Desert Brutality 2019 – Lessons Learned

Hopefully I’ll have a red dot on my pistol by next DB. The lesson I learned from watching other guys in my squad is that red dot equipped pistols are borderline cheating compared to irons.

If I have it put together, a braced pistol as my AR. The reduced length and weight will be fun. There was at least one place where my 16″ rifle jammed me up.

If I do run a pistol as my primary gun, it’ll have a magnifier. 3x power was clutch in certain situations.

A double belt system. The ability to unclip all my stuff and put it all back on in under 10 seconds is very appealing. Having to thread-on and -off all my gear twice a day is more of a chore than it should be.

Practice more with my pistol. 2/3rds of all my penalties can be tied directly back to my lack of skill in engaging moving targets with my pistol. I honestly believe that getting a red dot on there will help with this to a great degree.

Practice speed on both rifle and pistol. I think I’m over-confirming my shots, leading to unnecessary precision and wasted time. After reviewing my stage footage, I seem to be going surprisingly slow even with my rifle. I’m not sure how much I’m truly gaining running magnification against a straight red dot in some places.

Mainly just shoot better. Penalties killed me, just like they were designed to do, and I got most of those from moving target systems. If I shot better on the first part of stage 2, I would have placed significantly better. Translated that from competition-speak: Moving targets are my greatest weakness. I need to train those more, somehow, before DB2020.

Moving Forward

This is the last you’ll see of this event on here, though I’ll undoubtedly reference it in the future. I figure that I’ve satiated my audience’s appetite for this particular topic and I need to move on. I’ve got some product reviews I’m working on and a whole new topic that should be coming up soon.

See you next Friday. -S_S