Originally Posted by
Ron3
I certainly confirmed what I already believed about plated bullets.
One thing I wanted to learn from my tests:
- Heavier guns will be slower to draw and settle down than lighter guns
- Smaller guns are harder to get a good grip during the first step than larger guns
Which wins out? Well, from my tests, four guns from 27 oz to 40 oz varied from 1.6 sec to 1.9 sec from holstered under concealment, to one A-zone hit at 7 yds.
Is that .3 seconds significant? It is 20% faster. But with everything else that could slow down a draw it's probably not significant.
A surprise was Bill Drills. Holstered, concealed, 7 yds, 6 shots, A zone. 2.65 seconds to 3.0. The Cheetah with a .32 barrel was the fastest, duh. But the S&W M&P 2.0 .45 acp full size with Leopold Micro averaged 2.7 sec! I wasn't really "using" the dot at that range. Sometimes I'd see a red streak while firing, but I was really just using the silhouette of the gun, fight recoil, and slap the trigger. I wasn't able to do that when using a larger, higher optic like the Holosun 507C I had (and since removed) on a Beretta 92X RDO Centurion, because the optic obscured the barrel /slide. In the Bill Drills that M92X with irons was slowest at 3.0 sec average, but that was before I tried the method I did with the S&W so I think I can shave some time still off the M92X score.
Again, does that 2.65 vs 3.0 second spread between the guns for a Bill Drill matter much?
Where the smaller guns ran into trouble was the 25 yd accuracy test. (no timer, single action) Groups tended to open up an inch or two on average with the small guns. (Beretta Cheetah, Colt King Cobra 3 inch)
When I did the 25 yard test with timer (From concealment, draw and fire one shot for time) The times were not significantly different! Hits were, though. Lots of misses with the Cheetah no matter .32 or .380. (only hits scored, I just had to slow down) But the Colt was fastest with the hits! How the heck was it faster than the red-dot S&W? 1.8 sec vs 1.7 sec. average. Mind you the S&W had the best 25 yd slow-fire group by a large margin but that didn't translate into a faster one-shot hit at 25 yds for me that day.
What was a neat thing to learn is that I can do pretty well with any of these guns if I train with them.
Except the Cheetah doesn't inspire much confidence for getting good hits beyond about 20 yds. Short sight radius, small sights, small grip. But it's certainly the most comfortable to carry.
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