I need training

I share the OP's questions. Guns have been a fun hobby for a long time, but as I am thinking more and more of SD situation, I come to the conclusion that I do not know enough.

Hey folks. These are good questions. I've been shooting for several years now, including some action matches. I just took my first training class this last weekend. I highly recommend this. While I have my own pistol(s - plenty of them) and holster, the instructor has firearms and holsters that students can rent. One of the guys in the class with me owned his own handgun, but it was a 40 and he wanted to run with the reduced recoil of a 9mm. So he rented one.

As part of the class, the instructor also provided us with specific recommendations for concealed carry firearms and holsters (he also emailed us some of this info ahead of time for us to review). What he shared were his opinions (which I respect, but they are still opinions), but he explained the reasoning for each of his recommendations. In this case, he pretty much always went for simplicity. In firearms, he recommends striker fired pistols with no safeties because they have the same trigger pull, so you don't have to learn 2 different pulls. They also have no decockers, etc - again to keep it simple.

For holsters, he had some specific recommendations. Basically stay inside the waistband so you can conceal larger weapons, giving you full grips and long sight radii. He also said to stay away from holsters with retention devices - again, keeping it simple.

You will find that there are a million different people with a million different opinions on everything. Many highly competent trainers will have differing opinions on things.

Find a respected school where you are. Ask them if then rent equipment. Listen to their recommendations and take notes. From here, you can either:
a) Buy into this instructors program and opinions (good idea if you plan to do a lot of training with this school)
b) Get as much additional information, training, and opinions as you can from other instructors on the Internet, at other schools you may take training from, or taking consensus from people on message boards who you trust based on the sum of their postings. Take all this info and formulate your own opinion.

My biggest recommendations would be the following:
- Find a good school and get to that training you are considering soon. I'm now tweaking my grip after I've been shooting for quite a while with it. Had I taken the class sooner, I'd have less "undoing" to do.
- When it comes time to choose your handgun, find one that "fits" you. It should be comfortable and of the proper dimensions to allow your hand to obtain the proper grip that your instructor will teach you.

Good luck!

I've just started down the training road, for the same reasons. I took the NRA pistol course 1.5 years ago. I bought a couple of guns and shoot with the Boy, but haven't had any more feedback other than from him (which is better than nothing--he's tough). I looked through that sticky thread and found a training center 1.5 hours from me. I took the NRA Refuse to be a Victim class there to check the place out. Turned out the course was excellent in its own right and I highly recommend it for ANYONE.

I really like the Center Target Sports facility and staff so I scheduled their Pistol Basics 1 course for the 4th. It will be a class of 10 with a couple of instructors. If I want to rent a gun I can get there early and get set up with its function before class starts. I will be using my P226 (I will bring the M67 just in case). This is not a carry class or a self/home defense class. It is basic training in safety and pistol handling, range safety, and working on stance/sight picture/breathing/trigger control.

I am going to start competing in steel challenge so my short term goals with this class are 1) continue to learn safety protocols 2) confidence in gun handling in front of other people 3) shooting straighter and faster. This course is a prerequisite to their basic defensive shooting class, which I plan to take before I carry a gun.

Trainers do all have different ways of doing things as well as opinions, but the basics are universal. Safety and gun function are quantifiable. Shot placement is achieved through a variety of methods but results speak for themselves. For basic classes, the instructors may not be perfect but they know more than I do and can give me feedback.

Find a training center, scope it out, schedule a class, rent a gun if you need to, and dive in!

DAP90,

There are a couple more NRA classes that might be useful, if you were happy with the basic class. There's a list at http://www.nrainstructors.org/CourseCatalog.aspx . You might be interested in the NRA Basics of Personal Protection Outside The Home Course for example. The class description is as follows:

Name : NRA Basics of Personal Protection Outside The Home Course

Short Description : Comprehensive and intensive in its approach to equip the defensive shooting candidate with the skills needed to survive serious adversity.
More Details: The course teaches students the knowledge, skills and attitude essential for avoiding dangerous confrontations and for the safe, effective and responsible use of a concealed pistol for self-defense outside the home. Students have the opportunity to attend this course using a quality strong side hip holster that covers the trigger, or a holster purse. From a review of safe firearms handling and proper mindset to presentation from concealment and multiple shooting positions, this course contains the essential skills and techniques needed to prevail in a life-threatening situation.

The NRA Personal Protection Outside the Home is divided into two levels (basic and advanced). Level one is a nine-hour course and offers the essential knowledge and skills that must be mastered in order to carry, store, and use a firearm safely and effectively for personal protection outside the home. Upon completion of level one, students may choose to attend level two, which is an additional five hours of range training and teaches advanced shooting skills. After the classroom portion, students should expect to spend several hours on the range and shoot approximately 100 rounds of ammunition during level one. Level two involves five additional hours on the range and approximately 115 rounds of ammunition. The ammunition requirements are minimum and may be exceeded. Students will receive the NRA Guide to the Basics of Personal Protection Outside The Home handbook, NRA Gun Safety Rules brochure and the appropriate course completion certificates(s), NRA Basic Personal Protection Outside The Home (identifies strong-side hip holster or purse use) certificate, and NRA Advanced Personal Protection Outside The Home certificate.(Lesson Plan 2006, revised 4-09)

The NRA Basics of Personal Protection Outside The Home is for adult individuals who are not disqualified from possessing a firearm as defined by applicable federal, state, or local law and are of good repute and possess defensive pistol skills presented in the NRA Basics of Personal Protection In The Home Course. Participants must also understand the basic legal concepts relating to the use of firearms in self-defense, and must know and observe not only general gun safety rules, but also those safety principles that are specific to defensive situations. Prospective participants can demonstrate that they have the requisite knowledge, skills, and attitudes by producing an NRA Basic Personal Protection In The Home Course Certificate, or by passing the pre-course evaluation.

Note: The Lesson III of the Personal Protection In and Outside The Home courses Firearms and the Law, and Legal Aspects of Self-Defense is conducted by an attorney licensed to practice law within the state in which this course is given and who is familiar with this area of the law, a Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) who possesses an intermediate or higher Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) certificate granted within the state, or an individual currently certified to instruct in this area of the law by the state in which this course is presented.

NRA Certified Instructors may conduct this lesson only if they meet the requirements stated above and then only in their capacity as an attorney, or other state certified individual not in their capacity as an NRA Certified Instructor.

It might be worth your while to take a look at https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/ .

See http://www.defense-training.com/quips/quips.html for several years worth of lessons learned from one of the world class trainers out there, John Farnam. His Defense Training International is in LaPorte, CO if that's close to you.

This list might be helpful in locating other training opportunities in your state - http://www.coloradoshooting.org/firearms_training.htm

The best advice I can give is to not feel anxious, or rush the process. There's a learning curve involved in finding out what you need to learn, for lack of a better way to say it. If you get professional training early along, you'll be miles ahead of the crowd, so there's no need to feel as if you're not making progress. If you're interested in a particular trainer or school, look around on the web and see what you can find out, look particularly for AARs (after action reports) or reviews from others who have trained with that instructor or in that particular school. And keep in mind that most good trainers I know encourage students to expose themselves to a variety of trainers, in order to glean whatever techniques work best for that particular student.

Training is a lifelong journey, not a one time destination...

Best wishes,

lpl

Serenity said:

I
I really like the Center Target Sports facility and staff so I scheduled their Pistol Basics 1 course for the 4th. It will be a class of 10 with a couple of instructors.

Click to expand...

If it wasn't full, I'd be tempted to come take the class with you. Point being, you can retake any of their classes for free, if there is still room. Definitely take advantage of that; they have a clever system worked out around all that to make it possible for their students to train regularly.

The description of this class offered at the Defense Training International course very closely resembles the Pistol Basics class that I will be attending. Despite the title (I think they are trying to appeal to a specific audience) it looks like a basic shooting class. You could check it out and see what you think, and maybe make contact with other local shooters who can refer you to other training facilities.

Defensive Handgun
Designed to prepare the responsible, adult gun owner to handle, maintain, safely store, and use their firearm safely, responsibly, correctly, and effectively, so that they are able to successfully handle nearly any personal protection situation

A lot of classes sound the same.
There is usually a reason why the big names are the big names. Just because the course description sounds similar to that of Farnam, Cain, Awerbuck, Jeans, Givens, or Rogers does not mean the training is the same.

I frequently suggest that members here either take the PPITH (Personal Protection In The Home) class, or get the book and/or the video. It's a good rundown on establishing a home defense plan and includes ideas a lot of people don't think about on their own. But it's isn't geared toward concealed carry.

I've trained with Farnam and hope to do so again. Their focus is definitely serious - they're oriented toward teaching students how to fight with a gun. Give them a call and see what you think.

For those who want to learn how to operate a defensive pistol, goto Gunsite in Arizona (3-time grad) or Thunder Ranch in Washington State (or maybe Oregon). Your eyes will be opened.

First of all, good on you for realizing you need training. We all do, whether it's for the first time or to retain skills. A lot of folks go through life thinking they know enough or are skilled enough to get by, having done nothing but square range paper blasting with enough bad habits to write a book about.

Secondly, my recommendation for a defensive handgun is deceptively simple. Carry the largest handgun (both size and caliber) that you can both shoot well and conceal. Knowing what constitutes a good gun fit to your hands should be top of the list when choosing that handgun. For some, it's a full size service pistol. For others, it's a snubby revolver. A few are genuinely limited to "mouseguns" for one reason or another.

Lastly, shooting schools have cropped up all over. I cannot vouch for the quality of most, as I've only been to a few. Others, like Gunsite and Thunder Ranch, speak for themselves in their student reviews and how many people return, often multiple times. Looking around on both the web and print publications should give you a few ideas that might be within a couple hour drive for you. Several also offer "roving" classes, as in they will travel to wherever the students are.

A good class will not teach you to be Rambo, but it WILL teach you to run your gun efficiently and effectively under stress.

Here is a tip...if possible, eat lunch with the instructor during a training class. In most of the classes I have been to lunchtime is a big Q&A session with food . You will learn alot of great information that you won't learn on the line because the instructor is giving range commands and everybody else is shooting.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

And get there a little early to help set up; stay a little late to help clean up.