SE Florida area Drills/Practice nights - First Tuesday of every month

Tropical Sport Shooting Association hosts a once-a-month training/practice/drills night at the Markham Park Target Range in western Broward County. These practice nights are on the first Tuesday of every month, and shots are usually fired starting at 7, ending at 10, with signup beginning at 6. We appreciate all the help we can get, so the earlier you can be there the better, and usually club officers are on site by 5:30 at the latest. Cost is $20 for TSSA members, $25 for non-members. You can see Roger Z at the events for more information on joining TSSA.

We hold carbine drills and pistol drills, and even have folks on hand to help anyone who is totally new to handgun shooting.

TSSA is also an IDPA club and we have IDPA pistol matches on the 2nd Tuesday of the month at Trail Glades Range(currently moved to Markham due to construction at Trail Glades) and on the 4th Saturday of the month at Markham. See the website for more information about these events.

Who: TSSA and YOU!
What: Carbine and Handgun drills night
Where: Markham Park Target Range, western Broward County Florida
When: First Tuesday night of each month beginning at 6:30 PM
Why: To improve your shooting skills, learn something new, get in some trigger time, and hang out with a great group of folks and have fun
How:
For pistol drills you will need:
pistol
3 magazines (at least, more is better)
holster
magazine pouches (one at least, 2 is better)
200 rounds +/-
For carbine drills you will need:
carbine
3 magazines (at least, more is better)
sling
magazine pouches (one at least, 2 is better, 3 is better still)
200 rounds +/-

you can email me at rob AT tacticalyellowvisor DOT net for more information

Ive spoken about the drills night in the M4C regional training thread but i figured i would go ahead and say something here as well.

If you own a carbine and you're on this website you need to be coming out to these classes.

I personally enjoy attending simply because it gives me a chance to practice the skills that ive learned over the past year under the watchful eye of Rob, someone that i respect that knows what the hell they're doing.

Its pretty neat to have an opportunity to run the types of drills most of us dream about but cannot due to lack of facilities. Its also really neat to have a chance to analytically assess what works and what doesnt. Every drills night is hosted with a specific purpose and Rob usually does a great job of challenging the students and even himself. Skill level need not apply. For the most part, even the beginners are never left behind as Rob will tailor the class to the students on hand.

Again, i would encourage anyone with a basic interest in running their rifle properly to attend.

The requirements are very simple and the group is quite friendly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Magsz

Ive spoken about the drills night in the M4C regional training thread but i figured i would go ahead and say something here as well.

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This now *is* the M4C Regional Training thread for Florida.

;)

Cool beans!

It'd be good to see some AAR photos or some video links.

Keep up the good work.

Sounds like lots of fun. I will be bringing my 12 yr old son to hopefully get him more involved in shooting/learning.
Do we have directions posted on here somewhere ??

S.M.

We're working on some photos and video. I normally take a lot of photos and video at the matches but running the drills doesn't typically leave me much time for pictures.

There's a link to the google map of the range location in the first post. click on "western broward county".

There will be plenty of pictures after the next drills night.

Ill even try and get some video. I had a friend of mine out there last month taking pictures and video but hes been so busy he hasnt had a chance to do much of anything.

Hopefully his schedule will free itself up a little and he will be able to regularly provide media for us. :)

Tomorrow, Tuesday 1 December 2009 we're doing it again.

On the carbine side we'll be doing transitions to pistol. You'll need all of your usual carbine gear (carbine, sling, load carriage) as well as a pistol, holster, and ammo. you will also want a way to carry loose carbine ammo to the line for topping off of magazines. We'll go over the basics and then work on transitions on the move and potentially from positions other than standing.

If you do not have, or do not want to work with, a handgun we can accommodate that. While we prefer that everyone on the line be working the same drills we understand that some people may not be comfortable with the transition yet, or may not have the gear they need to work with the pistol. If that applies to you YOU CAN STILL COME OUT and we will keep you shooting.

Another drills night in the bag. I think we got through some good stuff.

Started the evening with a discussion on followthrough, and the potential negative impact of certain types of drills on same. We then went over the fundamentals of trigger control very quickly before putting them to work with a 2" smiley face sticker as the target. Shooters were expected to keep all shots in the smiley face. We began at 10 yards with two strings of one shot only so that the shooters could get their bearings and hold-over. We then went to a string of three, followed by two strings of five, and finished with a string of 10. After each string we went forward to assess the targets. We discussed any misses, and offered suggestions on how to address them. We found several shooters that were not easing to reset, and quite a few that were going faster than their skills allowed given the target and distance, as well as a couple that were falling into a rhythm and letting their trigger finger get ahead of their sights.

We then attempted to drive home the shifting hold-over now that they had it nice and doped out at 10 yards. We refaced the targets completely and we moved in to 5 yards, firing a 5-shot string, then out to 15 yards, then 5 again, and then 15 again. Changing distance and firing longer strings to give the shooters a chance to work out their hold-overs but also to force them to think about what they were doing. We finished this block with 10 rounds back at the 10 yard line. Targets were evaluated between each string of fire.

We finished out the night with a block on transitions. We were a little rushed, but as always we followed the walk-then-run methodology. We talked about why we transition, different methodologies, and the fact that the #1 way to get better is to learn the motions slowly and then repetitive dryfire practice at home to get comfortable and increase speed. We also discussed the change in sight picture when going from the RDS-equipped carbine to the iron-sight equipped pistol, and the fact that the aiming points are different with the two platforms.

We ran through the transition dryfire ("click" with the carbine then "click" with the pistol) to start just to make sure we didn't have any total spazzes on the line and so that anyone new to this could begin to build the comfort level. Shooters then loaded their pistols, and we had everyone fire two rounds to center mass to make sure they were all competent with drawing and operating the handgun. From there we loaded a single round into the carbine and removed the magazine. This helps to get people out of the gaming method of transitions where the shooter counts the number of rounds (which is problematic on many levels). Shooters were required to get the "bang" and then the "click" before drawing their pistol and completing the three-rounds-on-target drill.

Shooters were then instructed to come to the line with magazines randomly loaded with 2-4 rounds each. We then ran multiple drills such as "four rounds to your own target, and 2 to the head of your neighbors target" or "two rounds to the target to the left, two rounds to the target to the right, two rounds to your own target", etc. The intention here was to avoid a repetitive drill where shooters count rounds or have obvious break points. We want to make the failure of the carbine as much of a surprise as possible. We ran through 5 cycles of various 6-shot drills, as fast as the shooters could get set up to run it again.

If my count is correct we got the shooters through somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 live-fire transitions, and hopefully gave them the skills to go home and practice on their own with dryfire drills. We used the standard IDPA target and asked for hits inside the -0 (8" COM, 6" head). The goal here was to continue to apply the fundamentals from earlier in the evening but to relax the accuracy requirement somewhat so that shooters could focus on the mechanics of the transition. Accuracy is final but sometimes you can give a newer shooter too much to think about and they are dealing with too many new things all at once. Going from the 2" circle to the 8" gave them a huge opportunity to relax and focus on the skill at hand: the transition to pistol.

All in all I think it was a good night and we ran it right up to the limit of our 10 PM range deadline, with last shots fired around 9:45 giving us 15 minutes to clear off the range before they shut down the lights.

hopefully some of the attendees will be by to share their thoughts.