Tactical reloads, i.e., keeping the gun fed, has been advocated for years. Cross load and consolidate your mags when time and opportunity presents itself (hopefully with team mates covering you and behind cover). That’s why in a lot of circles, speed reloads are considered “emergency reloads”.
There are really very few situation where taking cover is no longer an option… The Mogadishu mile comes to mind. Without a functioning rifle you are worthless. There is VERY few exceptions where there would be a reason to remain exposed while reloading.
It’s not about having a perfect world. what its about is being prepared.
What was that quote everyone was saying in iraq about 5 years ago. “have a plan to kill everyone you meet”
I would say that having a plan for what to do when engaged is pretty important as well.
The quickest way to condition black is to be in condition white.
Complacency kills.
I’m looking at this from my POV, which is that of an average citizen carrying a concealed pistol. I wasn’t able to see the video from where I’m at currently, but the conversation seems to be centered around carbines? Is this correct or are you advocating a similar methodology/mindset for handguns as well?
Reloading from a covered position should be reinforced at the most basic level.
The difference between a professional and an amateur is “brilliance at the basics.”
I am not military and dont claim to be. I am only posting to try and learn from the conversation.
As a civlian who ccw’s I try to have a good foundation of shooting on the move, since if I ever have to be shooting I want to be getting to cover.
It seems that this is centered on carbine method and as such arent all the reverences to speed reloads in this thread supposed to be covered by a transition? It would seem to me for that to be the case. I guess I dont see why the “speed reload” is automatically exempt from being done behind cover. It would seem that the only place a speed reload should be done is behind cover unless you have no other choice, if that is true the topic of this whole conversation seems moot.
I am really just posting this to get feedback. I dont claim to know anything and do really want to learn.
If you are by yourself and concealed carrying it changes a lot of what we are talking about. I am mostly referring to a Combat situation.
No is going to be in condition yellow at all times. Especially at home and out and about at the grocery store. Most people walk around in white all the time.
I could see getting caught with your ass in the wind and needed to reload from the open. Even then though if thats the case in most active shooter situation finding viable cover to use would be in my top priorities.
And we have a winner. You hit it right on the head. The part about not retaining your mag, and even having the “failure to feed” as I am calling it is not the issue we have.
It is more of a training thing. I am advocating the use of cover for reloading.
How many times do you see speed reloads being done from the standing static? this is what we have a problem with.
If you run dry and duck behind cover it is still not as good as anticipating whats about to happen and covering early but its the basic concept of not standing in front of your enemy conducting malfunction drills while he stares at you.
When your at the range the paper is your enemy. If you’re goal is to train for a real world scenario it should include the use of cover in it as much as possible.
I completely agree with reloading behind cover whenever possible, but for the most part training is focused on the earlier stages of training development where acquiring the muscle memory of properly executing a reload or malfunction clearance is the emphasis - though if the user is going to be stuck perplexed figuring out one or the other I’d prefer it to be behind cover anyway.
Another erroneous piece of information relating to this is the emphasis from most line unit military training wherein for a double feed or something there will be other team members there to resume the volume of fire, which removes emphasis on cover.
I agree with the value of a tactical reload, but in any situation where movement speed through a structure, or targets of opportunity will present themselves, I’d rather run the risk of firing until dry (unless I know I’m sitting with less than a dozen in the mag).
Given the tendency for civi gunfights to involve very few rounds, I’d much rather wind up with an empty rifle and transitioning to secondary than take a perfectly good long gun out of the fight by botching a tactical reload… I’d rather wait until there is enough of a lull that I’ve scanned sectors, scanned 360, communicated if relevant, then get cover as I brass check, tac reload if necessary, brass check again, and crossload. I guess I see the tac reload as a more administrative process, but that hasn’t stopped me from making extensive use of it in FoF training either.
Flat range drills have as much relevance to a real gun fight as working a heavy bag does to a boxing match. They teach the basic operations and techniques needed to perform. There’s still a whole lot that needs to be drilled/trained beyond it.
Is shooting one round from the low ready position in a static manner a good idea in an actual fight? No more so then standing static in front of the heavy bag and working your jab. It’s something your start with and develop from. Any good trainer will have you move around the bag, practicing slipping counters after your punch etc. Range facilities however don’t allow shooters to do the same thing, move distances to cover, engage targets at different elevations etc.
If the only thing I can have my fighter work on is punching straight ahead due to gym limitations, I’m by god going to have him work what I can then just tell him about all the other stuff he could do if things were different. Same thing with a static “in the open” reload, they can practice a lot of different things without having to add movement or cover, that due to range constraints may not be available.
-Jenrick
Ken Hackathorn is of the educated opinion that civilian shootings tend to be a couple of rounds but that civilian gunfights tend to have the shooters “go cyclic”, i.e. shoot to slidelock. My own limited experience in FoF and ECQC has supported this so far… of course once again this is in the realm of handguns.
As a civilain, do you often find yourself armed with both a primary and a secondary to transition to?
I realize the written word on the screen often leaves out much from inflection of genuine speech but here are a couple of vibes or things I see in the thread.
1 - The true intent of the discussion was not really made clear until late into page 1 and more clarity came on page 2. Hard to give opinions, when we are unsure about the topic.
2 - Those who gave opinions early on, possibly not understanding the question, seemed to have had their opinion briskly discarded and from how I read the posts the OP, you came across as not wishing to promote insightful conversation but rather “I am correct, you are not”.
As for static speed reloads, it is just like any other skill that might be practiced in a static position in order to teach and learn at the elementary levels of the education process. I am not talking about any priority in training here, just that the actual progression of learning any skill. Often isolating skills into steps is a very effective progression of learning. Anyone in military, LE or who has some type of advanced or ongoing firearms tactical training should have a basic grasp of looking for some damn hard cover asap when needed and if available, so this knowledge base may exclude much if not most of the youtube community.
As for youtube itself, it is what it is, however I will use my own channel as an example. I do quite a bit of static stuff. Quite frankly because I simply refuse to show hard tactics, or advanced firearms stuff. From watching any of my video’s would anyone assume that since I am mostly performing static or set drills, does that mean that in reality I am not trained or do not understand how to most effectively reload my weapon or the use of cover and how it might apply to the reload situation? So again youtube is what it is.
I have been around flying bullets, but never in a “combat situation” and the need to speed reload never happened. So perhaps I am also precluded from the conversation since it was later defined that this was directed for a combat situation. I will say however that in my situation I happen to have a sidearm and under most circumstances that I would find myself exchanging lead, if my primary long gun goes down, my speed reload would be going to my pistol. Yes of course not standing still, probably hauling ass, hopefully getting to a position of cover.
For those really “in the fight game”, I think these things are understood. Youtube is youtube.
"Everyone can have something to add. I personally have met a lot of guys with tons of experience that remain not nearly as proficient as they should be.
This is mostly a theoretical conversation. I am drawing from personal experience and the experience from my co-workers down here to come to some of my conclusions. However experience is not the end all be all. We are really trying to induce thought on some of the finer points in combat. You are more than welcome to partake in the conversation. "
This was stated on the first page.
Not to mention in our very first post the words:
"We understand that this video is opinionated and we are very open to criticism.
Flame Away! " Appeared.
I am putting out an opinion and defending my position. That’s how ideas get hashed out and worked. Its a conversation.
Perhaps we should have been a little more clear on the use of cover being the primary issue.
There are so many situations, circumstances, and variables in a gunfight that it’s impossible to rank one reload over the other. Properly applied tactical reloads will keep you running in all but the most dire of situations, but it won’t mean a damn thing when you are alone and facing more attackers that require more rounds to put down than you have in a single magazine. There is a constant shifting balance between holding cover, providing cover, movement, and putting bullets into meat, all of which the other participants have a vote on. Tactical reloads are awesome, until you don’t have anyone else to cover you while you do one. A classic speed reload (IPSC style, dump mag with bullets and insert mag with more bullets) is also a very good answer.
I highly doubt that anyone is going to say that it’s better to stand in the open and perform an emergency reload than topping off after the last engagement, but there’s a whole lot of grey area in that statement. If I am in a room, and I had to dump my carbine for whatever reason, and transition to secondary and engage a lethal threat, AND I ran out of ammo doing so, I will be limited on my movement ability due to the other members of the entry team as well as my requirement to pin down my area of responsibility, thus I WILL do an emergency from the exposed standing position if my position and duty requires it. And sometimes, it does.
What if you dump some psycho in your living room? Who knows how many people are still unseen? Lets say you push 10 rounds of a 28 round mag into him, what is your next step? Do you hold with the remaining 18 rounds? Or do you ditch it and reload? Before or after the “proof of life check”? What if you didn’t count the rounds because you aren’t a professional gunfighter or got caught up in the situation?
When talking in terms of team-based combat it is easy to say certain things, but when that team is reduced to one or two individuals with varying circumstance, terrain, and unknown hostiles things change and priorities shift. We can control the pace of assaulters based on their readiness and ability to provide internal security before they move to the next obstacle or decision point. In these cases it is a fault of the user if they run dry during an entry, but to decree the act of going dry during an engagement as a failure, I can’t quite agree with. I have been, and many others that I know have experienced protracted gunfights where there was no definitive “lull”, and there were plenty of people still moving, shooting, and providing actionable targets. I have run dry in an engagement, and had to reload, and had to shoot immediately afterward (I would have been shooting during the reload if I could have done so by force of will alone). It was not because I intended on going dry, it was because I was busy shooting at people that were trying to kill us. I did not have the time or inclination to not exploit a target. I absolutely agree that a tactical reload under cover or during a lull would have been better than launching that last round, but there was no other option at the time, which happens from time to time in combat.
Criticizing people for standing out in the open and performing speed reloads is akin to criticizing people that shoot IPSC. Practicing a bolt-lock reload is an essential part of preparing for a fight. Lots of people do this on a range where there is no cover other than behind the dude (or dudette) to your left or right, and taking a knee is an option, but how much does that really matter when you are within spitting distance? There are lots of videos on youtube and whatnot with people showcasing their emergency reloads, because they are fast, which is a good thing. Tactical reloads do not have a time standard associated with them (because if they did, there would be a hell of a lot more proponents of the “IPSC Speed Reload”), but the Emergency Reload comes with a time standard of “the rest of your life” to get it right. Faster is undoubtedly better, as long as it is dependable, sound, and consistent, and people like to show that by showing the pertinent actions in their video. I’m not saying that everyone doing a speed reload in front of a camera knows what they are doing, but it’s a bit of a leap to condemn everyone that has done so as being incompetant or ignorant.
Tactical reloads, emergency reloads, neither is more important than the other, they both play essential parts in the execution of a fight. Hopefully, you don’t need to perform an emergency reload while a live enemy is on the other end of your muzzle, but I hope you do train for it like your life depends on it, because it might.
Hey, maybe you are just trying to educate the masses, and that’s cool, but you are missing a big chunk of the equation by the way you have expressed your opinions.
Sorry to take so much of the reader’s time.
So what is the actual complaint? Is it people “overtraining” the emergency reload or is it them drilling the emergency reload without moving to cover?
On a separate note; I’ve never heard “failure drill” mentioned when talking about reloads. Is this another case of reinventing the terminology wheel?
It seems to be - sorry OP, I am all about clear language, but I’d like to think there are some conventions that we use to keep things straight.
Just to comment, since it was mentioned and it is more in my lane. The IPSC reload is never done static in an actual course of fire(non standard). You are always moving.
If you are trying to say that there should be as much emphasis on proper tactical reloading and ammo prepping and bumping as there is on emergency reloads, I agree with you completely.
From a Law Enforcement instructor’s standpoint, I have to be able to view my student’s technique or lack thereof. Therefore, these practices are going to be static. When I add movement after the basics are covered, I EXPECT the student to apply what they were taught (while in static mode) in their movements.
My department carbine evaluation course does not have an emergency reload “technically”, It has the shooter run dry at 15 yards which requires the shooter to think 1.) that he has run dry and 2.) he is at a distance where it is optimal to transition to secondary.
Yes it is re inventing the terminology wheel for the purpose of this thread. Speed reloading is, no matter what you call it, the equivalent of a failure drill. Your weapon has failed to feed another round into the chamber.
“And I really like stirring the Pot” 
Thanks to everyone who posted in this thread so far I appreciate your input. I hope that I haven’t offended anyone with my argumentative debate.
I honestly enjoy reading dissenting opinions from my own!
WHY would you be dumping your carbine? if there is a threat in a room that is still alive and kicking after 28 rounds… Either you just took on Ghadaffi’s Personaly Guard platoon by yourself or you dumped all 28 rounds into one or two guys and forgot about the third.
If a speed reload occurs in a room it is “99%” of the time because you went into the room with a low round count.
If you enter the room with a low round count and then you are forced to speed reload… Yes that is a MISTAKE.
If you did everything you could to prepare to enter that next room and still managed to run out of rounds…
- You are an ultimate bad ass and just slayed 10 people. (!!!speed reload in the open approved!!!) to get that pesky number 11 that was hiding behind the bed.
or
- I commend you’re NSR of aggression. Like I said earlier in this thread I understand that in the heat of the moment it gets real easy to mag dump into a guy. Esp one that startled you. I dropped about 28 rounds into 2 people at point blank because i got caught up in the moment. However, it was a bad decision for me to do this and I am lucky there were no additional threats. Otherwise I probably would’nt be here to have this convo with all you fine gentlemen here on the forums.
Has any one actually watched the video we did?
I think its pretty funny as it is fairly obvious that we have done quite a few speed reload drills.