Dry Firing

One of the things I cover in my CHL class is how to dry-fire safely. I present some rules for dry firing that arose from an unfortunate incident involving a DPS officer, and show how each of those rules is designed to prevent a similar negligent discharge.

Why would we want to practice dry-firing? There are some excellent reasons for practicing with an empty handgun, but at least one drawback (covered below).

The first reason that occurs to just about everyone is that dry-firing is cheaper than live firing. That was true even before the availability and price of ammo got ridiculous a little over a year ago. But that might not be the most important reason.

Note that dry-firing a center-fire pistol manufactured in the last 100 years or so should not damage it. However, if you are the least bit concerned about that aspect of dry-firing, you can get a dummy round (the ones sold at the local gun stores are the SnapCap brand) with a semi-hard plastic insert in the place of the primer. They cost a couple of dollars each, and are sold in packs of 6. Although pricey, they can be re-used indefinitely. If you have a rim-fire gun (typically a .22), you MUST use a dummy round to prevent damage to the firing pin.

Dry-fire practice gives you the opportunity to go through some things that you just can’t reasonably do with a loaded handgun. Indeed, practicing a draw from concealment will get you kicked out of most shooting ranges. With an empty handgun, you can (relatively) safely practice things like jumping sideways or rolling on the carpet while drawing from concealment — skills that might someday come in very handy.

Dry-fire is also very good for marksmanship training. This may be counterintuitive, since the main difference is that in dry-firing, the gun doesn’t make a loud noise and try to jump out of your hand, so it isn’t ‘realistic’. The problem is that even though you should always perform the squeeze sequence so that the trigger-break is a surprise, the fact that you know that the gun is going to recoil makes it very difficult to avoid anticipating it. Dry-firing leads to a different type of “muscle memory”, where you honestly are not considering the recoil, but the follow-through. That “muscle memory” will carry over to live-fire practice (and to actual defense use), and your marksmanship will be better on that account.

You can get some of the benefit of that no-recoil “muscle memory” by getting a .22 conversion kit if there is one available for your particular handgun, and use that for at least part of your live-fire practice. While it still makes a noise, it isn’t nearly as loud, and the recoil is so slight you might not even notice it.

A potentially major drawback of dry-firing is that you don’t get quite the same trigger pull sequence as you get with live fire. For instance, with a Glock, you have to manually rack the slide every time before you get to the normal trigger pull, because the Glock is single-action-only. On a D/SA pistol, the first round can be fired double-action (the trigger-pull cocks the gun) and subsequent rounds are then fired single-action, because the recoil of the live round does the work of cocking. When dry-firing a D/SA, every trigger pull is double-action, which is typically several times the force required for single-action. I have actually experienced a case (during a DPS range test) where this slight difference in “muscle memory” caused me to drop a point on the 2nd round. After that, I knew what the problem was, and corrected it — but in a real firefight, that might be a disaster.

Still, I recommend a combination of live fire and dry fire practice. As mentioned above, a .22 conversion kit can be useful for practicing your live-fire marksmanship at a cost substantially lower than using centerfire ammo.

SmartCarry review, revisited

I got my SmartCarry holster back in July (See my initial review). At the time it was my favorite holster, the only one that I could find for my Bersa UC9 that was convenient enough for daily use. Well, I’ve been wearing it on a more-or-less daily basis since that time, and here’s my follow-up.

Here’s a snapshot of the SmartCarry with my Bersa UC9 and a spare magazine in it. The decocker/safety, which has been a source of concern with this holster, is visible at the top (see note below).

The seam cover is starting to show some wear, as is the bottom of the pouch. It appears to be good for another 6-9 months, although I will be watching carefully. I may try to re-do the seam cover with kevlar tape.

Here’s a closeup of the wear near the bottom of the pouch. This is after (mostly) daily use for about 7 months. The seams are still in good condition, although the seam covering has worn away at the bottom.

The only problem that I have had with the SmartCarry so far is that I have noticed that the decocker/safety on the UC9 sometimes is disengaged in the holster. I think that is due to moving the holster to the left when I visit the men’s room, probably because the lever rubs against the inside of my trousers. I have started checking the safety after each visit to the urinal. The elastic is stretching out a bit, which is to be expected. The velcro is still just as good as new. I’ve lost a bit of weight since I got this rig, so I may be ordering a smaller version when the wear on this one gets to the point that I no longer trust it.

The SmartCarry is currently my 2nd favorite holster (I have decided that I prefer a paddle holster, but I have not found one for the UC9). If I get another one, I will not get the one with the document pouch (“Security Model”). I used the document pouch a couple of times, but I did not find it to be very convenient (YMMV), and not really worth the extra money. I have a separate travel wallet that I can wear on a lanyard underneath a shirt that works better for me.

Important change in Texas CHL Law, section 411.171

Section 411.171 of the Texas Concealed Handgun Laws was amended in the 2009 session of the legislature, which brought up a question from a potential student with a sealed juvenile record. You can view the marked-up copy of the statutes posted on the DPS website, but it is not searchable, because it is basically a photocopy converted to PDF. You can’t even copy and paste from the document.

The change is in 411.171(4)(C), on the 8th page of the PDF document (numbered page 3 in the text), which now reads “['Convicted' does not include any adjudication of guilt] otherwise vacated, set aside, annulled, invalidated, voided, or sealed under any state or federal law.” Up until last September, a “sealed” conviction was not really “sealed” to the DPS.

The provision in 411.172(14), which was 411.172(13) in the previous revision, still states that a juvenile (“delinquent conduct”) felony-grade offense disqualifies a CHL applicant for 10 years. This seemed to me to be contradictory. This change in the law was not covered in the CHL Instructor renewal course that I attended in August of last year, so I sent an email to the DPS Legal section to inquire about this seeming contradiction. The answer I got from them is that if the juvenile conviction has been officially sealed, it does not count as a conviction under the new change of the law, so the change in 411.171 overrides 411.172(14). Since juvenile records are normally sealed, it appears to me that means 411.172(14) no longer has any real effect.

According to the DPS Legal section, if you have a juvenile conviction of any type, you still have to report the arrest on your application, but if it was sealed, you can submit a certified copy of the order that sealed the conviction, and it will not be considered as a conviction.

Changes coming to CHL-TX.COM

Even though I have more than 30 years experience as a programmer, I am fairly new to web programming (after all, from my perspective, the Web is fairly new). That, and a severe lack of available time has led me to finally get some programming help on this website. Sometime next week, I will have the first cut at a real, automated registration process, which I expect will allow me to reclaim a substantial amount of the time that I have been using to process registrations by hand (with the occasional embarrassing error).

Since I am a programmer, I will be maintaining and expanding the site myself (mostly). Another thing that I plan to do fairly soon is replace the funky blue default Wordpress template with something a bit more appealing — and readable. The only holdup at this point is finding one I like well enough to pay money for.

I also plan to give this blog a bit more focus than I have in the past. So far, I have been writing about whatever happened to be on my mind at the time, and the result has not been very consistent. I will be planning my posts around the following subjects:

1) Recent changes in Texas law, and implications on concealed carry
2) Book reviews on gun-related subjects (I read a lot, but I will be starting another separate blog for general book reviews on non-gun topics)
3) Tips and techniques related to concealed carry
4) Occasional snippets from my CHL and NRA courses
5) Answers to any questions that I have gotten from my CHL students that I had to research. If I had to go to DPS legal to get an answer, chances are that others can benefit from what I learned.

One thing I do NOT plan to cover, even though I am heavily opinionated on the subject, is politics. The blogosphere already has more than enough political pundits. I will, however, add some of my favorites to my blog roll.

I haven’t decided how often I want to post, but I think I will try for at least once per week, probably on Wednesdays, which is currently my least-cluttered day (I brought my laptop with me so I could post at lunch today, but the real reason is that I expected my Saturday CHL class to completely sell out today, which it did, and I wanted to be able to update my website when that happened).

Another item on my plate is working out a co-teach arrangement. So far, I have two prospects for co-teaching. One is my brother Thomas, who has recently retired from the Austin Fire Department, and the other is Mike Teaff, who has assisted me in the past with range testing. Co-teaching would have several benefits, including enabling me to handle more classes, give students more than one perspective, and make it much easier to organize and manage each class. If you are a qualified CHL (and/or NRA) instructor, and you would be interested in a co-teach arrangement, please drop me a line.

Phishing and social engineering

My ‘little’ brother (also a CHL Instructor) has been collecting and investigating phishing and related scam emails lately. Here is one of the ‘better’ ones, employing some fairly sophisticated social engineering:

From: REGIONS [email deleted to protect the clueless]
Date: Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 4:39 PM
Subject: REGIONS INTERNET BANKING
To:  [deleted: one of my little brother's emails]

REGIONS INTERNET BANKING

Dear Customer

Attention! We have just upgraded our online portal.

Please click the link below and enter your account information.

You have 12 hours to confirm account information or your account will be blocked.

To Get Started, Please Click On Restore Your Regions Account Access.
Please visit [url deleted to protect the clueless]

Regions provides individual investors with sound financial advice  whether from your local branch or our expert investment services.

Thank you for using Regions Online Banking.

Equal Housing Lender (c) 2010 Regions Financial Corp. All rights reserved.

The website is fairly well-designed, too. It looks like a true banking site and uses the premise that your account will be shut down if you do not sign in.

If you examine the links on the page, you will see that they all forward to the page you are already looking at. It points out that,”if you have not checked your account since July14th, your account must be updated”. Then it gives you a place to put your username and password. If you don’t know your password, you can enter you secret answer(s) to your secret question(s) [generally: your place of birth, your mother's maiden name, your father's middle name, or the name of you favorite pet]. If that does not work for you, then it allows you to enter another site that will allow you to use your credit card, SSN, and some other information to re-access your Regions Banking Account.

Most people only have one or two usernames and passwords that they use for all secure sites. Entering them in the first page will send these to the scammer. Next, if you go to the page to answer the secret questions, that gives them the information that most people don’t bother to think about being secure. Then, you are sent to a page that allows you to use your credit card, SSN, and other info to finally get ‘access’ to your account. It doesn’t really even matter if you don’t have a Regions account (I don’t); the scammer now has everything it needs to implement a successful identity theft.

According to Little bro’, this is the sort of scam his ex-wife would definitely fall for. Every. Time. (He didn’t say which ex, but I can guess )

BTW, here’s my way of dealing with passwords. I use PWGen (a free, open-source password generator available through SourceForge). I generate the longest, most secure password that a particular website will accept, and then store the result in a spreadsheet, which I have encrypted with a passphrase that I don’t use anywhere else. There is also a free, open-source program called KeePass, which does something very similar, but I’ve found that the spreadsheet approach works a bit better for me, because I add a column to record the last date each password was last changed — and I change them on a regular schedule.