AAR (sort of). LE classes vs Open Enrollment classes

[jpeezy]

I've attended many training courses paid out of pocket. It has been my experience that many of my fellow LE don't like to be put in a position where they are out performed by others, especially so called high speed guys. This is based off my own observations and in no way a representation of LE in whole.

[Voodoo_Man]

After attending dozens of LE-only classes, most out pocket, I can honestly say that the vast majority of LEO's do not practice gun handling, shooting or tactics on a regular basis, even if they are some "high speed" swat unit. My dept's full time swat team leaves a lot to be desired. If you remove their expensive armor, helmets and mp5's you get street cops were given about two weeks of "tactics" and told to go out and be "operators."

Most LE-only classes do not cover only shooting, those that do should not be LE-only, they should be open enrollment and only taught fundamentals. This is very boring to most people, especially "swat officers" because it is something they think they can do very well, most of the time this is simply not the case.

I have been to "door kicking" type LE-only classes where there is not a single shot fired in the first day and those should definitely be LE-only as it focuses more on tactics and not shooting. Same goes for LE-only street-cop style classes which involve shootings - car stops gone bad, domestics gone bad, etc - this is not for public consumption.

As far as having your skills tested or the "competition aspect" of a class, that is all well and good when you are talking about taking a class where every single person competes or the majority of the students do some sort of competition shooting. In an LE-only class that won't be the case. I usually fall in the top one or two spots in the LE-only classes for shooting, usually I am more accurate than the instructor and faster. I have had a few I had to walk out on because I had to explain to the "instructor" why I press check and why I scan, not exactly something that needs to be explained and not someone I want to give my money to.

It comes down to ou knowing what you are going to that specific class for. If I go to a PatMac class and I am 100lbs overweight and don't have much mobility I will probably not get much out of it, similarly if I go to an competition-type/styled class from a top champion shooter and I don't ever shoot competition it is going to be a very difficult class.

[jpeezy]

I would agree that a lot of LE are not gun guys from my observations, but at least training was somewhat mandatatory and more importantly available in the past. My department used to provide rounds every month for rifle, shotgun and handgun. There were numerous catalog courses ranging from remedial to advanced for handgun and rifle which were offered year round minus the dead of summer. At in service training a day or two was devoted to handgun training in addition to the qual. Fast forward to today, monthly rounds are gone, I doubt they'll be back in my career. Annual handgun training consists of your qualification, pick up issued duty rounds and your out. Catalog courses are devoted to remedial shooters and meant to get them to pass the qual. On top of that depleted staffing, court, added responsibilities due to said short staffing drain any available time. All of this being taken into count, good shooters within our department sacrifice there own money and time which was previously somewhat available to maintain and advance there skill level. It will take our department years to get back to our previous skill level as a whole.

[Apricotshot]

My guess as to why the 1911s were slowing peoiple down would be that they are missing so often that they are haveing to do speed reloads to get the hits they need to finish the drill.

[TXBK]

I am a bit confused by how they were slowed down by using 1911's. Can you elaborate on that?

Also, 1911's in classes seem to choke mostly from being fed cheap ammo, and somewhat from poor quality or worn out magazines.

[SHIVAN]

I'm just curious asto how the 1911s we're slowing them down and how they could gave benefitted from a Glock in its place.

Unless the instructor, and student, are both mindful of the capacity restrictions of having 1911 users on the line, certain drills may require more reloads, or a lot more mags. 1911 users will be stuffing a lot more mags than Glock shooters.

So if the students/instructors do not pay attention, there will be more reload stops to go stuff mags.

[ptmccain]

I feel much safer in a class with civilian shooters than with cops. I've heard horror stories about some of the unbelievably poor muzzle and trigger discipline when the cops go through the shoot house, not to mention accuracy and gun handling.

[SHIVAN]

Just say you are at a Hackathorn class, and he moves in to Compass and 1-2-3-4-5 drills. Compass is 3 forward, 3 back, 3 left, 3 right. Several iterations. That's two Glock17 mags...

1-5 drills are 15 rounds each time you run it. One Glock17 mag...

Smart 1911 users will reload when there is a lull to keep it topped off, others like to practice their reloads at indeterminate times. Either way, you have to carry a lot of 1911 mags when the drills start falling out of the sky. If the class is switched on, drills get run 1-3 times in pretty quick succession, and then move on to the next topic/drill.

[ggammell]

I guess I didn't figure the actual time issues. I was thinking it was said in the vain of "the users weren't using them well."

[SHIVAN]

I guess I didn't figure the actual time issues. I was thinking it was said in the vain of "the users weren't using them well."

In my mind, proficient use should encompass a host of things -- including ammunition management. A higher capacity being mentioned tends to lead me to assume that some of their issues were reload specific, lack of magazine volume on their gear, or something else related to an inhibition to learning based on capacity being a factor - like not being on the line while receiving instruction because you are stuffing mags like a fiend at your ammo box.