Pistol-Training.Com

The JohnO DIY High Visibility Front Sight

Many of our readers have been asking for detailed instructions on the “JohnO Sight” that has been pictured here lately. Well, the wait is over. John O. Stewart has written up a detailed step by step procedure that is easy for anyone to follow. I’ve personally been using this “sight” for a while now and it’s definitely a great way to achieve high visibility without sacrificing precision … or spending a lot of money!

So give it a try and let us know how it works out. If folks are interested, we could even create a gallery to post photos of your guns with the JohnO sight!

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

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The Goldilocks Principle

Plenty of instructors fall into the trap of pushing students too fast, switching to a new drill long before the student has mastered — or even begun to grasp — the purpose of the first one. All too often, this is borne out of sense that students want to do lots of different things rather than actually learn a few key things.

Less common but just as bad, instructors sometimes get so wrapped up in one aspect of shooting that they hold students back. A shooter doesn’t need to hit the x-ring on a bullseye at 50 yards before you start working on gun manipulations, speed, and applications. 

The trick is to find the best balance you can. Stick with a drill or concept long enough for the student to understand what he’s supposed to be doing and know how to practice it. But when his attention starts to wane or his eyeballs are starting to cross because he can’t focus on the front sight anymore, switch to something else. There’s no law that says you can’t come back to marksmanship again in a little while.

One important responsibility for instructors is to keep our students motivated, focused, and enthusiastic. Set a pace of instruction that achieves those goals and everyone will improve.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

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M&P Monday: Week Thirteen

26,197 rounds
2 stoppages, 0 malfunctions, 0 parts breakages

This week we reached a number of major milestones in the M&P Torture Test.

At thirteen weeks, we’re halfway through the six-month test. We also hit the halfway point in the round count, firing #25,000 on Wednesday the 16th of July. It took eighty-six days to reach that number. By the end of the week we hit 26,197 putting us well ahead of schedule to reach 50k in six months.

In all those rounds, there hasn’t been a single part break or wear out. There have been no malfunctions, and the only stoppages (two) were almost certainly caused by improper maintenance when too much grease was squirted into the action which allowed debris to build up and impede proper reset of the sear (see reports at Week Six and Week Seven).

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Posted in Gear, Range Reports | 5 Comments »

Xavier Thoughts

We’ve added a new link to Xavier Thoughts, the extremely popular blog by self-described “nurse with a gun” Xavier. Xavier Thoughts is a great place to get up to date information about the political and practical sides of firearms ownership as well as other current newsworthy discussions, observations, and the weekly Ugly Gun Sunday edition! Follow the link and see what Xavier is saying today.

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Teaching in British Columbia, Canada

pistol-training.com is proud to announce that we will be holding an Aim Fast, Hit Fast class in Abbotsford, British Columbia on September 13 & 14. Click here for more details.

Class size is strictly limited to sixteen students. We hope to see you there!

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Warren + JohnO = Goodness

We’ve received some requests from folks wanting to see what the Warren rear 1-dot sight looks like in daylight. Here it is pictured with the newly redone “JohnO” front sight treatment.

Posted in Gear | 6 Comments »

M&P Monday: Week Twelve

24,594 rounds
2 stoppages, 0 malfunctions, 0 parts breakages

With 25,000 rounds right around the corner, things are fairing very well with the gun. More than a dozen different people have test fired it without any problems whatsoever.

Another change to the sights this week, and one which will no doubt receive a lot of happy attention: we received the prototype Warren Tactical tritium night sight for the M&P. The front dot is a large green tritium capsule, while the rear dot is a smaller, dimmer orange capsule. The result is a very clean sight picture during the day, and an easy to align 2-dot pattern in reduced lighting. Regular production is expected soon and we at pistol-training.com expect the Warren Tactical night sights to become more and more popular.

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Posted in Gear, Range Reports | 15 Comments »

Drill of the Week: Pyramid

The July winner of our Design a Drill of the Week contest is Pyramid, submitted by “mlazarus” who will be receiving a free pistol-training.com hat for his contribution to the site. It’s a quick, easy to set up drill which helps work on the all-important balance between speed & accuracy. Read the rest of this entry »

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pistol-training.com gear

Many of the products available at our online store will be subject to a price increase beginning 28 July. In particular our baseball caps and the Shooting Journal will all be affected by an increase imposed by the supplier. So if there was a great pistol-training.com item you were thinking about buying, you may want to grab it now before the increase.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

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M&P Monday: Week Eleven

22,421 rounds
2 stoppages, 0 malfunctions, 0 parts breakages

After about 3,500 rounds, the Performance Center sear is still working great in conjunction with the Massachusetts trigger bar & trigger spring. From the original 6½ pound trigger pull, it’s now smoothed out to an even 6 pounds.

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Posted in Gear, Range Reports | 15 Comments »

Drill of the Week: Acceleration

The last two DotW’s were all about accuracy, so now it’s time to transition to speed. We’re going to take the Press Out drill from earlier this year and put it on the clock, pushing the shooter to speed up. If you aren’t familiar with the Press Out drill, we suggest you take a look at it before continuing.

You’ll need a relatively large target (8″ plate, sheet of paper, etc.) and a shot timer. Set up the target at seven yards, and put your shot timer at a PAR time of 1.0 seconds. Read the rest of this entry »

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Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day from all of us at pistol-training.com! Special thanks to all who have served to keep our nation great, and all who have supported them back at home.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

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M&P Monday: Week Ten

20,971 rounds
2 stoppages, 0 malfunctions, 0 parts breakages

It was a very busy week in the M&P Torture Test. Before shooting began, an armorer performed the 20,000 round service interval. We also installed the new Performance Center sear, replacing the gunsmithed one. The result was a 6½ pound trigger pull which dropped down to 6¼ pounds after about 1,500 rounds.

So how is it shooting with the heavier trigger? Pretty well! Here on the left is a picture of the Dot Torture drill shot 50-for-50 at 8 yards, a new personal best for me. The high visibility tape on the front sight (mentioned last week) definitely made a difference in getting those hits.

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Posted in Gear, Range Reports | 5 Comments »

SCOTUS and 2A!

In what will no doubt be a much-debated decision, the Supreme Court of the United States today upheld the Second Amendment as an individual right based on self-defense. You can read the whole decision here.

This is a win for our side, folks, make no mistake about it. Let me be the first to nominate Justice Scalia for sainthood …

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

M&P Monday: Week Nine

18,857 rounds
2 stoppages, 0 malfunctions, 0 parts breakages

It was a 2,230 round week for the M&P9 Torture Test. Boringly, there is nothing to report in terms of function. The gun still hasn’t missed a beat. However, we did make one little change to the gun and then took it out to a local IDPA match to test things out… 

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Posted in Gear, Range Reports | 9 Comments »

Drill of the Week: Walkback Drill

Apparently, last week’s drill was not a successful one for most of you, since no one reported their results. Everyone here at pistol-training.com is very sad.

So as promised, this week we will stick with the accuracy drills. All you will need is a stack of 3×5 cards.

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Posted in DotW, Learning | 1 Comment »

Do’s and Don’ts of the “Correction Target”

Targets like the one pictured to the left, taken years ago from the now-defunct sportshooter.com website, are very popular among shooters. A few years ago I taught a class for a federal agency and they had a huge poster-size version up on the wall of their classroom. Supposedly, the target can diagnose why you aren’t hitting the center of your target

To an extent, it’s true. But it’s important to understand what the target is and isn’t intended to do.

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Posted in Learning, Teaching | 4 Comments »

M&P Monday: Week Eight

16,627 rounds
2 stoppages, 0 malfunctions, 0 parts breakages

Yes, we’re a day late … sorry about that, folks! Just over 2,500 rounds this past week with no real news to report. The recoil spring/guide was replaced per Smith’s recommendation. The gun is coming up on 20,000 pretty fast. It will get a complete inspection by an armorer at that point, and we’ll post pictures of various wear points on the gun so folks can see what things are looking like internally.

This week I’ll be shooting a local IDPA match and the IDPA Classifier with the M&P9 at the Anne Arundel Fish & Game IDPA Club. It will be the first time I’ve shot the Classifier with an M&P, so the results should be interesting!

Previous entries:

• Week One
• Week Two
• Week Three
• Week Four
• Week Five
• Week Six
• Week Six Accuracy Report
• Week Seven

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

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Drill of the Week: 25yd Groups

Thanks again to Bryan Williams, first winner in our Design a Drill of the Week contest, for bringing us Triple Six last week. We’ve been getting some outstanding drills and we’ll be unveiling one a month.

One thing that Triple Six showed us is that quite a few folks were really struggling with the long shots. Come on, guys! Marksmanship fundamentals are the foundation for all handgun shooting. Being fast is great, but being fast without being accurate is a waste of time and bullets.

As a reminder for those who may not have read it in a while, we highly recommend Larry Vicker’s article Tactical Tips: Accuracy here at pistol-training.com.

And as punishment reinforcement, this week we’re going to shoot some nice, slow twenty-five yard groups.

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Posted in DotW, Learning | 3 Comments »

Teaching in Pittsburgh

pistol-training.com will be holding its first open-to-the-public class in Pittsburgh, 9-10 August, called Aim Fast, Hit Fast. Click here for details on what will be taught, location, price, and contact information.

Class is strictly limited to sixteen students. We hope to see you there.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

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