How far can aimless practice go?

[TunnelRat]

there is a difference between proficiency with shooting games, and with self defense. I never have said that training is not a good thing, but despite 'confirmation bias', the vast majority of self defense shootings are engaged in with zero professional training.

To my knowledge there isn’t a centralized database of civilian uses of a firearm for defense. Knowing the background of each shooter in every shooting isn’t something that’s easy. Most of what we have are news reports that are limited in details. That said I am willing to believe the percentage of people that both own a firearm and receive additional training is relatively small, so I don’t disagree with your premise, nor did I in my comment. My point is just because that is the case doesn’t mean training may not have been beneficial in those instances. Additionally, just because someone else survived a defensive shooting without additional training doesn’t mean I personally won’t get additional training. Decision making varies a lot person to person, so someone choosing differently than myself isn’t unexpected.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[gwpercle]

Aimless Practice ...

There was a fellow by the name of Bill Jordan , USMC Vet , Border Patrol agent ... you peobably never heard of him ... who practiced aimlessly so well he could draw his service revolver and hit a target in 1/27th of a secong . He didn't aim ... he called it
"Point Shooting" he didn't aim ...therefore it was aimless practice of Aimless Shooting .

And to answer your question ...if you can aimlessly practice enough ... you wont be no "Srcond Place Winner" in a gunfight !
...how fast is 1/27th of a second ... wow , that's fast , to clear leather and hit a target !
Gary

 

[Frank Ettin]

...the vast majority of self defense shootings are engaged in with zero professional training.

Holy confirmation bias, Batman! Let's see the data that supports that claim.

Basically what we can conclude is that whatever skills successful defenders had were sufficient to deal with the problems they had. Had it been a slightly different problem, the results might have been different.

In any event, you can't know in advance what your problem will be, so you can't know in advance what you'll have to be able to do to solve it. You get to decide how prepared you want to be; but the better prepared you are, the luckier you'll be.

Of course for the vast majority of us the balloon will never go up. But if it does for you and the problem you face is beyond your available skills to solve, you'll most likely have an unhappy outcome.
__________________

 

[shafter]

One unusual example that comes to mind is Jelly Bryce. He was self-taught and always shot by drawing a double-action revolver from a holster and firing. When he was recruited by law enforcement it was in part to be on their target shooting team, and he said he would compete for them only if he was allowed to draw and shoot from the hip, which he did and won matches that way. I have no idea what targets they were using in the 1930s police matches, but that's what he fired on. He survived 19 gunfights, IIRC, and apparently was constantly in fear of being ambushed in revenge, which motivated a lot his shooting practice. When he was recruited by the FBI it was in part to see if he could train other agents to shoot the way he did and to draw and shoot as fast as he did, which was in a fraction of a second. He used the crouch position for point shooting, but never could train others to do it as well as he could. In later years he admitted he had a natural advantage that others didn't, which was that he could see the streak of his bullets in flight (he favored the .44 Special, probably in part because it was easier to see than some others), and, like shooting tracers, that had enabled him to correct his aim. He also practiced almost incessantly. He was SAC for one FBI office for awhile (Oaklahoma City?), but was later put on other duty at least in part because he would spend much of every day in his office in front of a full-length mirror practicing dry firing by drawing and shooting so that he could always see straight into the guns muzzle (head shot shooting), rather than getting paperwork done.

I've read the same about Jelly Bryce. I've found that by using a SIRT pistol outside on a foggy night you can get the same effect by seeing the exact path from muzzle to target. With enough practice with one of those you can get suprisingly good at point shooting at close range.

 

[peacefulgary]

Looking back on history from pirates, duelists, gunslingers, lawmen, criminals, soldiers, etc... very few shot thousands of rounds at the range, or even hundreds of rounds at the range, annually.

 

[stinkeypete]

The question is: what is aimless practice?

I’ve seen people at the range hit the floor several times while shooting at 5 yard targets. They seemed very pleased at the bang and flash and saw no need for advice, lessons, or exercises to improve.

Simply shooting guns in the air like drunk cowboys results in nothing.

Historically, firearms would not last thousands of rounds because metallurgy.

Gunslingers are a very rare handful of fellas but the fast guns certainly practiced drawing fast.

When you shoot a muzzle loader, each shot counts. One might not shoot lots, but one shoots with lots of concentration. Quality of practice certainly beats quantity of shots fired.