pangris
Member
Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending a Defensive Handgun 1 class at Shootrite. This is my second class at Shootrite under the instruction of Tiger McKee. In 2003, I met Tiger at Thunder Ranch where he works as an adjunct instructor. For reference, he also works with Rifles Only, althought I haven’t made it out there… (yet!) After working with Tiger at TR, I found out he owns and directs Shootrite(www.shootrite.org). I took a three day tutorial in defensive carbine and was very pleased. This handgun class marked my first experience at Shootrite in a standard class with other students, and I’m pleased to say that it was a great experience.
Two GlockTalkers took the class as well – RedhorseG20 and Hines57, along with one LE officer. Tiger usually takes 8 students per class but due to cancellations/weather (it was very cold and wet with forecasts of freezing and snowing) we had 4 people. This worked out very well for us as the class moved quickly and we got a lot accomplished since there was no one particularly slow.
The format for Defensive Handgun 1 at Shootrite is a two day class with about half a day of lecture and 1.5 days of shooting – and you shoot a LOT. Each man shot about 1,000 rounds.
Due to particularly cold weather, sleet and 28 degrees if I recall (for a southern Louisiana guy who normally trains in the summer that is COLD) Tiger combined the lecture for both days into Saturday morning hoping weather would improve, which it did. Over the course of about 3 hours, everything from the basic safety rules to the use of deadly force is covered, with all the other stuff you might want to know as well – basic physiology of the human body and the phyics of actually stopping a threat, the importance of situational awareness/the color codes – etc etc. After that we were off to lunch (great place less than a mile away) and then to the range.
Once there, just enough dry work to make sure no one was going to poke holes in anyone else and onto basic marksmanship. Everyone seemed pretty squared away and shortly thereafter we began working on weapon manipulations and malfunction drills. Considering the amount of demonstration and instruction on malf drills I was surprised to see we shot about 350 rounds that afternoon. This also included a blind malfunction scenario where you set your gun down and turn your back while Tiger sets up an unknown malfunction, with a great deal of creativity I might add...
After a while, it doesn't bother you to set your hand built custom 1911 down in the mud... ;1 OK, it still bothers you a little
We did that several times and once it seemed like everyone knew what to do if their gun puked, we moved on to… movement.
Tiger demonstrates how to move left, right, backward and forward while maintaining yourself as a stable platform, and the methods that decrease the chance you’ll land on your bum while trying to focus on a potential target, your sights, where cover is, the “frozen rain” which is falling on you, whether the caliber you are shooting is going to impress said potential target, etc. In the end, the further away you are from the target the better the better off you are… as Clint would say (loud!) – “Distance is time, time is marksmanship, marksmanship wins fights!”
By the end of day one, we had covered a LOT of ground, both academic in the morning and then the application in the afternoon, and everyone was very ready to head home and INTO THE HEAT!
Thankfully, the weather man was wrong and while Day Two was cold there were no blizzard, or even frozen precipitation – it was a sunny 30 degrees! No worries, just a couple extra shirts and you are ready to roll.
We started the day with a refresher about the different types of reloads and proceeded to work on them.
The general message is that you should be a master of the empty load since if you ever actually get into a gunfight, you’ll probably shoot until the BG drops or you run out… the tac load is considered an administrative act, only to be done when you have time and are not actively “in the fight”.
Once we went through a number of drills, ammo management became our responsibility and we began exploring “alternative firing positions”. Speaking of, I haven’t addressed the primary position, and since that is normally a topic of conversation… Tiger suggests a “fighting” stance with your weak foot slightly forward, shoulder width apart, and an aggressive posture towards the target. The other positions we covered were kneeling on both one or two knees. Tiger also demonstrated the squat and braced kneeling, although made it clear that those positions worked for some and not others. We went through many drills given the freedom to try these various positions discovering what worked best for us. Incorporated into this was movement to the left, or right, or backwards with the kneeling/squatting/etc.
Yours truly reloading my beastly revo kneeling on both knees behind cover...
My targets head after shooting several drills from kneeling. Tiger encourages head shots to be put into the "ocular cavity" i.e. the triangle formed by the eyes and nose. This is all firing double action only from kneeling positions behind cover, with ranges between 5-15 yards.
Tiger then introduced us to the proper footwork/ pivoting technique to address a target on your left, right, or if something is behind you. We worked this dry a number of times as it is critical to get it right, lest you sweep the line in training or God only knows what in real life.
RedhorseG20 preparing to fire from the second position in the draw, i.e. from retention... bad pic from the wrong angle...
Once it appeared we had this all down, we went one by one and put it all together – having a reactive target presented to us on our left, right, or behind us at which point you had to properly execute your draw (an perhaps fire from a retention position, which we also covered) then moving to cover and firing from behind that cover as targets presented themselves and “withdrew” from the conflict.
Last but not least, we returned to the marksmanship cornerstone and engaged targets from about 40 yards. These were carefully fired five round groups. We fired 4 sets as such.
My first five rounds from 40 yards... from a Ruger GP100, shooting double action...
Not that bad for a gun so dirty the cylinder is binding, gun show reload ammo, and 30 degree weather
Then we moved into 20 yards for two final groups – five to the body and five to the head. I believe the instructions here were not to rush but imagine we were firing for a reason. I did so and was pleased with the results.
After all guns were cleared, holstered, and the gear was packed, Tiger gave us cupcakes. Just kidding – brass call. Bring kneepads! We did get diplomas and Shootrite t-shirts, which I actually prefer to cupcakes.
As an after action kinda thing, I was particularly interested in getting the opinions of my shooting buddies. Hines57 has taken Handgun 1-5 at TDI while Redhorse G20 has never taken defensive training but shoots USPSA. FWIW, the LE Officer hadn’t trained outside of LE specific applications.
Hines57 said that it was interesting to see the solutions presented as they weren’t necessarily the same or radically different. Tiger presented some material that he hadn’t seen before and didn’t address other things that were emphasized at TDI. Hines57 did present some great questions during breaks and Tiger answered all of them regarding his specific reasoning – sometimes there was a fundamental difference of opinion, sometimes that there were two or six ways to skin a cat but that they could all work.
In the end the whole point of the class is that there is no specific answer to what you should do in any given scenario – one day you might find yourself in a situation where you have to apply logic to escape alive. Hopefully you were aware of what was going on around you so you aren’t caught off guard, and hopefully you have thought about the possibility of such undesirable things happening and therefore have a general idea of how to react. Finally, hopefully you have the ways and means to defend yourself and/or your family - and have practiced them such that you can work through the problem.
As anecdotally interesting firearms information –
The LE officer shot a Glock 21 and had no malfunctions. He did use a retention holster and I noticed his draw was relatively slow as a result – there was often a good bit of tugging. I didn’t notice that until the end of day two when we were doing a lot of drills one at a time, and I forgot to ask more about it.
Hines 57 shot a Glock 19 and had no malfunctions. He did switch to a G34 for the second half of day two and had one malfunction – and not a particularly standard one. Best guess was that the slide grabbed some jacket when firing from the retention position. IIRC a tap rack bang cleared the issue and he was firing again very quickly – but the moral of the story is that even if you are shooting a Glock, and even if you provide a stable platform, you may have to fire in such a way that through no fault of yours or the guns, something doesn’t function properly. Knowing how to clear it, and quickly, got him “back in the fight”.
RedhorseG20 shot a 1911 STI Trojan 9mm for about 500 rounds, and a G17 for the remainder. The STI did very well but for one little issue – when you live in a hot climate, your lube choice may not work well in a cold climate! The gun was lubed with Slide Glide light and was sluggish as a result, not fully extracting several times. Once that was resolved, the gun was fine. The Glock 17 ran fine.
I shot a 1911 in .45 (custom Caspian) day one and a Ruger GP100 (yes, a revolver) day two. My 1911 has an absolute magazine preference – the Metalform FBI spec 7 rounders. It is perfect with them. Going to the Metalform “Elite” 8 round mag, everything fed fine but I had some failures to lock back the slide. I did have one failure to go into battery which turned out to be diretly ammo related - there was a chunk of glue, presumably from the factory box, that had secured itself along the front of the case... it would have caused a malf in ANY .45 chamber, and is just more food for thought about assuming just because you have XYZ gun it will always run.
Contrary to popular belief, with the revolver, you can and will run into some issues. Sticky chambers, poorly indexed cylinder on a reload under pressure, and after shooting enough, build up on the cylinder face/forcing cone all leads to issues. I had to clean the revolver every 200 rounds or so or I’d have a problem getting rounds into the chambers. I even had one failure to fire since one round wasn’t fully seated and was simply driven into place by the hammer falling. I shot every shot double action and was rewarded with a sore trigger finger the next morning! Reloading was slow and required you to take your eyes off the threat to index the rounds – I was using Bianchi speed strips since I carry one daily as a reload for my 642 – far slower than an auto. Granted, a Comp II speed loader would have been MUCH faster but I don’t carry those and don’t see how you comfortably could in jeans.
Last but not least, if you decide to go to Shootrite, you should contact www.southsautyresort.com as they are the one stop solution for everything while you are there. They are the general store, restaurant, hotel, and gas station all rolled into one. South Sauty is about a mile away and serve very reasonably priced breakfast and lunch every day. They also have some nice rooms for rent – two beds, satellite TV, etc etc for $40 a night. You can also rent a two bedroom house (plus a sleeper) from them for $80/night, which is what we did. The house is about a mile from the range. There is also a Pizza place about 2 miles away. The whole area is on the lake and very picturesque.
In the end, I was very pleased with the class and felt it was a good tune up for me. RedhorseG20 said he was 100% for a return trip (carbine or DHII). I think Hines57 would be up for another as well. The LE officer is training again with Tiger again in a couple months.
Considering the quality of instruction, monetary value - $280 for a 2 day class – and the inexpensive lodging a mile away, I don’t think you can go wrong here. Tiger also offers private tutorials that I can highly recommend, again for a great value.
Tiger has also written a book - based on his personal training journal, written over ten years and chock full of great information. If you want to find out more about Tiger's general philosophy, check it out - you can order it straight off his website at www.shootrite.org. It is far different than anything else I've seen - I ended up getting another copy so that I could highlight and beat up one as I carried it around. It focuses on the use of the 1911 and AR but is applicable to any handgun or rifle.
The book is hand written with sections that are well illustrated...
An essential companion, IMHO, for any student of the gun, especially if you have trained at Thunder Ranch, Gunsite, etc etc as much of the doctrine is similar, but incorporates the views and classes of many other trainers and philosophies.
Two GlockTalkers took the class as well – RedhorseG20 and Hines57, along with one LE officer. Tiger usually takes 8 students per class but due to cancellations/weather (it was very cold and wet with forecasts of freezing and snowing) we had 4 people. This worked out very well for us as the class moved quickly and we got a lot accomplished since there was no one particularly slow.
The format for Defensive Handgun 1 at Shootrite is a two day class with about half a day of lecture and 1.5 days of shooting – and you shoot a LOT. Each man shot about 1,000 rounds.
Due to particularly cold weather, sleet and 28 degrees if I recall (for a southern Louisiana guy who normally trains in the summer that is COLD) Tiger combined the lecture for both days into Saturday morning hoping weather would improve, which it did. Over the course of about 3 hours, everything from the basic safety rules to the use of deadly force is covered, with all the other stuff you might want to know as well – basic physiology of the human body and the phyics of actually stopping a threat, the importance of situational awareness/the color codes – etc etc. After that we were off to lunch (great place less than a mile away) and then to the range.
Once there, just enough dry work to make sure no one was going to poke holes in anyone else and onto basic marksmanship. Everyone seemed pretty squared away and shortly thereafter we began working on weapon manipulations and malfunction drills. Considering the amount of demonstration and instruction on malf drills I was surprised to see we shot about 350 rounds that afternoon. This also included a blind malfunction scenario where you set your gun down and turn your back while Tiger sets up an unknown malfunction, with a great deal of creativity I might add...
After a while, it doesn't bother you to set your hand built custom 1911 down in the mud... ;1 OK, it still bothers you a little
We did that several times and once it seemed like everyone knew what to do if their gun puked, we moved on to… movement.
Tiger demonstrates how to move left, right, backward and forward while maintaining yourself as a stable platform, and the methods that decrease the chance you’ll land on your bum while trying to focus on a potential target, your sights, where cover is, the “frozen rain” which is falling on you, whether the caliber you are shooting is going to impress said potential target, etc. In the end, the further away you are from the target the better the better off you are… as Clint would say (loud!) – “Distance is time, time is marksmanship, marksmanship wins fights!”
By the end of day one, we had covered a LOT of ground, both academic in the morning and then the application in the afternoon, and everyone was very ready to head home and INTO THE HEAT!
Thankfully, the weather man was wrong and while Day Two was cold there were no blizzard, or even frozen precipitation – it was a sunny 30 degrees! No worries, just a couple extra shirts and you are ready to roll.
We started the day with a refresher about the different types of reloads and proceeded to work on them.
The general message is that you should be a master of the empty load since if you ever actually get into a gunfight, you’ll probably shoot until the BG drops or you run out… the tac load is considered an administrative act, only to be done when you have time and are not actively “in the fight”.
Once we went through a number of drills, ammo management became our responsibility and we began exploring “alternative firing positions”. Speaking of, I haven’t addressed the primary position, and since that is normally a topic of conversation… Tiger suggests a “fighting” stance with your weak foot slightly forward, shoulder width apart, and an aggressive posture towards the target. The other positions we covered were kneeling on both one or two knees. Tiger also demonstrated the squat and braced kneeling, although made it clear that those positions worked for some and not others. We went through many drills given the freedom to try these various positions discovering what worked best for us. Incorporated into this was movement to the left, or right, or backwards with the kneeling/squatting/etc.
Yours truly reloading my beastly revo kneeling on both knees behind cover...
My targets head after shooting several drills from kneeling. Tiger encourages head shots to be put into the "ocular cavity" i.e. the triangle formed by the eyes and nose. This is all firing double action only from kneeling positions behind cover, with ranges between 5-15 yards.
Tiger then introduced us to the proper footwork/ pivoting technique to address a target on your left, right, or if something is behind you. We worked this dry a number of times as it is critical to get it right, lest you sweep the line in training or God only knows what in real life.
RedhorseG20 preparing to fire from the second position in the draw, i.e. from retention... bad pic from the wrong angle...
Once it appeared we had this all down, we went one by one and put it all together – having a reactive target presented to us on our left, right, or behind us at which point you had to properly execute your draw (an perhaps fire from a retention position, which we also covered) then moving to cover and firing from behind that cover as targets presented themselves and “withdrew” from the conflict.
Last but not least, we returned to the marksmanship cornerstone and engaged targets from about 40 yards. These were carefully fired five round groups. We fired 4 sets as such.
My first five rounds from 40 yards... from a Ruger GP100, shooting double action...
Not that bad for a gun so dirty the cylinder is binding, gun show reload ammo, and 30 degree weather
Then we moved into 20 yards for two final groups – five to the body and five to the head. I believe the instructions here were not to rush but imagine we were firing for a reason. I did so and was pleased with the results.
After all guns were cleared, holstered, and the gear was packed, Tiger gave us cupcakes. Just kidding – brass call. Bring kneepads! We did get diplomas and Shootrite t-shirts, which I actually prefer to cupcakes.
As an after action kinda thing, I was particularly interested in getting the opinions of my shooting buddies. Hines57 has taken Handgun 1-5 at TDI while Redhorse G20 has never taken defensive training but shoots USPSA. FWIW, the LE Officer hadn’t trained outside of LE specific applications.
Hines57 said that it was interesting to see the solutions presented as they weren’t necessarily the same or radically different. Tiger presented some material that he hadn’t seen before and didn’t address other things that were emphasized at TDI. Hines57 did present some great questions during breaks and Tiger answered all of them regarding his specific reasoning – sometimes there was a fundamental difference of opinion, sometimes that there were two or six ways to skin a cat but that they could all work.
In the end the whole point of the class is that there is no specific answer to what you should do in any given scenario – one day you might find yourself in a situation where you have to apply logic to escape alive. Hopefully you were aware of what was going on around you so you aren’t caught off guard, and hopefully you have thought about the possibility of such undesirable things happening and therefore have a general idea of how to react. Finally, hopefully you have the ways and means to defend yourself and/or your family - and have practiced them such that you can work through the problem.
As anecdotally interesting firearms information –
The LE officer shot a Glock 21 and had no malfunctions. He did use a retention holster and I noticed his draw was relatively slow as a result – there was often a good bit of tugging. I didn’t notice that until the end of day two when we were doing a lot of drills one at a time, and I forgot to ask more about it.
Hines 57 shot a Glock 19 and had no malfunctions. He did switch to a G34 for the second half of day two and had one malfunction – and not a particularly standard one. Best guess was that the slide grabbed some jacket when firing from the retention position. IIRC a tap rack bang cleared the issue and he was firing again very quickly – but the moral of the story is that even if you are shooting a Glock, and even if you provide a stable platform, you may have to fire in such a way that through no fault of yours or the guns, something doesn’t function properly. Knowing how to clear it, and quickly, got him “back in the fight”.
RedhorseG20 shot a 1911 STI Trojan 9mm for about 500 rounds, and a G17 for the remainder. The STI did very well but for one little issue – when you live in a hot climate, your lube choice may not work well in a cold climate! The gun was lubed with Slide Glide light and was sluggish as a result, not fully extracting several times. Once that was resolved, the gun was fine. The Glock 17 ran fine.
I shot a 1911 in .45 (custom Caspian) day one and a Ruger GP100 (yes, a revolver) day two. My 1911 has an absolute magazine preference – the Metalform FBI spec 7 rounders. It is perfect with them. Going to the Metalform “Elite” 8 round mag, everything fed fine but I had some failures to lock back the slide. I did have one failure to go into battery which turned out to be diretly ammo related - there was a chunk of glue, presumably from the factory box, that had secured itself along the front of the case... it would have caused a malf in ANY .45 chamber, and is just more food for thought about assuming just because you have XYZ gun it will always run.
Contrary to popular belief, with the revolver, you can and will run into some issues. Sticky chambers, poorly indexed cylinder on a reload under pressure, and after shooting enough, build up on the cylinder face/forcing cone all leads to issues. I had to clean the revolver every 200 rounds or so or I’d have a problem getting rounds into the chambers. I even had one failure to fire since one round wasn’t fully seated and was simply driven into place by the hammer falling. I shot every shot double action and was rewarded with a sore trigger finger the next morning! Reloading was slow and required you to take your eyes off the threat to index the rounds – I was using Bianchi speed strips since I carry one daily as a reload for my 642 – far slower than an auto. Granted, a Comp II speed loader would have been MUCH faster but I don’t carry those and don’t see how you comfortably could in jeans.
Last but not least, if you decide to go to Shootrite, you should contact www.southsautyresort.com as they are the one stop solution for everything while you are there. They are the general store, restaurant, hotel, and gas station all rolled into one. South Sauty is about a mile away and serve very reasonably priced breakfast and lunch every day. They also have some nice rooms for rent – two beds, satellite TV, etc etc for $40 a night. You can also rent a two bedroom house (plus a sleeper) from them for $80/night, which is what we did. The house is about a mile from the range. There is also a Pizza place about 2 miles away. The whole area is on the lake and very picturesque.
In the end, I was very pleased with the class and felt it was a good tune up for me. RedhorseG20 said he was 100% for a return trip (carbine or DHII). I think Hines57 would be up for another as well. The LE officer is training again with Tiger again in a couple months.
Considering the quality of instruction, monetary value - $280 for a 2 day class – and the inexpensive lodging a mile away, I don’t think you can go wrong here. Tiger also offers private tutorials that I can highly recommend, again for a great value.
Tiger has also written a book - based on his personal training journal, written over ten years and chock full of great information. If you want to find out more about Tiger's general philosophy, check it out - you can order it straight off his website at www.shootrite.org. It is far different than anything else I've seen - I ended up getting another copy so that I could highlight and beat up one as I carried it around. It focuses on the use of the 1911 and AR but is applicable to any handgun or rifle.
The book is hand written with sections that are well illustrated...
An essential companion, IMHO, for any student of the gun, especially if you have trained at Thunder Ranch, Gunsite, etc etc as much of the doctrine is similar, but incorporates the views and classes of many other trainers and philosophies.