Long Gun Engagement Distance

What dictates your most likely engagement distance with a threat. This is a question that I asked very early in the morning on any of our rifle classes, particularly, it's something we talk about with defensive pistol classes as well. And a lot of our tactics are contextually based classes, but it's especially important to frame this question properly for students that show up with rifles. And as you see me getting ready to do a long gun defensive training drill, it's important to understand why the target isn't 50 100 or 300 m away. But in fact, it's about 3 to 5 m away, about 15 ft.

The reason that we use this distance is because of where I keep this rifle, this rifle or one like it is staged inside of my home. Maybe it's inside of my vehicle for a worst case scenario, defensive incident that happens while I'm traveling around, but I'm not out on patrol in some rural environment as part of a military team thinking about engaging the enemy at a hilltop 302 156 100 m away. The capability of the rifle isn't what dictates or the shotgun or whatever long gun you have isn't what dictates the engagement distance. What dictates the engagement distance obviously is the environment in which you have access to the rifle and potential need to use it defensively. Now, as far as access to the rifle goes for most people, that means inside of the home or inside of the workplace, that's where you've got the rifle staged.

If you are in a military unit that's operating in a large environment, then you're probably going to have some kind of a magnified optic and be in a very different situation. Even our high end military units that operate inside of buildings doing CQB type work, entry work, hostage rescue work, building, clearing swat teams, things like that. They're going to be in relatively confined spaces, their area of operation when they're most likely to engage an enemy is going to be relatively close range. So this is what dictates the engagement distance that you should practice in not the capability of the platform. So when I think about getting ready to shoot this gun, I want to be relatively close to the target.

I want to be in a ready position. Obviously, I'm not walking around with my home defense gun slung and just kind of here and getting caught off guard and going to the rifle. If I were an armed professional, that might be the case in a home defense situation, I'm much more likely to have had something happen that caused me to go get the rifle. I now have the rifle and I'm positioned with my family behind me. The police on the way 1012 15 ft from a doorway.

Or maybe I'm moving around my house to secure my kids on the other side, make sure they're ok. Or I've got the kids behind me and we're going to our barricade area and then if a threat were to show up that ability to engage a target very quickly at this relatively close range is really what I want to practice more often than anything else. And the other thing I'm gonna need to worry about, of course, is close range, higher level precision shots, specifically firing at the head. If there's a hostage situation for some other reason, I need to drop someone immediately with one shot. If I have a situation where maybe only the head is available and someone's reaching out around a corner and shooting at me with a pistol or trying to hurt one of my family members and all I have is that head target area.

I need to remember my offset. Of course, my mechanical and my optical offset mean that I'm not going to put my dot Right on the center of the head. I'm actually gonna raise it up a little bit towards the top of that head to be able to put around into the area. I want that triangle with these particular targets. I also have a situation where I want to be able to shoot at those circles in the same way, use those circles as a head target area.

Substitute. One of the other things I need to worry about is again, not things like wrapping into a good supported sling position or getting into a flat prone and shooting a tight group at extreme distance. But being able to manipulate the gun when I have a situation where I have bolt lock, if I have a situation where I need to reload the gun, if I have a malfunction that happens, these are the kinds of things that are going to be of incredibly urgent importance, especially if I've just grabbed this gun out of a staging area, clandestine shelf. Maybe one of my wall shelves, I've pulled this down. I have a problem.

If I have a malfunction, I need to be able to strip the magazine out. Clear that malfunction clear the problem come back in, grab a magazine insert, do all these things extremely quickly in close range. And that means practicing these skills in close quarters, maybe while moving or while thinking about reaching into a cover or concealment position quickly and efficiently. You know, a lot of times the approaches that we see people take when it comes to their gun handling are dictated by military environments by a traditional team supported environment. You think about being behind cover, peeking out maybe over a a berm or an embankment.

And I've got plenty of people here to support me while when I have a problem, I can duck down behind cover and take some time effort and energy, cognitive energy, visual reference to fix the gun. But in fact, what I really need to be doing is watching the bad guy and watching my environment. So even something as simple as as bolt lock, it emergency reload. When I get that bolt lock, I want to be able to go through the process of getting that reload done without having any visual reference without having any reference whatsoever to the rifle itself and be able to do this in close range. The distance the target that is most likely for me to need to use a rifle is not dictated by the capabilities of a rifle.

It's dictated by the environment in which I have access to the rifle and a potential need to use it to defend myself or others.