Caduceus
09-24-13, 11:35
Over the weekend I had the chance to go to an introductory course for pistol shooting, hosted by PSA Defense. This is a relatively new group associated with Palmetto State Armory, in Columbia, SC.
A bit of my background. I've taken a 2-day basic pistol course through Acadami, as well as the military's 'introductory' training on pistol (ie, "here's the M9, here's how to not shoot yourself). I train with a Sig P229 in .40. Overall I think I'm fair - I can hit the paper consistently. My groups aren't great past 10 yards, and I definitely think I should be better. I realize the DA/SA on the Sig is a hold up, and have been looking to improve A) first round accuracy, and B)overall group size. That being said, I do qualify as "Expert" on both Navy and Army qual courses (which should tell you something about their difficulty).
Class consisted of approximately 2 hours of power point - the standard "how a pistol works" slides, 4 gun safety rules, safe handling, etc.
From there, we went to an indoor 25 meter range. The store has 3 bays, 6 lanes each. One bay was blocked off for this class, allowing us to stand just in front of the shooting partitions, as well as "scan" after courses of fire. Seemed pretty standard based on the Acadami course: working on stance, grip, sight alignment at 5 & 7 yards. Then moved on to 2-shot groups, drawing from holster, "failure to stop" drills (both shots to head and shots to pelvis). We didn't do multiple target aquisition, which would have been nice.
So how was the course? Well, basic, as it was described. Overall though, it's hard to rate the course when I was the only student.
This ended up being a pretty good one-on-one instruction session. I feel like my shooting was better after the class; both my grip needed adjustment, and at some point the repetition of "Use a fighting stance" clicked too. I'd taken several years of karate and boxing in the past, but my shooting stance was much more aggressive/leaning forward. Once I loosened it up, I seemed to do much better. By no means was I shooting 1/2 MOA at 25 yards, but fist size at 10 yards was an improvement. I also got the chance to shoot the instructor's Glock 19, which showed both of us that I'm capable of trigger control and sight alignment (something that we were trouble shooting as a cause for inaccuracy). Also, it gave the instructor a chance to shoot my pistol, where he noted the tendency fo the gun to dip low/left just before breaking on the DA mode (something I'd noted, and not mentioned).
After the class I've been trying to increase my dry fire time; but looking forward to seeing if the changes stick in my next range day.
Can I recommend it? Hard to say. The instructor seemed competent enough, and I think it helped. The price was right. I wouldn't consider it a wasted day, but I think it's also premature to recommend them strongly based on a limited class size.
A bit of my background. I've taken a 2-day basic pistol course through Acadami, as well as the military's 'introductory' training on pistol (ie, "here's the M9, here's how to not shoot yourself). I train with a Sig P229 in .40. Overall I think I'm fair - I can hit the paper consistently. My groups aren't great past 10 yards, and I definitely think I should be better. I realize the DA/SA on the Sig is a hold up, and have been looking to improve A) first round accuracy, and B)overall group size. That being said, I do qualify as "Expert" on both Navy and Army qual courses (which should tell you something about their difficulty).
Class consisted of approximately 2 hours of power point - the standard "how a pistol works" slides, 4 gun safety rules, safe handling, etc.
From there, we went to an indoor 25 meter range. The store has 3 bays, 6 lanes each. One bay was blocked off for this class, allowing us to stand just in front of the shooting partitions, as well as "scan" after courses of fire. Seemed pretty standard based on the Acadami course: working on stance, grip, sight alignment at 5 & 7 yards. Then moved on to 2-shot groups, drawing from holster, "failure to stop" drills (both shots to head and shots to pelvis). We didn't do multiple target aquisition, which would have been nice.
So how was the course? Well, basic, as it was described. Overall though, it's hard to rate the course when I was the only student.
This ended up being a pretty good one-on-one instruction session. I feel like my shooting was better after the class; both my grip needed adjustment, and at some point the repetition of "Use a fighting stance" clicked too. I'd taken several years of karate and boxing in the past, but my shooting stance was much more aggressive/leaning forward. Once I loosened it up, I seemed to do much better. By no means was I shooting 1/2 MOA at 25 yards, but fist size at 10 yards was an improvement. I also got the chance to shoot the instructor's Glock 19, which showed both of us that I'm capable of trigger control and sight alignment (something that we were trouble shooting as a cause for inaccuracy). Also, it gave the instructor a chance to shoot my pistol, where he noted the tendency fo the gun to dip low/left just before breaking on the DA mode (something I'd noted, and not mentioned).
After the class I've been trying to increase my dry fire time; but looking forward to seeing if the changes stick in my next range day.
Can I recommend it? Hard to say. The instructor seemed competent enough, and I think it helped. The price was right. I wouldn't consider it a wasted day, but I think it's also premature to recommend them strongly based on a limited class size.