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[Jedi54]

Question for Front Sight patrons. After he racks his slide he press checks, then drops the magazine and looks at it. What is FS reasoning for dropping the mag? Seems like you've verified that the magazine is seated and a round was chambered, but then dropping the mag accomplishes what?

I can answer this one.
Keep in mind the context in which an 'administrative loading' is done is one of relative safety; you're at home about to head out for the day or maybe even an officer about to go out on duty.

The reason FS teaches you to check the magazine after chambering a round isn't just to check to see how many rounds are in it although on the range that's primarily what you see (and I assume what is shown in the video)
The magazine check is designed to do a few things:
you want to ensure you grabbed the right magazine for starters: does it have the type of bullets you want (JHP vs FMJ) If so, is it full of rounds or did you grab one that's partially depleted
Is the magazine in good working condition? Any cracks, is it a training mag?
Is it full of dirt from the last training session you did.
The idea is to briefly inspect the magazine so you can answer one basic question: when you need the most, do you trust your life to this magazine.

If so, great put it back in the weapon and off you go.
If not, this is probably the last opportunity to fix that.

hope that helps

[Jedi54]

Was out for the 1 day practical rifle skills test yesterday and to my surprise, I was the only student there.
Can't blame people the weather was supposed to be absolutely miserable (and usually is this time of year)


Ended up shooting 9 down.





who knows if FS will be around long term but now just need the shotgun coin to complete my collection.

[VolvoWrench]

I was the only student there.

Only student on the property?

[LV_G22]

Was out for the 1 day practical rifle skills test yesterday and to my surprise, I was the only student there.
Can't blame people the weather was supposed to be absolutely miserable (and usually is this time of year)


Ended up shooting 9 down.





who knows if FS will be around long term but now just need the shotgun coin to complete my collection.

Good Shooting Jedi. Rifle is the hardest DG....

Shotgun will be a blast

[T3Pros]

The magazine check is designed to do a few things:
you want to ensure you grabbed the right magazine for starters: does it have the type of bullets you want (JHP vs FMJ) If so, is it full of rounds or did you grab one that's partially depleted
Is the magazine in good working condition? Any cracks, is it a training mag?
Is it full of dirt from the last training session you did.
The idea is to briefly inspect the magazine so you can answer one basic question: when you need the most, do you trust your life to this magazine.

If so, great put it back in the weapon and off you go.
If not, this is probably the last opportunity to fix that.

hope that helps

Thanks for clarifying. Seems like you should do that stuff before sticking the mag in the gun, charging it and press checking. Also now you run the risk of not properly seating the mag with your in-battery reload.

Here's a Green Beret who taught marksmanship at Fort Bragg doing an initial load procedure.

[Jedi54]

Only student on the property?

In the rifle test class.

[Jedi54]

Good Shooting Jedi. Rifle is the hardest DG....

Shotgun will be a blast

Thanks!
Time to dust off the 'ol Benelli and practice port loads.

[beanz2]

In the rifle test class.

[NorthBay Shooter]

Thanks!
Time to dust off the 'ol Benelli and practice port loads.

Quad loads. 'cause they look cool on the gram and of course John Wick movies

[Jedi54]

it POURED on Monday but fortunately by the time that happened, I was already done for the day. I should have been done earlier but I somehow managed to miss DG by 1 point in the prior attempt.

Drove into Pahrump to see Jon @ Gevas Defense as he had a few of my pistols and the weather was pretty bad at that point. Definitely made driving back to vegas an adventure.

Quad loads. 'cause they look cool on the gram and of course John Wick movies

gotta do it for the 'gram!

[mej16489]

Thanks for clarifying. Seems like you should do that stuff before sticking the mag in the gun, charging it and press checking. Also now you run the risk of not properly seating the mag with your in-battery reload.

Here's a Green Beret who taught marksmanship at Fort Bragg doing an initial load procedure.

Some of the justification for doing it after chambering a round is to provide a semi-universal curriculum across other weapon platforms.

For example during an administrative load of a rifle it is extremely common to remove the magazine as a means of determining that a round was chambered (instead of a chamber check)

Another aspect of the curriculum is to consider that this is an administrative procedure for checking the loaded state of the gun...under all conditions, including when the gun was already loaded with one in the chamber. So, you pick up the gun from the safe and chamber check...yup, round in the chamber. Do you personally then NOT check the magazine? In the FS curriculum, you always check it (regardless of the chamber status) The curriculum is ChamberCheck/MagCheck change the state of the gun if desired (either load or unload) then ChamberCheck/MagCheck again.

Don't get me wrong, I think its silly too, if the chamber is empty, the magazine can be inspected prior to chambering a round. ...but there is indeed some justification for their method of doing things the same way all the time. Reps.

[Vinnie Boombatz]

I can answer this one.
Keep in mind the context in which an 'administrative loading' is done is one of relative safety; you're at home about to head out for the day or maybe even an officer about to go out on duty.

The reason FS teaches you to check the magazine after chambering a round isn't just to check to see how many rounds are in it although on the range that's primarily what you see (and I assume what is shown in the video)
The magazine check is designed to do a few things:
you want to ensure you grabbed the right magazine for starters: does it have the type of bullets you want (JHP vs FMJ) If so, is it full of rounds or did you grab one that's partially depleted
Is the magazine in good working condition? Any cracks, is it a training mag?
Is it full of dirt from the last training session you did.
The idea is to briefly inspect the magazine so you can answer one basic question: when you need the most, do you trust your life to this magazine.

If so, great put it back in the weapon and off you go.
If not, this is probably the last opportunity to fix that.

hope that helps

Some of the justification for doing it after chambering a round is to provide a semi-universal curriculum across other weapon platforms.

For example during an administrative load of a rifle it is extremely common to remove the magazine as a means of determining that a round was chambered (instead of a chamber check)

Another aspect of the curriculum is to consider that this is an administrative procedure for checking the loaded state of the gun...under all conditions, including when the gun was already loaded with one in the chamber. So, you pick up the gun from the safe and chamber check...yup, round in the chamber. Do you then NOT check the magazine?

Don't get me wrong, I think its silly too, if the chamber is empty, the magazine can be inspected prior to chambering a round. ...but there is indeed some justification for their method of doing things the same way all the time. Reps.

'
How dare you question T3Pros! Didn't you know these guys are the be all, end all of training?! It's either their way or no way at all.

[Jedi54]

I honestly don't know who they are. (No offense intended)
Just tried answering the question since I knew the answer

[Citizen_B]

I'm going to take the other side of the FS justification. Just like how you should be peripherally aware of the state of your gun, you should also be peripherally aware of the state of your mags. I'll separate real-world reasoning from administrative, but in either case it's the same.

Real world, you're starting off full and topped off. If that's not the case, you already messed up. Suppose it's a tactical reload during a lull. That partial mag "shouldn't" go back to your pouch in some random location, but suppose you do it anyway. I don't know about you guys, but I can feel the weight of the mag and tell the difference between 3/4 and near empty. But lets say you can't tell the difference or too busy to notice. If you had a lull to tactical reload, you'll have the flash moment to eventually get a glance at the load state of that mag. In any case, you shouldn't be inserting a mag that you don't know it's load state, and even if it was an emergency and you needed the gun to be up immediately, you certainly don't have the time to eject the mag and then check its load state like how FS teaches. Checking it after loading seems like bad muscle memory. Either you know the state of the mag prior, or you're shooting and you ain't going to check it then anyway.

Administrative procedures should be similar/identical to real-world for muscle memory sake. Plenty of examples where range procedures scar a shooter in real-world with bad consequences. But suppose there are practical reasons to check the mag. It should still be done prior to gun insertion. Removing the mag and reinserting unnecessarily introduces another opportunity for the mag to not be seated. I see a lot of competition shooters do this (I sometimes do it myself) and have made the error of not re-seating it properly. Not often enough to be a serious problem, but it's a serious problem if you really need your weapon up at that moment.

This and the step to check for a mag on pouch first during the type-3 malfunction bug me. There are other procedural things that I disagree with the FS way. Some better ways taught in other schools, some ways that make more sense to myself. Don't get me wrong, I think the procedures FS teaches isn't "bad" and actually makes sense for the majority of basic shooters in their teaching format. I just think there are good reasons and better ways to do some things differently. Just my opinion.

[damon1272]

If anyone here has taken the open handed class at Front Sight, Daniel Dickinson is now offering the course privately seeing as Front Sight is not hosting it now.

Personally I really liked the course. Chris would teach the course along with his dad Daniel.
The course in some respects is somewhat counter intuitive but really is taken from the aspect of 1-3 moves and breaking away.
Daniel concentrates on energy transfer. My self as a big guy I have no problem with this but using his teachings, was much more effective.

His contact information is strike first training 1 (425) 647-0621 in Pahrump.