Reducing My Manuals of Arms

Ever since I started this blog, I’ve dabbled in multiple disciplines. At times, I’ve explored a single discipline from various angles with the goal to cultivate a broader perspective. With a fair amount of certainty, I’d claim that I’ve done just that. However, I also think that in some respects, that approach has held my development back. You see, there is a trade of. The more I work with different guns, specifically actions of guns, the less time I have to become intimately familiar with one particular platform or action. It’s the jack-of-all-trades versus the specialized approach. There are merits in both. However, I am beginning to feel a saturation with the jack-of-all-trades approach that is leading me to think that spending some time specializing on one thing, or maybe two things, could be beneficial to me and subsequently to some readers. This has in many ways already started happening which is evident by the decrease in hunting and rifle related posts with an increase in self defense, competition, and pistol related posts over the past couple of years. That change has been organic based on opportunity and available resources. What I’m considering now is much more deliberate based on recent observations and immediate curiosity.

That probably sounds a bit nebulous. At least, it does to me. Nevertheless, I’ve spent a lot of cognitive cycles pondering this recently.

This is a bit difficult to explain. However, I’ll start with an observation that I think is simple enough to comprehend.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve often found myself setting a goal to accomplish with a particular choice of gear. A couple examples include, but aren’t limited to, deciding to earn Rangemaster instructor certifications with the everyday carry defensive pistol (the VP9 many readers are familiar with), attempting to earn a B classification in USPSA Carry Optics division with the CZ Shadow 2, and trying to earn B or better classifications in Steel Challenge Rimfire Pistol Open division with the Ruger Mark IV. These were all on my list of goals in 2023. While I achieved them, I have no doubt that achieving them would not have been possible if I didn’t dedicate time prior to attempting those achievements to re-acquaint myself with the tool and platform I selected and used for each of those achievements. This leads me to the inquiry I’m pondering in this post, “Would it have been easier to achieve those if the tools used shared a common manual of arms?”

I don’t have a way to be sure that a common manual of arms would have made achieving those goals any easier, but I suspect that it would have been since I can attribute a fair number of mistakes to failing to remember something specific about the platform’s operation.

Where am I going with this? Well I have a few different goals this year. One is earning a turbo pin from Gabe White which as of this moment I intend to accomplish with the everyday carry VP9. Another is earning a B classification in USPSA Limited Optics division with the Staccato P. While that’s going on, I’m also toying with the idea of replacing the everyday carry VP9 with the CZ Shadow 2 Compact. That’s a different manual of arms per goal and I really do think I’m making things harder on myself than I need to.

How would a common manual of arms make things easier? Well it begins with getting more from my dry fire practice time by working with a single action, trigger type, grip angle, and set of operation controls that translates across all the same goals. Perhaps not perfectly, but working on dry fire drills specific to a single goal, like a two second Bill drill from concealment for a turbo pin, will develop a deeper familiarity and more competent capability that will benefit other goals where the same manual of arms will be used. Switching between that to working Blake drills with a competition rig as I work towards competition goals wouldn’t require the maintenance and application of a different manual of arms. In other words, the changes would be simpler and therefore require less work.

Assuming that making the manual of arms common among my goals would make my goals this year easier, then I have a couple options.

The first option, which seems the most natural to me, is to get back on the VP9 bandwagon full time. I’m comfortable here. I’ve already achieved a lot with this platform and I’d argue that it’s the platform I’m most familiar with. I could keep it as my primary EDC, use it daily in dry fire, and campaign in Carry Optics divisions at local matches with it and the VP9 Match. This option probably gives me the best shot at being ready for and taking home a turbo pin from Gabe White later this year.

The next most obvious option for me is to standardize on the Shadow 2. I could adopt the Shadow 2 Compact as the everyday carry defensive pistol. I could also resume my USPSA and other competitive campaigns with the full size Shadow 2 or or the Compact variant for competitions where the Shadow 2 is too heavy like IDPA. Coming home with a turbo pin using the Shadow 2 Compact is, in my opinion, a reasonable and achievable goal.

However, neither of these approaches help with my competitive campaign goals in the USPSA Limited Optics division. I’m not overly concerned with my progress there given the organizational drama that is presently going on. However, I’m becoming quite fond of the 2011 platform and really want to do more with the Staccato P. Adopting the Staccato P as an every day defensive carry option isn’t completely out of the question, but it is a bit on the large side. Given that every day defensive carry with the P is possible, I could start down that path and consider adding a Staccato C2 down the line to lighten the everyday carry load. The problem with this approach is that it may lead to a sizable monetary investment in order to acquire a C2.

I’m torn. The VP9 approach zeros in on the turbo pin goal, but excludes the other two. The CZ Shadow 2 approach makes the turbo pin and defensive carry goals plausible, but eliminates the competitive division goal this year. The Staccato option makes the turbo pin and competition goals doable, but puts my desire to fiddle around with the Shadow 2 Compact as a defensive carry option on the back burner while potentially leading to a sizable investment.

The questions remain:

• Do I adjust my goals and focus on a single manual of arms?
• Do I keep my goals and juggle multiple manuals of arms?

I’m leaning in favor of reducing my manuals of arms, but then the question becomes: Which way Western man?

Which way, indeed?

Given it’s a first world problem, I’d love to hear which path y’all think I should take or which path y’all would pick. Let me know in the comments section below or hit me up on one of the social channels (linked above). I’ll come to a decision soon and y’all will hear about it shortly thereafter.