the count
Member
Spent Sat, Sun, Mon out in the NC countryside with Louis Awerbuck and about 18 fellow students. Most were middle aged, one couple was in their 70's! A couple guys may have been LE/military. For those unfamiliar with this name, Louis is one of the most highly regarded firearm instructors in the USA. A South African native and now a 20 year resident of Arizona his mentor was legendary shooter Jeff Cooper.
I am not intending to do a full course reviews here, just a bunch of my rather subjective impressions.
The first and last day were very hot. Around 95-98. There are 10 minute breaks around every hour or so for hydration. When not actively shooting everybody stayed in the shade. The facility was the Durham Pistol and Rifle Club. Louis is an experienced (almost 40 years of shooting) no nonsense kind of guy with a rather dry (like British) sense of humor. He uses four letter words once in a while and has no issue calling out everybody's mistakes. There is ZERO tolerance for unsafe behavior. He does this without getting personal or abusive but some might not like his rougher approach. I had no problem even though he repeatedly told me to do this or not do that, kinda like a school teacher.
Students had the gamut of shotguns from semi auto berettas to pump action remington and mossbergs. We had an unusual amount of gun related issues. Louis said he never had so many problems in one course before. The essence is: forget fancy shmancy guns with dozens of doo-dads. The semi autos are finicky, aftermarket magazine extenders are potential problem makers. Even some 870's had issues. The mossberg 500 (without extras) seem to have been the most reliable.
The 3 days were full of sometimes challenging exercises like 'rolling thunder'*, moving targets with hostages, loading and unloading without looking, buckshot to slug transitions and much more. The barrels on occasion would get seriously hot.
All in all well worth the $550 the 3 day course cost. Highly recommended for those already with some handgun and/or rifle experience.
* Rolling Thunder
There is a line of lets say 10 shooters. Each shooter is assigned a number, NOT in sequence. Then each shooter gets a sequence of shots to fire. For example 3, then 2, then 1, 5, 4. Everybody had their own. We then have 5 minutes to discuss how we would signal to each other when a shooter would be done with his sequence. Example, shooter 1 starts and fires 3 rounds, then he yell shooter one clear, so now shooter 2 knows it his turn and shoots his allotted ammo for round 1 and so forth. What you have is a 5 minute non stop barrage of lead going down range. Sounds confusing? It is. Constant reloading without looking. Needless to say the first time most screwed up...My thumb actually got sore from shoving shells down the mag tube.
I am not intending to do a full course reviews here, just a bunch of my rather subjective impressions.
The first and last day were very hot. Around 95-98. There are 10 minute breaks around every hour or so for hydration. When not actively shooting everybody stayed in the shade. The facility was the Durham Pistol and Rifle Club. Louis is an experienced (almost 40 years of shooting) no nonsense kind of guy with a rather dry (like British) sense of humor. He uses four letter words once in a while and has no issue calling out everybody's mistakes. There is ZERO tolerance for unsafe behavior. He does this without getting personal or abusive but some might not like his rougher approach. I had no problem even though he repeatedly told me to do this or not do that, kinda like a school teacher.
Students had the gamut of shotguns from semi auto berettas to pump action remington and mossbergs. We had an unusual amount of gun related issues. Louis said he never had so many problems in one course before. The essence is: forget fancy shmancy guns with dozens of doo-dads. The semi autos are finicky, aftermarket magazine extenders are potential problem makers. Even some 870's had issues. The mossberg 500 (without extras) seem to have been the most reliable.
The 3 days were full of sometimes challenging exercises like 'rolling thunder'*, moving targets with hostages, loading and unloading without looking, buckshot to slug transitions and much more. The barrels on occasion would get seriously hot.
All in all well worth the $550 the 3 day course cost. Highly recommended for those already with some handgun and/or rifle experience.
* Rolling Thunder
There is a line of lets say 10 shooters. Each shooter is assigned a number, NOT in sequence. Then each shooter gets a sequence of shots to fire. For example 3, then 2, then 1, 5, 4. Everybody had their own. We then have 5 minutes to discuss how we would signal to each other when a shooter would be done with his sequence. Example, shooter 1 starts and fires 3 rounds, then he yell shooter one clear, so now shooter 2 knows it his turn and shoots his allotted ammo for round 1 and so forth. What you have is a 5 minute non stop barrage of lead going down range. Sounds confusing? It is. Constant reloading without looking. Needless to say the first time most screwed up...My thumb actually got sore from shoving shells down the mag tube.
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