I get emails from various trainers/sources and one in particular caught my eye and had me question the results a bit. The content was essentially the difference in time between doing an emergency reload with a rifle vs. a transition to your sidearm. The distance wasn't specified or any type of accuracy standard, nor was the ready position with the rifle and whether or not the pistol was drawn from concealment or not (I assume so); but essentially the conclusion was that it is MUCH faster to transition than to do a mag change.
These were the times listed:
Mag Change--------Transition to Pistol
1 ---------9.46 -----------4.04
2 ---------7.15 -----------5.24
3 ---------8.56 -----------2.18
4 ---------11.05 ---------3.29
5 ---------11.01 ---------- 2.16
6 --------- 11.19 ---------- 5.23
7 ----------5.85 -----------2.18
8 ---------- 6.42 ----------2.46
The rifle transition times seemed really slow to me (even with the lack of information given), but the pistol seemed about right.
Out of the gate today (cold) at the range I decided to test this theory for myself. I was at the 10 yard line, BCM 14.5 mid-length fixed irons only, IPSC target, Glock 19 RMR from concealment. All shots were made "sighted" from the low ready position and deliberate so as to ensure an A zone hit. Reloads were bolt lock/emergency and there was no attempt to retain any magazine; I was reloading the rifle with a mag in my front pocket - no fancy nylon in this case.
Essentially, start in low ready, upon beep from timer mount rifle fire one shot, perform reload and fire second shot; or start in low ready, upon beep mount rifle fire one shot, transition to pistol and fire one shot.
Here are my results:
---------------- Mag Change ------------------------------ Transition to Pistol
1 - --------------------4.02 -----------------------------3.62
2 - --------------------3.45 -----------------------------3.90
3 - --------------------3.30 -----------------------------3.62
4 - --------------------3.35 ------------------------------3.65
5 - --------------------3.63 ------------------------------3.83
I would like to tighten up my rifle reload times, and think I could probably do better with some form of red dot (I deliberately handicapped myself with an irons only gun); I definitely don't consider myself the fastest guy around. I understand transitioning to a sidearm from a tactical perspective (diagnosing a malfunction/reload vs. a simple transition to pistol); but I wonder if it is actually faster?
On another forum the discussion never got passed the tactical advantage to transitioning, and seemed to stay in the "it depends" discussion of the when and the why. That is not my concern with this post, I completely understand that use of cover, distance to adversary (muzzle strike, knife or hand to hand) and other issues come into play; this is just a simple question as to what takes less time.
Anyone else ever compared their times, what were your results/times?
Bookmarks