Carry Ammo - Training, not Equipment.

[Surf]

Surf,

Not to derail, but did you say Marines are incorporating optic in qual..

Yep. There are some caveats to certain aspects of scoring and badges, but it is a sad but true reality. I know all of the "Official" releases / run down on the reasons for making such a move to optics and without getting into the politics of "why", the bottom line is that over the years and since this has occurred I have seen a noticeable decline in Marksmanship skill sets with the rifle in the Marines that I encounter. If you talk to your average squared away Marine NCO who has many years of service, has seen the evolution first hand and is being honest, they will probably say the exact same thing. One of my very close instructors who sees everything I do, is a former active duty Marine and he is utterly disgusted by what he sees today. I guess he takes it more personal. Of course we expect lack of quality skills with the pistol, but the Every Marine is a rifleman motto does not seem to have the same meaning. On the upside, in one week we get them far far beyond any level of rifle training / proficiency that they could have obtained, now or in the past. Of course the individual attention pays big time, but I stand by that.

I will note that our upcoming course starting in a couple weeks will have 3 Marines. 1 scout/sniper, 1 Force Recon and 1 SRT / MP. All with multiple combat deployments. Should show an interesting spread of experiences / skill sets.

[Guns-up.50]

Yep. There are some caveats to certain aspects of scoring and badges, but it is a sad but true reality. I know all of the "Official" releases / run down on the reasons for making such a move to optics and without getting into the politics of "why", the bottom line is that over the years and since this has occurred I have seen a noticeable decline in Marksmanship skill sets with the rifle in the Marines that I encounter. If you talk to your average squared away Marine NCO who has many years of service, has seen the evolution first hand and is being honest, they will probably say the exact same thing. One of my very close instructors who sees everything I do, is a former active duty Marine and he is utterly disgusted by what he sees today. I guess he takes it more personal. Of course we expect lack of quality skills with the pistol, but the Every Marine is a rifleman motto does not seem to have the same meaning. On the upside, in one week we get them far far beyond any level of rifle training / proficiency that they could have obtained, now or in the past. Of course the individual attention pays big time, but I stand by that.

I will note that our upcoming course starting in a couple weeks will have 3 Marines. 1 scout/sniper, 1 Force Recon and 1 SRT / MP. All with multiple combat deployments. Should show an interesting spread of experiences / skill sets.

Indeed, it was all irons for me all the up to my first deployment to Iraq, but even after that it was still qualifications with irons. Sad to hear of poor choices , thanks for the reply.

[JaegerOne]

Read the whole post - http://vdmsr.blogspot.com/2014/07/ca...equipment.html

Aren't you the guy who claims to carry six or seven different kinds of ammo in the same magazine?

[Voodoo_Man]

Aren't you the guy who claims to carry six or seven different kinds of ammo in the same magazine?

Is there a point you are trying to make?

[vicious_cb]

Is there a point you are trying to make?

That you give questionable advice about what a person should be carrying in their pistol for self defense.

I carry a bunch of everything. Sounds bad, but the way I figure is that I do not know what type of situation I am going to be, so I want to have as many different ammo types (hollow point, ball, efmj, pow'r ball, low grain/high speed).

Just a sampling



Lately I've thrown the winchester duty +p+ load into it for shits and giggles.

[Voodoo_Man]

I can see you guys want to throw bait out and see what happens. This is not the forum and I am not the person.

Please bark up another tree, some of us actually have worthwhile things to talk about.

[26 Inf]

Voo Doo Man - I think discussing the concept of differing loads in each magazine is worthwhile. I've found several of your reviews to be informative, but on this subject I believe you are mistaken.

In the mid 70's I started as a patrol officer on a medium-sized department. We were issued Model 66 S&W revolvers. One day at the range one of the old salts took it upon himself to explain to the roookie, me, how he carried differing loads in his revolver. He carried Glaser Safety Slugs indexed as his first two rounds, the next three were our issued .357 165gr JSP's, and the final round was a Winchester .357 AP round. He explained that the Glasers would stop someone but yet wouldn't penetrate our vests, he carried the JSP's in case of a heavily clothed individual and the AP for shooting at engine blocks. His speedloaders were set up with the first loader being the duty JSP's and the second one the Winchester AP's.

Even as a young officer I took his advice with a grain of salt. Aside from the fact that the Glaser Safety Slugs were way way overrated as stoppers, it just seemed to me that we wouldn't very often get to pick the circumstances of our gunfight. I knew the Glasers would not guarantee penetration through the neck and throat to the spine or through facial structure to the brain stem and thought he was an idiot for stagger loading.

In addition, the differing recoil impulses of the various rounds will cause almost any shooter to shoot slower and, in most cases less accurately.

Try this - put 6 rounds and 1 dummy in a mag - with the dummy randomly placed in the mag. Do a mag dump in the head A-zone from 5 yards, fast as you can, see what happens when you hit the dummy. Now randomly place a 147gr subsonic in a mag of six 125gr +P. Same thing. It makes a difference.

Life is full of compromise - carry the load that fits the criteria of the likely threat you'll face. In most cases any of the modern LE or HD loadings will be adequate.

Think about it, test your hypothesis.

[Voodoo_Man]

Voo Doo Man - I think discussing the concept of differing loads in each magazine is worthwhile. I've found several of your reviews to be informative, but on this subject I believe you are mistaken.

In the mid 70's I started as a patrol officer on a medium-sized department. We were issued Model 66 S&W revolvers. One day at the range one of the old salts took it upon himself to explain to the roookie, me, how he carried differing loads in his revolver. He carried Glaser Safety Slugs indexed as his first two rounds, the next three were our issued .357 165gr JSP's, and the final round was a Winchester .357 AP round. He explained that the Glasers would stop someone but yet wouldn't penetrate our vests, he carried the JSP's in case of a heavily clothed individual and the AP for shooting at engine blocks. His speedloaders were set up with the first loader being the duty JSP's and the second one the Winchester AP's.

Even as a young officer I took his advice with a grain of salt. Aside from the fact that the Glaser Safety Slugs were way way overrated as stoppers, it just seemed to me that we wouldn't very often get to pick the circumstances of our gunfight. I knew the Glasers would not guarantee penetration through the neck and throat to the spine or through facial structure to the brain stem and thought he was an idiot for stagger loading.

In addition, the differing recoil impulses of the various rounds will cause almost any shooter to shoot slower and, in most cases less accurately.

Try this - put 6 rounds and 1 dummy in a mag - with the dummy randomly placed in the mag. Do a mag dump in the head A-zone from 5 yards, fast as you can, see what happens when you hit the dummy. Now randomly place a 147gr subsonic in a mag of six 125gr +P. Same thing. It makes a difference.

Life is full of compromise - carry the load that fits the criteria of the likely threat you'll face. In most cases any of the modern LE or HD loadings will be adequate.

Think about it, test your hypothesis.

Thanks for your post.

I have actually done that same drill, a few different times with different loads (modern defensive) at 7y for time and speed as well as 25y for accuracy. I cycle through my carry ammo once a year or so.

At 7y there is no real tangable difference at speed. My splits were in the .14-.21 area and all hits were accurate. The recoil impulse people talk about does not matter as much as they believe, its just a point of contention most can think of. At 25y is where some rounds go slightly left. This was not me, as I had others (who are more accurate than me) try with same setup of loads. This whole thing was done before I had a blog and probably before I had an account on thus forum.

Furthermore, as I stated many times and people seem to have selective ignorance on this, no one here will ever be able to say with any accuracy what kind of situation they will ever be in, so choosing one round and hoping it will do everything you want it to do is shortsighted. Ive seen duty loads not go through windshields. Ive seen them not penetrate doors on a house, ive seen heavy layers stop slow fps rounds and ive seen poor shot placement to the head (several rounds and occasions) not put a person down.

So whatever logical mechanism that is telling people that they should only have one type of ammo in thier magazine, it has not been tasted against reality. Having seen first hand what different ammo does in different situations, both on the range and on the street, my experience disagrees.

Also, some talk about court and the legal issues that may arise from different ammo. Cite me a case. Ive seen cases where the shooter had different ammo in his gun, one specifically that I remember being in court for and there was no contention or discussion.

[taliv]

At 7y there is no real tangable difference at speed. My splits were in the .14-.21 area and all hits were accurate. The recoil impulse people talk about does not matter as much as they believe, its just a point of contention most can think of. At 25y is where some rounds go slightly left. This was not me, as I had others (who are more accurate than me) try with same setup of loads. This whole thing was done before I had a blog and probably before I had an account on thus forum.

it's your contention then that there is no reason for Power Factor to exist in USPSA/IDPA? that shooters gain no advantage by using powder puff loads? really?

[Voodoo_Man]

it's your contention then that there is no reason for Power Factor to exist in USPSA/IDPA? that shooters gain no advantage by using powder puff loads? really?

I dont shoot games, so if yours contention that people will cheat at games then sure I agree.


Edit: any of you who argue this shoot games with defensive ammo? I doubt it, so the contention is moot.