Oregon handgun training course recommendations

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jeepmor

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Thunder Ranch
Oregon Firearms Academy

Any other options out there close to Portland?

Thunder Ranch's reputation is great, however, it's expensive and will cost me some vacation time since it's a three day course half a days drive away. OFA has the 1 day courses and it looks like a natural place to start.

Anyone in here attended one of these facilities? Please provide any pro and cons you experienced.

My background is no military or formal training in this regards except the 3 hour CCW course required for the permit.

OFA has a handgun course Saturday February 16th I think I'm going to sign up for once I dig into my schedule a bit more. Anyone more THR members in the PDX area interested in joining along with me. I think there's 8 spots left open. $150 for the day and 500 rounds of factory ammo. Drat, no reloads, but I understand their position on the matter.
 
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Well...

There is also the Firearms Academy of Seattle, which isn't really in Seattle...it's in Centralia, so it's closer to Portland than Seattle.

I can't vouch for it myself, but if Pax is willing to be associated with it, it must be an okay place.

My wife is starting nursing school this year, so with that tuition, not much disposable income...but maybe once her education shows a profit, we can go take a class or two together.

http://www.firearmsacademy.com/

Good luck!

greg
 
I can vouch for OFA, great people there. Took my basic handgun class there.
 
OFA's courses are also Utah approved, which means you should be able to use the OFA course to apply for a non-resident Utah carry permit all by mail, which, once you receive it, will allow you to carry in Washington (potentially important to a Portland resident), as well as in 15 or so other states that don't recognize your Oregon permit.
 
A few Additions to the List

Firearms Academy of Seattle. http://www.firearmsacademy.com/

Excellent defense-oriented training at a good value. I have trained with them and recommend them. As mentioned previously, one of the moderators, Pax, is an instructor there and speaks highly of their training as well as the owners-operators Gila and Marty Hayes. I will likely be taking future training with them.

You can check out her reviews on some of the classes she has taken here: http://www.corneredcat.com/TOC.aspx

Scroll down the page to "Class Reviews".

Depending on what you want, you may also want to check out The Place To Shoot in Jantzen Beach and the Public Training & Safety Center in Clackamas. Both offers a variety of courses.
 
Insights Training Center offers General Defensive Handgun at 'The Place To Shoot' a couple times a year. Mike Shertz is the instructor that teaches most of the Portland area classes.

Rich Daniel runs on-going training at the same location. He is well worth training with.

SouthNarc runs an ECQC class in Portland at least once a year.
 
I might be interested in that OFA class too. Getting a Utah CCW would be a nice bonus so I don't have to disarm when going to the other side of the river.
 
I live right across the river in Vancouver,Wa. How difficult would it be for myself to obtain a Oregon CHL, I have heard Astoria is the place to go for an out of Stater?
 
Have you tried contacting the Tri-County Gun Club in Sherwood? I don't know if they have classes, but they do have an excellent action range.
 
It's not hard to get an Oregon license...several Washingtonians I work with have one, and they went through Portland. I have not done it myself, but I understand it's not a huge hassle.
 
The more rural counties particularly east of the Cascades are the easiest. Astoria is probably OK, as well. Call the Counties you're looking at to see who's the most receptive.

I can vouch for OFA's professional training--I have taken most of their handgun and rifle courses. Top notch instruction and an excellent value.
 
Thanks for the input folks. For beginners, I'll be going with OFA for the single day courses and move up to Thunder Ranch at a later date when things settle down. First son coming any day now, not sure how, or if, I'll be able to sign up for the handgun1 course at the time I mentioned.

My wife will be returning to work before that and they are currently in a schedule shuffle. Have to let her get back to work before I can know for certain if I'll have the time off or babysitter duty is all. The class will probably be full by the time I know for certain.

Regardless, I do plan on attending some training next year, and OFA will be my first stop.
 
I highly recommend Insights. I heard that they are working on putting together another Portland GDH class soon. I attended the last one they had down here and it was worth every penny and then some.

The class covers plenty of ground with most of the two days spent on the line working on gunhandling skills - drawstroke, firing from retention, shooting from the holster, immediate and remedial actions, targeting and trigger work, etc.

Check out their website and feel free to PM me if you have any questions I might be able to help with.
 
The range I shoot at (The place to shoot) has a staff instructor who is amazing he does a lot of different types of training. His videos were available online but the site he used to maintain is now down. If you google "Rich Daniel" you will find his DVD's he does a lot of training with Airsoft and some training with Simunition its really good stuff.
 
There's also Clackamas County Public Safety Training Center [url said:
http://www.clackamas.us/sheriff/clinics.jsp[/url]
Click to expand...

Michael Steen, a good friend of mine from my time in Eugene, used to work out there. Michael was always an under-appreciated asset in the local training community. He developed and taught a 120-hour defensive pistol curriculum through the Lane County Community College in Eugene, OR for years before moving north to Portland.
 
I know you can't judge by the website, but OFA looks really squared away.

If we ever make it out to the Pacific Northwest, I'm gonna enroll in some of their programming.
 
My wife and I have been to multiple classes with Clint&Heidi Smith at Thunder Ranch. We started training with them while in Texas and have been up to Oregon for a tutorial. You will find that this is time and money well spent. We firmly feel that Clint is one of the "master" teachers and they have a very nice facility. You will never regret the investment of training at Thunder Ranch; you definitely get what you pay for.

Regards,
Bob
 
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