As I mentioned last week I created an IPSC stage based on the Lakewood shooting of four police officers. Yesterday the Lewiston Pistol Club shot that stage.

The results are as follows. Columns 2, 3, and 4 are the total times for the shooter to draw and shoot all their rounds. These were four rounds for the bad guy and six rounds for the cop and Barista. The last two columns were the estimated time the shooter (cop or Barista) had left before the last cop had been shot. This estimate was based upon the cop being able to get off his first shot in 1.5 S after the first shot of the bad guy and that the bad guy took a 1.5 seconds to get his first shot off. Similarly for the Barista except an assumption that they were able to get off their first shot in 1.0 S (they were much closer to the bad guy than the sitting cop was).

In other words the timeline is assumed to be:

At time t = 0.0 S the bad guy starts to draw his gun.
At time t = 1.5 S the bad guy fires his first shot.
At time t = 2.5 S the barista fires his/her first shot.
At time t = 3.0 S the cop fires his/her first shot.

If the bad guys last shot (column two below) is after the cop/Barista’s first shot then one or more cops are assumed to live. The more time in the last two columns the more lives saved.

To really do the numbers correctly we would need the first shot time of each of the shooters. I did get a few of those numbers but didn’t bother to write them down. They were approximately as assumed above.

One of the interesting results was that there were about five to ten “shoot thrus” of the bad guy by the Barista (out of 90 shots fired by the competitors) but all of them hit the body armor of the cops.

The bottom line is that if you were the last cop to be shot at then you had at best a 75% chance of survival. But if the Barista was packing and “on her toes” then unless the bad guy were a top notch shooter then one and probably two of the cops would have lived.

“I never thought it would be this much fun.  I thought it would just be a bunch of learning.” – Josh – One of my nephews

My niece, Roz and her husband, Josh had been talking about getting firearms for protection, but they wanted to get some hands-on experience before making any decisions.  I’d been telling them for some time that I was willing to show them several different handguns and long guns, different action types and so on, and have them do some shooting.

They made it down from Spokane to Palouse, WA, with a stop in Moscow to hand the baby over to Grandmother, on Monday.  After a quick briefing at my place as I was loading up the pickup, we headed to the closest range, about 9 miles away on the edge of Garfield, WA.

“I’ve got a pickup load of iron, and lead” – Josh said it should be a country song.  I agree.

This is for Tam – This is why you need a full sized, extended cab 4 x 4 pickup with canopy.  You can carry a lot of guns, a shooting bench, a clay target thrower, 100s of pounds of ammunition and several people all at once.  The duals in the back are optional.

When we got to the range, there was another pickup there stuck in the mud, a couple dozen cattle out in the adjacent wheat fields, a man on an ATV and one on foot out trying to round up the cattle, and Officer Friendly standing in the parking lot telling us A) that the range was closed for Memorial Day, B) the other truck was stuck, and C) don’t go over there and try pulling him out because you’ll just get stuck too.

Long story short; I went over there and pulled the other truck out (easily) the cattle got put back into their proper field, and Officer Friendly, who so far as I could tell didn’t do much if anything, said “Thanks for helping out”.  I didn’t tell him what I thought.  I just said, “No problem”.
Roz and Josh had come all this way to learn about guns and do some shooting, and here we were at a closed range messing around with tow straps, mud, cops and cattle.  Sometimes you just have to roll with what’s thrown at you.

15 more miles to an abandoned gravel pit and we were in shooting heaven.  We went through the safety rules, the functioning and handling of the AR-15, position, grip, sight alignment, breath control, trigger control, follow-through…  Slow fire at 80 yards, rapid fire at 20 feet.  Same with handguns.  At several points along the way, Roz was laughing as she was popping off rapid double and triple taps with a Glock 20, and hitting her target. “Front sight front sight front sight!  Your group’s too small, speed it up!” Giggle giggle giggle.  I think the dot-sighted M1 30 carbine was the favorite “fun gun” of the day though.

As we were wrapping things up, Josh came out with the money quote.

After all the talk and anxieties we’ve gone through at home regarding education verses understanding, teaching methods, self-organizing systems, etc., over the last few years, I can’t tell you how significant and how terrific it was to hear that.

Today I shot in a Steel Challenge match at the Lewiston Pistol Club. With Boomershoot consuming my time for the previous couple of months and the timing of my visits to Idaho not coincident with the match schedules it has been a long time since I shot in a match.

I messed up one stage and that hurt my overall results badly:

Notice the top two positions are the same guy shooting an auto loader and a revolver? It just goes to show you it is the shooter/training not the gun that makes the biggest difference in the outcome of a shooting match. Also, I am pretty sure Roger is the oldest shooter. What does that tell you given that I am in my mid-50s?

I received this email from BulkAmmo.com yesterday:

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I carry this same exact round for my self-defense needs.

This does appear to be a pretty good price so I ordered 500 rounds for my own use.

Via email from Dave Lauck at D&L Sports, Inc.

This looks like fun. I wish I had enough money that I didn’t have to work so I could prepare for and participate in the event. March 2012 is far enough off that I would have the time to prepare if all that pesky work didn’t get in the way. Of course there is the $10,000 cash on the prize table that would partially compensate for missing a bunch of work… if one was good enough win the prize.

I have taken numerous classes from Insights and put family members through many of their classes. I have always been very, very impressed with them. Check out all the posts I have made mentioning them.

Yesterday Caleb from Gun Nuts Media sent me a link to a media release saying he is partnering with InSIghts.

I know Apparently Caleb has taken at least one class from Insights and shared my enthusiasm for them. I expect he will continue to be impressed with both the people and the training.

It’s time to sign up for the 2011 Steel Challenge World Shoot.

The match is August 18 – 21 in Piru California. The registration form is here.

Adam sent me an email telling me they are accepting applications for the 2011 Wiley Coyote 3 Gun Match. It takes place south of Grangeville Idaho on the Whitebird grade. It will be May 28th and 29th. You can download the application here.

This is a little out of date but perhaps there are still a few pirates left if you want to get in on the fun.

Via email from (Random) Brandon who said, “I read this and thought of you.”

I have been meaning to zero my iron sighted AR for years.It was good enough to hit 7 inch targets at 20 yards or less most of the time but not good enough for anything close to precision work—even for something with iron sights. This was the reason I asked Barron to shoot the opening fireball at Boomershoot 2010.

I finally took it to the range today and got it zeroed and I tested several old magazines that had been laying around in my gun case, on my reloading bench or other random places. I threw two 20 round magazines with bad feed lips away (will that appease the Brady Campaign for a day or two?).

After I got it zeroed I did a little offhand practice. I need to practice that more because my arms got tired too quickly. But my hits were good enough considering the circumstances.

These were fired offhand from 24 yards (laser rangefinder) away at a rate of about one round every two seconds:

These were fired offhand from 24 yards away at a rate of about one round every second:

I had a tendency to jerk the trigger on that gun a little bit. I think it is because my arms would get tired and I would try to get the shot off when the sights would wander over the correct aiming point.

Via an email list I am on.

Three head shot hits in a row at 1000 yards by an 84 year-old WWII sniper. It brings tears to my eyes: