AAR - Grey Group/Vickers Tactical 1-day Basic Pistol Class - June 12th, 2010

[SHIVAN]

Grey Group/Vickers Tactical 1-day Basic Pistol Class - June 12th, 2010




This class was held at Drake's Landing, Fuquay-Varina, NC on June 12th, 2010. Temperature was ~94º in the shade, and exceeded 98º in the sun, according to my Casio G-Shock temp sensors.

Instruction was provided by Larry Vickers, obviously from Vickers Tactical. NCpatrolAR and Josh from Grey Group made sure everything ran smoothly, and kept everyone in their lanes.

There were 19 shooters, including NC and Josh. Some M&P's, a couple 1911's, some Sig239's, a Springfield XD, and several Glocks. All three main calibers were represented: 9mm, 40S&W and 45acp. Holsters and mag pouches ran the entire gamut from Raven Concealment, Comptac, Safariland 6004's, Serpas, Bladetech, and some ones I didn't specifically identify.

Larry started the day with a brief overview of the safety rules he expected everyone to follow, and they very closely mirror the NRA's basic four. In concert with his version of the safety rules, he explained to us why accuracy was so important in shooting, and self-defense shooting in general.

1) Every bullet has a lawyer attached to it in the real world of civilian and LE shooting.
2) We only want the bad guys to get hurt, and in many cases the only real backstop we have to stop the travel of the bullet is the torso or body of a bad guy. Accuracy matters.
3) For the purposes of this class, anything off the paper bullseye target, even if on the IPSC target backer, would be considered a "miss".
4) If we found ourselves repeatedly off the paper target, or even out of the black, to slow down, make adjustments, and get the shots back in the black.

Next Larry covered the most important aspect of shooting: Trigger control. His opinion is that next to trigger control, all the other elements of shooting are easy to learn, and easier still to teach. Sight alignment can be covered with a nice graphical representation, of how the sights should look in relation to the target, and on what you should focus. Grip can be taught and corrected with physical input from the instructor, and demonstrated correctly ad nausem.

It's with trigger control that we enter a gray area of our brain, and the physical nature of our trigger fingers, that make trigger control something that can change from shot to shot if proper attention is not paid to squeezing straight to the rear with the sights aligned on your target. Which lead us right in to our first drills:

Dryfire Ball & Dummy
Livefire Ball & Dummy
Command fire Ball & Dummy

Dryfire Ball & Dummy starts out with a partner placing an empty case on the front sight of your pistol, the shooter squeezes the trigger smoothly to the rear and if done properly the case should remain atop the front sight.

Livefire Ball & Dummy requires your partner to load your pistol, but he may choose to load an empty chamber, or a live round, you don't know until you pull the trigger. Again, El Snatcho manifests itself, even on seasoned shooters, in this drill. It's meant to reinforce that the most successful route to good shooting is good trigger control.

Command fire Ball & Dummy has your partner setting your gun up as in the live fire portion, but this time, the shooter comes from the low ready on the timer, and squeezes the trigger when the sights are properly aligned on the target. The timer, as always, introduces an eliminate of stress that the shooter must overcome to maintain their shot to shot consistency.

It can't be said enough: Trigger control, Trigger control, Trigger control.

Each of these drills is meant to diagnose imperfections in your manipulation of the trigger. From experience, the shooter knows, or anticipates, that when he pulls the trigger there is going to be a loud bang, a flash, and recoil. In order to eradicate this virus, and focus on the correct trigger pull from shot to shot, Larry really sets the foundation in these first drills.

We practiced some dry runs drawing the gun from the holster, and incorporating a good draw, good trigger control, good follow through, and scanning/assessing.

Next we incorporated the draw on basic multiples from 2, 5, 7 and 10yds. Larry had us start at 2yds from the holster, and draw on the timer and shoot two shots in the X. Then draw and fire three shots. Then draw and fire four shots. Take two steps back...rinse & repeat. Again, these drills provided immediate feedback to most shooters that their technique for trigger control and sight alignment was on, or needed some minor adjustments. It also helps to build confidence in what you'd learned during Ball & Dummy.

Larry then had us draft semi-pro dodgeball teams, not really, but we did get to answer some trivia, for team captains, followed by playground recruitment for our teams of six.

First team relay put us on the line with six rounds in the gun, gun in holster about 7yds away from the target. First man draws and fires six rounds in to his target, taps the man to the left of him, repeat x5. Total time + any dropped shots adding to the total time. Anything off the bullseye target was considered a miss or +5 seconds, anything else out of the black was +1 second.

These drills emphasize that even little things like the timer, or pressing not to let down your team, can cause your brain to go mushy, and snatching the trigger is a typical result. As Larry points out, good trigger control practice isn't an instantaneous fix for poor habits. It must be practiced over time, and will eventually make you a far better shooter than if you focused purely on sight alignment issues, grip issues, etc.


...continued below...

[VA_Dinger]

We should have some great AAR's & photos from this class. I am eager to see them.

[SHIVAN]

[VA_Dinger]

Wow, the awesome photos have already started to arrive.

[Klear Above]

Just started ripping through the video...

[SHIVAN]

Reloads:

Larry demonstrated tac reloads where you choose the time and place to top of your gun, while retaining the partially expended magazine.

He described speed reloads, where you dropped a partially expended mag to the deck, inserted a new mag and continued shooting. Indicating that this was less than ideal, and that a mag dropping to the floor in a gunfight should be considered lost for a variety of reasons, and could lead to you ending up short on ammo in the near future.

He then covered emergency reloads. Reloads where you are shooting and the gun stops making loud noises because the mag is empty. He demoed the emergency reloads, and described the method he would like to see us use.

As always, he emphasized the workspace, dropping the mag while the using gravity to assist, and aligning the empty magwell with your mag pouch for the shortest and quickest distance from pouch to gun.

Two excellent representations of a reload:

[SHIVAN]

This is a 6.0 sec video of a reload in a basic pistol class, the rest of y'all better get to practicin' --

[M4arc]

Who is the guy in the Nationals hat shooting a Glock???

I looks a lot like Shivan but that couldn't be...

Looks like a great class and I'm sorry I missed it.

[JSantoro]

Yeah, that dude and I were partnered in the earlier portions of the class. He's pretty slick. Very smooth, nary any visible wasted motion.

No. I'm sure of it. I hate him.

I need to, however, at this point take what may become an unpopular or controversial position: I am a handsome, handsome man. I mean, it's a mavel that I don't have chicks hanging offa me like pine cones.

Forserious.

[SHIVAN]

From a personal standpoint, this was my first time shooting a Glock in a class scenario. I setup an Eagle belt with an Eagle 3x FB shingle on my belt, a Maxpedition Rolly Polly dump pouch, a Bladetech M4 kydex tek-lok pouch, and a Safariland 6004-10.

My Glock is a Gen3, drop-in KKM precision barrel, Surefire X300 and a Tango Down Vickers extended mag release.

I used three mags with the Arrendondo +3 extensions, and six stock 17rd G17 mags. All worked perfectly. I really like the 19rds in the Arrendondo equipped mags, a lot. I have to thank Ken Hackathorn for that pro-tip.

I am a 1911 shooter, and quite honestly I thought I was going to be hurting shooting the G17 for the first time. Fact is, the 9mm recoil is a pussycat, the KKM precision barrel is a laser, and working up through the ball & dummy drills to the confidence walk backs, to the repeatable trigger pull of the Glock system, all make for a sweet shooting pistol.

There's a huge upside to being able to carry 142rds on me while on the line.