The early days of SWPL matches, in S cal, guys developed what was called an "open front' rig, the pistol was completely insecure. A strap was put across the front of the gun so you could walk around with the rig, but then the strap would be removed when they were ready to draw and shoot. A hand "hovering off the grip" start position was used. Cooper was INSENCED about this, and about guys using .38 wadcutter loads in combat matches, as well as using double stack P35's with 20 rd extension mags in order to win assault courses vs 1911's. So he saw to it that a power factor minimum of 9mm ball was built into IPSC rules, that the .45 got a scoring advantage, that only secure holsters could be used and that the hands started in some sort of "un-ready" positon, like 'surrender", or "hands hanging naturally at sides. and that extension mags were allowed only upon reload.
SWPL vs IPSC
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with an open front, going to weaver-point shooting, starting with the "hand hover" over the gun starting position, I could react to the timer, draw and hit the torso at 10 yds in sub .60 second. However, just pushing the gun forward off of a 'shelf" holster builds such bad habits that i only worked at for a few hours. One handed, fully extended shooting, I could usually get a hit, but not good enough for competition, in sub .50 second. Using JR's Chapman cross draw from Bianchi, hand hover start, for chest hits at arm's length "ranges, I could pop times averaging .45 second, This was done while about quartering to the target and twisting the 1911 govt model sort of sideways out of the rig, as Mcgivern reommended. I probably should have been just as scared of that as the speed rig draw, but I wasn't. I'd one time caught the front of the slide on the lip of the rig and caused the gun to fall out of my hand when I bagan the foward stroke towards the target. Wth the crossdraw, I just pulled the gun back out of the rig and fired. I didn't want to teach myself to do that with the strong side rig.
what I was proudest of, tho, was my (sometimes) ability to drop a coin from waist height, using the hand that would brush my T shirt up out of the way, draw and hit the chest at arm's length with the little Star 380 before the coin hit the ground. On the timer, I coulld not react, make that CCW belt- draw and get a hit at arms length much under about. 75 second. I'd had my mom sew some birsdhot into the hem of a few of my T-shirts, so that the shirttail would keep on moving up out of the way of the gun, if my hand slipped off of the shirt too soon. Everone else was taking the time to grab a handful of shirt, which cost them .05-.10 second. That grabbing method is of course more tactically sound. The rig was centered on my navel, with the belt buckle offset. This kept me from cutting my hand on the buckle and also reduced the bulge at the centerpoint of my belt.
My reaction time, on that Khrondek mechanical timer, was never faster than .16 second. Arganbright had one of the very first digital/sound activated timers and he said times on it were consistently .03 second slower on that timer than on the Krondek. So the coin drop is .60 seond, from waist height. From shoulder height, it's more like .90 second, but your hand has to move further, too. Since you're too cheap to buy a shot-timer, the coin drop is something for you to gauge yourself by. Ditto the tossing up of soda cans, to draw and hit in miidair. almost everyone hates such things, cause they know that they aint fast enough to score at them and they aint going to practice enough to get that way,either. It's a bit dangerous to do with cocked and locked, SA autos. If you mistime the safety disengagement, draw and finger going inside of the trigger, it's pretty easy to shoot yourself in the weak side arm as you go for a 2 handed firing position. In a match requiring real speed, using the Chapman cross draw, up at Heinie's place, I fired a rd over my arm, then grabbed a weaver and fired the remaining 5 shots. I was amazed to discover that the "wild' shot had scored a chest hit, at 5 yds.
My reaction time, on that Khrondek mechanical timer, was never faster than .16 second. Arganbright had one of the very first digital/sound activated timers and he said times on it were consistently .03 second slower on that timer than on the Krondek. So the coin drop is .60 seond, from waist height. From shoulder height, it's more like .90 second, but your hand has to move further, too. Since you're too cheap to buy a shot-timer, the coin drop is something for you to gauge yourself by. Ditto the tossing up of soda cans, to draw and hit in miidair. almost everyone hates such things, cause they know that they aint fast enough to score at them and they aint going to practice enough to get that way,either. It's a bit dangerous to do with cocked and locked, SA autos. If you mistime the safety disengagement, draw and finger going inside of the trigger, it's pretty easy to shoot yourself in the weak side arm as you go for a 2 handed firing position. In a match requiring real speed, using the Chapman cross draw, up at Heinie's place, I fired a rd over my arm, then grabbed a weaver and fired the remaining 5 shots. I was amazed to discover that the "wild' shot had scored a chest hit, at 5 yds.
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Still have my "open front" holster for my 4" S&W M66, haven't used it in decades. My standard IPSC load the year I shot strictly revolver was 4.4 grains of 231 pushing a 160 grain lead round nose bullet. Had a lot of fun that year. Far more than the other 9 years I shot semi autos. Far to many egos in IPSC!
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