arnisandyz said:
I'm not LEO, just shoot the practical games for the fun of it and to stay sharp on my carry gun, but can you please expand on how shooting to slide-lock is better than topping off your mag (whether it be with retention or not)? For example, you dump half your rounds at a BG before he dodges into a warehouse. Are you going to enter the building with half a mag or do a mag change while under cover before entering? From reading your post it sounds like you're advocating changing the mag only after the gun tells you to do so?
Sure....I can respond to that. You make some good points, but here's my experience.
Most gun fights occur in the real world at extreme close range. FBI statistics show that 90% of law enforcement shootings occur at 10 ft or less, 50% at 5 ft or less. At those ranges, there's no need for a 'tactical reload'. In fact, the common response is to shoot the gun dry, most of the time without even being aware you fired that many shots. In fact, the common response at the end of such scenarios is for the officer to claim they fired one or two shots. Many officers believe the gun malfunctioned after two shots, because the slide locked back, not realizing until later that it locked back because it's empty.
As that is the natural reaction anyway, it's futile, and even counter-productive to teach the 'tactical reload' as if it is a realistic response to a real world shooting scenario. Back in the 1960s and 1970s officers were being found with their empty brass in their pockets after shootings. What we found out was that officers were being taught on the range to pocket empty brass when they emptied their revolvers for the reload, before reloading, to keep the range tidy. When we started teaching 'let the brass/magazine drop to the ground' we started seeing less officers killed trying to reload their firearms.
In short, in situations where officers usually are involved in shooting, the tactical reload is not used. We are better spend teaching them how to respond to a slide that is locked back as a result of inevitably shooting the gun dry.
In those odd scenarios where you 'pursue a suspect in to a building' you are reloading in the lull of an action, not in the middle of shooting, and have time to conciously do a 'tactical reload' so it doesn't need to be stress-trained. That is why we don't train the tactical reload, because training it will get the officer killed in the most likely shooting scenarios, and if it might be needed, an officer can do it in the lull of combat anyway, as this doesn't require a conditioned response on the same level as reloading in the middle of shooting.
I enjoy pratical shooting, so i'm not putting down practical shooting. I just think it's important to understand that practical shooting is supposed to imitate the real world, not the other way around.
In other words, i feel the tactical reload is a solution to a non-existent problem. I know of no law enforcement officer in recent years to die because he ran out of ammo. However, taking to long to reload is another issue. I carry 15+1 in my duty Glock 22. I also carry 2 15 round magazines. That's 46 rounds total.
The odd's that the 4 or 6 extra rounds, if I do drop my magazine prematurely, will make a difference is extremely low, and quite frankly, not worth the odd's of teaching a technique that will, in all likelyhood, slow me down in the most likely shooting scenarios I may face.
To sum up.....Officers most likely shoot the gun dry, as a natural stress response. Shootings take place at extreme close ranges. Shot placement, and making the first shot count are the most important strategies.
One final note....If you're chasing a bad guy who you've exchanged gunfire with in to a warehouse....You're better off spending the time you have retrieving a long-gun from the patrol car. A handgun is a defensive weapon. If i'm chasing a known armed offender, who's already shot at me, i'm grabbing something more....offensive.
That's just my respectful opinon.
