I don’t know whether or how this can or has been measured, but conventional wisdom (i.e. claims of several instructors of tactical shooting) states that when the bullets start flying both ways, the best performance you can expect is 50 percent of your best day on the range. If we accept this, even as an artificial incentive to continue to polish our skills, in order to achieve that paltry 50-percent performance it is necessary to practice in less-than-perfect environments.
Sure, everybody wants to put on the tactical pants, vest and shades when it’s 70 degrees and sunny, and start whacking steel and perforating the paper, but how will one’s performance pale when it’s 2 degrees, the wind is blowing 25 mph and you’ve got two layers of everything on along with gloves?
About three years ago I was invited by Springfield Armory to a writer’s event in San Diego, CA, arguably the best climate on Earth with generally balmy days gently quenched by fresh afternoon offshore breezes on a daily basis. In addition to the normal “here’s-our-new-products” stuff, we were to get some real shooting and training from Rob Leatham, the company-sponsored pro shooter. There were nearly two dozen of us writer types there, and less than a half hour into the day’s activities the skies opened up with a vengeance—a rare event in southern California.
So, did we cease firing and retire to the bar and wait out the storm (as many of us wanted to)? Hell no, we kept on shooting. When we finally did break for lunch the guys from Springfield scrounged up some dry T-shirts for us. Every one of us looked like we just climbed out of a pool with our clothes and guns on. As we entered the dining area, there were some Springfield shop guys to clean our guns for us. The young man who took the Rob Leatham Signature Model from me gave me a deer-in-the-headlights look and asked incredulously, “You took a $3,000 gun out in that?” I didn’t miss a beat, “That’s why you are here,” I smiled.
Aside from getting some great shooting advice from Rob, I learned a lot about shooting in distressed environments like a driving rainstorm. Things like: When guns are soaked they get slippery. No, I didn’t drop a gun, but magazine changes were more interesting since they have no checkering or other non-skid surface to grasp. I also learned—and it probably helped because I was intensively motivated to not be the one to drop one of those expensive pistols on the concrete—that when it’s pouring rain you have to really concentrate on grasping the pistol correctly and not losing it while shooting.
Along with the weather-induced foibles regarding tactical and emergency magazine manipulations, I found that I had to concentrate more on the basics of draw and re-holstering than I would normally. Also, when the rain is pounding so hard as to rebound droplets from your skin and the pistol, it does funny things to the sight picture. Center-of-mass shots out to 7 yards still weren’t too difficult, but a 25-yard head shot got pretty tough.
What brought about this trip down short-term memory lane was going out this morning to shoot a mess of cottontails with a friend of mine. We both had a bit of the cabin fever and simply wanted to get out and hunt. Well, the temperatures varied wildly from this incoming storm front—anywhere from 2 degrees to 28 degrees—and the winds kept the edge sharp at 20 to 25 mph. Normally for us any stationary bunny within 50 yards is in grave danger of getting its head blown off, but Jim took four shots at a 35-yard cottontail to anchor it and I loosed three shots that had no effect other than to stir the frozen dust at another rabbit at 40 yards before it decided to retire to a more serene environment.
Point is: If you want to help ensure your effectiveness and survivability in a gunfight, practice when the weather is crappy or even when you just don’t feel like being out there. As likely as not, those will be the conditions when you will have to fight.
—Dave Campbell
