I’m talking about yesterday’s post, and more specifically about this EwwChoob mini-video (which you should watch now if you haven’t already, because otherwise what follows may be incomprehensible).
As everyone here knows, I’ve spent most of my life shooting the 1911 pistol — most often the Government model, but a great deal of the Officer’s and Combat Commander model as well. There’s also been quite a bit of IDPA shooting, less so of competition, but mostly as training because I’ve always thought that IDPA is quite good practice for what one might encounter in a truly bad self-defense situation.
I am of course therefore well acquainted with the concepts of “indexing” (keeping the gun aligned with the shooting arm) and “breaking the grip”, i.e. moving the gun out of the “proper” firing hold — in this case, to reload magazines.
Let’s talk about that reloading thing for a moment.
While I have fairly beefy hands, my fingers are not especially long. So my shooting grip looks like this (please excuse the crappy photography):
As you can see, my thumb isn’t long enough to reach the mag release at all — which means that in order to drop the empty mag, I have to break the grip:
Not only has the grip been compromised, but the handgun is no longer indexed to my arm, being pointed both off to the side and upwards.
Is this important? No, it absolutely is not — because the only reason for indexing the gun and having a proper grip would be if I were about to pull the trigger, which I’m not, because I’m busy reloading.
Once the fresh mag has been inserted, my left hand immediately comes up to assume the combat hold, and it forces the gun back into the proper indexed position relative to my arm, and the grip back into the locked position for firing.
I have practiced this action countless thousands of times, both “dry” (i.e. with an unloaded gun and mag) and “hot” (fully loaded, in the act of actual shooting), and the operation is as flowing and mechanical as changing gears in a car with a manual transmission.
In other words, I can’t see what all the fuss is about. Of course all the approved positions are going to be compromised while I’m reloading, but who cares? As long as it all gets back to the proper upright and locked position* in time to fire the gun, everything’s fine and dandy.
Or have I missed something? (If I have, it’s probably too late to change anything anyway — some habits are just too ingrained to change.)
* even my shooting position is not in the “popular” manner; instead of locking my arm straight, I have my elbow slightly bent, in the manner of Jeff Cooper:
…because I’ve found that it makes it easier to shoot from cover, and quicker to reacquire the target from recoil. YMMV. (Caveat: it’s not for everyone, so adopt with caution.)
I probably sacrifice some accuracy thereby, but not enough to concern me — I’m shooting combat/IDPA, not Bullseye FFS.
