BASIC TACTICAL PISTOL COURSE

BASIC TACTICAL PISTOL (Handgun) COURSE

July 25, 2009

Prerequisite: None
Class Size: 15 Students Max
Instructors: Tom Perroni & CCJA Staff Instructors

This course is designed to develop safe firearm handling skills. The student will learn the basic fundamentals of shooting and how to safely draw their weapon out of the holster. The student will also develop a solid foundation of shooting skills. The student will quickly gain experience, confidence and increase their skill level with their handgun. The following topics will be discussed during the course:

• Safety (4 Rules)
• Draw (5 Steps)
• Fundamentals of shooting (Grip, Stance, Sight’s, Trigger Control)
• Malfunctions (Tap, Rack, Fight)
• (1) handed shooting & reloading
• CQB / close in fighting with a handgun
• Low Light Shooting
• "FATS" Shoot / No Shoot simulation (Time Permitting)
• Virginia Concealed Handgun & Firearms Law
• Golden Rules of Deadly Force in Self Defense (Ability, Opportunity, Jeopardy and Preclusion.)

Ammunition Requirements: 300 rounds (minimum) of ammunition.
we will be selling ammunition at this course. Call for prices.

Gear List: Pistol, hip holster, three magazines, magazine holders, sturdy belt, wraparound eye protection, ear protection, Baseball type cap and a flashlight. (Surefire Type)

we welcome revolvers in class with (2) speed loaders at a minimum.

Course Cost:
$150.00 tuition fee, which includes 8- 10 hours instruction, and a certificate of completion. And the CCJA Basic Pistol Course Book.

The Classroom portion of the class will be held @ 1380 Central Park Blvd Suite 208 Fredericksburg, Va. 22401. 9:00am. For more information or to register for this course contact Tom Perroni:

www.ccjatraining.com

tomperroni@msn.com (540) 322-3000 or (540) 846-7088

COURSE AAR: http://www.defensivecarry.com/vbulle...m-perroni.html

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BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: Looks like I have found my go-to local school (without having to feed my money to a certain bunch of Clinton-enablers in Loudon County). A good CBA shows that one gets a lot of bang for the buck with the gents from CCJA in Fredericksburg. They're close to me, have a very decent outdoor range facility, and have good instructors. I'm looking forward to attending a carbine course in the future.

I attended this period of instruction, and feel unequivocally that, if you live in the DC Metro/N. Virginia/Richmond area, that one will get an enormous amount of value out of the $150 coughed up for this 1-day course. The classroom portion was the very soul of relevant brevity, the range very well set up for the class syllabus, and the instructors recognized that, like the best of folks, The Plan of The Day is merely something to deviate from when the situation calls for it.

We started the day at the CCJA office very nearby I-95 Exit 130, with 6 students, 3 of whom worked for a security agency and were there that day for the purposes of conducting their qualification. We were on the road to head to the range not long after 1030, but in that time I personally learned a few new wrinkles about the military preconditions for use of deadly force in relation to what they are for Joe Blow Citizen, in addition to the firearms safety and shooting fundamentals instruction one would anticipate. Upon arriving at the range, the security bubbas got their qual knocked out, which left the 3 of us students with Mr. Perroni and his AIs.

It was myself, a surly former Marine with a generally piss-poor attitude and chronic halitosis, a gent who'd spent 20-22 years in the Army and now works for the FAA, and another gent who has a law practice (who turned out to be the best overall shooter of us, and had attended the same instructor's Basic Carbine course the weekend prior). I was using my M&P .45c. The lawyer was shooting a full-size 9mm Sig (a 226, right?), and the FAA gent shot a compact 1911-framed gun with a 3" barrel. We were all utilizing concealment holsters.

Started with a Dot Torture target some fundamentals, then moved on to what I think is a 50' TQ-19 target. There was steel to use, too. Dominant and off hand, one-handed on both sides, malfunctions, etc. I'll forgo a blow-by-blow of all the stuff we did in favor of cutting to the chase, and the most telling aspect of this "Basic" course. Sometime during the fundamentals drills, Mr. Perroni was satisfied that each of us was better than reasonably competent in regard to stance, grip, sight picture and trigger control, and asserted that we were already in a higher percentile in terms of accuracy and manual of arms than his previous Basic group was at that same point of their instruction. Combine that with the fact that we were 3 dudes marching through a syllabus designed for a max class size of 15, we 1) had very few "teachable moments" than I would have thought likely, and 2) we could be taught beyond the Basic syllabus.

What followed included, but was not limited to, fighting your way from off your turd-cutter and back to your feet (Officer Survival?), movement (fore/aft/lateral), and a car-jacking scenario. Mr. Perroni had his Suburban pulled out for us to use for that, which had already been "wounded" by somebody with poor sight-to-bore-relationship awareness in the carbine course the previous weekend. Poor truck :( So, the thing I enjoyed the most, other than shooting for its own sake and seeing myself and the other two gents improve, was that the instructors, having judged us to have better-than-Basic skillsets, didn't hesitate to take us beyond that. I think that they would have been fully within their rights to keep us to the original lesson plan, since that's what we paid for. Instead, the attitude was: "You paid me to be here. What do YOU want to learn?"

Therefore, even if a no-shit Basic class is all you're looking for, without going beyond, this is good Square One instruction. Also, from my standpoint, the combo of cost and locality made this one a winner. If I'd wanted to go to Grey Group for their Intro Pistol, it's $210 for the class, plus travel to FayetteNam, maybe lodging. I don't really see ammo as an additional expenditure, since I'm buying ammo every chance I get (4000 of 5.56 and 1500 of .45 is what I call "a good start"). I merely use the above as a for-example, as I still intend to take other schools' training as opportuity allows. Mr. Perroni and his AIs encouraged us to do the same, since it's what they do, too. Sort of a DUH-factor, but I don't want to make it sound like I'm skylining Grey Group as somehow beyond what I'm willing to pay.

Some other boilerplate:
Weather was partly cloudy, somewhat humid, and in the 90s, but there was a fairly persistent breeze, available shade, and frequent short breaks so that we could jam mags and continue to hydrate. Nobody seemed to have any issues. There was sunscreen and bug spray a-plenty for everybody to use.

Recommended ammo draw for the class was advertised as 300 rounds. If I'd had a 9mm or .40, I could have bought ammo at the class, but there was no .45 to be had. Thankfully, I got a metric assload of 200gr ball at the Dulles gun show on Friday afternoon, and brought a 500 round can with me on Saturday. Those frequent breaks I mentioned before were mostly to jam mags; I have 8 10-rounders, so I was jamming mags a little more than half as often. The one gent with the 1911 only had 3 7-rounders, so he became well-versed in mag changes that day. We were shooting pretty effeciently, and I ended up with a grand total of 47 rounds left in the can after I'd completely downloaded. Lesson learned: no such thing as bringing too much ammo. It's a self-solving problem.

Related to the volume of fire, personal lesson: my gun got pretty hot. The heat was transferring through the holster, and I ended up with what amounts to a small sunburn on my right hip. While I very much like the overall fit and retention of the Comp-Tac I have, maybe leather is a better heat-shield to my tender flesh? Research required.

At the end of the class, there was a little hash session for recommendations. I should have (and forgot to!) asked after the low-light portion. Class was over @ 1700, which means there was around 4hrs of light left in the day; no way to do the low-light portion advertised unless we were at an indoor facility. So, what I should have brought up at the end of class, instead of the piddly things I did, was a question as to whether a low-light specific class might be offerred in the future.

Riverine,

Great AAR - - thanks.

I understand that the reason for the cease fire at 1700 and lack of lo-light shooting is that the County down there is enforcing a noise abatement law (I understand Tom got stuck with a big fine not too long ago).

Point taken, and poor phrasing on my part. The presence of noise restrictions was brought up while we were there.

What I meant to say is that I should have asked about the possibility of a low-light class as a separate period of instruction at another location.

If you hear of anything with low-light training, let me know - - I'd jump on that in a heartbeat, too.

I took Tom's carbine class back in March, when it gets dark ~5PM. And back then,
the noise ordnance hadn't hit yet. We shot until 9:30PM. It was my 1st time shooting a carbine at night, and I think it was the most valuable part of the class.