Normally I will be the first one to say that you cannot buy performance, and equipment is the last thing that I will blame for my mistakes. I taught a class recently in which the students gun was actually the problem.
Let me explain: I had a student who kept dropping his first shot on target, and then subsequently getting center hits on the rest of his string. He was a solid shooter, and his fundamentals were sound. So we endeavored to understand the issue since it was affecting his ability to get his hits on single round precision targets.
At first I thought it might be anticipation of recoil. A common issue that I see in almost every class. Students will drop the muzzle just as the shot breaks. I took a video, and playing it back in slow motion showed this was happening, but it wasn't a flinch, it was the gun.
He was running a CZ with a decocker. The single / double action of the gun and the long double action trigger press was killing his first round accuracy. Here is where the gear vs. training argument ensued. A suggestion was made that he go practice doing all kinds of odd things to train his trigger press.
Normally, I would have agreed, but this was just awful advise. I told the student that in this case, it was in fact the gun. He was using a gun that was more complicated than he needed. The fact is in 2019, a single / double action in a semi automatic handgun is largely obsolete technology.
My suggestion to the student was to find a less complicated gun.
Modern striker fired guns with no extraneous levers or buttons, and having a consistent trigger press, will save most people so much time, effort, and energy that they can now put into more immediate training needs.
It's not very often that I will advocate for gear being a solution, but in those rare cases like this one, it's because technology has rendered a technique or training issue outdated. So I ask you, are you using antiquated gear that may be robbing you of training resources?
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