Measuring my abillity

I get off at 0700, then meet up with Dad. After we make a run in his pickup to move a load of my stuff to a storage unit (more on that some other time), we pick up ammo, and go practice a little with my duty rig.

Friends, I've ALWAYS hated to hear gun-toters brag that they don't ever shoot their carry guns except for qualifications. It should be a point of shame. But I see it in cops, all the time. When I got my Range Safety Officer qualification, I caught a lot of grief over how I had the audacity to make a course of fire harder than the state mandates [p. 35]. Guys would complain, and bargain. I gave them the course of fire a week or better ahead of time, but I still caught grief. "Practice!" I'd say. Nothing doing. They wanted to come shoot the straight course of fire with their duty load a couple of times a year, and never put another round downrange the rest of the year.

There's a certain fear, by some officers... men... uh people of confronting their actual abilities and inabilities. It's common at a deer camp to hear a guy refuse to check the zero on the rifle he's dragged across a thousand miles without shooting. "Aw, she's dead on-- you can be assured of that," they'll say. The truth is, they don't want to lay bare the possibility that they're not as good as they believe they are. I know that, off-hand, I can on demand put a bullet into a paper plate while standing at 100 yards with my rifles, and at 35 yards with my full-sized duty pistols. Every time.

That's not very impressive, is it? It's okay. You can say it. I'll be the first to agree that it's not very impressive. A 10 inch circle? That's gi-normous! Who could miss? Well, not me. At those ranges. Given plenty of time.

But that's my point: I know. I know. Can I do better? Probably. I don't know. But I do know that I can at least do that. I've proved it. And that puts me ahead of many of my mates.
* * *
But...

Well, here I am, almost 5 months into my newest gig, and I've shot this damned thing on exactly two occasions, both times for qualification. Shameful. SHAMEful!

So we're going to pick up some ammo (I don't reload .357 Sig), run out to a friend's private range (read: cow pasture with a berm), and do some quick drills with my issue Glock and AR. Then we hop back into the pickup, and head off to the match that a local larger deparment puts on once a month for peace officers.

A few years ago, I used to shoot this match fairly regularly, and even scored decently in it. Of course, back then, I carried my Kimber Stainless Classic 1911 .45 on duty, and it really kept me in the race, scoring very high in the accuracy stage of the match. This time, my duty gun is the Glock 31. Why? Because that's what they issued. We'll see how that goes. :rolleyes: I refuse to game it up by shooting the match with anything other than what I carry.

There's also a carbine version of the match, for a couple of bucks extra. I might as well get in some time with the AR, seeing as how I've had exactly ONE session with my PD carbine. Again, we'll see how that goes. I actually considered bringing my M1 Carbine, too. Maybe next time.