. I think a lot of shooters watching that video want to take a sidestep as they draw to get out of that mover’s way.

12 Comments

  1. Well, it was fast, the shooter did start with hand on gun, that was noted in the title info.

    We use for our PPITH & PPOTH classes a wheeled cart, this past weekend. we set it at 21 feet, with a rope attached, when the student is ready, one of the Instructors go like hell, the shooter starts with gun concealed, hands at their sides, they have to react, and some were at muzzle contact with the first shot, a few got off 2 shots, we make a point of asking how much faster the runner would have been if he had not been dragging the cart.

  2. RE: OC

    That mover is worst case. Not every situation begins with an assailant coming to take your life with a contact weapon. Someone who wants to yell at you after a car accident will not behave like that mover.

    To assume that the worst-case is all that should be prepared for is to either accept that you will shoot someone who wants a fistfight (See: Hammer and Nails), or accept a purely hand-to-hand confrontation, which could very easily end in very bad ways. I’d prefer to have an out. OC is not what I train to use by reflex, but it’s good to have that capability when someone is being uncivil and is about to push you over.

  3. Re: OC is still gay
    I guess that’s my problem with the whole OC thing. If a guy is going to push me, or is shouting at me after a fender bender, my plan is either 1) retreat, or 2) just take it. Unless he’s trying to beat me into the ground, in which we’re dealing with a world different situation. It has been my experience that most situations that can be solved with pepper spray can be better solved with de-escalation and retreat. The rare situations that can’t be solved that way seem like they should be better solved with a more potent application of force.

    I swear to god, I just had this discussion with some other guys.

  4. Wonder what your splits would be if you were fishing a Jetfire out of your pocket instead of pulling an XDm from speed kydex? 😉

    I’ve recently been convinced that Tueller was an optimist and that, with an average shooter using street gear, 30′ is a more reasonable distance.

    (Also, for realism, the shooter should have reacted to the visual cue of target starting at him, rather than having the target and shooter start from the same audible. The fact that the guy initiating the run is all up inside your OODA loop from the jump-off is part of the concept behind the Tueller Drill.)

  5. I stand corrected – Tueller isn’t going to be at LETC this year…
    Though he does work with GLOCK, apparently…

  6. Tueller recently said it should have been more like 25-30 feet.

    That’s what Louis said, too. Have you seen how fast a defensive lineman can cover 40 yards? 😮

  7. OC is just one of the tools, it is not always the right tool to be used, but it should be in the toolbox. For those of us in the bluer states, use of deadly force is likely to get us charged with murder (maybe not convicted, but still charged though).
    While retreat is my preferred choice, sometimes that is not always an option and getting into a knockdown fight with 1 or 2 opponents isn’t my idea of fun. There isn’t sufficient disparity of force with one or two unarmed opponents to justify using lethal force (If I remember my LFI 1 correctly, the threshold is three, unless there are other circumstances that change the equation such as gender, age, disability or significant physical differences).
    So my choices are use lethal force and risk spending a large chunk of my life in jail, get the hell beat out of me and hope they don’t find and take the gun or use the OC.

  8. My question is, how many CC permit holders get charged and stabbed to death? The Teuller drill certainly shows that a knife wielding attacker can be dangerous under a specific circumstance. How often does that happen?
    Seems to me they would have to know you are armed to be ready to do a kamikaze rush like that. The one self defense situation I was involved in, the would be muggers sized me up first, and there was plenty of time for me to realize what was up.

  9. That’s not really the point of the drill; the point of the drill is to get it in people’s heads that if the dude is inside 21′, you don’t think “Oh, it’s okay, he’s just got a knife and I’m carrying a gun.”

    Of the three times in my life I’ve had to pull a gun, all three were inside 21′ (two of the guys had knives.)

  10. I wasn’t questioning the value of the training. It is just something I thought about because anti gun types like to bring that drill up to portray carrying a gun for self defense as ineffective.

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