I’ve talked a bit in past pieces (here), and my recent podcast appearance (here) about Jeff Cooper’s idea of, “Preoccupation with inconsequential increments.” In Colonel Cooper’s own words, he defined PII as:

This peculiarity lies in attributing importance to measurable deviations so small as to be meaningless. You see it in the people who shoot test groups in rifles, awarding a prize to a group which is only thousandths of an inch smaller than those unrewarded. One sees it in speed records awarded in one-thousandths of one mile-per-hour. One sees it in basketball scores which, nearing the century mark, are separated by less than three points. In all such cases Score A is “better” than Score B, but who cares?

An increment may be termed inconsequential when it has no significant relationship to the purpose of the exercise. Of course if the purpose of the exercise is in itself inconsequential some may not think this to be foolish. A very distinguished general at Quantico once caused the sign to be placed over the exit door of every office asking, in brilliant scarlet and gold, “What are you trying to do?” There was a man who knew more about human nature than most.

Since becoming interested, and practiced in using pistol mounted optics, I’ve deep dived into what ranges to zero the dot at, whether (or not) to slave the dot to the iron sights and whether it is better and more appropriate to have the dot in the middle of the optic window, where the dot is clearest, optically.

I then test all of these different ideas and gather data in weekly range practice sessions using various drills, and in a weekly competition course that is timed, and is coupled with turning targets that only face the shooter for an unknown interval of time.

What difference does the study of all of these variables matter, in terms of actual scored shooting in a competition environment? Not much, actually. I think the variability in my week to week scores has far more to do with my fatigue level, how sore I am at the end of the work day, and my relative mental sharpness. If the match took place first thing in the morning, on my day off, the results might be a bit more consistent and clear. In an emergency where a pistol has to be used in defense of life, my worst day on the competition roster is still quite good enough for self defense purposes, as I routinely score by earning 90% or better of the available points in the course.

It is probably more than adequate to be able to shoot a standard playing card five times, in five seconds from five yards for most all necessary accuracy purposes. If you can pull that feat of precision off, you can most likely achieve any reasonable accuracy exercise out to 25 yards on a IDPA/IPSC size target. And although it is easy to get down a rabbit hole about obsessing with these small numbers, the time spent could probably be more productively used elsewhere. This is more of a message to myself, as I tend to get pretty far out in the weeds with thinking about these things. At the end of the day, sight alignment, trigger control and follow through are what rules the day and anything else is just additional baggage.

I do love the SIG FUSE though…

THANK YOU FOR READING! If you enjoy my work, please subscribe to future posts, and if you care to share my writing on social media, I appreciate you. I’m not active on social media anymore, so I appreciate the signal boost. Take care, and thanks again.

-Dr. House

I had the pleasure of being a guest on the FRUGAL FIREARMS PODCAST recently. Craig and Ken do a great job of thinking about subtleties and nuances in the defensive firearms space, and I hope you’ll listen to them and follow their show!

https://rss.com/podcasts/frugalfirearmspodcast/1707270/

I often see on the gun blogs, the gun tuber videos and various articles around, people claiming, “out of the box performance.” But then they will describe how they disassemble, lubricate, unmount/remount the red dot/torque it to spec, center the iron sights with a set of calipers, and then laser bore sight the red dot…all of this occurs before they ever fire a shot on the range or in the field.

That’s all great, but that isn’t really, “out of the box,” performance…is it? I decided to do something slightly unusual, considering how meticulous most training nerds are and obtain a new pistol, DO NOTHING TO IT, load the magazines and then enter into my weekly practical pistol match (50 rounds) at my local range.

The weekly match consists of 5 strings of fire, all ten rounds in length, with turning targets. You have an interval of time, usually between 8 and 12 seconds, to fire ten rounds at the target, which can be at any distance between 5 and 25 yards. On the course of fire I performed this experiment on, the distance was from 7 to 18 yards (21 to 54 feet).

Using CCI Blazer Brass 115 grain FMJ, I loaded fifty rounds into my magazines and holstered, using a DARK STAR GEAR Hitchhiker that I have used since I purchased my original P365. I reloaded from the bench with my spare mags, as there were no reloads on the clock. The first string was at 18 yards, firing ten rounds in 12 seconds, from the draw. On the turn I drew and fired 10 rounds. I had the RDS in its factory configuration, meaning I left it alone. (I didn’t dial the elevation or windage AT ALL. MOST optics companies tell you that the RDS comes centered from the factory. I don’t necessarily think that is true…as I’ve seen some that needed pretty stark adjustments, even when I knew the iron sights were regulated and dead center. Your experience will vary from mine!). I noticed my rounds at 18 yards were striking low and to the left. So the last 2 I fired I used Kentucky Windage to adjust the last two shots closer to the X ring. As the range to the target decreased, the distance to the X ring decreased as well, although the shots were still going low and left. So as before, I noticed this and fired the second half of the string, as best as I could count under time pressure, to adjust for the point-of-aim and point-of-impact discrepancy. On the stages that were at 10 and 7 yards, the POA and POI was coincidental with the dot, meaning I didn’t have to do any compensatory aiming to make up for the difference in impact.

CONCLUSION

Truth of the matter is, most gun owners don’t do what we in the training and competition community do. They don’t obsess about details and they don’t preoccupy themselves with inconsequential increments (to quote the late, great Colonel Jeff Cooper). They simply buy a gun, if it comes with two mags, great. That’s what they have. They put some ammo, without much discernment aside from price, and they load the gun, and there it sits. If and when they do shoot it, they don’t necessarily notice the off center sights, nor the not zeroed RDS, or the change in point of impact from a change in ammo or even in the quality of the ammo. For example, the range I shoot at also manufactures reloaded ammunition, and I’ve seen WILD inconsistencies in it from box to box. So much so that I don’t use it for anything other than 15 yard and in practice. I know that…the average gun buyer usually thinks a round is a round is a round.

Like I stated earlier, most people outside the training and competition fields have little or no interest in, “Preoccupation with inconsequential increments.” But since we do, charging into a match or even (GASP) holstering a gun for duty/concealed carry/home defense use that is unproven/not zeroed/POA-POI coincidence with the duty load proven IS NOT something that would even occur to us. That’s not to say that we are better than them or any kind of moral judgement either. Many people see guns just like they see a hammer they buy at Harbor Freight…it has features? You can adjust the red dot thingy? The magazines might have to have the last three rounds pushed into them VERY vigorously? While these all seem simple to experienced people, most regular folks have no idea that many of these concepts and ideas exist. This is why training is so important…it is literally the thing that separates the literate from the functionally inert.

THANK YOU FOR READING and stay tuned for more P365 fun. I have a Macro and a FUSE that I will be doing some work with, along with easily changeable parts like sights, optics and grip frames for the 365’s. These just might be THE pistol for the concealed carry in today’s modern age. We shall see.