My background: This was my first official training course; my previous experience only included Army infantry basic training and advanced individual training as well as some informal coaching from Scott on a few different occasions. I’ve read a lot here and go to the range as much as I can, but obviously nothing is a substitute for this type of instruction.
Scott’s background and PTS: The company itself is owned by Scott (his partner Ryan was not there so I’ll leave him out) who I've worked pretty closely with for the last 4 years. He is a highly knowledgeable and experienced SOF operator. His brief résumé can be seen on the company website, here. The company runs a mix between training courses and precision matches, with an emphasis on the latter. I only know of one other time he ran this specific course and I know there are plans to continue with both, but it is not his only job and he is relocating so I am not sure how often anything will be offered for some time. One thing about him, and he'll openly admit this, is that he likes to let people figure out what works for them. He is very aware of the fact that there is more than one way to do things and what works for him may not work for someone else. Along the same lines, he won't often offer his thoughts on various pieces of support equipment unless asked. Again, he usually lets the student figure out what they like/dislike and why. If he is asked though, he will back up his opinion with pretty solid reasoning which is always helpful. He encouraged photos and videos so I ran most of the third day with my Contour+2 and everyone got some stuff on our phones, which I’ll work on posting here.
The class: It was held in the general vicinity of the Outer Banks, NC. It was a unique situation in that instead of being on a range, the class took place on some spare fields in the middle of several acres of farmland. The manager (for lack of a better word), Hunter, has shot with Scott before and they worked it out to have the class there. As such, the price was incredibly reasonable for the length (3 days) and curriculum, lodging was provided at the hunting cabin on-site, and we were able to run with as much flexibility as could be asked for. There were 5 total students (all with military background which helped but definitely is not necessary), Scott instructing, and Hunter who came out to watch, help run it, and hang out for much of the duration. There wasn't really a skill level specified for the course, most likely because it was tailored to be a small group. Among the shooters, skills were fairly similar and weapon familiarity and handling was solid enough to allow some team drills. The first day was pistol, second was carbine, and third was both. Total round count was approximately 600 for pistol and 1,074 for rifle. I took every advantage to shoot the prescribed number of rounds per drill, but Scott had no issue scaling the round count down for other shooters who didn't have as much. The other students brought some food to cook and Scott provided plenty for everyone out of his own pocket. Due to the flexibility of the “range” we were using, on several occasions both before and after training for the day, we were able to take advantage of his knowledge base and get some long range precision work in. I’d say long range is definitely his passion so he was happy to get everyone familiar at shooting distance, including at up to 1,000 meters. At the end of the course, he gave us all some PTS stickers (patches are the next step apparently), and emailed us a POI for the course so we could continue to apply what we learned. I thought that was awesome because while I've heard most good instructors will teach you tools to use on your own, I hadn't heard of an actual document to use as reference (this one is like 2-3 pages).
Conclusions: This class was simply awesome and I would've paid double for it. I definitely learned some valuable lessons, got tons of practice and coaching, and had a lot of fun. In fact, it was probably one of the best overall experiences in my entire life. Again, a lot of extra perks came out of being able to use the farmland, but a course from Scott and PTS is definitely worth it wherever it's offered.
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
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Originally Posted by BigJoe
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