self defense

Stealth Range Bag

Posted on by Caleb

My normal range bag is a Columbia back-pack that has the S&W logo all over it.  Not exactly incognito, it broadcasts “I likely have a gun in here” to anyone even passingly familiar with the firearms industry.  I’m obviously okay with that, but sometimes I want a little more discretion with how I transport my gear – but I still want to be able to carry a lot of stuff without necessarily throwing up a flag that says “I have guns”.  Enter the stealth range bag; perfect for those occasions where you need 9 mags, 300 rounds of ammo, ear and eye protection, your gun, and holsters and mag carriers for everything.

Start with a mild-mannered lap-top/messenger bag.  Bonus points if it has boring branding on it, such as my Nationwide branded bag.  Bags like this are ubiquitous in today’s professional environment.  Given out at trade shows and conventions, they’re usually all the same flat black nylon bag with a decent shoulder strap and most importantly, lots of pockets.  Fitting quite nicely in to the “gray man” strategy, someone wearing business casual with a bag like this slung over their shoulder will attract precisely zero attention from nosy passerby.

However, when the bag gets cracked open, well you can see that it’s quite a bit different from what a lot of people would have in their messenger bags.  I’m not a huge fan of “off body” carry, but when the choice is “having a gun in a bag” or “not having a gun” I’ll put the gun in the bag every single time.  That’s where I’ll also make use of an easy on/off paddle holster like the one from Comp-Tac that’s pictured (no, you don’t have to get it in red).  That bag has everything I need in it to shoot an IDPA match, or hold off a small group of zombies until reinforcements arrive.  9 17 round magazines give me 153 rounds of ammo on tap, and I’ve got enough mag carriers in the bag to carry 6 on my body.

I really like all my “branded” gear.  S&W bags are great for the range and matches, but sometimes you’ve got to fly a little bit under the radar.  With a little thought and some ingenuity, you can turn an ordinary convention chotchkey into a useful CCW and every day carry tool.

Uncategorized

I owe someone an apology

Posted on by Caleb

Namely, the guy that I wrote my gamers vs. cheaters rant about.  As many people are smart enough to figure out, I had a specific person in mind when I wrote that.  In a moment that I’m not proud of I let my temper get away with me and made statements that were intemperate at best, and insulting at worst.  For that, I’m sorry – to the person that was the subject the post, please accept my sincere apologies, and I’ll see you at our next IDPA shoot.  I misjudged both your attitude and your character, and in your handling of this situation you really did carry yourself with class.  I’ll definitely look forward to being your Safety Officer at another match.

There is an object lesson in here – passion is a good thing, especially passion for a sport.  But unchecked passion can get you in trouble, and not having someone to bounce ideas off of before I go on my blog and write stuff is generally a bad idea.  I’d like to apologize to any of our Gun Nuts out there that may have been put off by that post, as it’s beneath the usual quality of writing you’ve come to expect from me here.

Uncategorized

Lessons from Sensei Jeff

Posted on by Caleb

Master Jeff Wade, of South Miami TaeKwonDo is here to help you learn how to defend yourself.  Thanks to our buddies at Every Day, No Days Off for cluing me in to Sensei Jeff, who has now FOREVER CHANGED my thoughts on defensive handgunning.  Here is the direct link to Sensei Jeff’s first video which I like to call “How to Get Shot in the Leg“.  Watch the video.  After you’ve facepalmed yourself out of your chair, get back up and let’s have a look second by second at what’s going on in this video.  I’ll just put my thoughts as they came in to my head with corresponding time indexes.

  • 0:11 – Oh good, he’s a Black Belt in TKD that means that he’s had thousands of hours of uh…dojo work.
  • 0:14-20 – How do you disarm a pistol?  Wouldn’t you disarm the person?  And why would someone be casually pointing a pistol at my groin instead of, oh I don’t know, my chest or head?
  • 0:33 – Wow, that’s a really realistic airsoft gun, it even has…Crimson Trace…that’s a real gun holy s***.
  • 0:35 – Wait, if that guy’s finger was on the trigger like it would likely be if he was a real mugger, that gun would go off the second Sensei Jeff rotated it like that.  Wow.
  • 0:57 – Boy, it’s a good thing that red belt guy isn’t holding his gun with two hands like a professional would.
  • 1:06 – aaaaannnddd he just dry fired that gun without chamber checking it.  Fail.
  • 1:22 – Booby trapped?  Why would a mugger point a booby-trapped gun at you?  What the hell?
  • 1:24 – “Pack the slide”?  I have now officially reached “what is this I don’t even” because my brain cannot deal with what I’m seeing right now.
  • 1:33 – Of course he goes directly to the thoroughly tactical Weaver-Teacup grip.  /me facepalms

There has been a lot of conversation about “training” lately.  This is a perfect example of “bad training that could actually get you killed”.  Gun takeaways are the stupidest idea in all of the martial arts community.  Are there some people that are fast enough and skilled enough to disarm an attacker by taking away their gun?  Sure, but the same way that not every shooter is Jerry Miculek, not every martial artist is Bruce Lee.

Set ups like what you see in Sensei Jeff’s video are a great way to get people hurt.  Since most fights don’t take place between two dudes in gis, one of whom is a willing patsy, taking a gun away from an attacker determined to hurt you very badly wouldn’t go nearly as easily as Sensei Jeff wants you to believe.  Just like you can’t actually disassemble a Beretta Lethal Weapon 4 style, trying to grab the gun out of an attacker’s hand is a really, really good way to get yourself shot.

IDPA

Gaming vs. cheating

Posted on by Caleb

I’ve been shooting IDPA for about 3 years now; I’ve really come to love the sport.  I feel very strongly about IDPA, and I feel just as strongly about the rules of IDPA, which I think are ridiculous at times but are still the rules.  In my still young IDPA career, I’ve been called a “gamer” a lot.  In IDPA circles that usually means someone that treats IDPA as a game to be won, and will work within the full extent of the rules to win.  For example, a “gamer” will ask the SO during the walk-through very specific questions about where they’re considered behind cover, if they’re allowed to load on the move in certain areas, etc.  The reason for this is that a gamer doesn’t want to cheat – but they certainly want to win.

Cheating is an entirely different concept.  A cheater is someone who is aware of the rules and simply doesn’t care – whether they’re the rules on reloading or the rules on magazine capacity, this person simply ignores them.  In 3 years of shooting IDPA, I had never encountered a true cheater until recently, and it was a completely flabbergasting experience to me.  I can honestly say that I’ve never seen someone openly defy IDPA rules, get a procedural and they say that they “don’t care”.  I’m not going to lie to you guys, I was pretty angry, and when I think about it, I’m still really angry.  Here’s why – yes, IDPA is a game and it’s not “the streets” (whatever that means) but the whole point of playing a game with other people is that you all agree to play by the rules of the game.  When you flagrantly flout the rules like that, what I feel like you’re saying is that you don’t care about the other shooters.  Even if you’re a Marksman class shooter, you’re saying to the other guys in your skill that “screw you, I don’t want to play your reindeer games”; which to me is incredibly disrespectful.

There isn’t really a point to this rant – obviously most of us know that cheating = wrong and don’t do it.  I guess if I had to find a point, it’d be that when you’re shooting a match, even if it’s just a practice match at a local range that you should respect the other shooters you’re there with enough to do them the courtesy of playing by the rules.  Plus, attitude has a lot to do with it – if the shooter in question had said “I carry the 10 round magazines and I don’t mind the procedural to practice with my carry gear” I would have said “cool, let’s rock and roll”.  Ultimately, I think I’m frustrated because I really like IDPA and I want other people to like it, and more importantly to respect the sport.  Sure, the rules are silly sometimes.  I don’t like the rules about reloads.  But I love the game, so I try to respect the rules and by so doing also show my fellow shooters the respect they deserve.

Comp-Tac

Deals from Comp-Tac

Posted on by Caleb

From our friends at Comp-Tac:

Get a $5 discount when you order a Minotaur MTAC holster and a NEW Minotaur Concealment Pouch together! Equip yourself with our top-of-the-line, ultimate deep concealment duo – Tuckable, Adjustable, and Comfortable – the perfect pair for your concealment needs! Enter code MDUO-1010 in the redeem box when checking out.

My carry holsters? All Comp-Tac. My competition holsters? Also Comp-Tac. I think you sense a trend, don’t you?

Update: I just noticed that the gun in the image is an M&P and the magazine is clearly for a 1911. Not quite total fail, but funny.

self defense/shooting

Too small a gun

Posted on by Caleb

Mas Ayoob has an older, but excellent post on how there certainly can be such thing as a gun that is “too small for carry”.

Photos showed later that Vince, who shoots with the popular straight thumbs grasp (see below), had his humongous thumbs in proximity to the slide. All that we can figure was that the combination of the web of his hand making contact with the underside of the moving slide, and pressure of his thumbs against the side of the slide, was enough to retard the mechanism and prevent complete extraction. So, yes, there is such a thing as a pistol too small for the shooter’s hands.

Also, for the record if your hand is so big that it causes malfs on a Glock 30, you have REALLY BIG HANDS.  This however is why I encourage people to try guns out before they purchase them for every day carry.  A gun that actually cuts you and causes you pain isn’t a gun that you’re going to practice with; and a gun that you don’t practice with is basically a talisman as a self-defense tool.

I don’t have particularly large hands for a guy.  This isn’t really surprising, because I’m not a particularly large guy – however there are guns that just wreck my hands when I try to shoot them.  I’ve picked up racing stripes and hammer bites from quite a few guns although the worst culprit was a little Llama .380 I had back in 2005.  That thing was apparently made out of razorblades and hate, because it seriously wrecked my hand.  The next worse was a Bersa .380 – that was fine until I learned how to properly hold a pistol at which time the Bersa joined the Llama in the bin of fleshreapers.

Make sure you shoot any gun you plan on carrying before you spend your hard earned cash on it.  A gun that actually causes you physical injury isn’t a gun you’re going to want to carry.  More importantly, you shouldn’t have to.  In an age of quality, compact defensive firearms such as the Ruger SR9c, the S&W M&P Compact, or the sub-compact Glocks there is simply no need to carry a gun that has poor ergonomics or that injures your hand.  And if your hand is too big for the little guns, then get a bigger gun!

Uncategorized

Doing it wrong

Posted on by Caleb

Seriously.  If you as an instructor can’t manage to keep your finger off the trigger, then you really have no business teaching people how to shoot anything.  While lately there’s been some back and forth about the advanced classes, if you’re not to the stage yet where you can perform all the basic manipulations without sticking your finger in the trigger guard then you need more practice.

USPSA

.300 AAC Blackout

Posted on by Caleb

I hadn’t really talked too much about AAC’s new rifle cartridge, the .300 AAC Blackout, until I was looking at the specs a little bit and it dawned on me that this round might make USPSA Rifle Major PF.  The problem is, I don’t know off the top of my head what Major PF for USPSA rifle is, since I don’t shoot USPSA Multi-gun.

Of course, whether or not it would actually be worth the money over .223 is a completely separate debate.  In a lot of 3-gun matches you don’t see distant paper, and close paper is easy to whack 2 alfas in to with a .223; so there is some amount of me wondering if scoring major at a USPSA multi-gun match is even worth it.  But, I also don’t shoot USPSA 3-gun, so take that for what it’s worth.