Archive of entries posted by karlrehn

Sloppy Gun “Carrying” Is A Real Problem

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Year end statistics are out on gun thefts from vehicles and guns found in carry on bags by TSA at airports. From TSA: A new record for firearms discovered at TSA checkpoints was set in 2023. This means more people are carrying guns, at least off body, and the 93% loaded means that most of …

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1960 Hipshooting Target Design

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Another article rediscovered by my Historical Handgun research team. This one, from Guns magazine in 1960, discusses a new target design developed specifically to aid shooters in improving their hipshooting skills. It discusses one- and two-handed hip shooting techniques. While most ranges don’t allow this type of practice, those with laser dry fire gear (SIRT …

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How Far To Extend Your Arms?

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The social media/youTube era has given the average shooter many benefits – specifically free access to thousands (millions?) of videos and pictures of top shooters using match- and gunfight-winning technique. It’s also led to some odd artifacts: behaviors that weren’t common before youTube became the most influential firearms training source. For the past 100 years, …

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The New and Improved New Jersey Carry Permit Shooting Test (2023)

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Back in August 2023 I shot the New Jersey carry permit shooting test (aka the “Civilian Carry Assessment and Range Evaluation”, or CCARE), and documented it with video and in this blog post. The test was complicated and poorly designed, including many skills that were essentially irrelevant to concealed carry, with time limits that were …

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1957 Robot Target Article

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My historical research team (Craig, Gaston and Jay) recently sent me a scan of a 1957 Guns magazine article about a robot quick draw target that could shoot blank firing sixguns at the human opponent. Spell check tells me that “Dueller” should be “Dueler” but I have used the author’s original spelling and use of …

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1941 Pistol Combat Course

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My historical research team sent me this article from a 1941 issue of American Rifleman magazine. It details a “pistol combat course” shot using a silhouette target w/ center bullseye and a scoring system that is a distant cousin to the Time Plus scoring using in IDPA and the Comstock scoring used in USPSA. The …

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1918 Pistol Shooting Article

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Fellow handgun historians Craig, Gaston and Jay have been going through old issues of “Arms and the Man” and American Rifleman looking for historically interesting articles to share. This one, from 1918, details the failures of pistol shooters using “point shooting” techniques to hit targets. The author of the article was the secretary of the …

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Texas Parks and Wildlife Youth Outdoors Day 2023

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On October 11-12 I assisted Texas Parks and Wildlife with their mostly-annual Youth Outdoors program. It’s held at Nails Creek Park on Lake Somerville, and it provides high school students an opportunity to learn about shooting, hunting, archery and the outdoors. Day 1 had about 60 students from Lee County, and Day 2 had a …

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The Ed Head Modified Cooper Cup Gunsite Standards

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One of my regular students, Randy W., is also a graduate of multiple classes from Gunsite, the legendary firearms training school in Arizona founded by Jeff Cooper. He took several private lessons from me to get tuned up for the Gunsite Alumni Shoot, being held on October 7, 2023. One stage of the match is …

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TCOLE Firearms Instructor Course

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I recently hosted and attended a Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor Course taught by Eric Wise of Cornerstone Performance. Eric is a full time law enforcement instructor with a major Texas city’s police department, and a competition shooter with Master and Grand Master ratings in IDPA, USPSA and Steel Challenge. Eric Lamberson from …

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Shooting the Stephenville PD Qualification Course

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A KR Training student recently sent me the qualification course of fire used by the Stephenville, TX, police department. It uses the CSAT (Paul Howe) target, which is basically a USPSA target with a 6″x10″ A zone. Officers are not given a specific load out to force a reload during a specific string of fire. …

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Shooting the LAPD Combat Qualification

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I recently read Claude Werner’s excellent book “Real Shootouts of the LAPD, Volume 1”, which is a collection and analysis of shooting incident reports released to the public by the Los Angeles Police Department. One section discusses OIS (Officer Involved Shootings) In and Around the Home, another section discusses animal shootings (in and around the …

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Shooting the New Jersey carry permit qual course

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In response to the Bruen decision, the state of New Jersey has revised its carry permit program, including the training and qualification requirements. The official document, titled “Use of Force Interim Training for Concealed Carry” includes an outline of the topics to be covered in classroom lecture, and Appendix B has the details of the …

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