One of my favorite-est people happened to be one of the ladies taking the class, and she was kind enough to let me tag along....
She happens to live adjacent to NYC, is a new grandma, and can be best described as "wee." About 5 years ago, she asked to go shooting with me, for a lark. What started as her having taken a casual shine to handguns has turned into having had her eyes opened a bit more to the day-to-day potential hazards that exist, and prompted her to take a more focused interest in not just how to shoot, but in as much of the stem-to-stern aspects of being self-sufficient with the usage and operation of handguns within her home (i.e., the asinine levels of co-dependence that NY state and local laws place upon it's citizens) in the event of one of those .001% chances that she'd need one to defend herself and her loved ones.
So, she also became a student of mine, and was taught on the same basis of just about everybody else I teach: that what was being done was meant to provide a certain level of baseline safety awareness and technical competence for the purposes of getting the best possible return on investment from future training that I heartily encourage they attend....from more professional instructors, possessed of a far broader/deeper firearms and instructional background than my own.
Blah yadda blah....we've now attended two of Steve's classes together, the first being the Magpul Handgun 1 class taught in August of last year, at the same facility. I was looking for something fairly close to where I live, in an area I'm very familiar with, where we'd both get challenged, from an instructor that doesn't spend time marveling at the smell of his own farts.
(For those in the DC Metro area....keep an eye out on the Tango Down Range, Peacemaker National Training Center, and Echo Valley Training Center websites; these facilities are hosting a LOT of top-notch training opportunities from which to choose. Used to be that about the only thing we'd be able to find within a 4hr one-way drive was some PMC fantasy-camp BS.... Not the case, any more.)
Having taken the class under the Magpul umberella, and both of us having benefited enormously from it, it was natural to sign on for a "level 2" class under Steve's Sentinel Concepts banner. When we got word of the classes being blended, it was actually pretty good news; I've often taken courses twice over, on the presumption that I might successfully absorb as much as 40% to any reasonable degree. Take it twice, maybe get to 80% (especially before moving on to something more strenuous or type-specific). Point being, Henchwoman, having shot a whopping two times since August (new grandma, remember...?), would get a chance for a worthwhile review, AND a challenging yet manageable learning curve into any new material, with a low risk of possibly being overwhelmed. From my end...I had no question that I'd be challenged, not the least of which because Steve's a stickler for accuracy. There's plenty of holes in my swing, but everything starts with putting that little wad of metal where you want it to go, and I benefit from the work.
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Warbelts were notable.....by being largely absent. Muy bueno. Solid indicator that the class was made up of folks that had, somewhere in the midst of their lives, gotten a grip.
The guy shooting to my right, Mike, had the kind of economy of motion and consistency that I'm frankly jealous of.
When shooting off-hand/weak-hand/other-strong-hand, or whatever the flavor-of-the-week buzzword is at the moment for "with my left hand," I get better results by turning my chin in toward my left shoulder instead of canting the gun to the right to get my dominant eye behind the sights.
Malfunction clearance methods for the most common ones are actually even simpler than the ones we've traditionally been taught.
Adjunct to the above: If I'd have listened properly to the entire brief about how simple malfunction clearance methods can be when I first heard it back in August, feeling as stupid as I did this past weekend, when my initial lack of attention to detail became clear, could have been prevented.
Continuance to the above: ...but traditional/diagnostic methods may still be necessary because Murphy is an optimist, like when the open mouth of an empty case smears itself across the base of the feed ramp of the guy shooting to my left's M&P9, clogging the whole thing up badly enough that the slide stop couldn't function to hold the slide open. Had to push that sucker out with a knife.
Adjunct to the immediate above: Carrying a small-ish, utilitarian knife can come in handy for more than just cutting stuff.
I swiped Steve's Nighthawk, and replaced it with a fully-functional replica made of recycled beer cans, edge-black, and the bottom of an original glass Coke bottle to mimic the RMR lens. I think I can make it to *distant country redacted* before he finds out. Wish me luck!
I've commonly utilized drills that focus upon speed as my "cold" drills, on the basis that, handguns being poor man-killers, "punches in bunches" may be what I'll more likely need if something goes pear-shaped enough that I need to use my gun. While I've never shied away from shooting to 25yd (or more), and while I've done it more often for the last solid year, doing more of it in general and doing it cold in particular can only help me out. I shot better, pound-for-pound, than I did in August...though slightly less well @25, comparatively.
790 rounds expended; I made make-up shots if I felt the slightest hinkiness in the break of a shot, much less if I actually managed to SEE a miss for real...unless a particular drill called for a specific round-count.
Contractor scum, PM Infantry Weapons
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