AAR: Advance Skills – Handgun. U.S. Training Center 7/20-7/22

[John_Wayne777]

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the July 20-22nd offering of the Advance Skills handgun course offered by the U.S. Training Center. Before I run down the training itself, a few words about the U.S. Training Center.

For those who do not know, the training entity known as The U.S. Training Center was formerly known as Blackwater USA. I have taken several handgun and carbine courses over a period of a few years with Blackwater, the last in May of 2006. Every time I arrived for a new course it seemed to me that the place had doubled in size. Driving down the access road for this course I had that old familiar feeling. They’ve expanded considerably (which I thought was impossible) adding a much larger on-campus lodging facility, a large chow hall, an expanded pro-shop, a new building for classrooms, a medical building for their on-site medics, and more new ranges than I could hope to count. This all serves to make what was an extremely nice facility before even better. USTC/Blackwater is the nicest training facility I’ve ever been to.

Training Day 1:

…began in the new classroom building. Our instructor for this class was Luis Gines, also known on M4Carbine.net as “Looey”, a former Marine and experienced competition shooter. After a safety brief and going over the rules of the facility Looey took us to the range. Turns out he prefers being on the range to the classroom…a preference I can appreciate.

The aim of the Advance Skills Handgun course is to teach those who already have some level of training and/or skill with the handgun how to improve their speed and efficiency with the handgun. It was essentially designed as a skills course. While carbine classes are all the rage these days, the simple truth is that for the overwhelming majority of people inside the confines of the United States the pistol will be their primary tool in case of an emergency. The deficiencies of the handgun being what they are, learning to employ it as efficiently as possible ought to be a priority for the individual who will need to use it to preserve life and limb.

After explaining range safety rules and the emergency medical plan, Looey put the four of us in the class through a series of assessment drills to figure out where we stood as far as accuracy. Then he began working on our speed.

The key lesson I walked away from the course with was the importance of all the little things in building speed. Shooting fast isn't just about how fast you pull the trigger. It's about understanding what things you do as fast as possible, and what things you take more time with.

The draw is a good example. Looey repeatedly explained the importance of "exploding" TO the holster...including putting your support hand in a position where it can readily meet up with the strong hand and begin to establish a good grip as you press out toward the target. Exploding to the gun gives a bit more time to establish a proper grip before drawing the pistol...which helps you get a good overall grip with both hands...which helps to control recoil...which helps to bring the front sight back on target faster...which helps to make accurate shots faster.

The importance of trigger reset was also covered. Resetting the trigger under recoil leaves you free to do the actual trigger pull as soon as the front sight is on target. It also, for my shooting anyway, tends to reduce the instances of snatching the trigger. That tends to help the accuracy thing quite a bit.

Some notable drills from Day 1 -

Chase the Bullet: One guy shoots a hole in the target and the other guy has to shoot the same bullet hole. For maximum benefit the second shooter should be on the trigger with the slack out ready to break the shot.

Cadence drills: shooting 1 one thousand, 2 one thousand, 3 one thousand at 20. One and two and three and four and at 10. 123456 at closer range. Designed to help build speed, allow for tracking the front sight, etc. First six shots on one target, then 2 on each of 3 targets.

Leatham Standard: 6 plates at 5 yards in 6 seconds from the draw. x 2
6 plates at 10 yards in 7 seconds from the draw x 2
6 plates at 15 yards in 8 seconds from the draw x 2
6 plates at 20 yards in 9 seconds from the draw x 2

[C45P312]

Good stuff. I really like the cadence drills and will keep them in my repertoire.

[Robb Jensen]

Good write up JW777. My bro Looey is a top notch instructor.

[Business_Casual]

Captain Kirk? What? Who would be so rude?

M_P

[Robb Jensen]

I thought TGO once shot it clean. Or maybe Leatham had the highest ever score.

[Looey]

Originally Posted by gotm4

Good write up JW777. My bro Looey is a top notch instructor.

Thank you sir, good luck this weekend on the three gun match.

[John_Wayne777]

Training Day 3:


On the final day of the course we spent some time discussing the importance of speed using a variation of the Teuller drill and a timer. Looey did a good job of demonstrating why the old standard of 1.5 seconds for a draw and first shot on target isn't really as good as people think.

We then went through a segment of firing in extreme close quarters from a retention position. To get into the spirit of the drill I mentally pictured some jerk with a knife trying to gut me...and I quickly discovered that I tend to be rather generous with the amount of ammo I use to solve that sort of problem. I think I was averaging about 9 shots per run of that drill.

After that Looey set up some IDPA/IPSC style stages of fire and ran us through for time on each of them. The courses generally required shooting on the move and did a good job of underlining the simple truth that using the sights and properly pressing the trigger is always faster than missing the target.

We finished up the day on the reactive steel range. The reactive steel range is quite an experience...

For those who don't know, it is modeled after the famous Rogers range concept. There are several bays with a door and a window, and in each bay there are a series of steel plates that move based on pneumatic controls. The movement of the plates can be controlled either with a manual control console or with a computer program that can run pre-programmed courses of fire.

It is an ammo eater. In less than an hour I went through a little more than 400 rounds trying to knock down all those steel plates. My M&P got hot to the point where I couldn't hold the weapon anymore. In case you are wondering, when the barrel or the takedown lever starts to turn that angry purple color it's a bad idea to touch them.

My final round count for the course is near 2,500 rounds. That's more than double what the course description called for. Four students in the class meant that all of our time was spent either behind the trigger or loading mags. The low student to instructor ratio gave Looey the freedom to run more drills than a 16 student class would allow. More time behind the trigger gave students more opportunity to apply the advice of the instructor and to learn what they needed to do to get the hits faster.

By the end of the 3 day course I was seeing my sights much faster than I was when I began the course. The ability to see my sights at speed has been a road block for me for a long time. During this course I started to push through that. After finishing up on day 3 I stopped by the Tac Pistol 1 course to say hello to Kyle and Jason and generally to see how the students in that course were doing, especially my roommate who was brand new to handguns. Jason asked me to join in on their last drill of the day, draw, fire a shot on a plate, reload and then a shot on a second plate for time.

Even though I was pretty much trashed at that point, hadn't really come to shoot, and the tendonitis in my strong arm was raging, I had no intention of turning down an opportunity to shoot when invited. My first run was a 4.12. My second was a 3.92. I could not have made those times on day 1 of the course...so obviously Looey managed to hammer something through my thick skull at some point during the course.

My overall impression of the course was very positive. I walked away with more pieces of the puzzle than I showed up with and I had a pretty good time in the process. As an instructor, Looey rates very well. The drills he used had a good mixture of speed and accuracy which pushed us past our comfort zones and reinforced the instruction about finding the appropriate sight picture for the situation and learning how to increase the efficiency with which we handled our handguns.

If I were asked how to improve the course, I would venture a couple of suggestions:

1. Increase the ammo count in the course description to at least 1,500 rounds at minimum...2,000 would be better. This particular class was a unique circumstance because of the small number of students, but even in a larger class I think as much trigger time as possible will help students begin to grasp what they need to do to make the hits happen faster.

2. Use of more structured drills on the reactive steel range. In an "advanced" class I think it would be entirely appropriate to spend at least a chunk of the time on the reactive steel range pushing the students pretty hard. I don't know if there are any instructor qual standards on the reactive steel range for the USTC instructors, but if there are those might be great to use for the students as well.

I want to thank Looey, Kyle, Jason, and all the other folks at the USTC who were involved in making these courses happen. It was an incredible opportunity and I'm grateful that the folks at USTC made it available to the membership of M4Carbine.net.

[VA_Dinger]

I also attended this coarse and both U.S. Training Center and Looey get a huge thumbs up from me. The class was simply outstanding. It is hard to beat a combination of world class instructors, world class ranges & facilitates, three days of great July weather, and a class filled with friendly, fun, and very skilled shooters. I had a blast, learned a great deal, and met some great people. Looey is a great instructor, very skilled, very knowledgeable, and very motivated to teach. Add all of this up and it was a great three days, no question about it.

My personal set-up of a G19 w/Heinie sights & TD/Vickers mag catch, Safariland 6320 ALS w/ drop UBL holster, my old Eagle belt & pad, and Eagle FB pistol mag pouches worked like a champ.

For those who are considering attending a U.S. Training Center class I highly suggest that you do. Like I said earlier the combination of word class and highly motivated instructors, top of the line ranges, on site facilitates (Chow hall, bathrooms, Pro Shop, on site armor support, on site lodging at reasonable prices, ETC) is virtually untouchable in the industry.

- Not to forgot ammo can be ordered directly from U.S. Training Center at very reasonable rates. It is hand delivered to you at the range on the morning of day one. This elevates one of the pains of attending any out of town class - ammo. No more scourging for over priced ammo and then having to figure out how to get it to the range. Especially hard to orchestrate if you are flying in for the class. U.S. Training Center does all of this for you, at what I saw as lower than market rates. Hard to beat. All you have to do is sign-up, show-up when they tell you to, and be ready to learn. Easy as pie.

The only problem for me was that the class wasn't far enough away for me to "Be Free" from family responsibilities for three days. The wife and kids still had my late afternoons booked being a taxi, grocery runs, and other non-cool duties. I guess they have gotten used to me hitting Blackwater for range trips every now and then.

[M4arc]

Sounds like a great class and I always enjoy the facilities down there. It's like Disney for me.

Anyway, as soon as I get home (for longer than 36 hours in a week) I'm going to have to look at registering for this class.