AAR Massad Ayoob Group (MAG-20R) Live fire Class

Where: Wallingford, CT (Blue Trails Range)

Instructors: Defense Associates, LLC (Frank Cornwall, Lead Instructor)

Gear: Glock 26 with trijcon sights, blade tec IWB holster, various ammo (some garbage, some not) Home made mag holders made from cheap holsters cut down to just hold mags upright in my pants pockets.

What worked: The gun & holster. No problems with it. Mag holders worked great. They are what I use every day, and I didn’t want to change from them.

What didn’t: Ultramax ammo. Crap. Garbage. 4 FTF’s. 1 shot that felt like it was double charged and filled with black powder. I got a good deal on it, and while I’m not complaining…garbage…

Class overview:
The weather sucked. It was hotter than hell the first day, the second day was humid and overcast.

It was the weather I was expecting ever since I started firearm training. If it’s not hotter than hell, humid & shitty or colder than ****, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself during a shooting class.

I am sun-burnt, and I came down with an upper respiratory infection during the class.

By my standards, we are 100/100 so far, and I was enjoying myself tremendously!

The class started with lectures and a safety video from Massad Ayoob. A lot of the lecture in the class was done on video in order to insure the information was conveyed in the time allotted without interruptions from questions (which time was allocated for after the video) and to insure that should questions arise about what the students were taught in the class in court, the training could be show exactly as it was executed to a judge or jury.

Being a lawyer (please, I prefer the term ‘vermin’…) I thought that was very nice.
I will be focusing this review on the shooting portion of the class, as I didn’t sign up for classroom portion of the class.

The class was conducted in strings of 6. 6 shots per magazine, 3 magazines per drill. This was done to allow the revolver shooters (we had one in class) to keep up, as well as to increase our need to reload and get those mechanics locked in.
We started with draw stroke and progressed to shooting from the draw at 4 yards, then moved back to 7 and 15. Day 1 ended with shooting a portion of the class test to be held at the end of the class.

The second day began with more lecture/video, then onto the range for dry drills to practice trigger press. We then progressed to firing drills at 4, 7 yards, single handed and two handed. Then we went to 10 yards and did transitions to crouching, and from crouching to kneeling on one knee, then on 2 knees.

The range part of the class culminated with a practice run for the qualifier at the end, then we had a lecture from Massad Ayoob in person.

He showed us how to relax, and then shot the qualifier for us to model.

Then, we shot the qualifier.
I am not happy. I pulled 2 shots and ended up with a 294/300. Unsatisfactory.
Suicide was briefly considered…but I’m not going to jack up someone’s insurance rates because I pulled 2 shots. It wouldn’t be polite.

The judicious use of deadly force, and the Q&A session afterward was excellent. It was worth the money for the whole class, and the next time Mas comes to CT or I can get to one of his classes, I am doing the classroom portion, maybe exclusively. It was that good.

I would have liked the round count increased; however, it was a lethal force management class, not a pure shooting class.

What I didn’t like:

The drawstroke mechanics. This class used a draw stroke which establishes a grip on the weapon, raises the weapon out of the holster, then brings it to meet the support hand which sits flat on the stomach at mid abdomen level, then the hands meet bringing the weapon in both hands at low ready, and then raises the entire structure up to the eye line to shoot.

I was taught a different draw stroke earlier, the weapon is grasped in a fighting grip with the thumb flagged high, then raised on a direct vertical to the shoulder. When the thumb hits the pectoral and makes the index, the shoulder is bunched and the weapon would be pointed at a 45 degree down. The off hand would be high, center chest, and the gun would be brought to the centerline, with your eye catching the sights at the earliest possible time, then punching the weapon out to firing position.

I will try the new drawstroke in force on force in the future – I just don’t prefer it right now.

That said…it worked just fine, and had I been taught it first, I may have liked it more. Right now, I don’t.

I wish we had spent more time working the mechanics of the draw stroke only, and had a better explanation of the kinesthesiology of the drawstroke taught.

I think it’s one of the most important part of learning to use a handgun, and I’d have sacrificed round count for more drilling on the drawstroke.

Overall: Thumbs Up.