The heat was out at my range the other day. I watched several shooters come in, fire off 10 to 20 shots, and leave, complaining about the cold. I put on my coat, gloves and cap; stayed for two hours; and burned though 250 rounds of 5.56.

Because ... shit happens in the cold too.

I wasn't the only one, either. Three other shooters stuck around and shot as well.

I learned some stuff too. Like, I'm not as accurate shooting off-hand in 35 degrees as I am in 65 degrees. Slow-fire stayed about the same but my accuracy during timed drills fell off a bit. I usually get 30 out of 30 in a vital organ at 25 yards during my ready drills, for example. In the cold, I averaged 28.

I lost my arm strength faster. During a 15-minute ready drill, my left, support arm is usually feeling it right toward the end. In the cold, it happened around the ten-minute mark. By about 12 minutes, I was bringing my left elbow into my chest after firing, my form was going to crap, and my time and accuracy started dropping. By 14 minutes, my arm was visibly shaking. I was still able to get hits but it took three or four times as long to take the shot.

After about an hour, I lost some patience and was pulling the trigger on bad sightings when slow-firing, perhaps because I subconsciously wanted it to be over. The next time I get a chance to shoot in the cold, I'll try to keep this in mind and tell myself to wait for it to be right.

My form deteriorated over the two hours. Time and again, I found myself realizing my form was terrible and got it back into shape, only to find that it had deteriorated again a couple of minutes later. The biggest thing was that I had stopped pulling the rifle up to my eyes and was hunching and leaning to get my eye down to the rifle. And my back leg seemed to creep up and want to be even with my front foot. Physiology working overtime to keep the body warm, perhaps.

My gun and all the gear worked perfectly. I wouldn't expect mid-30s temps to cause any problems with any of it, especially indoors, but it was good to validate it.

It's not stunning accuracy but I'm focused on improving my speed right now ... safely. My accuracy goal is "good enough." As in good enough to have a decent chance of dropping a bad guy with two quick shots. Once I have a sight picture in the vital area, I pull the trigger. My accuracy isn't great but its a lot better than it was 700 rounds down-range and a bunch of hours on the laser dry-fire range in the basement ago. I'm expecting it to get better with reps. The distance from the reticle to the center of the target when it first gets to my eye so I can aim, is large and inconsistent. I'm hoping that enough reps will reduce the distance and make my initial sight much more consistent.

I'm pleased with myself for sticking it out. I learned a lot and that's why I stayed despite the cold. I'm a big believer in "wrinkles" in training. They present new challenges, deepen the training experience, and so on.

35 with no wind, sounds like good shooting weather here.

It’s always good training to do it uncomfortable. Like you said you learned something new.