Sancho’s approach to training focuses heavily on drills. He believes that you have to get the basics right and be able to operate in a safe manner at all times.
For someone who is new to this, that’s a lot of remember.
So we drill. And drill. And drill.
Off the top, you should always do a press check (ensuring there is a cartridge in the chamber) after you load your first magazine, to be sure you can see that there is a round loaded in the chamber. This is to ensure you start your training (and shooting) on the right foot.
Failures
Maybe you have a failure to fire. It could be:
The magazine is not seated properly so it failed to chamber a round (that’s why you press check).
Or you have a Misfire; the round fails to go off.
The basic Tap-Rack-Bang drill is only three steps. If you are in a situation where your firearm fails to fire, you tap the bottom magazine to ensure it’s seated properly. Then you rack the slide(or bolt), and assuming you are facing down range and it’s safe, you fire again.
Double Feed
The way to solve this failure is to:
Lock the slide (or bolt) in the open position
Strip out the magazine
Rack the slide (three times)
Slap in a new magazine (make sure it’s seated!)
Rack the slide (to put a round in the chamber)
Fire!
Sancho and I did the Tap-Rack drill for several lessons. Being new to me, I had a tough time getting it straight in my head. Then we added the Double Feed drill. More complexity for me. More to remember.
I practiced it in my head. I went through the steps over and over.
And then one day on the way to work, I was driving and going through the drill in my head. And it just clicked for me. Then I realized that second part of the Double Feed drill was Tap-Rack!
You know, it seems so simple now. But at the time, it was like a giant light bulb flashed over my head. Sitting in traffic, in the car, I grinned like a crazy person. The penny finally dropped and it made perfect sense to me.
I had finally made it to Conscious Competence. I had made some progress.
With one drill!
There was so much more to come!
