Defensive Handgun I (WA)

[rwc]

I spent Sunday at Wade's in Bellevue, WA taking the Defensive Handgun I course, taught by John Clarke.

His two core principles were:
1. Don't take shots you can't make.
2. The purpose of shooting is hitting.

The implication of this is that accuracy was a strong focus. He did not teach shooting "Center of mass" rather, focus on heart and brain, with pelvis as a 3rd option.

Every element he taught was designed to be universally applicable to (most) any firearm, including clearance drills.

The most unique idea for me was the "One pound trigger" concept. As you bring your pistol from a high-ready to an isoceles you take up the slack in your trigger and apply pressure as soon as you touch it such that you only have a pound of resistance left before you "break" the sear and fire. You are focusing on the front sight as it enters your visual range and firing when ready.

It was a long day (10 hours+) but well worth it. I've never been an isoceles style pistol shooter but I appreciated the advantages (and disadvantages). The course gave me a lot to think about and a very frank evaluation of my weaknesses (tactical reload tops the list). It was also a great way of evaluating my gear.

There were twelve of us taking the course. About a third of the students had Glocks, a third Sigs, and a third random semi-auto pistols (BHP, CZ, HK P7, and a couple I didn't ID); 9mm to .45 ACP. The students were young and old, desk jockeys to a contractor heading over.

I would recommend it.

 

[halfgone]

good to hear. I am signed up for the free handgun safety class at Firearms academy of Seattle, but am planning on taking some more advanced classes after that. how much did wade's cost?

HG

 

[rwc]

$150. See Wade's

For the record, I have no affiliation with Wade's or the instructor.

 

[Jeff22]

pre-loading the trigger

Preloading the trigger as the weapon comes up on target is a fine motor skill that takes LOTS of practice to program in, and then it may not work under great stress.

I think it probably still has a place in your skill set, for those circumstances when you're coming out of the holster and you KNOW you're going to be firing. Some LE trainers refer to this as "firing the dedicated shot".

Most of the time that you draw, you'll end up pointing a weapon at somebody without shooting them, and so you don't want to short circuit your nervous system by always drawing and beginning the trigger press as the gun is driven forward to the target.

 

[rwc]

Jeff,
Good point.

The counter-argument would be that as a non-LEO I have no business pointing a pistol directly at someone unless I feel they are posing a threat of grave bodily injury or death to me (or another) and there is no reassonable lesser degree of force that I can employ to protect myself (or others). Presumably I either already have the pistol in my hand and he is not deterred, or the situation has escalated past the point where "brandishing" is going to de-escalate it. In other words, he is about to be shot, whether I pre-load the trigger or not.

Your thoughts?

rwc

 

[jakeslife]

Cathy Schlagel (sp?) is also a great instructor. She was ours at work for our armed licenses, and while she may come off as a bit brash, she's the best I've been exposed to.

She's the one who makes the guys in the separate training room pretend to load their mags by the window to the classroom all the time.

 

[Grape Ape]

I took a similar class from Insights last fall and they also advocated prepping the trigger.

Since I was shooting a 1911 it seemed quite weird to me. I felt I would be risking an AD for no reason. Until I had occasion to shoot the lead instructor’s Glock and saw that if you held the trigger between the second crunch and the creak then the rest of the trigger pull was pretty decent.

I concluded that it was a way to manage a bad DA trigger that might work with practice. Or it might fall apart if you are wearing gloves or under the influence of a massive adrenaline dump.

I agree with RWC that it’s not really an AD once you decide to take the shot, just a miss or a peripheral wound. But I think that as a non-cop I’d rather address a bad DA trigger directly by having it tuned or buy something with a nice trigger.

 

[Inner Monkey]

This is just my opinion…

To me “prepping” the trigger is asking for an ND. In your moment of truth you will be under a tremendous amount of stress. You body will go into survival mode & blood from your extremities will be pulled to the body core then fine motor skills will be seriously diminished.

I also think that as a private citizen you very well way have to point your firearm at a BG without shooting. This did happen to me once & the presence of my pistol ended the engagement. I was scared & my coordination was less than half of what I would consider normal to me. Granted normal for me is less that most…

On another occasion I was at an advances firearms course & a student had an ND as he was coming up on target. He had been taught to “prep” the trigger & the shot hit 15 feet in front of him in the dirt. My point is that he was not in a life threatening situation.

John Clark is a good guy & knows his stuff. I also have many friends that have trained at Insighst. They know a lot more about gun fighting that I do but as far a “prepping” the trigger goes I totally disagree with this concept & do not see me changing my mind on any time soon, but who knows…

Then again I still believe in the weaver stance, so I admit that I am behind the times. But in retention drills I think you will find the Weaver to be better suited to weapons retention than the isosceles.

There area number of shooting systems out there & to some degree they contradict each other. The trick is to find a system that works for you & you believe in, then stick with it. For me it is John Farnam. If the Insights system works for you & you can believe in it with confidence then you are in good shape.