I have always searched out relevant trainers with real world experience. One of the criteria that I require is that the instructor is someone who has been paid to carry a firearm for a living and has deployed those firearms in as many types of environments that are relevant to what I do. Pat Goodale of Professional Firearms Training has all of that in spades. His background and training model is exactly what I am looking for in a trainer. One of the things that stands out in the recent 2 day handgun CQB class I took July 11-12 in West Virginia, was that he stays “mentally agile.” He reviews police shootings, interviews operators when they arrive CONUS, and adapts his training to what is actually happening in the trenches. There was no fluff in this class, just usable skills done in light, retreating light and no light.
PFT’s facility is quite large and allowed the class to be broken into two relays and have two different drills being run simultaneously. One drill included a drill where a student was standing 21 feet from a steel .25 scale torso. An instructor stood 21 feet to the left of the student and behind them with a “shock” knife. The knife delivered a shock that felt much like a slice and the student was required to deliver two hits on steel before being “cut” from the knife. The drill had to be started in the holster and was initiated by the attacker’s aggressive movement towards the student. A variation of this was conducted with a moving advancing target with three balloons as the target area.
PFT’s facility allowed an academic and practical examination of handguns against various parts of a vehicle. Students were allowed to shoot into and out of the vehicles windshield. This allowed an observance of the deflections that occur on projectiles when impacting glass. Additionally each round was followed as much as possible through its path inside the vehicle. We were able to recover several of the rounds and examine them for damage as well as an expansion that did or did not occur.
Pat additionally encouraged students to fire into the vehicle from different locations that were commonly used locations of “cover” to examine how rounds would perform. Shots were taken from broadside into doors, from the roof and also into the trunk compartment. Several students utilized various loads to evaluate terminal performance through intermediate material. The results were interesting and were immensely valuable.
Drills progressed with a numerous moving target engagements from lateral movers and advancing targets with the re emergence of my favorite training aid, the “shock” knife. The shoothouse was also used in a “you just woke up” scenario starting with you in bed and hearing a noise in your home.
There was so much shooting and different drills that I can not cover them all here. I can’t say enough about PFT and Pat Goodale. The class was amazing and highly recommend PFT without hesitation.
http://www.pgpft.com
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