Long Time Between

 "It's a Damn Long Time between Drinks" is the famous statement allegedly made in 1838, when North Carolina governor Edward B. Dudley purportedly said it to South Carolina governor Pierce Mason.

The quotation has been used at least since 1891 as a catchphrase for any long and tedious process.

I’m here to tell you it’s been a damn long time between rounds down range.  I had shoulder surgery for a torn left rotator cuff and the therapist told me physical therapy for a shoulder replacement goes faster than repair.  In any case, after five months, I couldn’t wait to be release and get out to the range.

Of course, Mother Nature is a capricious harpy, and after days of rain and bad weather I got out to shoot.

I elected to shoot what some people call a range qualifier.  It’s a very basic test to look at shooting strong hand, weak hand (or to be more politically correct: non-dominant hand) and two-handed. We can round it out withdrawing from the holster and a slide lock reload.  If we add three distances, this Course of Fire become a 20 round rust remover.

There’s the COF:

No. 1 5 yards – Draw and fire 5 rounds in 5 seconds

No. 2 5 yards - with gun in hand, strong side only, 3 rounds in 3 seconds

No. 3 5 yards - with gun in hand, weak side only, 2 rounds in 3 seconds

No. 4 7 yards – load only 3 rounds, with gun in both hands fire 3 rounds, reload fire 3 more rounds.  Total of 6 rounds in 10 seconds

No. 5 10 yards, gun in both hands fire 4 rounds in 6 seconds.

Most people use a B-8 target only score the impacts inside the 7 ring as hits.  Most people are a little more prepared than I was.  I dug around in the pile of targets and found some unmarked repair target centers and stapled them to the back of a previously shot cardboard backer.

How did I do?

My first attempt

First string:  No. 1 4.1 seconds,

                   No. 2 2.8 seconds,

                   No. 3 3.8 seconds,

                   No. 4 7.7 seconds,

                   No. 5 3.7 second.

Honestly, not so great.  Note the dropped shot in the image.

I had a lot of trouble finding my dot, especially with my left arm.  We know that shooting is a perishable skill and I’m proof of that.  The left shoulder that was repaired gave me a lot of trouble and I found my 9mm Glock was hard to handle left side only.

So, I reshot it,

Second string was slower but smaller group and no dropped shots

Second string:       No. 1 4.5 seconds,

                             No. 2 3.2 seconds,

                             No. 3 3.4 seconds,

                             No. 4 7.3 seconds,

                             No. 5 4 seconds.

I’m a little happier with the second time around.  The group is tighter, but my times were slightly longer.  Both strings indicated I need more time practicing locating my dot and building strength and stamina on my left side.  Weak side shooting was painful and difficult.

I once had an instructor who lectured the class about returning too soon after a martial arts injury.  He urged us to be sure we could do a technique at full power and speed at home before performing it in the dojo.  That suggestion seems to apply for shooting as well.