March 1, 2024 • 50 mins
Jason from Blue Angel Concepts joins us to talk the Fundematals of Marksmanship and we review the Acro P2 along with a Shadow DR920. Make sure to check out our websites and our sponrors Mile High Shooting Assecorys as well.
303-Tactical.com
Blueangelconcepts.com
Milehighshoooting.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/303-tactical--5994602/support.
303-Tactical.com
Blueangelconcepts.com
Milehighshoooting.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/303-tactical--5994602/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The Three or Three Tactical Podcast isproud to be sponsored by mile High Shooting
Accessories. Mile High is a locallyowned, full service firearm store which has
world class products along with a worldclass sales staff and gun building crew.
Mile Highest perfect for your first gunbuild and purchase, or when you're ready
to build a world championship winning gun. Mile High as a store for you,
(00:21):
celebrating twenty years in business and asthey say in the store, a
mile high above the rest. MileHigh is located at fifty eight thirty one
Ideal Drive, Frederick, Colorado,or anytime at mile high shooting dot com.
Thank you to mile High for supportingthe Three or Three Tactical Podcast.
This podcast teaches firearms by use ofthe fundamentals of marksmanship and is for educational
(00:43):
purposes only and should not be usedas legal advice or for any justification.
Hey, everybody, Welcome to thethree or Three Tactical Podcast, our tenth
episode. We're joined by Jason fromBlue Angel Concepts. Jason, tell them
who you are and where they canfind you on Blue Angel. Hi.
(01:06):
I'm Jason. I own a companycalled Blue Angel Concepts. You see my
website at Blue Angel concepts dot com, or you can send me an email
at Blue Angel Concepts at gmail dotcom. Great Jason does good work,
and Jason is currently repairing one ofmy firearms. We'll talk about screws and
(01:26):
good quality tools another podcast. We'lljust leave it there, but Jason,
want to have you on. Thisis our tenth podcast. When I went
to Shot Show and I was tellingpeople, hey, I've started a podcast.
One of the things that kept comingup, well have you got to
ten episodes? And I said tenepisodes are like, yeah, ten episodes
is kind of like the NFL equivalentof three years, Like the average NFL
(01:48):
career is three years, and theaverage podcaster makes it for ten episodes.
So I have an episode scheduled forafter our tenth episode, so I feel
like I'm doing good. So wemade it to our tenth episode before we
falling off, So I feel goodabout that. And you've been a big
part of that, so thank you. I didn't even know that that was
a milestone, to tell you thetruth, I did. I didn't either
until someone told me about it aShot show. So I'm like, well,
(02:10):
there we go, So now I'vegot to make it to ten.
Was it what do you do whenyou make it to ten? You make
it to eleven? Yeah, sotoday me and Jason are going to talk
about fundamentals, and Jason and Iare pretty I don't know if old school
is the right word, but Ithink fundamentally based and I believe so much
in it that I it's my taglinein my company that teaching firearms to the
(02:34):
fundamentals is really the base of whatyou'll what you need to learn. What
are your thoughts, Jason, Iagree. I was taught in a fundamentally
based program. I mean I learned, I actually learned the fundamentals in the
Marine Corps. That was the firsttime I was exposed to him. And
then when I went through my myone and only police academy that I've been
(02:58):
through, the instructors there that theprogram there, I should say, was
built around fundamentals. It was afundamentally based program. Yeah. And I
think people, I think sometimes peoplewe're gonna get into what the fundamentals are.
I think people will sometimes substitute.And I think we mentioned another podcast
fundamentals for being old and it's nottrue. It works with everything, and
it really hones your skill and givesyou a good foundation. Yeah, and
(03:24):
it's it's you said the word rightthere. Foundation for shooting. You know,
their fundamentals have been around, youknow, I think since firearms were
invented. And I would say,you know, I kind of go back
to the Marine Corps because the MarineCorps been teaching some of the dumbest people
on the planet to hit the targetof five hundred yards with open sites.
And anybody that was in the militaryknows what I'm talking about. You have
(03:50):
to build a foundation before you canyou know, either shoot competition well you
know, or you know, havedefensive pistol well you know, or if
you carry the gun as part ofyour job where you know you're a you're
a guardian or a sheet dog oryou know, a warrior, and and
it's an essential tool. You've gotto have a foundation of skill, you
(04:13):
know, those fund and foundations arearound, you know, the basic shooting
fundamentals, right, So first off, we need to tell people what they
are. First. The fundamentals ofmarstership are stance, grip, side alignment,
site, picture, breathing, triggercontrol, and follow through. They
miss any Jason, No, No, that's it, And that's a The
(04:35):
first one is that gripp and stanceis kind of what we talk about when
we start talking about pistol shooting.Uh, if you get into rifle shooting,
especially like traditional rifle shooting, theycall it position, you know,
where it's not so much grip andstance but the position that you're in with
the rifle. But they're they're kindof the same thing. They are the
same thing. Well, and wehad Jalise Williams from COLT on our last
(04:57):
episode. She was a great interviewand I and I didn't know this when
I asked this question, and shesaid, I start my training with the
fundamentals. That was that was kindof cool of her to say. And
I didn't proud that or anything.That was just something she came up to
and she's like, I start mytraining evolution with the fundamentals. And I
thought that was super cool for herto hear her say that. Yeah,
(05:20):
and I'm I'm an amateur competitive shooter, you know, to say to say
the least, but I would imaginethat that. I bet there's probably a
lot of good, you know,competition shooters out there that do that.
You know, I think in anykind of a sport to get to the
next level, so to speak rightor to accomplish the next uh, the
(05:44):
next whatever, sometimes you have torevisit the basics, you know, to
make sure that you have a solidfoundation to fill in any cracks or even
build on that foundation even more.Yeah, and I think she said best.
She's like, you just get ridof all the junk. You just
focus on the fundamentals and removes allthat junks. So let's talk about the
first one. So the stance,And this is important in two different ways,
(06:09):
I think, because your stance canbe vary. It can be a
from a prone position or when wetalk about pistol shooting, generally that's taught
from standing or we move to adifferent position. But it really is the
base of whatever weapon you're using andkind of helps set you up for success.
Yeah. So with uh, let'slet's just talk about pistol shooting for
(06:31):
a second. Okay, So withhandgun shooting, you got to have a
good, a good stance. Nowthere's different I think, different philosophies are
different things that you've got to thinkthrough. Whether you know, am I
shooting competitively? And then if I'mshooting competitively, what kind you know?
Is it a running and gun andtype of type of shooting that I'm doing,
you know, or is it likebullseye shooting, you know where I
(06:54):
can you know that that stance mightbe different than you know, one from
like running on and but forward likedefensive pistol. The stuff that that I
teach and then I know you teach, your stance has to provide. I
can think of at least two things. Right, You've got to be in
balance, and I think you haveto be able to move to be mobile,
(07:16):
you know when you when you whenyou're talking about defensive pistol, I
think I think balance is one thingyou have to be able to do.
Uh, And with balance comes beingable to you know, use your stance
to help mitigate recoil. And that'snot the only part we talked talking about
grip and everything else from there,but but your stance should help you mitigate
(07:38):
the recoil of the weapon as well. Yeah, you know, Jason,
I see a lot of times,especially with brand new shooters and that kind
of parking back to it, thatit really is about you running the gun
and not the gun running you.And you can see that as people start
to increase their round counts, youknow, from one to two to three
to four, or however the stringgoes. They start to lose that good
(08:00):
stance, whether they're not forward leaningand the guns pushing on them each time.
Yeah, yeah, And that's ait's a when I when I teach
a new shooter, I will usuallyteach them, you know, more of
an Isosceles style of stance. Isoscelesbeing with the hips and shoulders kind of
squared up to the target, andthen with their strong foot maybe you know,
(08:22):
back slightly about half the distance ofthe of their other foot. But
the one thing I do, II hark on with them quite a bit,
is to get their shoulders in frontof their hips, to kick their
hips back and put their shoulders forward. And that's that's where we start to
one build that uh good good base, you know, where they've got a
(08:45):
good uh balance. That was theword I'm looking for. Lost it there
for a second. We're looking forgood balance, but we want those shoulders
in front of hips also to mitigratemitigate recoil, like I was talking about
before, and I think you justsaid it. You know, when you
start to see shooters shoot multiple rounds, especially when they start to pick the
rate of fire up. You watchthose shoulders go back right, and you
(09:07):
watch them start to stand up straight, and then you'll watch them start to
lose control of the front of thatgun. You know, where they're where
they're they're having to either look forthe iron sights or look for the dot
after each shot because it's coming offwith the target so much. Yep.
And you know, we come backto this. I think it really got
(09:28):
to have that good foundation because we'regoing to go into the next thing,
and the next one is grip.And we see this a lot, and
so many people think it's, well, my hands size has so much to
do with my grip. Well itdoesn't. It doesn't. But if you
have a good firm grip on apistol, that's you controlling that gun and
(09:48):
letting that recoil management that we talkedabout with that good stance work in unison
with the rest of you. Iwas just at a rece as at a
class for really just basic beginners,and there's one of those classes that you
have to take bring go on.So I said, okay, and I
was able to shoot my call andthen just watch and the grips that some
(10:11):
people have they just never had anyonecome up and show them that real firm
grip on the pistol and being incontrol of the gun. And I think
you taught it to me when wewere working together. Is if you watch
where that gun is going in recoil, that will tell you where you're weak
because the gun wants to take thepath of lease resistance. Yeah, exactly,
(10:33):
the gun wants to take the pathof least resistance. And it's funny
because you know, I've been teachingfor I think coming up on twenty years
or maybe at twenty years now,and when I was first taught to shoot
pistol because I didn't really learned.I didn't actually I didn't learn to shoot
handguns in the Marine Corps learned toshoot rifle. I had learned to shoot
a handgun once I got into thepolice academy and grip wasn't wasn't a big
(10:56):
deal. They didn't get on usabout how were hold the gun. And
I was taught my first gun,my first duty gun was a sig P
two twenty nine, and I wastaught, you know, by my dad
to you know, grip the gunwith your strong hand, with your thumb
down and then cross your thumbs andnobody ever really corrected that, and I
(11:18):
didn't get corrected until I started carryingin nineteen eleven, where I had to
keep my thumb up on the safetyand then that grip kind of corrected itself.
But it wasn't until you know,a few years after being a firearms
instructor that you know, we asa fire searchers at my department kind of
saw how important the grip was,you know, how important it was to
(11:39):
get people into a proper grip.We had so many people that did it,
did not have good grips on thepistol, usually a low grip on
the pistol, you know, soas they're shooting that that gun starting to
kind of almost squirt out the topof their hands. And we fixed a
lot of people's grips, you know, trying to get their thumbs up and
get the palm of that support handall the way on the grip and then
(12:00):
you know, let those thumbs layover the topy of each other pointing forward,
which pulls their hands up on thepistol a lot higher. And once
you got some of these people thathave been shooting for years, you know,
and it was real foreign to themto change their grips. Once you
were able to do that, theynoticed that they just had so much more
control over the pistol. At thepistol, I don't want to jump out
(12:20):
of their hands, you know,especially when you're carrying a you know,
a little bit larger caliber like aforty or forty five that's got a little
more significant recoil, right, AndI think we talk about it. We
talk so our stance really is controllingour body, and our grint really works
into controlling the pistol that's in ourhands. Yeah, that's a good way
of looking at it, I think, you know, and they and they
(12:41):
work in conjunction. You know.I do a little demonstration with with with
brand new students where I'll show them, you know what. I'll start off
with the stance and I'll say,look when I stand with my feet parallel
to each other, straight across,and my show you know, my and
my shoulders in line with my hips, and I'll shoot some rounds and they
can actually see my body sway back, you know, as the as the
(13:03):
pistol recoils. And then I'll fixthat and show them, you know,
kind of how it sits flat andI'll do the same thing with grip.
I'll have a low grip on thepistol and they can watch the front end
of the pistol rock itself up aftereach shot, you know, and then
I'll put a correct grip on thepistol and and they'll see how the gun
just stays flat and stays on target, you know, through recoil. Yeah,
(13:28):
you can. You can watch it, and especially when you can demonstrate
it for people and they can actuallysee it for themselves, because they don't
see it until a lot of thesepeople are a lot of times new shooters,
even in the police academies. Justa rough guess, I think it's
a sixty six sixty of them isthe first time shooting a gun for any
real reason. Sometimes it's even theirfirst gun, and just it's a it
(13:52):
feels foreign to them at first.Yes, Yeah, you see a lot
a lot more people come through policeacademies that don't have, you know,
any experience with firearms, were veryvery little. The next two kind of
go together, and their side alignmentand site picture. I think if you
were going to look at the fundamentals, this is one of the things that's
(14:15):
I don't want to say changed,but has morph a little bit with the
advent of red dots. We talkedabout our side alignment, and we talk
about iron sights. We're talking aboutequal distance on the right and left,
having the front sight centered in therear sight and keeping them both level.
And then our side picture is whatwe're looking at when we're looking at the
(14:35):
target. Now we've had to kindof change our verbage a little bit with
with the red dots. Yeah,it's interesting and I can I probably could
talk too much about this. I'veactually thought quite a bit about side alignment
and site picture and especially with reddots, especially when we started putting red
(14:56):
dots on rifles, because you know, the question came up, you know,
do we even start to teach ironsights to you know, our l
E rifle shooters, right, soyou know in law enforcement, Uh,
we were lucky at my at mydepartment, at my range, we have
one hundred yard line. We haveone hundred yard berm, so we could
(15:16):
actually shoot one hundred yards. Butyou know most places don't. Most places
shoot fifty fifty yards and in andso you know, I remember getting into
the debate when when the red dotsstarted to become, you know, just
pretty much prevalent on on rifles.Did do we even teach iron sights anymore?
Do we even teach side alignments,side picture? And that's actually when
(15:39):
I was asked, is actually bymy by my mentor. He says,
you know, well, what kindof a program do you want to run?
Do you want to run a fundamentalsbased program or or not? Right?
And so I will say, theamount of time we spent on iron
sights and actually lining the sites upand focusing on the front site, the
amount of time changed. We startedto spend more time on the red dots
(16:02):
because that's what we would use.But I think the red dot allows it.
It's short, it's a shortcut.Basically, you know, we don't
have to align the sites anymore now, right, they're already aligned. It's
just a holograph that we got tostick on the target. The big,
big thing is and what I noticedwith teaching red dot on on pistols was
that this idea of focusing on thetarget when when you're shooting, when you're
(16:27):
practicing your fundamentals really hung up alot of old shooters, you know,
that are used to lining up thoseiron sites and then focusing on that front
site, you know, and andunderstanding how important that was to to not
to to now now we've got tolook at the target right now, we
have to kind of superimpose that doton the target. And so so yeah,
so the verbiage has changed, andand and that I think that one
(16:49):
particular part right there where you're tellingpeople don't focus on the on the front
side. Now we're going to focuson the target, you know. But
I think part of that is isif you got passed the fundamentals, and
I'm talking about not competition shooting.I think that I think the people in
competition shooting have done this for along long time because I've heard some you
(17:12):
know, pretty renowned shooters on onYouTube and stuff, you know, saying
that, you know that instructors spendtoo much time outside of land a site,
pitcher, they spend too much timefocusing on the front site. I
think these guys have got so manyrounds down range, so many draws,
you know, and so many presentationsof the weapon, that they put the
(17:32):
pistol in the same place each time, right in front of their face.
And they've they've done it so muchthat they don't have to focus on the
on the sites. They don't haveto align those sites, just perfect the
pistols right where it needs to be. And if you look at sites,
really all we're doing is we're usingwhether they're red dot or whether it's iron
sights, it's just con it's aconfirmation tool that the guns point at where
(17:56):
we wanted to hit right. Sothe red dot is now allowing us to
do what a lot of iron sightshooters did for a long long time,
and that was focus on the target. And just as Colonel Jeff Cooper used
to call it, use flash sitepicture where they would flash those sits in
front of their face, but allthe whole time, you know, focusing
(18:18):
on the target. And I thinkwhen you talk to people that have been
in shootings, that have been incritical instances and had to had to shoot
an adversary, especially up close,especially within seven yards, and it you
know, rapidly evolving, they don'tremember seeing the sights, yet they'll make
center mass hits, you know.And I can think of one officer in
(18:40):
particular who's a friend of mine thatI work with. He doesn't remember seeing
the sights at all, but madecenter mass hits and that's because of all
that time on the range of liningup those sites and focusing on the front
site and putting the gun in thatsame spot. When it came down to
it, he was able to focuson the thread. And now the red
dots they let us do that.They let us do that without having to
(19:03):
spend all that time, you know, focusing on the iron sites. It's
kind of nice. Yeah, AndI think it's still you still have side
alignment inside picture. And when youstart taking people, whether they're brand new
shooters or shooters who were just workingon their irons, you still have a
side alignment. If you're gun isin a weird orientation, you're not going
to have your dot, and ifyou aren't looking at your target, that
(19:27):
dot won't get to superimposed being targetfocused like we talk about. So you
still have that. I noticed whenI first started shooting a red dot that
I must have been having poor sidealignment because I knew I had to first
start adjustified dot one. I'm like, I've had thousands of draws I've been
(19:48):
shooting for upteen years, and policecategories and stuff, but I thought back
to it, I'm like, wewere always able to cheat with iron sights.
Your vision was able to cheat andget the get a side alignment that
was good enough for combat shooting whereyou were in this general area of where
(20:10):
you needed to be, and thatdot now has screamed that you Yeah,
you were close enough, but youwere had some orientation on the gun.
And now when you were looking througha tube on the top of the gun
and we're going to talk about onehere in a minute. Now, you
can't do that. You have tobe true to your alignment of the sites
of the gun. Yeah, that'strue, you're right. And if you
(20:33):
the way that I that I've taughtnew red dot shooters, I kind of
have a mantra of this front sightrear site DOT right, front sight rear
site DOT and they have them dothat first. And what they find is
as they're looking for the rear siteto bring that, especially with the glock
right. So everybody knows the gripangle on the block if you draw it
straight out, it's typically oriented upjust because of the way that that the
(20:56):
grip angle is needed having to rollyour wrist, that strong wrist over.
So what they'll notice is they'll seefront site rear sight and as they're bringing
the rear sight up, tolign itwith the front side. The dot shows
up, well, the dot showsup just before the front sight's actually in
the notch. You know, it'sit's actually pretty pretty exact. I guess
(21:17):
you know. I think you're right. We cheated or fudged, or we
could cheat or fudge quite a bitsometimes just shooting with the front site right
up close and now with the withthe dot. Yeah, you have to
have the gun aligned. It's gottabe. Uh, it has to be
aligned. And uh, I don'tthink that those fundamentals side alignment the site
picture go away with with the reddot. I think they mean the same.
(21:42):
The we don't necessarily the alignment partis uh, maybe not as prevalent
as it as it was with withirons, right, because we're not really
aligning it. We're finding the dot. And once we find the dot,
you have side alignment, right,so and then then side picture obviously you're
(22:03):
just super imposing that red dot onthe target. So I think the fundamentals
stay the same. I think thatis, the mechanics are a little different,
right, I will I will tellyou this. We have noticed and
then you've noticed as much as Ihave. Is that having the dot is
now because the one thing as instructorswe can't see we can see what your
pistols doing, we can see howyour stances, we can see what you're
doing with your trigger. We can'tsee what you're looking at. And now
(22:27):
the dots on guns have given usone more thing to what your dot doing?
Where's your dot coming from? Whatyou know? It's given us one
more tools instructors to kind of helppeople with their side alignment side picture.
Yeah. Well, and also aswe get into trigger control too, you
see that if the guide's going everytime I shoot, I see that dot
go low and left, then youkind of know what they're doing exactly.
(22:51):
The next is breathing, and breathing'simportance kind of varies on what weapons system
you're using and kind of what standsyou're and yet to breathe when shooting the
gun. You can't hold your breathfor everyone link for that perfect site picture
because your gun's just gonna start toshake more. And then when it comes
to rifle. It depending if you'rein a prom position or how you're positioned.
If you're panting or breathing, youknow, we can watch it on
(23:15):
the target you string shots up anddown. Breathing is important just to try
and lessen the impact it has becauseyou have to breathe, but lessen the
impact on how you're moving the pistolor rifle. Depending. Yeah, with
with new shooters, new handgun shooters, I should say I don't harp on
breathing a whole lot, you know, because your first, uh, you
(23:40):
know, first majority of your timeis when we're talking about police recruits especially,
and you've got let's say you've goteighty to one hundred hours to work
with them. You know that firstforty hours, you know, your your
distances aren't that great just yet youstart to touch on the twenty five yard
line, which I think is wherebreathing really starts to kick in when you
start to have some distance. Italk about breathing after shooting quite a bit.
(24:03):
So they get done, you know, shooting, and we have say,
down, scan and breathe, youknow, to to get them to
bring their heart rate down and tomake sure that they're breathing, because we
typically don't breathe while we're shooting.We typically hold our breath. Right now,
we start talking about a rifle,it takes on a whole new meaning,
you know, because once you setup a good position with your rifle,
even if you're in a nice,solid, prone position, your breathing
(24:27):
affects side aliament site picture and theorientation of the barrel of the gun,
right, So breathing is a bigdeal. And and making sure that you're
not shooting, you know with atleast I don't. I don't teach with
the with the lungs full air.Some people do. Some people say breathe
in and hold it. I alwaysteach them to check their natural point of
(24:47):
aim with no air in their lungs, so they're letting their air out,
you know, and coming on ontotarget with side lambment site picture, focusing
on that front site and then theair is coming out of their lungs and
that's all settling in as their pressof the trigger. But it will harp
on it a whole lot with withbrand new handgun shooters, you know,
until we start getting to the twentyfive yard line or if you do me
fifty yard line shooting with your handgun, then breathing, then you can see
(25:11):
it, right, you can seethat gun moving around on the target yep.
And you know, I think That'sone thing too, is these fundamentals
are the same, but they havedifferent applications for whether it's a handgun or
a rifle or a shotgun. There'sstill the fundamentals, but what's the application
you're using them in? Right?Right? And you know, like I
(25:32):
said, I think breathing is important. But usually, like we have a
written test we give our recruits,they we usually put you know what,
what's the most important fundamental. Iknow you're going to ask that, so
we'll get to that now, Buttypically the least important for me with handgun
shooting is breathing. Yeah, butlike I said, you just said it
(25:55):
though, when you put a riflein somebody's hands, breathing is important,
you know, especially when you're startingto hit it targets at a greater distance.
So the next one we're gonna goto trigger control. And this doesn't
matter what weapon system you're on.You can make your round do amazing things
just by doing different things with thetrigger. And I tell a story all
(26:15):
about myself. For the longest time, I was a single action shooter shooting
nineteen eleven's for a long time.And if you've shot a single action pistol,
you notice the triggers real crisp realpronounced doesn't take a whole lot of
movement to move the trigger to therear. And I found when I went
to had to go to a strikerfired pistol, that single action was hiding
(26:40):
a lot of flaws I was doing. And I shot it for so long
I thought it was the greatest thingever. And then I went to a
striker fire pistol. Well, I'vebeen shooting for years. Why can't I
hit the broad side of a barn. Well, it's because I had crappy
trigger control and I'd just been ableto get away with it for so long
with a single action pistol. Sowhen we talk about trigger control, we're
(27:02):
talking about that smooth, steady pressto the rear, trying not to disturb
our sites and the orientation of ourpistol. Yes, and this is where
and explaining this fundamental, especially tonew shooters, this is where you really
got to watch the words you use, because words have meaning, and they
have meaning consciously and subconsciously. Rightand so, and you just said that
(27:27):
press the trigger, And that's that'show I always like to verbalize that to
a new shooter. We're pressing thetrigger like you're pressing the button to get
on to an elevator. Right,it's not a pull. We don't.
We don't pull the trigger because pullinghas a has a connotation to it,
right, it kind of has maybea forceful connotation. I'm pulling, like
(27:48):
pulling on a rope or or pullinga door open, or pulling my my
gun safe over to the other cornerof the room or something like that.
And you know, we don't.We obviously don't slap the trigger or mash
the trigger either. Right, it'sthis, it's this steady even press.
And actually the way that I'll explainit to people is is having spell press
right in their head as they're pressingp R ees s, and the gun
(28:12):
should fire sometime after the P andsometime before the last s, right,
to get that nice surprise break.But to go back to what you're talking
about, because I shot the nineteeneleven I still shoot nineteen elevens. I
love them, and uh, Icarried one for twelve years on duty.
(28:32):
As a matter of fact, Ieven think about carrying another carrying one again
when I, uh, when Iretire. Sometimes when I sit around thinking
about that, uh, but theuh, it's not so much the poundage
of the trigger, but the lengthof the of the travel the trigger,
right, and when you go toa striker fired gun, which you're real
prevalent, now you've got that longerlength and that shorter crisper trigger on a
(28:56):
single action gun. Does it hidesa lot? And what I'll in and
just to your point, I'll noticemuch more trigger issues with new handgun shooters
than I will with new AR platformrifle shooters. You know, the AR
platform has got a single action shortsingle action triggering it as well. And
(29:18):
I almost very rarely see trigger controlissues with new shooters shooting rifles, but
always see it with you know,new block pistol shooters or M and P
pistol shooters or shoutout system shooters.You know, anybody's got that striker fired
trigger. And I think I thinkthat's directly related to the the distance you
have to easily press that trigger tolet the gun go off. Right.
(29:41):
Yeah, it's you know, it'sfunny. It took me a long time
to figure that out. Like I'vebeen doing this for you, beat myself
up. I've been doing this foryears. And then when I came to
that revelation and someone you know,like, well, yeah, you're shooting
at nineteen eleven, so you gotaway with a lot. Oh yeah I
(30:02):
did. And it's amazing how thatjust crap up and you just didn't realize
it. You know. You know, what I did actually, or what
I found actually improves my shoes,especially when I switched to a glock,
was practicing my double action revolver shootingmore. Uh. And I read it
somewhere I wish I could remember,because it wasn't something I came up with
on my own. It was somebodyI had written that somewhere in a book.
(30:29):
I read, somebody much more famousthan you or I, and uh,
you know, said to practice doubleyour double action revolver shooting and it
would help your trigger control and allof your other you know, modern weapons
so to speak. I guess.So I found that if I if I
went out and practiced with my revolvers, which I'll have you know, tend
of eleven pound triggers in them,and were able to shoot pretty quickly and
(30:53):
and and shoot accurately and control thosetriggers, it was much easier to run
my I you know, four andthree fifteen block trigger, right. You
know, it's kind of kind oflike when I was running track and stuff
in high school and you had yourbig, heavy training shoes, but then
when you went to the race day, you wore these little, flat,
little lightweight shoes, so you're faster. Same thing. I think, there
(31:17):
you go. Yeah. So thelast one, Jason we talked about is
follow through. And as you evolveas a shooter, I think this is
probably well, we're gonna pick whichone we think is most important, but
the follow through setting up for asecond shot, not just letting go of
the gun, letting go of thetrigger, and it's all those things.
(31:37):
It's resetting the trigger, regaining thesights, and setting up for an additional
shot. And when just not becauseyou're going to shoot a second time,
but if you're only shooting to shootone round, the human nature of you
is to fire that round and getthat gun out of your face as quickly
as you cancel. You can seewhere the round hit, and that changes
subconsciously. Because you haven't fired theround actually and you already started moving the
(32:00):
guns, you can start looking atit and it changes where our rounds are
impacting. So I think that followthrough is an important part of that.
Some people sometimes want to race past. Yes, I think it is too
and and and for a couple ofdifferent reasons, for different weapons systems and
different types of shooting. You know, in UH in combat handgun, you
(32:22):
know what what you and I doa lot of teaching in. You will
see new shooters move the gun beforethe rounds even out of the barrel,
and they'll start hitting low. Andit's pretty easy because you need to tell
they're doing it because you just watchthem, and you'll watch them look over
the tights right or look over thetop of the dot looking for the hit
on the target. Always got mewhy they why they felt they had to
(32:44):
do that when they had a reddot, because they're looking at the target
already right with iron sights. Thatwas it made a little more sense.
And then looking over the top ofthe sights. But you'll actually see their
heads move, You'll see there youcan see their eyes make them more clear
clear eye protection. You can actuallysee their eyes go up or see their
eyebrows go up. And then youknow, you confirm it by all the
low hits on the target. Butthen with a I'm sorry, I'm gonna
(33:09):
ahead of myself another thing. Reasonwe want to harp on that I'm keeping
the gun up one is to makesure we do follow through and make a
good hit. But I see alot of shooters now, you know,
you'll you'll say, okay, nextnext string of fires is three shots,
right, They'll shoot three shots andimmediately drop that down, you know,
(33:30):
to some kind of a low readyposition or or into a seoul position or
something like that, instead of keepingthe gun up, you know, in
case the threat didn't actually go down, you know, if three three rounds
wasn't enough, you know. SoI think that followed through is important from
a different issue as well, justmaking good hits on the target, and
you know, because it's that lastfundamental, but also keeping the pistol in
(33:52):
a fighting position, you know,I like to say keeping the pistol on
the window. It's like we're fightingthrough a window, and you want to
keep that pistol up in the window, up up near your face so that
you can, uh, you know, assess your target and if you have
to respond with more rounds than thepistols in a position to do that for
sure. So all right, Jason, we've been through all of them since
(34:14):
you're the guest on our tenth podcast, Breaking History here, which do you
think is the most important to you? And they they're all important. So
let me let me rephrase that.Which one do you find you have to
go back and correct the most whenyou start working with new shooters or even
experienced shooters. What's the one youthink you had to focus the most on.
(34:36):
Uh? It's trigger control. Triggercontrol is the one that I have
to Uh, I have to focusthe most on it. Uh. And
it's the one that always creeps backup. UH. That's that's the one.
The one thing that that we alwaysare having to return to is uh
is trigger control. And and andand you'll you'll get somebody smooth it out.
(34:58):
You'll get you'll get them you knowwhere they're controlling the trigger and they're
making good hits, and then youput them on a timer and and speed
them up, and all of asudden, they start smacking the crap out
of that trigger, and you know, all their rounds are going low left
or low right if they're a lefty. And so it's it's the one.
(35:19):
And it's the one I constantly haveto with myself as well. If when
I start to pick up speed,it seems as we start to pick up
speed, trigger control is the firstone to go. I would say that
the next important one after that's probablygrip. Having a good grip on the
pistol, especially with pistols, havinga good grip on the pistol is is
(35:39):
very important. But but I tendyou know, with new shooters or even
with somebody that I'm working with,if we get enough time to where we
get them locked into a good grip, typically don't have to go back and
revisit it, you know, unlessI'm trying to break get them to break
bad habits. You know, maybethey they've had some training someplace else,
or they've shot for a while andjust have never address their poor grip.
(36:01):
The one I have to typically goback and we have to clean up,
even with myself, is trigger control. Yeah, I probably would agree with
you on trigger control is both important. If I had to pick a different
one other than you, I probablywould have went to grip. And you
see it a lot of times,and I think it's a lot of times
because people just don't get enough timeon their gun. There. Even when
(36:21):
we were talking with Jalise in ourlast episode or I'm sorry, Jay Le's
is you don't. You always wantmore time, and whether it's cops,
hobby gun shooters, or just learningin the pistol or a rifle for the
first time, you just don't haveenough time, and that huge time lapse
(36:44):
you forget how a good grip feltin your hand, and how when you
had a good grip you were reallyable to tighten your groups on your target,
and how you felt in control ofthe pistol. So I think,
like I said, if I hadto pick a different one, I would
say, the grip is the oneyou want to focus on, because not
everyone carries a pistol every day,or not everyone gets to the range as
much as we'd like to. AndI think that grip, like you said,
(37:06):
if it's not trigger control, it'sgrip. And when you take care
of those two, you improve yourshooting for sure. Yeah, absolutely absolutely
yea. And the grips, youknow, especially if you were if you've
got to have it built up,that neural pathway gets pretty pretty deep on
the portant grips. I fix alot of grips with with people that have
shot before and uh, and soso that's uh, it's all It's like
(37:31):
over the years, that one's becomemore and more and more important. But
h but I still say my numberone is trigger control. Yeah, I'm
with you there, And I,like I said, if I had to
pick a different one to be different, the I do notice too. I
think people forget how important the gripis and you really have to be in
control of your gun. I thinkpeople forget that sometimes. Oh yeah,
(37:52):
well I have to. I'll drawa pistol and fire off the first round
and my left handle slip off,or I'll have to read it and I
have to remind myself to squeeze thegun, you know, to really crush
the gun with my with my lefthand, my support hand. Yep.
So those are the fundamentals, Jason. I think they're important. I think
(38:12):
when you look for training, youreally want to find one that's really based
on the fundamentals because it gives youthat great foundation and really focuses on what
you really need to do to makewhatever weapon platform you're shooting shoot well and
to shoot it accurately. Yeah,and you have to have that foundation of
fundamentals, and you've got to goback to them to clean them up,
(38:32):
you know, as as you progressin your shooting, you know, and
just as uh, Jalie is thathow you say your name is ja Le's
you know, she just as shehad brought up. Yeah, you gotta
you have to go back to him. And it's it's always it's typically when
I go out and practice, Idefinitely don't have the practice regimen that she
(38:55):
has uh to listening to that.I don't have the I don't have the
ambu the money either. But I'llalways start off with with some sort of
fundamentals, you know, as faras you know, either coming out of
the holster or if I want tojust kind of make sure my my trigger
is in good shape and work triggercontrol you know on a little tiny target
(39:19):
or or whatever have you. Youknow, kind of start off with that
stuff before I get into trying todo anything faster, you know, anything
complicated. Yeah. I was superhappy to hear that from her, for
sure. So it's fundamentals. Sowe've covered those. Look for them.
If you need help with stuff likethat, find someone who really kind of
leaves in the fundamentals and goes fromthere and they'll really approve your shooting.
(39:44):
All right, Jason. So nowthe fun part we get to go back
to talking about a gun that Iput together and then gave you to try.
And it's the Shadow Systems d Rnine twenty combat version with a aim
point P two acro on the top. So any of you have listened to
(40:04):
this podcast know only huge Shadow SystemsHonk. I don't know why. I
just really like them. I thinkthey shoot really well. So Jason,
let's first talk about the gun.When we first start talking about the gun,
I love the frame, the stipplingjobs, and the cutouts it has
for thumb placement stuff. I reallylike what Shadow's done there. What were
(40:28):
your first impressions of the DR ninetwenty compact And before we get into that,
for those who you aren't familiar withShadow, the DR nine twenty be
your standard sized pistol, like yourGlock seventeen. So, Jason, what
do you think? I thought itwas a great gun. I'd been wanting
to shoot one. I've kind ofseen a few of them floating around our
range at work. I didn't getto shoot one though. That was actually
(40:52):
the one that you gave me wasthe first one that I shot. But
the and finish on it's real nice. The polymer seems very high quality and
just like you were saying, Ilike the stippling. The stippling on it
is a I tend to like alittle bit rougher, But I think for
a production gun, that's a thatthat that's a good roughness that they have
(41:13):
on there. It's usable, it'snot slick. It doesn't seem like if
you if you wore and see alltheir ord up against your body, it
would each close up. But ithad enough grip to it to keep my
my hands on there. Usually mygauge is my left thumb. I'll put
my I'm a right handed shooter,so I'll put my left thumb kind of
on those little shooting pads they've gotup on the front part of the frame
(41:35):
there, and they've got them stippled, which I really liked that they had
that part stippled. And uh,if if my thumb slides off, then
there's not enough grip there while I'mshooting. And it didn't slide off.
I had. I had plenty ofplenty of grip. Yeah, I think
they make it just from that,and you'll lots of places are doing that.
(41:57):
Now you can send your gun offto tons of places to head blueing.
Your concepts being one of them haveyour gun stippled, and lots of
places are stippling up around that justin front of the takedown levers for the
pistol to really give you that touchpoint to know where your thumb needs to
be every time. Yeah, someplacecalled the gas pedal. That's where you
push that push that thumb. Theyincrease that pressure between that you're offhand or
(42:22):
your support hand thumb and forefinger.It really helps you to kind of lock
the pistol in. So yeah,I did. I like that. I
thought the the one you gave mewas all black. I've seen them with
that kind of rose colored barrel inthem as well, which I actually kind
of like. I think it's kindof cool looking. But the Sarah cot
(42:42):
Or, I don't, I don'tknow what what kind of finish they put
on there, but it seems verydurable, look real nice. It's good
looking gun. I mean just youknow, as far as you know holding
it, it feels you know,substantial, and like I said, it
feels high quality. Yeah. AndI think the other real bonus to Shadows
is there flatter facing trigger for anout of the box gun that you didn't
(43:05):
have to do anything. I thinkit has a real Chris trigger for a
Striker fire pistol. What did youthink of it? I I agree,
Yeah, I like the trigger.It's it's it's almost like having an aftermarket
trigger, you know, put init. It was I'm not a the
flat face triggers are typically not myfavorite, but that one's actually really nice.
I liked it. It has ashorter length of travel in it as
(43:28):
well, and it resets real nice. I had had a nice Chris reset,
nice Chris break, and especially fora gun that I don't think you
have a lot of rounds through it, so it I actually really liked the
trigger, and I was very impressedwith the trigger, all right, Jason,
So the P two acro from aimPoint Now, they had an eight
(43:52):
A first version of this, andI think some of the rips on it
were that the battery life and stufflike that. Am points fixed that I
haven't just better and I've had thisfor over a year now and it's still
bright as day and still running realwell. It's a little it's an enclosed
demitter, which depending on what whenwe talk about all the time, what
(44:13):
your mission is, maybe something youwant especially for like an off duty carry
it's nice keeping the lens and stuffout there. But what did you think
of the acro P two. Iactually liked it. It was very easy
to find, you know, whenI was looking through it. Just you
know, my most of my experienceson an R is on the trigic on
R M R. The window actuallyseems like it's a little bit larger.
(44:36):
I don't know if that's the caseor not, but it seems a little
larger. But the site itself islarger, and so I think it is.
It is kind of a large site. I don't think it's unwieldy or
cumbersome. I think it's it's justlarger. And I think that's what you
what you end up getting when youget the closed demitter. You know,
probably less worry about it, somethinghappening to it, you know, damage
(45:00):
they're getting snowed on or something likethat. You're you know, getting gunk
in there where it actually blocks theemitter. But but I liked it.
I thought I thought it was actuallyvery easy to pick up. And and
like I said that, I enjoyedshooting through what seemed to be a little
bit larger window. Yeah, andI've had a chance to have it on
the range a couple of times.And what I've noticed is their glass is
(45:22):
super clear and what you'd expect froman aim point. They put it in
a pistol mounted optic and it justseems so crystal to look through it.
It did, actually, now thatyou bring that up, it was.
It was very very clear. Iuse a points on my rifles. I
do like aame points there. Thereare some of my favorite red dots and
(45:43):
so, uh yeah, it's uhit, It's what I would expect from
them. Yeah, So I thinkthis is a great option for an optic,
you know by once cry once,it's durable, it's rugged. It's
gonna cost you some decent money.But I I think it's an optic for
the long hole. Yeah, Iwould agree. I would agree, especially
(46:06):
if like I said before, it'sjust it's a little large. But any
closed and bitter I think I thinkas far as a close getting a closed
and bitter, I don't know howyou get it any smaller. So yeah,
and like I said before, Idon't think it's unwieldy. I think
you could conceal it if you wantedto. And I think in a duty
rig it's it's uh you know justfine. So yeah, and I don't
(46:27):
didn't meant think to mention this.This DR nine twenty was built specifically to
take an acro on it, soit mounts directly to the slide. I
think you'd lose a little bit ofthat if you added some plate. So
it's just one of the other bonusesof Shadows mounting system as being able a
mounted directly to the slide. Ittook all of ten minutes to mount it,
and uh Mark MARKO witness marked themounting screw and but it stayed on
(46:51):
there and it's been a great,great runner for so far. Yeah,
it seemed very solid when I wasout there shooting it. O Jason,
So we're coming to the end.I usually ask you here what products are
you looking to see? But thanksto the good folks at Springfield Armor or
at Springfield Armory, they were ableto help me get an ASA thirty five.
(47:13):
For those of you who aren't familiarwith the SA thirty five is similar
to the Browning High Power, whichis a single action nine milimeters pistol.
For those of you eighties buffs,it is what Axel Foley carried in Beverly
Hills cop Hence the reason why Ihad to get one. Next time,
we're going to have another guest inbetween the next time we have Jason on.
But next time, when Jason's on, we're going to review this pistol
(47:36):
and kind of talk about what wehave there. I'm super excited to shoot
it, Jason. I know you'resuper excited to shoot it. Oh yeah.
One of my favorite pistols, theBrowning High Power. I don't own
one, I've shot several of them. I will own one eventually. I
may actually buy one of those Springfieldsbecause it came to my house first,
so I got to see it andhold on to it before I had to
(47:59):
turn it over to you. Soyeah, and again, thanks to Springfield
Armory for helping us get this ata little bit of a discount. We
always appreciate people trying to help usout as we grow our businesses. Here,
Jason tell everyone where they can findBlue Angil Concepts again, So again,
you find me at Blue Angel Conceptsdot com or send me an email
(48:20):
at Blue Angel Concepts at gmail dotcom. All right, before we get
out of here, we'd be remissif we didn't thank our sponsor Mile High
Shooting Accessories up in Frederick, Coloradoanytime at Mile High Shooting dot com.
Both me and Jason have spent alot of time with those folks. They're
good folks. They were kind enoughto sponsor our podcast and we're so glad
to have them. Jason, youwant to say anything tomal High, I
(48:44):
tell you I don't like going togun shops. I actually went to a
gun show this weekend. Having toa gun show and forever, but I
had to get the kids out ofthe house, and there's just so many
people out there that just don't knowwhat they're talking about, and you kind
of overhear them, you know,when you're when you're at the counter and
everything, and that's not Mile Highshop. I refer so many people up
(49:07):
to their shop, especially when itwhen it comes to stuff that that I
don't know about, because I definitelydon't know everything, because they are so
knowledgeable up there, and you cantrust that what they're telling you is is
good information, you know, whetherit has to do with bolt guns,
gas guns, handguns, suppressors,I mean, you name it. They
(49:31):
got people up there that know whatthey're talking about and they're just they're nice
as all get out. I enjoytheir shop. They have a huge shop.
They're there. It's new, orI guess maybe it's not that new
now. I just remember their oldshop. Their their shop that they have
up there now is is huge.They've got all kinds of inventory. I
(49:51):
just I can't say enough about them. I think they're a great shop.
That's right. Uh So, wewant to thank Mile High again for sponsoring
us. If you go up theplease be sure to mention that you heard
about him on the three or threeTactle podcast so that they know that the
words get doubt about how great theyare. Jason will see in about a
month or so. Sounds good.All right, guys, we'll talk to
you later.
The Three or Three Tactical Podcast isproud to be sponsored by mile High Shooting
Accessories. Mile High is a locallyowned, full service firearm store which has
world class products along with a worldclass sales staff and gun building crew.
Mile Highest perfect for your first gunbuild and purchase, or when you're ready
to build a world championship winning gun. Mile High as a store for you,
(00:21):
celebrating twenty years in business and asthey say in the store, a
mile high above the rest. MileHigh is located at fifty eight thirty one
Ideal Drive, Frederick, Colorado,or anytime at mile high shooting dot com.
Thank you to mile High for supportingthe Three or Three Tactical Podcast.
This podcast teaches firearms by use ofthe fundamentals of marksmanship and is for educational
(00:43):
purposes only and should not be usedas legal advice or for any justification.
Hey, everybody, Welcome to thethree or Three Tactical Podcast, our tenth
episode. We're joined by Jason fromBlue Angel Concepts. Jason, tell them
who you are and where they canfind you on Blue Angel. Hi.
(01:06):
I'm Jason. I own a companycalled Blue Angel Concepts. You see my
website at Blue Angel concepts dot com, or you can send me an email
at Blue Angel Concepts at gmail dotcom. Great Jason does good work,
and Jason is currently repairing one ofmy firearms. We'll talk about screws and
(01:26):
good quality tools another podcast. We'lljust leave it there, but Jason,
want to have you on. Thisis our tenth podcast. When I went
to Shot Show and I was tellingpeople, hey, I've started a podcast.
One of the things that kept comingup, well have you got to
ten episodes? And I said tenepisodes are like, yeah, ten episodes
is kind of like the NFL equivalentof three years, Like the average NFL
(01:48):
career is three years, and theaverage podcaster makes it for ten episodes.
So I have an episode scheduled forafter our tenth episode, so I feel
like I'm doing good. So wemade it to our tenth episode before we
falling off, So I feel goodabout that. And you've been a big
part of that, so thank you. I didn't even know that that was
a milestone, to tell you thetruth, I did. I didn't either
until someone told me about it aShot show. So I'm like, well,
(02:10):
there we go, So now I'vegot to make it to ten.
Was it what do you do whenyou make it to ten? You make
it to eleven? Yeah, sotoday me and Jason are going to talk
about fundamentals, and Jason and Iare pretty I don't know if old school
is the right word, but Ithink fundamentally based and I believe so much
in it that I it's my taglinein my company that teaching firearms to the
(02:34):
fundamentals is really the base of whatyou'll what you need to learn. What
are your thoughts, Jason, Iagree. I was taught in a fundamentally
based program. I mean I learned, I actually learned the fundamentals in the
Marine Corps. That was the firsttime I was exposed to him. And
then when I went through my myone and only police academy that I've been
(02:58):
through, the instructors there that theprogram there, I should say, was
built around fundamentals. It was afundamentally based program. Yeah. And I
think people, I think sometimes peoplewe're gonna get into what the fundamentals are.
I think people will sometimes substitute.And I think we mentioned another podcast
fundamentals for being old and it's nottrue. It works with everything, and
it really hones your skill and givesyou a good foundation. Yeah, and
(03:24):
it's it's you said the word rightthere. Foundation for shooting. You know,
their fundamentals have been around, youknow, I think since firearms were
invented. And I would say,you know, I kind of go back
to the Marine Corps because the MarineCorps been teaching some of the dumbest people
on the planet to hit the targetof five hundred yards with open sites.
And anybody that was in the militaryknows what I'm talking about. You have
(03:50):
to build a foundation before you canyou know, either shoot competition well you
know, or you know, havedefensive pistol well you know, or if
you carry the gun as part ofyour job where you know you're a you're
a guardian or a sheet dog oryou know, a warrior, and and
it's an essential tool. You've gotto have a foundation of skill, you
(04:13):
know, those fund and foundations arearound, you know, the basic shooting
fundamentals, right, So first off, we need to tell people what they
are. First. The fundamentals ofmarstership are stance, grip, side alignment,
site, picture, breathing, triggercontrol, and follow through. They
miss any Jason, No, No, that's it, And that's a The
(04:35):
first one is that gripp and stanceis kind of what we talk about when
we start talking about pistol shooting.Uh, if you get into rifle shooting,
especially like traditional rifle shooting, theycall it position, you know,
where it's not so much grip andstance but the position that you're in with
the rifle. But they're they're kindof the same thing. They are the
same thing. Well, and wehad Jalise Williams from COLT on our last
(04:57):
episode. She was a great interviewand I and I didn't know this when
I asked this question, and shesaid, I start my training with the
fundamentals. That was that was kindof cool of her to say. And
I didn't proud that or anything.That was just something she came up to
and she's like, I start mytraining evolution with the fundamentals. And I
thought that was super cool for herto hear her say that. Yeah,
(05:20):
and I'm I'm an amateur competitive shooter, you know, to say to say
the least, but I would imaginethat that. I bet there's probably a
lot of good, you know,competition shooters out there that do that.
You know, I think in anykind of a sport to get to the
next level, so to speak rightor to accomplish the next uh, the
(05:44):
next whatever, sometimes you have torevisit the basics, you know, to
make sure that you have a solidfoundation to fill in any cracks or even
build on that foundation even more.Yeah, and I think she said best.
She's like, you just get ridof all the junk. You just
focus on the fundamentals and removes allthat junks. So let's talk about the
first one. So the stance,And this is important in two different ways,
(06:09):
I think, because your stance canbe vary. It can be a
from a prone position or when wetalk about pistol shooting, generally that's taught
from standing or we move to adifferent position. But it really is the
base of whatever weapon you're using andkind of helps set you up for success.
Yeah. So with uh, let'slet's just talk about pistol shooting for
(06:31):
a second. Okay, So withhandgun shooting, you got to have a
good, a good stance. Nowthere's different I think, different philosophies are
different things that you've got to thinkthrough. Whether you know, am I
shooting competitively? And then if I'mshooting competitively, what kind you know?
Is it a running and gun andtype of type of shooting that I'm doing,
you know, or is it likebullseye shooting, you know where I
(06:54):
can you know that that stance mightbe different than you know, one from
like running on and but forward likedefensive pistol. The stuff that that I
teach and then I know you teach, your stance has to provide. I
can think of at least two things. Right, You've got to be in
balance, and I think you haveto be able to move to be mobile,
(07:16):
you know when you when you whenyou're talking about defensive pistol, I
think I think balance is one thingyou have to be able to do.
Uh, And with balance comes beingable to you know, use your stance
to help mitigate recoil. And that'snot the only part we talked talking about
grip and everything else from there,but but your stance should help you mitigate
(07:38):
the recoil of the weapon as well. Yeah, you know, Jason,
I see a lot of times,especially with brand new shooters and that kind
of parking back to it, thatit really is about you running the gun
and not the gun running you.And you can see that as people start
to increase their round counts, youknow, from one to two to three
to four, or however the stringgoes. They start to lose that good
(08:00):
stance, whether they're not forward leaningand the guns pushing on them each time.
Yeah, yeah, And that's ait's a when I when I teach
a new shooter, I will usuallyteach them, you know, more of
an Isosceles style of stance. Isoscelesbeing with the hips and shoulders kind of
squared up to the target, andthen with their strong foot maybe you know,
(08:22):
back slightly about half the distance ofthe of their other foot. But
the one thing I do, II hark on with them quite a bit,
is to get their shoulders in frontof their hips, to kick their
hips back and put their shoulders forward. And that's that's where we start to
one build that uh good good base, you know, where they've got a
(08:45):
good uh balance. That was theword I'm looking for. Lost it there
for a second. We're looking forgood balance, but we want those shoulders
in front of hips also to mitigratemitigate recoil, like I was talking about
before, and I think you justsaid it. You know, when you
start to see shooters shoot multiple rounds, especially when they start to pick the
rate of fire up. You watchthose shoulders go back right, and you
(09:07):
watch them start to stand up straight, and then you'll watch them start to
lose control of the front of thatgun. You know, where they're where
they're they're having to either look forthe iron sights or look for the dot
after each shot because it's coming offwith the target so much. Yep.
And you know, we come backto this. I think it really got
(09:28):
to have that good foundation because we'regoing to go into the next thing,
and the next one is grip.And we see this a lot, and
so many people think it's, well, my hands size has so much to
do with my grip. Well itdoesn't. It doesn't. But if you
have a good firm grip on apistol, that's you controlling that gun and
(09:48):
letting that recoil management that we talkedabout with that good stance work in unison
with the rest of you. Iwas just at a rece as at a
class for really just basic beginners,and there's one of those classes that you
have to take bring go on.So I said, okay, and I
was able to shoot my call andthen just watch and the grips that some
(10:11):
people have they just never had anyonecome up and show them that real firm
grip on the pistol and being incontrol of the gun. And I think
you taught it to me when wewere working together. Is if you watch
where that gun is going in recoil, that will tell you where you're weak
because the gun wants to take thepath of lease resistance. Yeah, exactly,
(10:33):
the gun wants to take the pathof least resistance. And it's funny
because you know, I've been teachingfor I think coming up on twenty years
or maybe at twenty years now,and when I was first taught to shoot
pistol because I didn't really learned.I didn't actually I didn't learn to shoot
handguns in the Marine Corps learned toshoot rifle. I had learned to shoot
a handgun once I got into thepolice academy and grip wasn't wasn't a big
(10:56):
deal. They didn't get on usabout how were hold the gun. And
I was taught my first gun,my first duty gun was a sig P
two twenty nine, and I wastaught, you know, by my dad
to you know, grip the gunwith your strong hand, with your thumb
down and then cross your thumbs andnobody ever really corrected that, and I
(11:18):
didn't get corrected until I started carryingin nineteen eleven, where I had to
keep my thumb up on the safetyand then that grip kind of corrected itself.
But it wasn't until you know,a few years after being a firearms
instructor that you know, we asa fire searchers at my department kind of
saw how important the grip was,you know, how important it was to
(11:39):
get people into a proper grip.We had so many people that did it,
did not have good grips on thepistol, usually a low grip on
the pistol, you know, soas they're shooting that that gun starting to
kind of almost squirt out the topof their hands. And we fixed a
lot of people's grips, you know, trying to get their thumbs up and
get the palm of that support handall the way on the grip and then
(12:00):
you know, let those thumbs layover the topy of each other pointing forward,
which pulls their hands up on thepistol a lot higher. And once
you got some of these people thathave been shooting for years, you know,
and it was real foreign to themto change their grips. Once you
were able to do that, theynoticed that they just had so much more
control over the pistol. At thepistol, I don't want to jump out
(12:20):
of their hands, you know,especially when you're carrying a you know,
a little bit larger caliber like aforty or forty five that's got a little
more significant recoil, right, AndI think we talk about it. We
talk so our stance really is controllingour body, and our grint really works
into controlling the pistol that's in ourhands. Yeah, that's a good way
of looking at it, I think, you know, and they and they
(12:41):
work in conjunction. You know.I do a little demonstration with with with
brand new students where I'll show them, you know what. I'll start off
with the stance and I'll say,look when I stand with my feet parallel
to each other, straight across,and my show you know, my and
my shoulders in line with my hips, and I'll shoot some rounds and they
can actually see my body sway back, you know, as the as the
(13:03):
pistol recoils. And then I'll fixthat and show them, you know,
kind of how it sits flat andI'll do the same thing with grip.
I'll have a low grip on thepistol and they can watch the front end
of the pistol rock itself up aftereach shot, you know, and then
I'll put a correct grip on thepistol and and they'll see how the gun
just stays flat and stays on target, you know, through recoil. Yeah,
(13:28):
you can. You can watch it, and especially when you can demonstrate
it for people and they can actuallysee it for themselves, because they don't
see it until a lot of thesepeople are a lot of times new shooters,
even in the police academies. Justa rough guess, I think it's
a sixty six sixty of them isthe first time shooting a gun for any
real reason. Sometimes it's even theirfirst gun, and just it's a it
(13:52):
feels foreign to them at first.Yes, Yeah, you see a lot
a lot more people come through policeacademies that don't have, you know,
any experience with firearms, were veryvery little. The next two kind of
go together, and their side alignmentand site picture. I think if you
were going to look at the fundamentals, this is one of the things that's
(14:15):
I don't want to say changed,but has morph a little bit with the
advent of red dots. We talkedabout our side alignment, and we talk
about iron sights. We're talking aboutequal distance on the right and left,
having the front sight centered in therear sight and keeping them both level.
And then our side picture is whatwe're looking at when we're looking at the
(14:35):
target. Now we've had to kindof change our verbage a little bit with
with the red dots. Yeah,it's interesting and I can I probably could
talk too much about this. I'veactually thought quite a bit about side alignment
and site picture and especially with reddots, especially when we started putting red
(14:56):
dots on rifles, because you know, the question came up, you know,
do we even start to teach ironsights to you know, our l
E rifle shooters, right, soyou know in law enforcement, Uh,
we were lucky at my at mydepartment, at my range, we have
one hundred yard line. We haveone hundred yard berm, so we could
(15:16):
actually shoot one hundred yards. Butyou know most places don't. Most places
shoot fifty fifty yards and in andso you know, I remember getting into
the debate when when the red dotsstarted to become, you know, just
pretty much prevalent on on rifles.Did do we even teach iron sights anymore?
Do we even teach side alignments,side picture? And that's actually when
(15:39):
I was asked, is actually bymy by my mentor. He says,
you know, well, what kindof a program do you want to run?
Do you want to run a fundamentalsbased program or or not? Right?
And so I will say, theamount of time we spent on iron
sights and actually lining the sites upand focusing on the front site, the
amount of time changed. We startedto spend more time on the red dots
(16:02):
because that's what we would use.But I think the red dot allows it.
It's short, it's a shortcut.Basically, you know, we don't
have to align the sites anymore now, right, they're already aligned. It's
just a holograph that we got tostick on the target. The big,
big thing is and what I noticedwith teaching red dot on on pistols was
that this idea of focusing on thetarget when when you're shooting, when you're
(16:27):
practicing your fundamentals really hung up alot of old shooters, you know,
that are used to lining up thoseiron sites and then focusing on that front
site, you know, and andunderstanding how important that was to to not
to to now now we've got tolook at the target right now, we
have to kind of superimpose that doton the target. And so so yeah,
so the verbiage has changed, andand and that I think that one
(16:49):
particular part right there where you're tellingpeople don't focus on the on the front
side. Now we're going to focuson the target, you know. But
I think part of that is isif you got passed the fundamentals, and
I'm talking about not competition shooting.I think that I think the people in
competition shooting have done this for along long time because I've heard some you
(17:12):
know, pretty renowned shooters on onYouTube and stuff, you know, saying
that, you know that instructors spendtoo much time outside of land a site,
pitcher, they spend too much timefocusing on the front site. I
think these guys have got so manyrounds down range, so many draws,
you know, and so many presentationsof the weapon, that they put the
(17:32):
pistol in the same place each time, right in front of their face.
And they've they've done it so muchthat they don't have to focus on the
on the sites. They don't haveto align those sites, just perfect the
pistols right where it needs to be. And if you look at sites,
really all we're doing is we're usingwhether they're red dot or whether it's iron
sights, it's just con it's aconfirmation tool that the guns point at where
(17:56):
we wanted to hit right. Sothe red dot is now allowing us to
do what a lot of iron sightshooters did for a long long time,
and that was focus on the target. And just as Colonel Jeff Cooper used
to call it, use flash sitepicture where they would flash those sits in
front of their face, but allthe whole time, you know, focusing
(18:18):
on the target. And I thinkwhen you talk to people that have been
in shootings, that have been incritical instances and had to had to shoot
an adversary, especially up close,especially within seven yards, and it you
know, rapidly evolving, they don'tremember seeing the sights, yet they'll make
center mass hits, you know.And I can think of one officer in
(18:40):
particular who's a friend of mine thatI work with. He doesn't remember seeing
the sights at all, but madecenter mass hits and that's because of all
that time on the range of liningup those sites and focusing on the front
site and putting the gun in thatsame spot. When it came down to
it, he was able to focuson the thread. And now the red
dots they let us do that.They let us do that without having to
(19:03):
spend all that time, you know, focusing on the iron sites. It's
kind of nice. Yeah, AndI think it's still you still have side
alignment inside picture. And when youstart taking people, whether they're brand new
shooters or shooters who were just workingon their irons, you still have a
side alignment. If you're gun isin a weird orientation, you're not going
to have your dot, and ifyou aren't looking at your target, that
(19:27):
dot won't get to superimposed being targetfocused like we talk about. So you
still have that. I noticed whenI first started shooting a red dot that
I must have been having poor sidealignment because I knew I had to first
start adjustified dot one. I'm like, I've had thousands of draws I've been
(19:48):
shooting for upteen years, and policecategories and stuff, but I thought back
to it, I'm like, wewere always able to cheat with iron sights.
Your vision was able to cheat andget the get a side alignment that
was good enough for combat shooting whereyou were in this general area of where
(20:10):
you needed to be, and thatdot now has screamed that you Yeah,
you were close enough, but youwere had some orientation on the gun.
And now when you were looking througha tube on the top of the gun
and we're going to talk about onehere in a minute. Now, you
can't do that. You have tobe true to your alignment of the sites
of the gun. Yeah, that'strue, you're right. And if you
(20:33):
the way that I that I've taughtnew red dot shooters, I kind of
have a mantra of this front sightrear site DOT right, front sight rear
site DOT and they have them dothat first. And what they find is
as they're looking for the rear siteto bring that, especially with the glock
right. So everybody knows the gripangle on the block if you draw it
straight out, it's typically oriented upjust because of the way that that the
(20:56):
grip angle is needed having to rollyour wrist, that strong wrist over.
So what they'll notice is they'll seefront site rear sight and as they're bringing
the rear sight up, tolign itwith the front side. The dot shows
up, well, the dot showsup just before the front sight's actually in
the notch. You know, it'sit's actually pretty pretty exact. I guess
(21:17):
you know. I think you're right. We cheated or fudged, or we
could cheat or fudge quite a bitsometimes just shooting with the front site right
up close and now with the withthe dot. Yeah, you have to
have the gun aligned. It's gottabe. Uh, it has to be
aligned. And uh, I don'tthink that those fundamentals side alignment the site
picture go away with with the reddot. I think they mean the same.
(21:42):
The we don't necessarily the alignment partis uh, maybe not as prevalent
as it as it was with withirons, right, because we're not really
aligning it. We're finding the dot. And once we find the dot,
you have side alignment, right,so and then then side picture obviously you're
(22:03):
just super imposing that red dot onthe target. So I think the fundamentals
stay the same. I think thatis, the mechanics are a little different,
right, I will I will tellyou this. We have noticed and
then you've noticed as much as Ihave. Is that having the dot is
now because the one thing as instructorswe can't see we can see what your
pistols doing, we can see howyour stances, we can see what you're
doing with your trigger. We can'tsee what you're looking at. And now
(22:27):
the dots on guns have given usone more thing to what your dot doing?
Where's your dot coming from? Whatyou know? It's given us one
more tools instructors to kind of helppeople with their side alignment side picture.
Yeah. Well, and also aswe get into trigger control too, you
see that if the guide's going everytime I shoot, I see that dot
go low and left, then youkind of know what they're doing exactly.
(22:51):
The next is breathing, and breathing'simportance kind of varies on what weapons system
you're using and kind of what standsyou're and yet to breathe when shooting the
gun. You can't hold your breathfor everyone link for that perfect site picture
because your gun's just gonna start toshake more. And then when it comes
to rifle. It depending if you'rein a prom position or how you're positioned.
If you're panting or breathing, youknow, we can watch it on
(23:15):
the target you string shots up anddown. Breathing is important just to try
and lessen the impact it has becauseyou have to breathe, but lessen the
impact on how you're moving the pistolor rifle. Depending. Yeah, with
with new shooters, new handgun shooters, I should say I don't harp on
breathing a whole lot, you know, because your first, uh, you
(23:40):
know, first majority of your timeis when we're talking about police recruits especially,
and you've got let's say you've goteighty to one hundred hours to work
with them. You know that firstforty hours, you know, your your
distances aren't that great just yet youstart to touch on the twenty five yard
line, which I think is wherebreathing really starts to kick in when you
start to have some distance. Italk about breathing after shooting quite a bit.
(24:03):
So they get done, you know, shooting, and we have say,
down, scan and breathe, youknow, to to get them to
bring their heart rate down and tomake sure that they're breathing, because we
typically don't breathe while we're shooting.We typically hold our breath. Right now,
we start talking about a rifle,it takes on a whole new meaning,
you know, because once you setup a good position with your rifle,
even if you're in a nice,solid, prone position, your breathing
(24:27):
affects side aliament site picture and theorientation of the barrel of the gun,
right, So breathing is a bigdeal. And and making sure that you're
not shooting, you know with atleast I don't. I don't teach with
the with the lungs full air.Some people do. Some people say breathe
in and hold it. I alwaysteach them to check their natural point of
(24:47):
aim with no air in their lungs, so they're letting their air out,
you know, and coming on ontotarget with side lambment site picture, focusing
on that front site and then theair is coming out of their lungs and
that's all settling in as their pressof the trigger. But it will harp
on it a whole lot with withbrand new handgun shooters, you know,
until we start getting to the twentyfive yard line or if you do me
fifty yard line shooting with your handgun, then breathing, then you can see
(25:11):
it, right, you can seethat gun moving around on the target yep.
And you know, I think That'sone thing too, is these fundamentals
are the same, but they havedifferent applications for whether it's a handgun or
a rifle or a shotgun. There'sstill the fundamentals, but what's the application
you're using them in? Right?Right? And you know, like I
(25:32):
said, I think breathing is important. But usually, like we have a
written test we give our recruits,they we usually put you know what,
what's the most important fundamental. Iknow you're going to ask that, so
we'll get to that now, Buttypically the least important for me with handgun
shooting is breathing. Yeah, butlike I said, you just said it
(25:55):
though, when you put a riflein somebody's hands, breathing is important,
you know, especially when you're startingto hit it targets at a greater distance.
So the next one we're gonna goto trigger control. And this doesn't
matter what weapon system you're on.You can make your round do amazing things
just by doing different things with thetrigger. And I tell a story all
(26:15):
about myself. For the longest time, I was a single action shooter shooting
nineteen eleven's for a long time.And if you've shot a single action pistol,
you notice the triggers real crisp realpronounced doesn't take a whole lot of
movement to move the trigger to therear. And I found when I went
to had to go to a strikerfired pistol, that single action was hiding
(26:40):
a lot of flaws I was doing. And I shot it for so long
I thought it was the greatest thingever. And then I went to a
striker fire pistol. Well, I'vebeen shooting for years. Why can't I
hit the broad side of a barn. Well, it's because I had crappy
trigger control and I'd just been ableto get away with it for so long
with a single action pistol. Sowhen we talk about trigger control, we're
(27:02):
talking about that smooth, steady pressto the rear, trying not to disturb
our sites and the orientation of ourpistol. Yes, and this is where
and explaining this fundamental, especially tonew shooters, this is where you really
got to watch the words you use, because words have meaning, and they
have meaning consciously and subconsciously. Rightand so, and you just said that
(27:27):
press the trigger, And that's that'show I always like to verbalize that to
a new shooter. We're pressing thetrigger like you're pressing the button to get
on to an elevator. Right,it's not a pull. We don't.
We don't pull the trigger because pullinghas a has a connotation to it,
right, it kind of has maybea forceful connotation. I'm pulling, like
(27:48):
pulling on a rope or or pullinga door open, or pulling my my
gun safe over to the other cornerof the room or something like that.
And you know, we don't.We obviously don't slap the trigger or mash
the trigger either. Right, it'sthis, it's this steady even press.
And actually the way that I'll explainit to people is is having spell press
right in their head as they're pressingp R ees s, and the gun
(28:12):
should fire sometime after the P andsometime before the last s, right,
to get that nice surprise break.But to go back to what you're talking
about, because I shot the nineteeneleven I still shoot nineteen elevens. I
love them, and uh, Icarried one for twelve years on duty.
(28:32):
As a matter of fact, Ieven think about carrying another carrying one again
when I, uh, when Iretire. Sometimes when I sit around thinking
about that, uh, but theuh, it's not so much the poundage
of the trigger, but the lengthof the of the travel the trigger,
right, and when you go toa striker fired gun, which you're real
prevalent, now you've got that longerlength and that shorter crisper trigger on a
(28:56):
single action gun. Does it hidesa lot? And what I'll in and
just to your point, I'll noticemuch more trigger issues with new handgun shooters
than I will with new AR platformrifle shooters. You know, the AR
platform has got a single action shortsingle action triggering it as well. And
(29:18):
I almost very rarely see trigger controlissues with new shooters shooting rifles, but
always see it with you know,new block pistol shooters or M and P
pistol shooters or shoutout system shooters.You know, anybody's got that striker fired
trigger. And I think I thinkthat's directly related to the the distance you
have to easily press that trigger tolet the gun go off. Right.
(29:41):
Yeah, it's you know, it'sfunny. It took me a long time
to figure that out. Like I'vebeen doing this for you, beat myself
up. I've been doing this foryears. And then when I came to
that revelation and someone you know,like, well, yeah, you're shooting
at nineteen eleven, so you gotaway with a lot. Oh yeah I
(30:02):
did. And it's amazing how thatjust crap up and you just didn't realize
it. You know. You know, what I did actually, or what
I found actually improves my shoes,especially when I switched to a glock,
was practicing my double action revolver shootingmore. Uh. And I read it
somewhere I wish I could remember,because it wasn't something I came up with
on my own. It was somebodyI had written that somewhere in a book.
(30:29):
I read, somebody much more famousthan you or I, and uh,
you know, said to practice doubleyour double action revolver shooting and it
would help your trigger control and allof your other you know, modern weapons
so to speak. I guess.So I found that if I if I
went out and practiced with my revolvers, which I'll have you know, tend
of eleven pound triggers in them,and were able to shoot pretty quickly and
(30:53):
and and shoot accurately and control thosetriggers, it was much easier to run
my I you know, four andthree fifteen block trigger, right. You
know, it's kind of kind oflike when I was running track and stuff
in high school and you had yourbig, heavy training shoes, but then
when you went to the race day, you wore these little, flat,
little lightweight shoes, so you're faster. Same thing. I think, there
(31:17):
you go. Yeah. So thelast one, Jason we talked about is
follow through. And as you evolveas a shooter, I think this is
probably well, we're gonna pick whichone we think is most important, but
the follow through setting up for asecond shot, not just letting go of
the gun, letting go of thetrigger, and it's all those things.
(31:37):
It's resetting the trigger, regaining thesights, and setting up for an additional
shot. And when just not becauseyou're going to shoot a second time,
but if you're only shooting to shootone round, the human nature of you
is to fire that round and getthat gun out of your face as quickly
as you cancel. You can seewhere the round hit, and that changes
subconsciously. Because you haven't fired theround actually and you already started moving the
(32:00):
guns, you can start looking atit and it changes where our rounds are
impacting. So I think that followthrough is an important part of that.
Some people sometimes want to race past. Yes, I think it is too
and and and for a couple ofdifferent reasons, for different weapons systems and
different types of shooting. You know, in UH in combat handgun, you
(32:22):
know what what you and I doa lot of teaching in. You will
see new shooters move the gun beforethe rounds even out of the barrel,
and they'll start hitting low. Andit's pretty easy because you need to tell
they're doing it because you just watchthem, and you'll watch them look over
the tights right or look over thetop of the dot looking for the hit
on the target. Always got mewhy they why they felt they had to
(32:44):
do that when they had a reddot, because they're looking at the target
already right with iron sights. Thatwas it made a little more sense.
And then looking over the top ofthe sights. But you'll actually see their
heads move, You'll see there youcan see their eyes make them more clear
clear eye protection. You can actuallysee their eyes go up or see their
eyebrows go up. And then youknow, you confirm it by all the
low hits on the target. Butthen with a I'm sorry, I'm gonna
(33:09):
ahead of myself another thing. Reasonwe want to harp on that I'm keeping
the gun up one is to makesure we do follow through and make a
good hit. But I see alot of shooters now, you know,
you'll you'll say, okay, nextnext string of fires is three shots,
right, They'll shoot three shots andimmediately drop that down, you know,
(33:30):
to some kind of a low readyposition or or into a seoul position or
something like that, instead of keepingthe gun up, you know, in
case the threat didn't actually go down, you know, if three three rounds
wasn't enough, you know. SoI think that followed through is important from
a different issue as well, justmaking good hits on the target, and
you know, because it's that lastfundamental, but also keeping the pistol in
(33:52):
a fighting position, you know,I like to say keeping the pistol on
the window. It's like we're fightingthrough a window, and you want to
keep that pistol up in the window, up up near your face so that
you can, uh, you know, assess your target and if you have
to respond with more rounds than thepistols in a position to do that for
sure. So all right, Jason, we've been through all of them since
(34:14):
you're the guest on our tenth podcast, Breaking History here, which do you
think is the most important to you? And they they're all important. So
let me let me rephrase that.Which one do you find you have to
go back and correct the most whenyou start working with new shooters or even
experienced shooters. What's the one youthink you had to focus the most on.
(34:36):
Uh? It's trigger control. Triggercontrol is the one that I have
to Uh, I have to focusthe most on it. Uh. And
it's the one that always creeps backup. UH. That's that's the one.
The one thing that that we alwaysare having to return to is uh
is trigger control. And and andand you'll you'll get somebody smooth it out.
(34:58):
You'll get you'll get them you knowwhere they're controlling the trigger and they're
making good hits, and then youput them on a timer and and speed
them up, and all of asudden, they start smacking the crap out
of that trigger, and you know, all their rounds are going low left
or low right if they're a lefty. And so it's it's the one.
(35:19):
And it's the one I constantly haveto with myself as well. If when
I start to pick up speed,it seems as we start to pick up
speed, trigger control is the firstone to go. I would say that
the next important one after that's probablygrip. Having a good grip on the
pistol, especially with pistols, havinga good grip on the pistol is is
(35:39):
very important. But but I tendyou know, with new shooters or even
with somebody that I'm working with,if we get enough time to where we
get them locked into a good grip, typically don't have to go back and
revisit it, you know, unlessI'm trying to break get them to break
bad habits. You know, maybethey they've had some training someplace else,
or they've shot for a while andjust have never address their poor grip.
(36:01):
The one I have to typically goback and we have to clean up,
even with myself, is trigger control. Yeah, I probably would agree with
you on trigger control is both important. If I had to pick a different
one other than you, I probablywould have went to grip. And you
see it a lot of times,and I think it's a lot of times
because people just don't get enough timeon their gun. There. Even when
(36:21):
we were talking with Jalise in ourlast episode or I'm sorry, Jay Le's
is you don't. You always wantmore time, and whether it's cops,
hobby gun shooters, or just learningin the pistol or a rifle for the
first time, you just don't haveenough time, and that huge time lapse
(36:44):
you forget how a good grip feltin your hand, and how when you
had a good grip you were reallyable to tighten your groups on your target,
and how you felt in control ofthe pistol. So I think,
like I said, if I hadto pick a different one, I would
say, the grip is the oneyou want to focus on, because not
everyone carries a pistol every day,or not everyone gets to the range as
much as we'd like to. AndI think that grip, like you said,
(37:06):
if it's not trigger control, it'sgrip. And when you take care
of those two, you improve yourshooting for sure. Yeah, absolutely absolutely
yea. And the grips, youknow, especially if you were if you've
got to have it built up,that neural pathway gets pretty pretty deep on
the portant grips. I fix alot of grips with with people that have
shot before and uh, and soso that's uh, it's all It's like
(37:31):
over the years, that one's becomemore and more and more important. But
h but I still say my numberone is trigger control. Yeah, I'm
with you there, And I,like I said, if I had to
pick a different one to be different, the I do notice too. I
think people forget how important the gripis and you really have to be in
control of your gun. I thinkpeople forget that sometimes. Oh yeah,
(37:52):
well I have to. I'll drawa pistol and fire off the first round
and my left handle slip off,or I'll have to read it and I
have to remind myself to squeeze thegun, you know, to really crush
the gun with my with my lefthand, my support hand. Yep.
So those are the fundamentals, Jason. I think they're important. I think
(38:12):
when you look for training, youreally want to find one that's really based
on the fundamentals because it gives youthat great foundation and really focuses on what
you really need to do to makewhatever weapon platform you're shooting shoot well and
to shoot it accurately. Yeah,and you have to have that foundation of
fundamentals, and you've got to goback to them to clean them up,
(38:32):
you know, as as you progressin your shooting, you know, and
just as uh, Jalie is thathow you say your name is ja Le's
you know, she just as shehad brought up. Yeah, you gotta
you have to go back to him. And it's it's always it's typically when
I go out and practice, Idefinitely don't have the practice regimen that she
(38:55):
has uh to listening to that.I don't have the I don't have the
ambu the money either. But I'llalways start off with with some sort of
fundamentals, you know, as faras you know, either coming out of
the holster or if I want tojust kind of make sure my my trigger
is in good shape and work triggercontrol you know on a little tiny target
(39:19):
or or whatever have you. Youknow, kind of start off with that
stuff before I get into trying todo anything faster, you know, anything
complicated. Yeah. I was superhappy to hear that from her, for
sure. So it's fundamentals. Sowe've covered those. Look for them.
If you need help with stuff likethat, find someone who really kind of
leaves in the fundamentals and goes fromthere and they'll really approve your shooting.
(39:44):
All right, Jason. So nowthe fun part we get to go back
to talking about a gun that Iput together and then gave you to try.
And it's the Shadow Systems d Rnine twenty combat version with a aim
point P two acro on the top. So any of you have listened to
(40:04):
this podcast know only huge Shadow SystemsHonk. I don't know why. I
just really like them. I thinkthey shoot really well. So Jason,
let's first talk about the gun.When we first start talking about the gun,
I love the frame, the stipplingjobs, and the cutouts it has
for thumb placement stuff. I reallylike what Shadow's done there. What were
(40:28):
your first impressions of the DR ninetwenty compact And before we get into that,
for those who you aren't familiar withShadow, the DR nine twenty be
your standard sized pistol, like yourGlock seventeen. So, Jason, what
do you think? I thought itwas a great gun. I'd been wanting
to shoot one. I've kind ofseen a few of them floating around our
range at work. I didn't getto shoot one though. That was actually
(40:52):
the one that you gave me wasthe first one that I shot. But
the and finish on it's real nice. The polymer seems very high quality and
just like you were saying, Ilike the stippling. The stippling on it
is a I tend to like alittle bit rougher, But I think for
a production gun, that's a thatthat that's a good roughness that they have
(41:13):
on there. It's usable, it'snot slick. It doesn't seem like if
you if you wore and see alltheir ord up against your body, it
would each close up. But ithad enough grip to it to keep my
my hands on there. Usually mygauge is my left thumb. I'll put
my I'm a right handed shooter,so I'll put my left thumb kind of
on those little shooting pads they've gotup on the front part of the frame
(41:35):
there, and they've got them stippled, which I really liked that they had
that part stippled. And uh,if if my thumb slides off, then
there's not enough grip there while I'mshooting. And it didn't slide off.
I had. I had plenty ofplenty of grip. Yeah, I think
they make it just from that,and you'll lots of places are doing that.
(41:57):
Now you can send your gun offto tons of places to head blueing.
Your concepts being one of them haveyour gun stippled, and lots of
places are stippling up around that justin front of the takedown levers for the
pistol to really give you that touchpoint to know where your thumb needs to
be every time. Yeah, someplacecalled the gas pedal. That's where you
push that push that thumb. Theyincrease that pressure between that you're offhand or
(42:22):
your support hand thumb and forefinger.It really helps you to kind of lock
the pistol in. So yeah,I did. I like that. I
thought the the one you gave mewas all black. I've seen them with
that kind of rose colored barrel inthem as well, which I actually kind
of like. I think it's kindof cool looking. But the Sarah cot
(42:42):
Or, I don't, I don'tknow what what kind of finish they put
on there, but it seems verydurable, look real nice. It's good
looking gun. I mean just youknow, as far as you know holding
it, it feels you know,substantial, and like I said, it
feels high quality. Yeah. AndI think the other real bonus to Shadows
is there flatter facing trigger for anout of the box gun that you didn't
(43:05):
have to do anything. I thinkit has a real Chris trigger for a
Striker fire pistol. What did youthink of it? I I agree,
Yeah, I like the trigger.It's it's it's almost like having an aftermarket
trigger, you know, put init. It was I'm not a the
flat face triggers are typically not myfavorite, but that one's actually really nice.
I liked it. It has ashorter length of travel in it as
(43:28):
well, and it resets real nice. I had had a nice Chris reset,
nice Chris break, and especially fora gun that I don't think you
have a lot of rounds through it, so it I actually really liked the
trigger, and I was very impressedwith the trigger, all right, Jason,
So the P two acro from aimPoint Now, they had an eight
(43:52):
A first version of this, andI think some of the rips on it
were that the battery life and stufflike that. Am points fixed that I
haven't just better and I've had thisfor over a year now and it's still
bright as day and still running realwell. It's a little it's an enclosed
demitter, which depending on what whenwe talk about all the time, what
(44:13):
your mission is, maybe something youwant especially for like an off duty carry
it's nice keeping the lens and stuffout there. But what did you think
of the acro P two. Iactually liked it. It was very easy
to find, you know, whenI was looking through it. Just you
know, my most of my experienceson an R is on the trigic on
R M R. The window actuallyseems like it's a little bit larger.
(44:36):
I don't know if that's the caseor not, but it seems a little
larger. But the site itself islarger, and so I think it is.
It is kind of a large site. I don't think it's unwieldy or
cumbersome. I think it's it's justlarger. And I think that's what you
what you end up getting when youget the closed demitter. You know,
probably less worry about it, somethinghappening to it, you know, damage
(45:00):
they're getting snowed on or something likethat. You're you know, getting gunk
in there where it actually blocks theemitter. But but I liked it.
I thought I thought it was actuallyvery easy to pick up. And and
like I said that, I enjoyedshooting through what seemed to be a little
bit larger window. Yeah, andI've had a chance to have it on
the range a couple of times.And what I've noticed is their glass is
(45:22):
super clear and what you'd expect froman aim point. They put it in
a pistol mounted optic and it justseems so crystal to look through it.
It did, actually, now thatyou bring that up, it was.
It was very very clear. Iuse a points on my rifles. I
do like aame points there. Thereare some of my favorite red dots and
(45:43):
so, uh yeah, it's uhit, It's what I would expect from
them. Yeah, So I thinkthis is a great option for an optic,
you know by once cry once,it's durable, it's rugged. It's
gonna cost you some decent money.But I I think it's an optic for
the long hole. Yeah, Iwould agree. I would agree, especially
(46:06):
if like I said before, it'sjust it's a little large. But any
closed and bitter I think I thinkas far as a close getting a closed
and bitter, I don't know howyou get it any smaller. So yeah,
and like I said before, Idon't think it's unwieldy. I think
you could conceal it if you wantedto. And I think in a duty
rig it's it's uh you know justfine. So yeah, and I don't
(46:27):
didn't meant think to mention this.This DR nine twenty was built specifically to
take an acro on it, soit mounts directly to the slide. I
think you'd lose a little bit ofthat if you added some plate. So
it's just one of the other bonusesof Shadows mounting system as being able a
mounted directly to the slide. Ittook all of ten minutes to mount it,
and uh Mark MARKO witness marked themounting screw and but it stayed on
(46:51):
there and it's been a great,great runner for so far. Yeah,
it seemed very solid when I wasout there shooting it. O Jason,
So we're coming to the end.I usually ask you here what products are
you looking to see? But thanksto the good folks at Springfield Armor or
at Springfield Armory, they were ableto help me get an ASA thirty five.
(47:13):
For those of you who aren't familiarwith the SA thirty five is similar
to the Browning High Power, whichis a single action nine milimeters pistol.
For those of you eighties buffs,it is what Axel Foley carried in Beverly
Hills cop Hence the reason why Ihad to get one. Next time,
we're going to have another guest inbetween the next time we have Jason on.
But next time, when Jason's on, we're going to review this pistol
(47:36):
and kind of talk about what wehave there. I'm super excited to shoot
it, Jason. I know you'resuper excited to shoot it. Oh yeah.
One of my favorite pistols, theBrowning High Power. I don't own
one, I've shot several of them. I will own one eventually. I
may actually buy one of those Springfieldsbecause it came to my house first,
so I got to see it andhold on to it before I had to
(47:59):
turn it over to you. Soyeah, and again, thanks to Springfield
Armory for helping us get this ata little bit of a discount. We
always appreciate people trying to help usout as we grow our businesses. Here,
Jason tell everyone where they can findBlue Angil Concepts again, So again,
you find me at Blue Angel Conceptsdot com or send me an email
(48:20):
at Blue Angel Concepts at gmail dotcom. All right, before we get
out of here, we'd be remissif we didn't thank our sponsor Mile High
Shooting Accessories up in Frederick, Coloradoanytime at Mile High Shooting dot com.
Both me and Jason have spent alot of time with those folks. They're
good folks. They were kind enoughto sponsor our podcast and we're so glad
to have them. Jason, youwant to say anything tomal High, I
(48:44):
tell you I don't like going togun shops. I actually went to a
gun show this weekend. Having toa gun show and forever, but I
had to get the kids out ofthe house, and there's just so many
people out there that just don't knowwhat they're talking about, and you kind
of overhear them, you know,when you're when you're at the counter and
everything, and that's not Mile Highshop. I refer so many people up
(49:07):
to their shop, especially when itwhen it comes to stuff that that I
don't know about, because I definitelydon't know everything, because they are so
knowledgeable up there, and you cantrust that what they're telling you is is
good information, you know, whetherit has to do with bolt guns,
gas guns, handguns, suppressors,I mean, you name it. They
(49:31):
got people up there that know whatthey're talking about and they're just they're nice
as all get out. I enjoytheir shop. They have a huge shop.
They're there. It's new, orI guess maybe it's not that new
now. I just remember their oldshop. Their their shop that they have
up there now is is huge.They've got all kinds of inventory. I
(49:51):
just I can't say enough about them. I think they're a great shop.
That's right. Uh So, wewant to thank Mile High again for sponsoring
us. If you go up theplease be sure to mention that you heard
about him on the three or threeTactle podcast so that they know that the
words get doubt about how great theyare. Jason will see in about a
month or so. Sounds good.All right, guys, we'll talk to
you later.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!