So I've been following Aimless's "KISS is stupid/practical rifle" threads, and one of the interesting aspects of them are the guys who post up their bone stock, iron sighted, non-flashlight equipped, full length rifles and proudly proclaim "this is as practical as it gets."

Hmm.  So I'm thinking, what would be a good shooting drill that could give us an idea of the practical advantage offered by one rifle over another?  Some sort of course of fire  which you can do with any two rifles, and have a quantifiable result afterward which tells you that one rifle is of more practical use than the other for that particular shooter.  The drill should require no expensive or otherwise unusual targets or shooting range setups, as not everyone has access to an indoor shoothouse with moving 3d targets, etc.

So here's my idea, just to start off.  First, the drill is to be done at night, since armies around the world must fight at night and as civilians we know that the vast majority of bad incidents which result in a defensive shooting also occur at night.

We have six targets at distances of between five and 25 yards.   The  targets should be only partially available to shoot, meaning approximately half of each target should be pained black in a variety of ways to simulate cover.

The shooter should do some sort of exercise before the drill in order to get his heart rate up to the "target heart rate" appropriate for a cardiovascular workout. For someone of my height and weight that would be around 130 beats per minute.  The elevated heart rate is to simulate, for civilians, the distress of being in a life threatening situation, and for military, the stress of running to the fight.  The exercise can be wind sprints, pushups, whatever it takes to get the shooter to his target heart rate.

With his heart thumping and in low light, the shooter begins from the low ready and engages each "threat" with the number of rounds that he would use to neutralize a real enemy with that particular firearm.  That means if the drill is being run with an Mp5, the shooter would probably use 3-round burst or full auto.  If the shooter is using a scoped 8mm Mauser and is confident in scoring one shot kills, than if he would actually pull the trigger only once per man if he were being attacked by six armed men, then that's what the shooter should do.  The total time to succesfully engage all targets is marked.  Any target not engaged with a killing shot invalidates the entire drill and the drill must be repeated again.  This encourages accurate aiming and multiple rounds on target, because in my opinion few shooters "playing for keeps", whether civilian or military, will shoot one round at a lethal threat and immediately move on.

The shooter repeats the course of fire with each gun or configuration to be tested and marks the time.  For example, for guns with some flexibility in configuration, the course could be run with iron sights, then a reflex sight, then a zoom-type optic, and results compared back to back.  Each time he shoots a new configuration he first exercises until he reaches his target heart rate.

If possible, multiple shooters run the course of fire and times are collated for each gun and configuration, not for each shooter.  Fast, accurate shooters will do better with every configuration than slow, inaccurate shooters, but comparing guns rather than shooters means that the scores will balance out.  The gun or configuration with the fastest time wins.

What ideas do you guys have for a course of fire where you and a group of friends could all hit the local range together with your favorite rifles, and determine which rifle or configuration is most practical?

PS yes I thumbed this out on my phone, while watching MU get creamed by Nebraska on Saturday afternoon.

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25 yards max is a no-go.  Gotta be 100 yards with a rifle or carbine.

results from study with respect to average police sniper distances.

"Nearly 45% of the shootings documented occurred during low-light hours."

"The average police sniper distance was 51 yards. Of all the sniper shots, 95% took place between zero and 100 yards."

Tactical Response September 2005

I thought about the range, but 100 yards in the dark means night vision, not flashlights.  Too expensive and rare for most shooters, and overly restricts the types of rifles that can be compared.  Even in the daytime, shooting offhand from the low ready with only half the target available to fire at and with your heart at its target heart rate, I think scoring consistent killshots at 100 yards would be very challenging for a lot of ordinary shooters no matter the gun, and the point is to compare guns.

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Make it 50 yards. You have to have a "distance" shot in there somewhere. Ideally, I think you'd run the drill from 5-200 yards. Put a target at 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 200. But I will say this; if I'm seeing someone 50 or 100 yards out, and especially at 200, first thing I'm doing is going flat or getting behind something. I'd try to narrow down his location from there, and come up with an angle I can peek and engage from. In other words, cover/shooting rest is essential.

To make the drill complete, you'd need to incorporate a barricade of some kind to test how maneuverable the gun is in practical conditions of shooting from cover. Make the short distance targets 'light needed' and offhand, and the long distance ones (50 on out) able to be engaged without using a light and using available cover.

Another aspect to consider might be having the shooter go from extreme precision of an obscured target at say 200, to a rapid engagement of a nearby target at 10 yards or so, with appropriate response time limit.

Really, there's just no comparing some guns other than to say flat out one sucks and the other doesn't. Any bolt gun is going to suck hard unless its being used at distances that prevent the enemy from effectively returning fire. Trying to take a cheap M44 and run it like an AR is an exercise in folly. Not saying it can't be used, but pick your fights, and know that 25 yards in the dark is not the time to be using a stiff-bolted, ironsighted relic.

I like it, Riley.  Thanks.


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based on my above post i'm thinking that contact shooting to 50 yards would be the optimum distances.  i'd lean towards dusk or dawn shooting over pitch black (limited light instead of no light).  i like the idea of using exercise to induce physical exertion and having to move and shoot (even if it's just around a barricade) but these activities do introduce the variable of the shooters fitness level.  the idea of using multiple shooters might work but if someone has never operated a certain weapon platform before (for example they've never changed magazines on an AK, only an AR) then that too could skew the results.

i'm not sure if looking to the competitive shooting arena is always best since i don't know how tuning certain weapons will effect reliability.  how should reliability be scored, i don't want to drop test my rifles or optics.  isn't reliability as practical as it gets (reliable accuracy, reliable function)?

the idea of having a standardized "combat shoot" is great, like Appleseed only an AR15.COM qual that members could set up where they normally shoot.

Idealy, yes you are right. However the military has been using 25 meter ranges with scaled down targets for a long time, this is something I could run at my local club, except for darkness, no shooting after dark

You could practice in the day time if you bought a cheap pair of sunglasses and figured out a way to tint them down really dark... just a thought.