-Suarez International Tier 1 Staff Instructor Jon Payne
We often are so comfortable with the past that we can stagnate and fail to see progress or recognize what the future can be? With technology changing so fast, can you really afford not to be on the cutting edge?
Let’s talk about the AK for a moment. We’ve all seen the Chicom Poster “Keep That Crap off My AK!” How long did it take us to get past that? First we added folders because it just made sense to make the rifle easier to store and carry. The next move was to add a flash suppressor because we wanted to dampen the fireball coming from the AK’s muzzle and a compensator just isn’t needed on a semi-automatic rifle. It wasn’t long until we began mounting Aimpoint Micro’s on our AK’s using the Ultimak Rail. If you add a flashlight to the package you have a real squared away CQB rifle. Up until a short time ago an AK set up in this fashion was the apex of the Kalashnikov Fighting Rifle. If you had a Rifle Dynamics custom build with all these features, it just didn’t get any better, could it?
Early this year I witnessed an AK that shot under an 8” group a 300 yards! That is hitting heads at 300 yards. This AK had an American made 12.5 inch barrel, a Texas Weapon System Dog Leg Rail Gen II, and a 3x ACOG. That rifle more than proved to me that when it comes to the AK you get out of it what you put into it! I don’t think we would’ve ever seen an AK capable of that kind of accuracy if SI had stayed with, “it’s good the way it is, it can’t be improved” attitude.
One of the groups of people that get stuck in their ways is handgun shooters. I remember back in the late 80’s when several Police Departments issued revolvers. You could hear the rank and file, “Automatics jam”, “I’ll take my 6 for sure.” You would’ve thought they’d still be carrying wheel guns on the Space Shuttle (I did guard a Space Shuttle carrying a S&W model 15 a few years back). As a matter of fact, if you had transported Wyatt Earp forward in time to 1988 and shown him an issue revolver off a cop’s belt, he would have stated how similar it was to his revolver! By 1991 most Police Departments either issued semi-automatic pistols or allowed their officers to purchase their own pistols.
Not all pistols are created equal and some designs rose to the fore-front. One of those designs was the Glock. Glock was the first successful readily available polymer framed pistol and is about as tough and reliable as a handgun can get.
When I was introduced to carrying the Glock pistol it was out of necessity. The town I used to work in had been hit by a 15-20 foot tidal surge during Hurricane Ike and was several feet under water. I was not about to use my $1600 Custom Shop Kimber in water that had so much stuff in it, it could be referred to as H3O. I happened to have a spare Glock 23 that I kept around for a training pistol so I strapped it on got in my boat and began doing what I got paid to do. I never went back to carrying the 1911. Soon after during a class with Gabe it became apparent my issued night sights were great out to 50 yards, but after that the front sight was just too wide. I learned in that class there were more modern and effective sights available.
The most important upgrade a Glock service pistol needed was good sights. Just adding Warren Tactical Sights improved the Glock quite a bit. The Warren’s give you a clean sight picture with a wide notch in the rear and a thin defined front sight blade. Getting reliable hits at 100 yards with a Glock 17 equipped with Warren’s is very do-able, but require strict adherence to the marksmanship fundamentals. Things were about to get easier. Almost like “cheating”.
We have all seen red dot sights on race guns and they were huge ungainly affairs, but the guys using them in competition were beating those who weren’t using them. Like I said, things were changing. Trijicon introduced the RMR as a backup sight for their ACOG. The RMR (which stands for Ruggedized Miniature Reflex) was small, light, and tough. When the Technical Service Division Combat System’s ran with the idea of putting a concealable reddot sight on a pistol something different emerged.
Can you really compare an RMR’ed TSD Combat Systems Glock to a stock Glock 17? I really don’t think so. With TSD’s package, chest hits at 100 yards isn’t such a feat anymore and they’re eye ball accurate out to 10 yards. Besides being so much easier to shoot, they hardly add any weight to the pistol, and don’t interfere with your ability to conceal your sidearm. Learning to use the RMR on the TSD Glock is as easy as getting you’re sight alignment and sight picture with your iron sights. The beauty of using suppressor sights with a RMR is it allows you to co-witness and really shortens the learning curve. Once you pick up the dot on top of your irons, you no longer have to focus on the front sight. You can focus on your target and just superimpose the dot to get surgical hits. Currently, I’m the only peace officer in Orange County Texas to be qualified with a TSD Glock.
This is a very exciting time to be a part of the Firearms Industry. I’m beginning to see things that were science-fiction become science-fact. I’m seeing platforms continue to evolve with improved accuracy, and improved ergonomics without loss of reliability. If all this technology is available why wouldn’t you use it to its full potential? Are you afraid of change or are you just too comfortable to be cutting edge?
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