imported post
It was a hot weekend. It's true what they say about it being a dry heat. Even at 100 degrees it didn't feel that bad. You just have to make sure you drink a lot of water.
The first day started out with a lecture on Front Sights purpose and the five levels of competence. Most people fall under unconciously incompetent. The instructor who gave the lectures was a retired sherrifs deputy and had some pretty amazing stories, which made the lectures pretty entertaining. After that we hit the range until lunch time. After lunch we had another lecture, "Moral and Ethical Decisions Associated with the Use of Deadly Force", then range activities for the rest of the day. The first day we probably only shot 100 rounds. We learned chamber/mag checks, how to properly draw you're weapon, trigger reset, sight alignment, sight picture, and trigger control. No concealment on the first day.
Day two, the entire morning was range time. Despite being out there for about 12 hours a day, everything went by really fast and is kind of blurred together. I think we were still shooting from OWB int he morning, and switched to concealment in the afternoon. After lunch we had another lecture, this one about civil liability. The rest of the day was spent at the range.
Day three was mostly shooting. We only had one lecture, which was on tactical movement. Later in the day we would learn how to properly go around a corner, or through a door. Just learning the basics of how to clear a house, which sucks to have to do alone. If you don't have a reason to clear your house (a family member is elsewhere in the house), then stay where you are and call the police. Definitely learned some interesting things, like if you're looking around a corner of a wall, don't stand up against that wall. Bullets don't deflect like a pool ball would on a table at the same angle they hit. They bounce off at a very narrow angle to the wall, almost sliding along the wall. You want to stand back 5 or 10 feet from the wall you are using as cover to avoid getting hit by a ricochet.
Learning how to go around corners and through doors:
Day three was actually a really long day. We finished up around 5:30, but had to be back at 7:30 for a night shoot. We had a short lecture about using your flashlight, then we hit the range to shoot in the dark.
Day four is again pretty much all shooting. I don't think we learned to many new things on the fourth day. Shooting drills would be something like two shots to the thoracic cavity from various distances (3, 5, 7, 10, and 15 yards). It was usually timed. The target would flip around for between 1.5 and 2.xx seconds, depending on what distance your shooting from. Having to draw from concealment and get off two shots to the thoracic cavity is not easy, especially if your concealment is good.
They recommend a concealment garmet like a vest to wear overtop of your OWB holster. It may be faster to draw from a setup like that, but almost no one (at least that I know), carries that way. My friend and I decided to carry concealed like we do all the time, IWB with a shirt over top (crossbreed supertuck holster). It definitly made stuff harder. An extra quarter second on your draw time is huge. I had problems with getting a good grip on the gun from my holster. The leather backing prevented my thumb from being behind the gun. After about 10 minutes of using it I had already rubbed the skin from my knuckle on my thumb, and bent my thumb nail back. I put a bandaid on it and put up with it. Later I decided to cut off some of the leather, which helped alot. I could finally get my thumb behind the grip, even if it was a little bit low.
We also did failure to stop drills. You'd have your normal amount of time to do two shots to the thoracic cavity, then the target would flit around. If it flipped around again and faced you, you'd have to take a shot to the cranialoccular cavity. I don't remember the time limit for the second shot. Other times we would do a designated cranialoccular shot.
To help with accuracy, we did a drill called the ragged hole drill. They put stickers on the target they call pasties. You have all the time you need, and you aim at the bottom edge of the pastie from 7 yards. You fire five shots, and the goal is to make one ragged hole with the five shots. Mine are on the left:
One of the coolest things we did was the simulator. They have a house you have to clear. An instructor clips a caribiner on your belt and goes in with you, holding on, so you don't turn around and shoot him. He tells you the scenario is your mother is inside screaming, go! You have to go through and clear the house. As soon as you open the door theres a bad guy staring at you. You procede to clear that room and enter an open doorway, which you have to do quickly after you've "sliced the pie". I think there was a good guy in that room, a family member or something like that (someone had put a bullet between her eyes before). The next room in you first see a man in a suit. Early in the day this same picture had been used as a target, so alot of people shoot him. If you actually took the time to see both his hands, you'd see he only has a cell phone. The next person over is supposed to be your mom taken hostage with the bad guy behind her. One shot to the cranial occular cavity, then one more bad guy next to him. I shot everyone I was supposed to, all hits, but it takes a lot of time when you have to enter a room and figure out who to shoot. If it were real life I feel like I would have been shot already if they saw me come in.
Another fun drill was a one on one competition, single elimination. This was to try to add some stress. You stood next to another shooter, and you each had three targets. The first was a hostage taker shot, then two regular shots. They had metal targets and you had to make them drop. It sucked because sometimes you'd hit it but it wouldn't fall or spin.
We learned the three types of malfunctions, how to recognize them, and how to clear them. It was pretty difficult to clear them in the amount of time you had. I can't imagine having to do it under the stress of a real gunfight.
Heres a drill where we had to shoot multiple targets:
Drawing
Scanning as part of after action drills:
Reholstering
They packed in so much information in those four days. It's one of those things where you realize how much there is that you don't know. I now have tons of stuff I know I need to practice at home. One of the things that surprised me is that they said on average about 30% of the class will actually graduate. Fortunately I passed and graduated, but my friend didn't. It was still completely worth it for him though. I think our holsters really hampered us during the test, but oh well. No point in training different then how you actually carry.
Anyone who carries or has a gun for self defense should really look into getting some training like this. I've never done a concealed carry course (I just used my M16 qual as proof of competency), but I seriously doubt it gives you the skills you'll need in a gunfight. In one of the lectures they talk about how people buy a gun and think thats all they need, that they will rise to the occasion if someone is trying to kill them. It's just not true, you lower yourself to the occasion. They call it the rule of 50%. Under the stress of fighting for your life, you'll only be 50% (at best) as good as you are when you train. Not that its impossible to win if you don't have training, people do it all the time. The will to survive is strong. But why not put the odds in your favor?
..it's bad enough they have a range in hottest place in the USA > 4 Day course standing under the burning hot sun.... can anyone say heat stroke...:?