View Full Version : [AAR] Frank Proctor/Way of the Gun: 3-Day Tactical Performance Carbine and Pistol
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Instructor: Frank Proctor (http://www.wayofthegun.us/)
Frank's YouTube Channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/wayofthegunpsllc)
Location: Angeles Shooting Range, Los Angeles, CA
Dates: October 19-21, 2012 (3 Day Shoots 2 Night Shoots approx 31 hrs)
Cost: $600.00
Students: 11 (Civilians w/ mixed background in competitive shooting and training)
Frank has served 18 years in the military and 11 of those in the US Army Special forces. He has served as the instructor for the Special Forces Advanced Urban Combat Course and is also a Grand Master in the limited division as well as holding a Master rank in the IDPA stock division.
This is a review of the 3 days of training I took from him and is focused on giving you a feel for the instructors goals, ideas and mindset. It is unfortunately really long but there should be some video and photos up later on that might be easier to digest or encourage you to look into Frank's classes. For us folks out west this was a rare opportunity to get to train with him. For those out east near him, I would really recommend trying him out.
My Training Background: ITTS, Defoor Performance Shooting, Pat McNamara T.A.P.S., TigerSwan Carbine & Pistol and Red Back One.
Day 1: Pistol only with Night Shoot
We started the class with the range rules and safety brief then Frank started into his class. He talked about getting into the programming mode as we approached each lesson and he talked about what I believe is one of the main core aspects of his shooting and that is seeing.
“See fast, “
Frank talks a lot about seeing, seeing is everything and everything starts from there. He talked about seeing your sights flip and how they flip. Seeing your target or seeing things that were coming in from the peripheral and driving your sights to them. The more you can see, the faster you can shoot and the more corrections in your shooting you can make. Situational awareness is also seeing and something Frank incorporates that into drills that he would describe as “working on seeing”.
So, on that theme we started into dry firing with a pistol. We used some zip ties to keep our pistols out of battery and worked on seeing, just the sights on the target to practice seeing.
“Shoot fast, “
Next we got into the grip of the pistol. It basically had the universal concepts of having your firing hand as high up on the gun as possible and your support had thumb was parallel to the frame. But Frank went into further detail and talked about each hand and what exactly it was doing to minimize the recoil of the gun. All of which would translate to more control over the gun and faster follow up shots.
He also talked to positioning the gun to align with our shoulders, both arms slightly unlocked and hanging a bit (not the aggressive elbows up). Also stretch your neck out instead of tipping your head down so you can look through the center of your eye pro and eye sockets.
Frank focuses a lot on fast follow up shots. The stance and grip are both designed to maximize the speed of your follow up shots as well as maintaining mobility.
Now that we got everything down we went back to dry firing again with sights only and no triggers looking at the target. Frank went down the line looking at everyone’s grip and stance adjusting anything out of place. Lastly we talked about an efficient draw stroke to complete our shooting platform. This also received as much attention to detail as the grip. The focus of his draw stroke is speed to get the gun into a position to fire and speed to get the sights aligned. Then we shot a few magazines of single fire working on seeing, and the draw stroke.
I liked the individual attention he gave to everyone each time we started working drills. It wasn’t cursory either as he would stick with you until he was fairly satisfied with your shooting. Since the drills were run at an individual pace everyone got a great deal of practice and personal instruction.
After a break to reload we got into recoil management a little deeper. We started off by running a recoil management test which was shooting a 3x5 card as fast as we could run the trigger. Frank went down the line individually and adjusted each student’s mechanic. Frank had the student fire 2-3 strings with him watching and adjusted anything he saw that could help.
After he finished going down the line we shot three round strings into the 3x5 card. At this point if you remembered everything that was taught so far on this drill we worked on.
Grip and Stance
Efficient draw stroke
Seeing the sight come into your peripheral as you present the gun
Executing: Target + Sights = Trigger
As well as managing the recoil correctly.
After we worked through some more drills that dealt with shifting focus on paper and steel targets Frank got into his take on efficient speed reload and tactical reload. If you ever see Frank reload you can tell it is very efficient (i.e. no wasted movement) but still practical in the sense that your eyes are mostly on target except for less than a tenth of a second. His tactical reload also has similar efficiency and minimizes the time a magazine is out of the gun.
During this time he touched on scanning after your engagement. I won’t get into the entire details of the what’s and whys but his deal was this. “Your world was THIS big (arms and hands making a large circle), you got in an engagement and it became this big (fingers making a small circle) now it needs to get THIS big again… Train that.” I simply nodded to myself and thought /thread.
He set us up again and we worked reload drills and he went down the line assessing everyone. The drills are setup to work on the concepts we just learned. There is no actual limit to the repetitions so normally we would go through 2-3 normal capacity magazines worth of the drill.
“Get gone fast!”
The next topic we touched on was movement. First he talked about efficient movement techniques, mainly about shooting and then moving to another position to setup another shot. He went into details of how the torso should move as well as how the feet should move to cover ground. We also talked about shooting on the move and worked on that. He said a 2-3 mph pace as you are shooting is a good pace to train at and nothing less.
Frank is big on using competition to shake out what lessons we learned up to that point. Anything that hasn’t soaked in is going to break down when you are competing so it’s a great way to sand down the rough points or correct something out of place. It is also a lot of fun when you have students with great attitudes.
So he put together some man on man competition to put together all that we had learned about moving efficiently and shooting on the move and then we broke for dinner.
After dinner we returned for a night shoot with pistols. Frank went over a few hand held techniques and what he has seen people do with weapon lights. Then he described how he used his weapon light and integrated turning it on into his draw stroke. The rest of the night was drills and working on weapon light manipulation. The drills ranged from target ID and shooting (i.e. 3x5 index cards on paper targets with letters or numbers on them) to more weapons manipulation + light manipulation. Such as moving from barricade to barricade while squeezing off a shot in between, or working in a reload as well. I had a holster with a light loaned to a friend so I ran with a handheld and did not do as bad as I thought I would but I could see the clear advantage to a weapon mounted light.
Day 2: Rifle
Frank jumped into the rifle topic with the stance first and talked about feet position which was slightly wider than shoulders and a bit squarer than the usual boxing stance. He talked about rolling shoulders forward to push into the rifle. Your support hand is going to grip the rail with the thumbs forward, similar to pistol, and then the elbows are left to hang.
We then started out in a similar fashion to pistol by doing dry fire and getting used to seeing the target and our sights. We took single shots and did similar seeing drills with the rifle and moved onto the recoil management test. Again we shot as fast as we could 5 rounds into the target as Frank looked on. He did this for each person and made his corrections as he came down the line.
When watching some of Frank’s videos, this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nKijRpi8Oc&feature=plcp#t=1m30s) particular sequence caught my eye. His reloads are fast and smooth but there was something about his rifle reload that just felt different. So I was all ears and eyes when he dove into this topic. He first talked about a deliberate loading procedure he does to make sure he is ready to rock. Then he jumped into his rifle reload as well as his tactical reload. Sure enough there was just a slight bit of difference in hand positioning and weapons manipulations to account for the smoothness. This is another thing I noticed is that a lot of the principles are things that have a commonality with other trainers but there are slight tweaks here and that will make up .5 seconds. This is something that is clearly of interest to competitors but maybe have tactical implications as well since that could mean a difference of 3 rounds from a pistol coming at you or 5 rounds from an AK.
So up to this point we had worked on recoil management which involves our stance (feet, hands, shoulder) and reloads. Like the previous day we transitioned to drills that worked on those fundamentals plus SEEING. Again Frank is big on seeing so we worked on some eye speed drills on paper and then moved to steel targets. As we broke for food he mentioned there would be a lot of movement and running so a handful of people made sure they had some gut bombs for lunch.
After lunch we worked on target transitioning. As Frank said it is just about executing a simple mathematical formula, “Target + Sights = Trigger”. And so we were off and running doing drills that involved working on target transitioning.
One thing I keep coming back to is the individual attention Frank gives to each student (note the class speed was good with the medium size of 10). Frank set up a target transition drill on steel with four targets. Two were close together on the left side of the range and the third was half way to the middle and the fourth was on the right side of the range. He would have one shooter at a time shoot the first two, then #1 and #3 and then #1 and #4. If a shooter had trouble somewhere he would have them repeat it after giving some tips. He would watch the students eyes and see if they were leading with them or if they were moving their head first or gun first. The final string was shooting #1-2-3-4 and you did that a couple times to put together everything he helped you with.
Towards the end of light we worked on drills that put everything we learned so far together. One in particular was a 20 rounds string that worked on “Targets + Sights = Trigger” and movement. You would shoot, move, shoot, move over and over until you finished your magazine. This was timed and any misses meant a fail.
We went for dinner just before dusk and then returned for the night shoot. Similar to pistol night shoot, Frank went over the thought process on where to position your light and how to manipulate it. Then we went through drills that worked on light manipulation and then worked on rifle light manipulation with transition to pistol. I didn’t have a pistol weapon light because of my holster so when it came to my turn I ran my rifle then as I transitioned to pistol I had to pull my flashlight out with my handgun. Frank saw that and as I came back he told me that instead of doing that, I should just keep my rifle light on and use that instead of turning it off and reaching for my handheld. He even had a couple different positions that I could hold the rifle with that were pretty stable.
The bonus to this night shoot was that a student had brought some night vision mounted on a helmet and laser on his rifle. So toward the end of the night he ran the final drill totally dark with the night vision and laser. A couple of people asked to try it out, including me, and he was more than eager to help us get it on and run it.
Now Frank jumped in and started to give us input on how to actually shoot the rifle with that setup and mentioned how he had run it before. He also gave the student some input on other details about working with the laser and night vision. This emphasized for me the true depth of Frank’s experience as a SF Operator and competitive shooter. He can go from tactical to practical and he has the background to back up what he says.
Day 3: Rifle
The beginning of day three we ran the last drill we did at night with rifle/pistol and then with pistol only as warm up. Then we worked throughout the morning working on different stages that incorporated a lot of what we had learned. The final morning stages were some housekeeping stuff and then we broke for lunch. Frank’s teaching has been consistent. He teaches principles and then we drill the principles individually. At the end we run drills that put everything together.
After lunch we moved out to about 100 yds and worked on some barricades. Frank went over many different positions that one could use around the barricade. He also went over a number of prone positions we could use to shoot under the barricade or if need be a car or other object. Having solid points of contact and very secure firing position was underscored in each position. As I have said before Frank puts an emphasis on fast follow up shots and even mentions that while doing single fire drills you need to put in the same amount of effort to control the gun as if you were going to do multiple shots.
We also worked on shoulder to shoulder transition to work on opposite sides of the barricade. Throughout the barricade work Frank went around helping people through their positions and getting them right.
As is tradition in Frank’s class we wrapped up the final part of the day with shooting competitions that worked the different principles we had learned.
Summary:
Frank has a very good background in shooting that starts with his experience in the Army Special Forces but his background in competitive shooting is solid as well. He is a very approachable instructor and I have watched him take people to a higher level of shooting. I would also say he also sets the example of a great student and blends in with us to shoot some competitions or set the pace. I always like to see the instructor shoot; it is good to see how someone at that level pushes to achieve a time or problem-solve their mistakes.
Frank puts an emphasis on seeing, seeing is everything. In fact seeing is probably the difference between a fast/accurate shooter and an amazing shooter. Frank started the class with this principle and kept it going throughout the class. In this class he presented fundamentals that were tuned to bias toward efficiency in seeing, shooting, moving, weapon manipulation and solid platforms for fast follow up shots. After presenting the fundamentals or principles he would have us drill those specific skill sets and would correct each individual to his satisfaction. After those were drilled we ran more drills, this time to put together what we had learned and to give them a final shake down. Teach, drill, correct, drill, put everything together, drill correct and repeat. If I get another chance to take a class from Frank I certainly will each time, I am certain I will learn just as much.
Special thanks to SuperSetCA for setting this up and getting the equipment, this was an excellent course and you put together a really excellent weekend!
Misc:
While at lunch couple people talked about some good TV to watch, this is for those that weren't there.
Watch:
Strike Back
Chris Terril’s documentaries on the Royal Marines (embedded 55 year old reporter who had to earn the beret first before he embedded).
Next Rail to Get: Noveske NSR
Cheers!
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Stare down for one of many Thunder Domes
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Class: Frank Proctor - Way of the Gun 3-Day Tactical Performance Carbine and Pistol (http://www.wayofthegun.us/) -- Combat/Practical Pistol Operator (plus night shoot), Carbine Operator 1 (plus night shoot) and Carbine Operator 2
Instructor: Frank Proctor (http://www.wayofthegun.us/) (FaceBook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Way-of-the-Gun/208207132643728))
Cost: $600
Date: October 19-21, 2012
Location: Angeles Shooting Ranges (http://www.angelesranges.com/) in Los Angeles, CA
Students: 11 (mix of civilians most with some competitive shooting)
Ammo used: Pistol: 750-900 rounds + Rifle: 1,000-1,200 rounds
A great, long but ultimately highly rewarding 3 days of pistol & carbine including a lot of nighttime evolutions.
Frank is an active SF operator, instructor (for himself and DoD) and competitive shooter (USPSA Grand Master in Limited Division and IDPA Master in Stock Service Pistol). A great well-rounded instructor. Very humble, engaging and an ultimate student. Everyone got lots of personal attention, feedback and diagnostics. His methods are all about maximum efficiency.
A great bunch of students and roaring good time.
It was great to have a class with just 11 students so the bang for the buck was even greater as was the fact that we had such long days (12 hours on Friday and Saturday) with night shoots.
Thanks a lot to Phong (SuperSetCA (http://www.youtube.com/user/SuperSetCA)) (simply amazing the amount of detail he attended to) for setting this up and thanks again to Frank for bringing great instruction to SoCal. Looking forward to more.
Detailed AAR to follow in the next few days.
Here are links to past AARs on CalGuns of Frank's classes:
AAR: Frank Proctor Way of the Gun (WOTG) Pistol/Carbine, August 4-5, 2012 at Raahauge (http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=605051)
AAR: Frank Proctor Way Of The Gun Rifle/Pistol (http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=539899)
By the way, great video of Frank's class highlights by the one and only SuperSetCA (http://www.youtube.com/user/SuperSetCA):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5Jb6NFlfjA
I've broken down the AAR into 4 parts. Part 1 here is all the general stuff. Part 2 will be Training Day 1: Pistol. Part 3 will be Training Day 2: Carbine 1. Part 4 will be Training Day 3: Carbine 2.
Frank instills efficiencies in all methods as well as the omnipresent use of your eyes to track everything. This goes hand in hand with situational awareness. Using your eyes to know how much sight alignment you need based on distance, target size and volume of fire. Consciously and then subconsciously, seeing and feeling everything that’s going on so as to learn from every evolution and in fact every round fired.
Many of these were gained once he started competing and in short order ascending to the highest levels of both USPSA (Grandmaster) and IDPA (Master in SSP). He’s always experimenting and trying new things. These efficiencies are then transferred to Army SF guys and back and forth he goes.
We would get instruction on detailed techniques, we would go many iterations of fire and feedback and then these would be added to and eventually the package would be put to use in at times very involved courses of fire. With some outfits these courses of fire are limited to doing them just once or at times twice. Not with Frank and the small class size of 11 students.
Most of the targets were steel (small IDPA/USPSA targets 12”x20”) and USPSA cardboard targets which in turn had different zones like a vertical 3”x5” index card in the USPSA body A-Zone, strip of 1”x2” tape in the head (an inch across) and sometimes a paper plate (8” diameter). Even when these smaller zones were removed (as with the steel and the plain USPSA target) Frank wants you to aim for a spot on the target. This finer directed fire results in more rounds landing in the desired zone even with imperfections.
Frank also quoted Pat McNamara (http://tmacsinc.com/) several times as well as Steve Anderson (http://www.andersonshooting.com/)’s “Dry-fire Drills”.
Most shooters had Glock pistols and various types of M4 carbines. Malfunctions were minimal.
Safety brief was given throughout the days with emphasis on finger out of the trigger guard and muzzle awareness. The particular range (ASR Eagles Nest “D”) is a weird one in that you cannot fire to the north.
What I learnt most was to be even more efficient and along with the eye / situational awareness all resulting in faster rounds to the target while losing acceptable accuracy.
Training Day 1: Pistol plus night shoot (a solid 11 hours of instruction)
All about the pistol and this is where the fundamentals (or as Frank sometimes calls it: “Principles”) shine and the results transferrable to long guns.
“Advanced stuff is the basic stuff mastered”. “Be aware”. “Be in a programming mode”.
Eventually, shooting should be done at subconscious level but start with seeing and feeling every bullet.
Having the grip as high up the tang is huge. Put as much of your hands on the pistol with tension from the strong hand and the support hand pushing right and down for a right-handed shooter with the support thumb getting a white fingernail. Right thumb on left thumb pushing down. With extended slide releases right thumb rests on knuckle of left thumb. Hold your pistol with just the support hand and you should see it pointing as far down (45 degrees) as possible which translates to more meat on the pistol. Elbows are bent to absorb recoil and allow mobility when swinging from target to target. Stance is leaning forward on the balls of your feet with string leg forward. Don’t bend your head down and instead stretch your neck forward. This allows you to see more. For the draw Frank goes through a smooth escalator ride to the target with no stopping and no counts. The idea to get there faster but also to see your front sight as soon as possible before full extension. Also, his strong thumb is pointing straight up giving the support thumb / hand to get in there before the right thumb completes the grip.
We went through dry practice with a zip chord in the barrel and it’s all about tracking your sights. Then, we went live fire but only single rounds repeated five times. Again, the idea is to track the whole series and especially the sights through the recoil. For instance, how high does it go, can you see the brass coming out, did you see the back of the slide, etc.? It’s keen awareness on a higher level.
For me, I needed to angle my support hand even more to get more meat on the pistol. Pushing down and to the right with the support hand was awkward at first. As Frank says: “Target + Sight = Trigger”.
Went to repetitions with reset and then run 5 rounds as fast as possible to see how well we manage recoil and distribution of the rounds outside the index card. Again, tracking the sights through recoil.
We then hit a row of three tightly-spaced steel (12”x20”) targets with one round each four times. So, after target 3 you cycle back to target 1 (borrow high-capacity magazine if you want to). It should be one continuous burst.
Next was a paper plate for body and an inch-wide tape for the head. Going through cycles of starting either body (3 rounds) or head (2 rounds) and varying the pace to make the shots land in the target zone. After that back to the 12 rounds to 3 steel. Like Frank says: “Concentrate on sight or trigger as needed” – focusing on awareness.
We got into reloads next. Not surprisingly upon slide lock he drops the magazine, brings the pistol towards his face (shooter’s box) but eyes are above the pistol looking at the threat, cants the pistol so that he can see the magwell while at the same time a new loaded magazine (bullets facing forward) meets he pistol, momentarily looks at where the magazines meets the magwell, while doing that the pistol oriented and moved back towards the target, magazine is seated fully and using his strong thumb he sends the slide home. Blazingly fast, efficient and reliable. We also went through his Tactical Reload.
To emphasize the point about reloads of using the slide release versus power stroke (grabbing back of the slide) Frank had one shooter using each method go man on man. The speed was adamantly clear. Next, Frank went against some different shooters with the shooter drawing and hitting a steel target, slide reload and another hit. Frank only starts after he hears the first hit. Impressive! Not showing off but a great display of efficiency at work.
Next we got into moving and shooting. Don’t cross your feet. Feet pointing in the direction of travel while the torso is oriented towards the target. When you need to stop to shoot make sure you get a good stance. We went in both lateral directions engaging steel at each station. Frank set up a great course of fire using 5 steel and 11 rounds. Two steel are on one side, one in the middle and two more on the right side. All in all about 20 yards apart laterally and 10 yards forth. Two rounds each on the two steel on the left, go to middle one round and go to the right two rounds each steel and one to the middle and then back to the middle and one round. You’re running with the pistol finger straight with muzzle pointing downrange.
On regular moving forward and shooting take normal strides, when the heel hits the ground the knee bends and when the sights say shoot you do so. We practiced that.
Frank then set up a course of fire with 5 steel to our left as we’re moving forward, then two USPSA targets (need A or C zone hits) all the way down, another USPSA target behind a barrel as you turn laterally with two facing you, more turns and more barrels and finally two very small steel at 25 yards. We took several turns each. Many didn’t slow down on the last target. Trick is to keep moving and shooting and slow down for distant targets.
For the night shoot Frank is a big advocate of weapon-mounted lights. Interestingly, he uses his support index finger to turn it on instead of my usual support thumb. He basically showed us mostly the FBI or Neck Index methods which both mean one-handed shooting. Some used Harries or Rogers. I think only two students did not have weapon-mounted lights on their pistol and I believe both will be taking steps to correct that.
We went through various courses of fire at night. In one you start behind two barrels stacked vertically, draw, come forth, light on engage steel, light off behind a second set of two vertical barrels and engage from the other side. We also engaged a series three steel with single or multiple rounds and then with reloads thrown in. Many iterations to smooth our engagements.
Training Day 2: Carbine 1 plus night shoot (a solid 11 hours of instruction)
Started straight into the fundamentals with a stance that’s fairly straight up to put less train on your back as well as reaching your pistol if on your belt’s strong side plus seeing more with your eyes pointed straight through. You control the carbine straight into your shoulder. Not too high because then you lose leverage. Extend the stock all the way out. C-clamp with support hand with thumb straight towards the flashlight on/off switch. Thumb straight has similarity with the pistol. Both right and left elbow are tucked down and in. Left elbow locks the stock into shoulder. Ride the safety. Frank is not a fan of ambi safety. Kind of gets in the way. Control the carbine at all times. When shooting bring the carbine to your eye level instead of tilting head down to the carbine. His low ready is the sights below the nose so as to scan around. His high ready is also with the muzzle below the nose. Another reminder to know the status of your weapon at all times.
Went into recoil management by delivering 5 rounds several times each as fast as possible while landing them on the index card at 10 yards. We would then deliver single rounds at ½ second, ¼ second, etc. to see how well we track the sights. Again the eyes are important to keep track of shots. All about getting the right rhythm for you. Frank set up our individual targets with index 5 index cards with card #1 in the center, #2 top left, #3 top right, #4 low left and #5 low right. You’d deliver 1-2 rounds in the proper numerical sequence. The order makes it a little challenging. At times each number would get that many rounds. We also teamed up with each shooter having two targets and if you found a called number or numbers you’d deliver that many rounds on each of the two targets you’re responsible for.
Frank went through the sequence of loading your carbine. He likes to see his DI gun a little wet on the bolt carrier group (BCG). Turn the sights one and adjust intensity based on available light. He likes turning it a little lower for CQB and distant shots. Bolt to rear and check and points with possible ammo. Bring carbine to shooter’s box to see both magwell and target. In the Kydex mag pouche the bullets are facing back. Ride the support thumb up to hit the paddle. Get a sight picture, press check and make sure you’re in battery (use forward assist if need be). Close dust cover.
We did the 1-2-3-4-5 drill like with the index cards above but with steel in similar placement at 10-15 yards. Get all five in numerical sequence in under 2.5 seconds.
Interestingly, on reloads Frank now always turns the safety on and has not found a big difference in time although he only had about 100 repetitions into it. Got the idea from Pat McNamara and I can attest that Pat is adamant about it. For Tactical Reload he uses his support index finger to separate the two magazines instead of an L-shaped configuration. A little awkward at first but ultimately more efficient with repetition. Went through it dozens of times. Worth doing on your own dry quite a few iterations.
Next was fast target acquisition. You see what you need to see and the eyes move ahead of the weapon to the next target. Of course, both eyes open. There were four steel in front of you. The first two to the extreme left are a yard apart. Between left-most and third steel is about 7 yards and between first steel and fourth steel is about 20 yards. First you hit the first two steel which makes for very fast hits. For the others Frank watches your eyes to see if you’re tracking ahead of weapon. The furthest target resulted in either over-travel or under-travel for many at first. Pretty soon with adjustments you’re humming and hitting them pretty fast. Like Frank says: “See what you need to see”.
The lecture and demo of malfunctions was brief, to the point and again efficient. The push/tug on magazine is as always. Slamming magazines home is a bad thing. We also did double-feed, stove-pipe and bolt-override.
Malfunctions was a good segue to transition to pistol. Put the carbine on safe and using your support hand lay it to the side of your thigh being careful not to cover your magazines there. This also got us into always loading your pistol first. Fire carbine with one round, put on safe, transition to pistol more rounds and then get the carbine reloaded. Many iterations.
Moving forward again with heel landing with knees bent and rolling forward. Once you have a good sight picture fire away.
We moved from 15 yards to 10 firing 3 rounds and then from 10 to 7 yards with 3 rounds.
Another great drill was to start at 10 yards and upon buzzer run to 25 yards, turn and fire 5 rounds at the small vertical index card. Then to 15 yards with 5 rounds and finally to 10 yards with 5 rounds. All under 30 seconds. Many got the 30 seconds but even Frank couldn’t get all 15 rounds in the index cards. One tough drill.
With the carbine we also did the Freedom 20 round drill. Position 1 is 15 yards from a singular steel target. Position 2 is to the left about 2 yards, position 3 to the right about 2 yards and position 4 straightforward 5 yards from position 1. You start on 1 and follow the numbers to 20 rounds total. Dizzying! You have to do it in under 60 seconds. Many did. Gets you amped up.
We also experimented with stationary turns without moving your feet as well as other drills from other outfits.
The night had us doing one drill a lot. Here you start with one round in pistol and one in carbine. Upon buzzer and being behind two sets of vertical barrels you go left and engage the steel at 25 yards, carbine on safe, transition to pistol and between the barrels you hit the steel at 10 yards and get slide lock on pistol, reload and from the right side of the right barrels another round to steel at 10 yards. Holster pistol, reload carbine and another round to steel at 25 yards.
We also had the nighttime Thunderdome 7-7 drill. Need 10 points per USPSA target (A zone 4 points, C zone 3 points and D zone 2 points plus head shots 4 points). 4 paper targets and one final steel. First to steel wins unless you did not get full 10 points per paper target. Load carbine with 7 rounds. Start with carbine and move in a straight line to target 1 directly ahead (3 good rounds will get you 10 points). Target 2 is to your left (if you go past it do not shoot back). Target 3 is directly in front of you at the end. With one round you're out with carbine and put on safe and transition to pistol. Give it two more rounds and target 4 is to your left behind a wall. Finally, the steel. You're doing this all at night. You could do it in 13 clean rounds. Get your hits.
Training Day 3: Carbine 2 (short 7 hour day)
We started the final day with running the Thunderdome drill with pistol only and without the final steel for time but you must get your 10 points per target. This drill sure pushed me into a new speed range while still getting acceptable hits. First time I ran it I got all A-zone hits and worse than that tight groups. So, I pushed myself and still got good A & C zone hits. You start with 7 rounds in pistol so you’ll have one reload. Moving in a straight line makes you more efficient as does taking all shots on the move.
We had some 2-man drills where we were stacked up at a simulated door. Second man has muzzle pointing straight down. Whichever side the front man takes you take the opposite. Each side has three targets but all shots are taken while moving and in a zipper fashion, that is, shots make a vertical line on the target. Direction of travel is 45 degrees from the doorway. Check your hits.
We then had moving in a structure alone. You do kind of like a dynamic pie with at times quick glances in both directions finding and engaging targets behind barrels, etc. We did this with carbine and then just pistol. More like an active shooter scenario.
After lunch we moved further up to engage steel at 95 yards and much smaller steel at 125 yards using barricades as support for a more stable shooting platform. Standing, kneeling and Brokeback ultra low prone. There were many iterations. Practice on your own the various positions and then like previously a lot of man on man.
Fantastic AAR. Thanks for posting.
good job. It looks like another great class from Frank. I really enjoyed training with him.
Great write ups. Thanks for sharing your experience. I've already signed up for his courses. I can't wait.
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