Just last week this video has been going around of a woman shooting a handgun in an indoor range. She takes a shot and then immediately turns the gun into herself and fires it into her chest.

Bullsye Bishop posted this video on their website and Facebook page. From the previous shooter, it looks like the drill is to walk while shooting with right hand only. However, the second guy draws his pistol and reaches with his left hand for a customary two handed grip. As he does this he pulls the trigger and nearly shoots his own hand. The RO says he is fine and they continue the drill. I have issues with this as I have RO’d USPSA matches and FNH USA 3 Gun Matches. Any instance of a negligent discharge is cause for immediate cease fire and disqualification. Now this looks like a training class and not a match so no need for disqualification. But such an unsafe act should have been a reason to call a cease fire and immediately draw attention to what just happened. Use this as a learning example and explain to the shooter and any other shooter there so they can all take this incident seriously.

The East German Kleinkaliber-Maschinenpistole Modell 69 .22 Long Rifle Kalashnikov Trainer is one of the more peculiar relics of the Cold War. It is one of the few .22 LR trainers completely modeled after a full size, working issue rifle (not a conversion kit), and actually used by a military (not commercially produced). East Germany took a number of parts from the 7.62x39mm KKMPI 69, and produced a select fire .22 LR trainer, to be used within military marksmanship, and by youth groups within East Germany. Around 50,000 were produced, and at the end of the Cold War it appears all 50,000 were destined to be scrapped. Nevertheless, some made their way to Switzerland, and a very small portion were chopped up, and exported to the United States as parts kits, where there is very little demand or interest in them. Small Arms Review has an excellent and detailed write up of the rifle.

Malhama Tactical is a Youtube and Twitter tactical training entity that is the creation of a certain Abu Rofiq, an Uzbek who claims to have served in the Russian Airborne Forces. Rofiq speaks Russian, and all his media is also in Russian, but that doesn’t necessarily explicitly mean he was enlisted in the Russian Army. Russian is a second language to many of the Central Asian Republics, however there was a measure passed by the Russian Government that allowed foreigners to enlist. His “company” bills itself as a tactical consulting company for various groups within Syria. Specifically he allies with Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formally Jabhat al-Nusra. Al-Nusra proclaimed alliances with al-Qaeda but that really appears to be a formality rather than a complete branch of the group in Syria, al-Nusra’s aims and motivations are much more Syrian focused, than al-Qaeda’s MENA and international intentions.

In a few days (December 11th), Lt Col (ret) Mikey Hartman, a 22 year veteran of the IDF and writer of the IDF Shooting Doctrine, and CEO of CAA Global, is bringing IDF style training here to the United States.

This is not as bad as some of the IDF videos we have seen. There are moments that cause one to question the validity of the training regimen. Such as twirling the pistol and then twisting it to present it to another officer.

While at the Nightforce 2016 Industry Shoot, there were two incredibly interesting topics that piqued my curiosity. The first one was a drill that involved shooting at a target in defilade from your position. And the second was about am innovator in firearms development who has been all but forgotten about since his departure from it.

Precision Rifle Series has recently announced the 2017 Gas Gun Series. In the world of precision shooting, “gas gun” is used to differentiate from “bolt gun”. But to the rest of us, this simply means any semiautomatic rifle with a high power scope mounted. The Series will have 3 Divisions that shooters can compete under, a Tac Light, Tac Heavy, and an Open Division. The Tac Light is for 5.56x45mm NATO/.223 Rem rifles, Tac Heavy is for 7.62x51mm NATO/.308 Win rifles, and Open is for any rifle up to .30 Caliber, with a muzzle velocity of under 3,200 fps. The official rule book for the 2017 Gas Gun season can be found here. Handguns will be apart of the competition, although competitors really have to only be competent with them, and not ace the handgun matches, to make a difference in the overall scoring.

Something that I think many who carry for self-defense have in mind, is that there is a perceived lack of reality when it comes down to what actually happens in violent encounters. Myself included, I think alot of us sometimes have the idea that any violent self-defense encounter that we could be involved in, will play out like a chess game, with us of course having the upper-hand, due to our knowledge, choice of firearm, holster, etc… etc… However the reality of the matter is that most civilian self defense encounters are over in a matter of seconds. There are all sorts of drills out there trying to get this point across. One of my favorite is the 6 second drill, with 6 rounds at 6 feet, drawing and firing within 6 seconds. In addition, to paraphrase the vast majority of self defense instructors/philosophies, when the time to act defensively has been decided upon, it has to be as violently and as swiftly as possible, until the threat is no longer present (not dead). There is no half way mark when defending your life.

IPSC – International Practical Shooting Confederation – have a list of World Record holders in shooting.

It’s an unfortunate fact that the amount of training needed increases disproportionately as higher and higher levels of proficiency are sought. In other words, the better you are, the more and more (and more) you’ll need to train to get even better than that. It’s also an unfortunate fact that training is expensive; every round fired costs a substantial fraction of a dollar, and on top of that instructors (and trainees, too, in military and LE training) must be paid, ranges and weapons maintained, and a whole host of other costs. There simply isn’t a way around it; if you want better riflemen, you need to pony up for more training.

Teemu Rintala from Finland, one of the World’s best rifle and shotgun shooters. Nordic Champion, and now aiming for World Rifle Shoot in Russia 2017. I really hope the best practical rifle shooters from all around the World will come to this competition, but I guess that for various reasons some will refuse (or won’t be allowed) to go.

Last year, Triumph Systems made their debut at Big 3 East in October 2015. Jared Ogden, CEO, co-founder of Triumph systems and a former Navy SEAL, showed us a prototype of his Pivotal Trainer. It was raw and unrefined but the potential it showed was exciting. The prototype did as advertised. It holds a shoot/no-shoot target and there is a motor that spins the target to show the edge profile or either side. The motor is controlled wireless by a remote. You can manually choose which side to show the shooter or you can set it to automatically rotate. What we did not get to see was the final product.