AAR-Vickers Tactical 1-Day Basic Handgun Class - NC‎ - Nov 20, 2010

[jdavis6576]

This was my first class from a tier one instructor and it was well worth the price of admission. Others have discussed the course material so I won't repeat it other than to say the Command Ball & Dummy and Timed Ball & Dummy drills certainly offer a more realistic look at snatching the trigger. I've practiced dry fire and ball & dummy in the past and will be adding these two LAV drills to my training regimen.

I was somewhat pleased with my performance but in no way satisfied as I have quite a bit of work to do. In particular, I need to get my strong thumb out of the way as it tends to interfere with the slide release causing the slide not to lock back on an empty magazine. I shoot thumbs forward and need to correct my grip to fix this. The other BIG area of concern for me is reloads. My current self-taught method has me all screwed up; to quote LAV I looked like a "window licker" who needs to un-**** myself. My runs at this were horrible. In the past I've used my strong thumb to release the slide instead of my weak thumb so it's going to take some work to break that habit.

The class was extremely enjoyable and the day flew by. I don't think I shot 250 rounds but when the class was over I'd had my fill. I was mentally tired from focusing on the changes I need to make and trying to mentally catalog the various drills so that I could make some notes for future training.

As a side note, I was on the line beside Uglyguns when "the incident" occured. At no time did I feel unsafe. When the rounds went off it did get my attention but we continued with the drill and all was well. I didn't change my place on the line after it happened and had no concerns going forward.

In closing, I can't say enough good things about this course. I'm so stoked that I just signed up for the April 2-3 Pistol I class in Carthage. BTW, if you book it today through Grey Group you get 20% off the cost of the class. You can't beat two days with LAV for $360.

[Defaultmp3]

I was toward the outside of the line, so I didn't catch a lot from the middle and the other end. I heard him call someone Costa, but didn't know it was you. How'd you get that one?

Apparently, my reloads had some superfluous movements, with enough likeliness to the stuff they showed in the Magpul DVDs to get me the name Costa. But hey, I ain't complaining; worse nicknames are to be had.

TThe other BIG area of concern for me is reloads. My current self-taught method has me all screwed up; to quote LAV I looked like a "window licker" who needs to un-**** myself. My runs at this were horrible. In the past I've used my strong thumb to release the slide instead of my weak thumb so it's going to take some work to break that habit.

Do you remember why we were suppose to use weak hand thumb instead of strong hand thumb? Like you, I've been using my strong hand, but only on very rare occasions; my HK45 autofowards like 95% of the time, so I don't think Larry really saw me reload properly. With practice with snapcaps, I tend to fumble around to find the damn slide release when using weak hand thumb; strong hand thumb I feel is much more intuitive, but since I don't remember the reasoning for not using it, I haven't really practiced any more; figured I'd try to remember why we were suppose to use the weak hand thumb before pressing on with my training.

[VA_Dinger]

Vickers Tactical
www.vickerstactical.com



Grey Group Training
www.greygrouptraining.com

[NCPatrolAR]

Do you remember why we were suppose to use weak hand thumb instead of strong hand thumb?

While use of the dominant hand thumb is the quickest method of returning the slide forward during the slide lock reload, it often requires people to do strange contortions with their master grip in order to depress the slide stop. Certain guns (HK, Glocks w/ extended slide stops, etc) make this task much easier and dont require a shift in the master grip. Using the support hand thumb removes the need for a shift in grip (if not using one of the above mentioned guns) and is only slightly slower. Basicly, after you insert the magazine your support hand continues to track up the grip of the pistol and the (support hand) thumb is in a natural position to depress the slide stop then move back into the 2 handed grip position.

[bulbvivid]

I'm so stoked that I just signed up for the April 2-3 Pistol I class in Carthage. BTW, if you book it today through Grey Group you get 20% off the cost of the class. You can't beat two days with LAV for $360.

Thanks for the heads-up. Looks like I'll be seeing you there.