Pro-Gun Millennial Standards: CCW Standard Mod: 1

Background

First, if you have not read the intro to PGM Standards, I recommend it. If you’re just here to see what’s up then don’t bother, but if you want to know why I came up with what I did, that’s where it comes from.

Original Standard

Second, what was the original standard? It is pretty basic, which isn’t a big criticism in my mind. The average EDC/CCWer’s shooting problem is not going to be technically difficult, but if you do need to draw a gun in defense of oneself or others then you need to do so competently.

Simply put: Fire 3 rounds from concealment at an IPSC torso target (or equivalent) at 7 yards. There are time & accuracy requirements, and an advanced procedure, but the core is getting the first, best hits in a gunfight. That is what’s been proven to determine the outcome of the majority of real-world defensive encounters. I designed the original standard to test for that.

Of note: this is not a drill. There is no ‘score’ to use to compete against your friends. This is a pass/fail test. This is a standard. This test is designed to help the shooter evaluate their competency for realistic scenarios, and maybe identify some of their weaknesses. Improving those weaknesses is the realm of drills, of which there is an infinite supply by countless others who are far more knowledgeable than I.

Why Change It?

Third, why did I decide to modify the standard? Because it might have been too simple after all. Now, I am not advocating for making things difficult just for the sake of being difficult. I was reading a good blog post from a longtime friend of PGM, Integrated Skills Group. ISG recently posted what they call their “Handgun Proficiency Audit” which they designed for normal people like you & I. Now, as someone who has pondered and posted about the exact same thing, I had to see what they were getting up to. After reading the Audit’s course of fire, I found some skills that I had not taken into consideration yet. Again, I’m not just adding complexity for complexity’s sake, I honestly think that there are some skills that the average CCWer could benefit from having.

One thing that ISG mentioned in their reasoning is acquiring a sight picture. The original PGM Standard could be shot by pointing the gun at the target by instinct and, with half-decent recoil control, still pass without ever actually aiming the gun. If you are shooting a gun in the same public that my family ventures into from time-to-time, I’d really appreciate y’all using the sights. To test this new skill, amongst some others, I’ve changed the Standard to the following:

PGM’s CCW Standard Mod: 1

String of Fire 1:

Setup: An IPSC/USPSA (or equivalent) target at 7 yards.

Course of fire: From concealment, draw & fire 3 rounds freestyle, 2.0 second par time. All hits must be A or B zone.

Advanced: Same as above, but one handed with a 2.5 second par time.

String of Fire 2:

Setup: An IPSC/USPSA (or equivalent) target at 15 yards.

Course of fire: From concealment, draw and fire two rounds, reload, fire two more rounds, reload again, and fire 2 final rounds (2-r-2-r-2). All hits must be A or B zone. Time is 9 seconds.

Advanced: Only head box (B zone and the small A zone) count.

Why I Added What I Did

The only difference is that I added a second string of fire, one that contains reloads.

The first change is the increased distance. One major critique of the original standard is that it can be met without actually aiming the gun, just pointing it at the target w/o a sight picture. While point-shooting can be used to great effect in the real world, it’s not a sure fire a strategy worth betting your life on. To make sure that we are testing a shooter’s ability to get a good sight picture, I made the second string take place at a longer distance. Also, Morran keeps hammering me about how everyone should shoot their carry gun at long distances.

To address the added reloads to the new standard: Adding reloads is weird, since I’ve advocated against over-indexing on reloads for normal CCW guys, but I have a good reason. I haven’t changed my mind on the utility of reloads for a normal, average CCWer. The reload makes the shooter have to re-acquire the target. The longer distance requires the shooter to get a good sight picture when they re-acquire, not just something sloppy.

The grip on the gun is also being tested. In the original standards, the shooter only builds the grip one time. Adding in the second string of fire makes the shooter build a good grip on the gun a second time, plus again for each reload, for a total of 4 times. The grip is also why I made the course of fire require 2 rounds between reloads instead of just 1 in a standard 1-r-1. The first round may go where you point the gun, but the recoil from it will slow down a shooter with a poor grip on the gun.

The second string now tests the shooter’s ability to be accurate, get a good sight picture quickly, build a good grip, control recoil, and do those things repeatedly.

I still think the skills tested in the Original Standard are enough to get the majority of normal people out of the majority of scenarios that happen in real life. I think that the new addition widens that area of coverage to basically everyone and basically every scenario. Pretty good for 9 rounds total.

Stay sharp, stay realistic, and we’ll see you soon

-S_S.