Effective Leadership

28 Nov 07

Mismatch! This from one of our instructors in WI.

"During regional, in-service training, a local PD showed up with EOTech sights, mounted atop the fixed, carrying-handles of their AR-15/A2 rifles. Officers did their level best to make this set-up work, but with such large bore-line/sight-line span, a consistent cheek weld (or any cheek-contact with the stock for that matter) is nearly impossible. I saw heads aimlessly wobbling in space at all kinds of weird angles! Results were disappointing, as officers could hit (eventually), but too much valuable time was squanderedjust trying to get a sight picture. The chief of this department did not show up, so he did not have the opportunity to see for himself the problems associated with this flawed set-up."

Comment: When the brass don't show up for training, they don't know what is being presented, how it is being presented, and, without the experience of personally participating, they tend to have only a cursory, shallow understanding of critical training and equipment issues, such as described in the foregoing.

Effective leaders have mud on their shoes!

/John

News from Glock

28 Nov 07

From a friend at Glock:

"The first copies of Glock's 30SF are in country. Will hit retail shelves soon. Ambidextrous magazine release buttons are an option. Default is the normal, left-side magazine release."

Comment: Manufacturers will, of course, supply customers with what customers think they want. However, a magazine-release button facing to the outside as the pistol is carried is an invitation to a missing magazine at a painfully inconvenient moment! Again, this button should only face to the inside where an inadvertent release of the magazine is much less likely.

/John

Bore-line/Sight-line

28 Nov 07

Bore-line/sight-line span for serious rifles:

The trend toward getting the sight-line higher and higher over the bore-line is a bad one indeed! A rifle with the sight-line close to the bore-line is going to be much more accurate, over the entire useable range of the cartridge, than is one with an excessive bore-line/sight/line span.

In fact, the greater the bore-line/sight-line span the more pointless the process of zeroing the rifle, at any range, becomes! And, when an optic is too high to enable iron-sight co-witnessing, much practical utility is lost.

In addition, a solid and consistent cheek weld in endemic to any species of serious shooting. Sloppy, unstable cheek welds will be fatal when the real fighting starts!

A bore-line/sight-line of 2.5 inches is manageable. Much more than that, and the system becomes a can of worms!

We have entered "The Day of the Rifle." Who are inadequately armed will live to regret it, but not much longer!

/John