Translating the fundamentals to other guns

crw

crw

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Okay, question. When developing shooting skills how much of your accuracy and success comes down to your comfort level and familiarization with a certain gun versus the fundamentals like trigger control, sight picture, breath control, etc.

For instance, say you shot an M&P9 in your personal life but carried a P229 in .40 as your duty weapon. How well do you think the practice and fundamentals developed and practiced with the m&p would assist in your proficiency as a shooter of the 229 in .40 cal? Or better yet compare a 226 in 9mm as a personal gun to a 229 in .40 cal.

Obviously Im not talking about sharp shooting or pistol competition here.

And further to this post, how difficult would it be to transfer from a 9mm to a .40 in the same frame?

Thanks
 
In my personal case I carry a P225 9mm professionally and shoot a Glock 22 for recreation. I find that my shooting with my duty weapon has improved greatly since I got my Glock.

Most police services don't get near enough practice time on the range, and the Military Police is no exception.

I shoot my Glock much more than my Sig, and I am used to the recoil of the .40. When I do shoot the Sig, I find the recoil much milder (if slightly snappier) and that causes my groupings to shrink greatly.

YMMV.

As for 9mm and .40 in the same frame, it all depends on the pistol. Most .40 frames can have a 9mm barrel swapped in and still use the .40 mags, which also gives you a legal mag capacity boost.

Edit: As for drills on the different pistols, you just have to get used to both. With my examples though, the only difference is the DA/SA of the Sig and the decocking lever, vs. the GSA of the Glock.
 
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Some that is a good shooter can shoot anything well. Particularly if you are just talking about accurate aimed fire. Good practice with any gun will translate.

When you switch to another gun it will take a few rounds to find where its sighted, get used to the trigger feel and maybe learn the controls if its a lot different.

If you are talking about quick-draw, rapid fire, speed reloading etc then it becomes a lot more important to practice with the gun that you intend to use for those purposes.
 
If ever I have to carry one type of a gun then for sure I'll buy same one for me and improve my skills. (same type, model, caliber)
looks to me a little bit strange to carry a glock at work and train yourself at range with a SIG as your personal/private firearm ...???!!!
 
Wolfstrack said:
looks to me a little bit strange to carry a glock at work and train yourself at range with a SIG as your personal/private firearm ...???!!!
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Backwards, but close enough.

Since my duty pistol is a prohib, what you suggest isn't doable. I could have bought a P226 in 9mm, but why buy a 1200 dollar pistol when a 500 dollar pistol will get the job done just as well if not better?
 
hahaha...was an un-directed reference to yr thread made with good intentions...!
but you can get one original German/Swiss SIG P220 in 9mm with less money then a new Glock...keep an eye open on EE forum or TRADEX..my2c
 
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If you can shoot well, it doesn't matter what gun you are shooting.

Be it SA,DA, DAO or striker, if you pull the trigger and the sights stay where pointed, that's all that matters.
 
A buddy of mine who is a serious IPSC shooter at various times said that to do really as well as you possibly can that you'll ONLY shoot the one gun and shoot it a lot to where it becomes second nature. When he wants to return to the IPSC game he will start in early Fall and shoot only that one gun about 100 rounds every day or couple of days for practice. Then he'll shoot only that one gun for the run of the season's matches.

But he's shot a wide variety of handguns over many years of shooting. Your question is more for someone transitioning from their first gun to the second by the sound of it.

Yes, in that case the basics you picked up, assuming you DID pick them up properley, will certainly let you shoot the new gun decently. But with all the variations in sights and grip angle and bore axis to grip distance each gun has small subtle changes. If you're going to switch back and forth then you'll never really get in tune with either to where you can shoot it in speed related matches past a certain point.

That's where I am now. I enjoy too many different competition styles and too many different guns in too many calibers. I seem to manage to score around 30% down from the leader in any match and do better on some occasions more recently. But I don't expect to ever be on the podium as long as I play around with semis, DA revolvers, SA revolvers and BP C&B revolvers in a big jumble. But then I'm in it mostly for the fun so winning to me isn't everything. I enjoy the idea of shooting IDPA or IPSC one weekend, Speed Steel with a revolver and .22 semi the next then put on my cowboy hat and shoot black powder C&B revolvers on the third weekend.

Oh, one other thing. While my .22's helped me kick the early flinch issue I developed with my 9mm the one gun that did the most towards aiding me with good trigger and sights discipline was my DA S&W revolver shot in DA mode. The long trigger travel leading to the unexpected break did more than any other gun for pounding the trigger and sight picture basics into me. A striker fired semi would be a close comparison but the striker semis just didn't do it as well for me.
 
Beware the man with only one gun.

Or one gun platform (1911 family or Glock family, etc).

Can't say enough for familiarity and muscle memory.

My shooting buddy in the 80s had only one 1911. It was the grungiest looking Gold Cup MKIV you'll ever see, but he won or placed in the top three, in every match he joined. People literally laughed when he took out his pistol from the case.

So going back to the OPs question, if I were a LE pro, or in the military, where my life may depend on my weapon of choice and my skill in its use, I would definitely deliberate very well on my choice of weapon....and stick to it or identical models.

For us ordinary shooters, we are in this because we enjoy shooting as well as variety. Again, if we are serious about competition, then the one-gun formula is best.
 
If you limit yourself to one gun, you will ALWAYS be better.

Going slowly, fundamentals are pretty much all there is...squeeze the trigger while keeping the sight aligned...done.

When you start pushing yourself, that's when you'll really notice the difference. How fast are your shot to shot reload times when switching guns all the time? How about FAST drills? How about your draw and fire time on a target at 20m? 50m? How about doing reloads in front of everyone you work with, as they stand there and time you and watch you shoot at targets small enough that you may well miss? Do you blow the reloads when stressed and using a less familiar gun?

If you want maximum performance, shoot one gun. If that's not critical to you, don't worry about it. Personally, if I were issued a gun, that's all I would ever shoot. I usually shoot one gun for about a year at a time...although I have been shooting Glocks for about three years now.

So yes, it will hurt you to switch back and forth...but you may not notice the damage it's doing unless you train regularly and in a timed, scored, structured way. Most people probably can't tell the effect it has on their shooting because they do not track their performance very carefully, or they just plink casually at the range every time they go.
 
I shoot a 5946 at work. And on my own time, a G17.

My best time for 1 shot - reload - 1 shot (all good hits) with a G19 is 2.28 seconds, and I played around with my work gun this week. My 3rd try with the 5946 was 2.52 seconds. Not a lot slower, and with a little more practice, I'd be quicker.

From the holster, I managed 1.02 seconds for a good hit with my work gear. The funny thing is that's faster than I usually am with my 'game' gear. So while the ideal is to train how you work/fight, good range time is still beneficial if you use something other than the issued kit, and waaaay better than doing f**k all.

I probably have more rounds through my Glocks in the past 6 months than my work gun. But with a day of shooting, I'm close enough in times/score (measured in tenths and hundredths of a second) that the main differences come down to the holster I'm using and the HUGE difference in triggers.
 
misanthropist said:
I don't know how you do it...must be tens of thousands of rounds on each, I guess?
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No, I just lie a lot. Being online, no one can verify my outlandish claims.



I would like to shoot the IDPA classifier with my 5946 though, to see how much of a difference there is to my Glock. I would think there will be a small difference for the closer stuff because of the better trigger on the Glock. But farther shots should be the same or if anything, better with the 5946.
 
wicked_police said:
I shoot a 5946 at work. And on my own time, a G17.

My best time for 1 shot - reload - 1 shot (all good hits) with a G19 is 2.28 seconds, and I played around with my work gun this week. My 3rd try with the 5946 was 2.52 seconds. Not a lot slower, and with a little more practice, I'd be quicker.

From the holster, I managed 1.02 seconds for a good hit with my work gear. The funny thing is that's faster than I usually am with my 'game' gear. So while the ideal is to train how you work/fight, good range time is still beneficial if you use something other than the issued kit, and waaaay better than doing f**k all.

I probably have more rounds through my Glocks in the past 6 months than my work gun. But with a day of shooting, I'm close enough in times/score (measured in tenths and hundredths of a second) that the main differences come down to the holster I'm using and the HUGE difference in triggers.
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Glad to know that at least one those who are sworn to protect the rest of us, is actually skilled in the art of handgunning. Thank you for developing and maintaining the skill that may one day save lives, including yours.
 
As important as breath control ,sight picture and all the other stuff is- being able to duplicate the same shooting position under the same conditions,firearm weight,grip size etc(lighting included) leads to the higher score.The recoil variations,weight of the pistol etc will make it necessary to practice with the individual firearm in order to reach maximum results.
When shooting multiple firearms in competition each firearms is to be as close as possible to the weight,length of pull,balance of each other.
In small bore shooting a competitive shooter is discouraged from shooting anything other than the particular rifle he or she are going to use in the upcoming competition for 6 to 8 weeks prior.
The only manufacturer of pistols I know of that purposly designed a 22 caliber pistol in order to provide a cheap meathod of shooting practice that would be transferable to a particular center fire is the Ruger 22/45 for the Colt 1911.
Practice ,practice ,practice makes purfect
Thats the excuse I use for my shooting,no practice time
 
carried a 12-6 revolver at work, trained exclusively on semi auto's. Whent he company finally did the conversion course to the M&P.40, it was a walk in the park. Over the years I have owned and trained with GLOCK, Beretta, SIG, Walther. I sold everything off, and Kept my SIG 226.
One lethal force encounter, and I attribute my success to the years of practice and fundimentals. A sight is a sight, trigger control is trigger control. If you can drive a truck, a car should be easy to drive. Stick to your fundimentals and practice lots, then it doesnt matter whats in your hands.
 
hoochie said:
One lethal force encounter, and I attribute my success to the years of practice and fundimentals. A sight is a sight, trigger control is trigger control. If you can drive a truck, a car should be easy to drive. Stick to your fundimentals and practice lots, then it doesnt matter whats in your hands.
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99% of the time, you will be correct, IMHO.

If, whether in competition for a trophy or in competition where the winner walks away on his own power and the loser is carried away in a stretcher, you encounter an opponent who is .01 of a second quicker than yourself, then in hindsight, one-gun for work and play may give one the edge.

Knowing my own limitations (as in limited innate talent), that's what I'd do if I carried firearms to defend myself and others.
 
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