No, Hal, I beat him by firing DA, as we were trained to do. Nobody was allowed to fire SA up to 25 yards, the max we trained at & the max we fired that day.
My point is that techniques often become outmoded & replaced by more efficient ones.
Another example would be those taught to the Shanghai Police by Sykes & Fairbairn in the early part of the last century.
Far better than no training program, neither their choice of issued weapon nor the empty-chamber-carry they required hold up today.
Jordan's one-hand crouch worked for him, but it's long outdated.
My 1976-era firearms instructor "grew up" in policing with that outdated method. Even using a bad or lesser technique, it's possible with practice & a certain amount of natural "talent" to get reasonably good at it.
Starting out with a better technique simply puts you ahead of the game from the beginning.
Our shootoff that day started with two men back at the 25-yard line. On the first whistle each moved forward toward his own silhouette target. On the second whistle, each drew & fired one shot at his target as quickly as safely possible, then re-holstered.
Repeat till the revolver was empty.
Scoring was simple- point for getting the first shot off, point for a hit.
The instructor was fast, but I won because he missed a couple at the farther distance, and I had six holes on my target at the end.
When all's said & done, it's hits that count, and you use the method that's most likely to get those.
Carrying that premise on (an outdated technique favored by Jordan & Bryce), even though it did work for those two unusually talented men, it certainly was feasible within certain distances, and it was far better than no organized training program at all, it was far from the absolute best do-it-this-way-ONLY defensive shooting method for everybody.
Once people began to hang on with TWO hands & USE those sights, hit ratios as distances lengthened changed markedly in general.
The same applies to DA shooting only.
Inside relatively short distances & in a hurry, it's your best bet & you should learn it.
Having taught cops the DA revolver, I can say from experience that beyond 7 yards firing DA only, the percentage of hits decreases greatly.
Yes- learn to shoot accurately and steadily with a DA trigger IF you plan to use the gun for defense. WITHIN realistic distances.
But don't cripple yourself by forcing yourself to stick to ONLY the DA trigger in all shooting situations, and especially don't do it because Jordan said it was the only way to conduct business.
(Jordan also advocated routinely carrying your duty revolver in your duty holster unsecured & with the strap snapped around the holster body to enable the fastest possible draw, unless or until you "anticipated" strenuous activity where the gun might fall out, in which case you should then snap the strap over the hammer. That one just about floored me when I first read it.
I do respect the man & his achievements, but he wasn't God & his writings were not chiseled in stone on a mountaintop to be followed to the letter by all.)
If you can't hit anything beyond 25 yards consistently in DA mode, and time permits, then cock the blasted hammer and do what it takes to get your hit.
As Jordan himself said more than once- accuracy is the final decider.
Do what it takes, given your own equipment & ability, to get those hits.
And having said that, I won't hi-jack this one any further.
Hal, do whatever you want with your own guns, but you're dead wrong in trying to force DA-only on the OP, or anybody else.
I currently own many DA revolvers, including an unfired 6-inch 28 & a much-customized 28 (with a modified rounded gripframe). The 28s are great revolvers.
I do not & will not shoot any of them DA-only to the exclusion of reason & reality.
When I shoot, I do so to hit whatever I'm shooting at, and I'll do it in whichever way seems most indicated at the moment.
Processes are important, but when we're looking at something that's so intensely goal-oriented, I refuse to limit myself to one single process when it so adversely affects my chances of achieving my end goal.
Denis
