8 Hour Defensive Pistol 1

[Guy Miner]

Taught this course yesterday, it was a blast! Small group of pretty decent shooters. We went over a lot of laws, use of force stuff, SAFETY, concealed carry etc...

Practiced loading, unloading, reloading, malfunction drills all with dummy ammo (A-Zoom snap caps) in the classroom.

Then to the range!

Did some tuning up for basic accuracy, and onto a lot of self-defense type drills from contact distance out to 25 yards. It was pretty cool. Lots of interest in the class, pushed people to their limits a few times, even many experienced shooters have never done many of these drills.

That tall, lean fellow behind me is one heck of a shot by the way, and the young lady isn't half bad at shooting either... Later she swapped out guns for a very Tacti-Cool HK with a ported barrel, red-dot sight, etc.... Whoo-Wee! She shot it really well. EVERYONE except me was shooting a 9mm. Am feeling positively dinosaur like with my 45 1911...

This is the "CQB" or Close Quarter Battle drill. She started the drill by literally performing a palm-heel strike to the target's jaw, then drew and fired twice from "retention position" - this photo was taken on her first live-fire run of this drill:

If you look at the photo, it was taken JUST after she shot! The slide is coming back, the target is crumpling because of the muzzle blast and the bullet. I couldn't see a cartridge case flying, so I think that it hadn't quite ejected when the photo was taken. Her husband was helping me teach the class, and took these photos.

She of course, like all the other students, had never done that drill before yesterday's class. When I teach it, I have already checked the abilities of my various shooters, to see if they can handle this. It's pretty intense. Then we do it dry fire several times. Finally, live fire a couple of times. What a rush!

We fired from that close, from 3 yards, 5 yards, 7 yards, all the way back to 25 yards. Most of the shooters went through about 180 rounds of 9mm yesterday afternoon during the training.

Normally I teach a "Basic Pistol" class, only four hours long and intended for new shooters. It's fun to branch out and teach this more intense, more demanding, more "tactical" class a few times a year.

Regards, Guy

 

[DrMike]

Very neat, Guy. Glad to see you are still instructing these disciplines.

 

[diverdown]

Guy, your comment on everyone having a 9MM other than yourself struck a chord with me. I used a .45 exclusively for IDPA along with 3-4 other shooters last year and now I'm using a Walther Q5 Target pistol in 9MM. Out of the other 3 shooters previously using .45's Each shooter other than one has gone to 9MM. Recoil is a lot tamer, The steel targets go down without a problem and cost of ammunition is considerably less. Gun weight (especially in my Polymer Walther) is negligible. I Think it's about 23 ounces as opposed to 41 ounces in my .45 Sig. I have to honestly say I'm having a lot more fun shooting now.

 

[Guy Miner]

Ya, the 9mm has really come into it's own.

I tell people that they can buy two boxes of 50 cartridges for what I pay for one box of 45's. Sometimes, with a good sale, three boxes of 9mm for the price of a box of 45's!

And the recoil is... What recoil? So fast to get back on target...

My only 9mm is a tiny Kahr for concealed carry, but... I could see myself getting a nice, full-size 9mm for most of my shooting. Might just be a 1911 though... An all steel 9mm 1911 is awfully easy to be accurate with.

Guy

 

[salmonchaser]

Great drill, so many self defense scenarios happen at that range, not to mention a palm strike , elbow strike might end it anyway., of course firing from retention position is outstanding, one should avoid giving your gun to the bad guy:
THE BODY CANT GO WHERE THE BRAIN HAS NEVER BEEN.
Well done Guy.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[longrangehunter]

Very Cool Guy...... Don't let the old school .45 get in your head, use what works, and what you're use too. I bet those people really appreciated your help!

 

[Guy Miner]

Thanks all - ya I had a lot of questions from experienced shooters who were asking stuff like:

"Why are they approaching the target with their finger on the trigger?"

"Why are they shooting so close?"

Etc... Just folks who've never been exposed to this. We don't get mugged from across the street. Often the handgun is employed at contact distance, or nearly that close. Often, it's a game changer. It's how an old guy beats a young guy. It's how a small person beats a big guy. It's how a woman can beat a much stronger man.

Practice!

We went from striking distance to 25 yards. Not bad for a one-day defensive handgun class. There is so much more...

This isn't recreational shooting with a handgun, this is FIGHTING to save our lives.

Oh, cool thing, another 1,000 Nosler 45 cal bullets arrived here about an hour ago. :grin:

Guy