The Glock 23 is Glock's compact .40 caliber pistol. It holds 14 rounds and weighs less than 2lbs loaded. I bought mine as a law school graduation present to myself back when I lived in New Orleans. It was a factory-refurbished police trade-in formerly carried by an officer in Walden, New York according to Glock. I've owned it for several years but since my department refused to allow us officers to carry anything off-duty except for our issue pistol. I haven't done much with the Glock. Of course when I got hurt on the job, they took my duty pistol away and they're holding it until I'm deemed fit to return again. Thanks alot for that, white shirts!
So now I'm carrying the Glock again. It's a nifty little gun that may lack in the asthetics department (that means that it's not pretty for any Democrats that might be reading this) but it always goes "Bang!" when I depress the trigger and it puts the bullets where I want them if I do my part.
So what's so hard about shooting with one foot you ask? If you have to ask, you obviously haven't tried to draw and steady a pistol while standing on one leg. Give it a try and you'll find out as I did that it's just not easy to do or practical to even attempt. So what to do?
Well I was on crutches today so first I tried to use one crutch as a monopod by putting it out in front of me and bracing my wrists with it as I shot two-handed. It seemed like a good idea, but it didn't work much better than just trying to balance on one foot.
So since I needed to be steady, I defaulted back to Rifle 101 and tried the kneeling position. I placed my left knee on the ground (It's my left foot that's missing) and kept my right foot flat. That worked well as I was stable so I extended my arms into the basic Chapman hold and shot. Perfect. Three rounds smack into the center of a six-inch circle at 15 meters. Next I set out to develop a tactical method for getting into this position quickly.
Starting out standing and supported by both crutches with my pistol holstered beneath a long untucked shirt with I wore as cover garment, I faced the target. Using my dominant hand, I reached back behind the crutch on that side and swept it away. That hand then reversed direction and knifed inside the cover garment to grasp the pistol. As I drew the pistol from the holster, I thrust the other crutch away and dropped to my left knee as I brought the pistol out into firing position. Lining up the sights, I tapped three shots onto the target as quickly as possible.
This technique showed a lot of promise so I practiced it over and over again. I went through a hundred rounds, three shots at a time, and put almost every one of them inside the six-inch circle. Of course this meant slamming my knee onto the concrete or into the gravel over thirty times and then picking up my crutches and using them to pull myself back to the upright position each time as well. It may not sound like much but by the time the ammo was gone, I'd worked up a nice sweat, my knee was bruised and cut up, and I was starting to feel it in my arm muscles. I also ran these drills with my magazines loaded to different degrees, drilling myself on the tactical reload every time the pistol went dry during one of the three-round sets. Not only did I regain much of my ability to load the Glock by feel, but I found out that one of my older magazines no longer locks the slide back when it goes empty. So now that one's relegated to training status. I only went through a hundred rounds and need more practice before I've really got this down cold, but at least I've got a technique and a plan and I'm confident that if faced with a threat, I can address it in a practiced, tactical manner. And even though it's a bit slower than a two-foot standing technique, it has the added advantage of making ME a smaller target and putting me below the eye level and instinctive line of fire of an aggressor.
Yay Glock, and yay me. Better, stronger and faster.
And speaking of new guns...
Aaron over at The Shekel got himself one of those newfangled little Kahr Arms PM9 pistols. He's in love with it and both he and all of the gun reviews out there on the internet make a good case for buying one. Small is good and a small, controllable 9mm is great. My only concern is the magazine capacity because when I was involved in an actual shooting a couple years back, I was suprised to find out how many rounds I'd put off under the stress of the moment. As such, I'm leaning towards the almost-as-small Glock 26. It's just a little bigger but holds 12 rounds in the magazine + 1 in the chamber as opposed to the Kahr's 6+1. And I can get a Glock 27 in .40 which is the same size as the 26 but built for the .40 round. It holds one round less: 11+1. Still, I'm not convinced. Decisions, decisions. I'll just have to see Aaron's new toy and try it out before I decide. He sure likes his and that's a pretty good reference. (Hell, I'll probably wind up with one of each before it's over. You can never have too many guns.)
But check out Aaron's review of the Kahr: here
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