I say it's all in his mind.
Once I met a police woman that meñt saying her poor shoting was partly her service gun fault. A beaten by thousand previous owners BHP. One of her excuses was also that she unfamiliar with it.
I talked her into trying a few excercises including shooting with her eyes closed.
Her shotgun-like first groups turned into a single one.
Then I let her shoot my P7M13 and she made a tight group at certain speed, eyes closed. Took me a while to convince her to give back the P7.

No more excuses after that.

0-0

While marksmanship principals (trigger control, sight alignment, breathing/timing, etc.) can be practiced with any firearm, I don’t much see the correlation.

A good shooter will likely shoot any gun well, but will probably do their best with the one they are most familiar and practiced with.

If you spend your most time/effort shooting a crap gun when you carry something else, I imagine you might not be as good with the carry gun had some of the time and effort be spent on it as well.


To answer your question directly, I think it is a bullshit idea. He should make a YouTube video though to spread the concept and far and wide

Nope.

I am regularly astounded by people who show up with a cheap piece of crap for defensive training. Why woukd you stake your life on junk when quality handguns are available? Buy and train with the best quality. In my experience the pistol must be reliable, must fit the shooter, the shooter must be able to handle the gun, it must have sufficient power to get the job done, and the shooter must be able to consistently hit the target. Jam O Matics won't fit the criteria and practicing with junk makes no sense when quality is available

Sounds like a great way to reinforce bad habits.

By "worst" I guess he means the stock gun, not the gun with the fancy barrel/trigger/sites?

Kinda like the new golfer buying the high end golf clubs before he's developed any skill.

I think that is a flawed theory (i.e "BS")

I have actually tried practicing marksmanship with a crappy gun. Eventually, you just mentally "give up" (although that isn't exactly right....you just lose faith in the precision required of your own control motions.)

With a fine, reproducible accurate firearm you start to really appreciate that light really does travel in straight lines and every little thing you do really does matter.

quote:

Thanks in advance for your commentery.

I once took a licensing training class requiring live fire 100 rounds.

After the firing portion of the day-long class/range event the instructor checked out my pistol, commenting it was the only one of the group (about 40 total) that had ~zero~ malfunctions.

It was a well used P35. We agreed 'accuracy' was nice but reliable function was king.
Why would I want anything less reliable?

I have several ARs that are intended to be used under different circumstances. The one that has the best trigger doesn’t get used much because it’s not useful most of the time. After extensive practice with guns with “poorer” triggers, I have to be careful to reacquaint myself with the “best” trigger because otherwise its different characteristics will affect my shooting.

I will say, though, that if we intend to use a gun for serious purposes, we should practice with it regardless of how good it is. When people refer to their “carry rotations” the first question that comes to mind is whether they practice equally with all those different guns and trigger systems.

I am in the same school as Bionic. Why would you seek to develop skill with a "flawed" tool? You put in all this serious work to build muscle memory with a tool you don't intend to work with. The you pick up your carry piece and are less accurate with it than before because of learned behavior with the less adequate gun. It's like buying the cheapest piece pos to use as a carry piece. Your are going to try to defend your or someone else's life with a known unreliable tool. It's irresponsible at best and downright stupid. You may not but the people around you deserve better.

Consistency is the key.

I have gone all Glock. Not because I’m a Glock fanboy, I just shoot those. More consistently across the board. I could shoot the XDS really well at one time. But massive trigger time with Glocks has caused me to lose whatever skill I had with the XDS. That’s why I’m back to carrying a G26. A 43 is on the way.

I have kind of lost my desire to try out everything that comes out. I won’t shoot it as good as my Glocks. Glocks have some warts but I have found trigger time makes them go away, or at least become less noticeable.

First consideration is specificity. Train with what you will use for the event you are training for. Self-defense, your carry guns then obviously. Bullseye competition? I guess a tricked out 1911...

Next, generally I feel a little the opposite. I think it is easier to learn on a larger gun with decent sights and decent trigger, then transfer those skills to a crappier and perhaps smaller gun. Diminishing returns though, practicing with a tricked out $3k 1911 then carrying a puny .380 is not ideal. Practicing the most with a medium frame or compact gun same or similar to the .380 would make sense to me (G16 or G26 vs. G42 etc.)

If you have a DA/SA, practice the DA shot the most. Practicing a DA only revolver can help develop great trigger skills that transfer to other firearms as well.

This (the OP) theory does not compute.

Duh. times 2

This sounds like a rehash of the last couple threads by hypocrites telling us to not buy nice guns or improving them because the OP did not think we were worthy enough.

My opinion is give someone a better tool and they will very likely improve in performance and at a faster rate than with the mediocre tool and if they do not then so what as it is their money.

One definition of bad gun is my M9, I have two. Both are enhanced as leg guns for EIC shooting. But no matter how hard I try, there is a consistent front sight dart to the right on every SA hammer fall. (One hand off hand)
My M11 and other Sigs do not have that tendency. Nor do the 1911 guns. Add the PPQ to the good list.
I did use the Beretta for one leg. But it was much harder for me to do than with a 1911 Hardball gun.

If you have the ability then a better firearm gives you the potential and consistency for better results.
So I do not subscribe to the idea that shooting bad firearms will make you a better shooter.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
My question would be to explain how you can establish a level of consistency in order to evaluate improvement, with a firearm incapable of any level of consistency?

If the fiream is going to spray bullets around the target regardless of how good your trigger control, sight alignment, or point of aim is, how do you know if you're good or not?

My thought as well. Quality firearms are the only way to go if one is looking for consistent excellent performance. Good weapon, good glass on it!

I'm going into the group "About the stupidest thing I have ever heard".

Here's the thing. You ever wonder why Delta Force or equivalent are so much better than the rest of us? Because they CAN perform the fundamentals upon demand in all conditions. Sweating, bleeding, after a five mile run, strong handed, weak handed, etc. How do they get there? Bad as I hate to say the words "Perfect Practice". They train the subconscious to do much of the heavy lifting of any given task so the conscious mind can't step in and screw it up. (Think "overthinking" or trying to force a shot at a precise time when the sights look right and going "NOW" thus pushing the gun at the point of ignition, or the like).

If you train with your "worst" firearm, you are having to work harder to program the subconscious to do the task when you need it most. What is the purpose of intentionally working harder to obtain the goal you wish? Simple answer? Stupidity. Everyone is trying to reinvent the wheel to gain a stake in being able to be a SME. It's been several decades since anything truly revolutionary has happened in the shooting industry. And I'm going back to the early '80s when a lot of what we thought we knew of applying force, doing things the hard way, and being a MAN in gun handling went the way of the Triceratops in favor of being more fluid, having continuity in training, and allowing the gun to go off instead of forcing it.

A lot of guys want to tout "What works best for me" as some weird ass theory or throw back to the 70s. Fact of the matter, the top tier guys that are shooting cardboard and people at a high level for a living are doing the same thing. One uses better tactics than the other is about it.

Dry fire is where the true money shot is. And working smarter and not harder pays us a much better dividend. Like I said, nothing has changed in many decades. Except the guys truly on top are finding more and better ways to streamline their programs. Compare Frank Proctor to just about anyone from the Southwest pistol league. They couldn't hold Frank's water. And he just "let it do".

quote:

Originally posted by imadat:
I'm talking to a guy who put out a theory that goes something like this:
Practice shooting with the "worst" firearm you own. The theory being that if you can shoot the "worst" firearm you own well, then you should be able to shoot a "better/nicer" firearm "better" (tighter groups) because you can already shoot the "bad" firearm proficiently.

Perhaps another way of saying it is that if you aim small and miss small with a "cheap/inexpensive/bad" firearm then you will miss smaller with a "good/quality" firearm.

Everything I seem to recall reading tends to lean towards mastering your preferred firarm.

Is there anything to this guy's theory?

Thanks in advance for your commentery.

Best,

Jake

That makes about much sense as learning how to play golf with a hodgepodge of mismatch clubs.