yesterday at the range

My Gun Club range is a cold range. Before you go forward of the firing line, you put your unloaded weapons down. There is no handling of weapons while people are forward of the firing line. No fiddling with sights, cleaning the weapon, bore sighting the scope.

The only time weapons are allowed to be loaded is when you are infact shooting on the line. Holstering a loaded weapon to practice draw and fire, well, OK. Just don't shoot yourself in the leg. Walking around with a holstered loaded weapon is not allowed.

Any accidental discharges that result in a death or injury, it is likely our Club will be sued by the person or the relatives of the victim and that will be the last of our Gun Club. It is not in the interest of the gun club to encourage risky behavior that will result in a court decision of negligence.
 
My range also calls for guns to be unloaded during cease fire, but they have no problem with holstered pistols loaded or otherwise. Now, if you remove your gun from the holster during cease fire you will be of course asked to leave.

Being afraid of holstered guns at the range? Really guys? How do you feel around people that are carrying around you?
 
Guns carried around me remain holstered, not subject to being drawn unless the situation requires.
I did 27 years in Law Enforcement, and had more guns pointed at me at public ranges than on the job. None of them were pointed "with intent", just sloppy gun handling - including the woman, pushed to shoot it by her husband, who pointed a loaded Uzi subgun at me with her finger on the trigger!
Public ranges are dangerous places (police ranges are only slightly less dangerous), mostly because shooters go into their private 'bubble', particularly if they have a problem. They are so intent on what they are doing, they don't hear range commands, horns, buzzers, etc.
Even after a "Cease Fire", with everyone back behind the 'yellow line', I have stopped people who walked forward to case, clean, adjust, and even LOAD their guns with folks down range.

If you frequent a public range, stay alert, trust no one!
 
IMHO, you are creating a possibly deadly training scar with your "Shoot once, holster, mark" routine. Under stress (IE: lethal encounter) you might find yourself doing exactly what you trained yourself to do: fire one chot and then re-holster.

Even if you made a hit there is no guarantee that the BG will cooperate and stop trying to kill you. Handguns are notoriously underpowered which is why the "one-shot-stop" and "stopping power" myths has been very dangerous for amateurs who believe in their existence.

Accuracy is ultimately more important than speed. But multiple hits will be more effective than a single one. As they say, "ammo is cheap..."
 
If you were at the range with me would you have thought I was weird for doing it this way?
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Good fort Bullseye, not so much for SD shooting.

And in Bullseye, we just use a spotting scope.

Saves a lot of time.
 
Sleuth is Correct

Early in my LE career, I received training from the range staff of NYPD. Now, at times NYPD was close to 40,000 officers and they averaged a shooting incident daily. When the range staff says something about shooting incidents, best that you listen.

They said: you will do on the street what you have been trained to do, conditioned yourself to do or got away with in training. Now, for the horror stories:
1. An officer suffers a stoppage in a gunbattle, stands up and raises his hand.
2. An officer, while taking fire, fires two rounds and reholsters.
3.A wounded officer (New Hall Incident) attempts to finish loading the cylinder of his revolver while his adversary advances to deliver an execution shot.
4. Numerous cases of dead officers found with empty shell casings in their hand or in their pocket.
5. An officer, upon seeing his partner engaged in a gunbattle, does not fire on the adversary as he is located somewhat behind him. Instead, he wastes precious seconds to run around the adversary in order to face him head on, just like the silhouette targets in training.
6. An officer shoots his autoloader dry and to slide lock. He catches the empty magazine to put in his pocket when he should have discarded it and get reloaded and back in the fight.

As a result of item 4 above, trainers did away with brass buckets and retrained their men to eject shell casings on the ground, not in their hand for tossing into the bucket.

In a gunbattle, your conscious mind shuts down and your subsconscious takes over. Program it with good stuff and it responds with good stuff. Best not to develop bad range habits for the sake of convenience.
 
"Does this seem to be an abnormal way to train for self-defense?"

I wouldn't say it's abnormal, but it can be counterproductive. In a face to face, life and death encounter, your stress levels will be through the roof. You pulse will be 200+. Your eyes will not focus. You will forget to breath. You might pee in your pants. Your mind will not function normally. What you will do in that situation is your training. If you fire one shot and re-holster in training, that's what you will do in a self defense situation. If you draw and do an instant, point-shoot double tap to the COM, that's what you will do.

Also practice your visual focus. Forget your sights, you will NOT use them in an up-close shooting. Practice focusing NOT no a whole body or target, but a small dot on it. On an individual, that might be a button on his shirt, or his nose.

I know it sounds strange, but it's true. Ask anybody who has actually done it. That's why it's so important that your training exactly duplicates what you want to do in a gunfight. Under the intense, crushing stress of that moment, for better or for worse, you will follow your training.
 
Public ranges are dangerous places (police ranges are only slightly less dangerous)
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Actually if you like at gunshot injuries police ranges are much more likely to have shooters suffer gunshot wounds.
To wit: the last 2 gunshot wounds i am aware were both at police ranges.
 
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