My AAR:
WX was just about perfect, a clear sunny day that reminded my why I moved to the Carolinas. The day started off cool (35F) and ended in the low 70's. The students were a mix of new and experienced shooters, and the pistols were a mixed bag with (surprisingly) only one GLOCK, a few M&P's, Sig's, 1911's, and even a Hi-Power. On my end of the line the GLOCK and M&P's and even the Hi-Power ran flawlessly. Besides the constant reloads, there were quite a few issues on the 1911 side of the line, I'm not positive on this but I think the Kimber had a similar failure rate to the RIA. The phrase 'king of feed-ramp failures' was a constant throughout the days events.
The training day started with a safety brief and introductions and medical emergency plan. The four fundamental firearms safety rules were covered, as well as a fifth, a DCNC constant of 'do not try to catch a dropped/falling gun'.
With that we walked out to the line for a quick live-fire reality check: 15 yards, 8 rounds in 10 seconds. As a group we failed miserably, the last round fired was near the :17 mark. My first rounds out of the holster would have been IPSC-A's, however several rounds fell outside of the black on the much smaller VSM targets that we were using for this drill. Fortunately this was my worst shooting for the day (stationery).
With many shots falling low (and many right), Chris used this opportunity to stress the critical importance of trigger control. We then went through several dry fire drills including keeping a spent casing balanced on our front site while manipulating the trigger, as well as several rounds of 'ball and dummy' drills. Any movement of the front site during these drills resulted in a 'penalty' of a string of dry fire drills to reinforce proper trigger manipulation.
With these drills completed, we switched over to standard IPSC targets, and had a discussion on combat accuracy and the need for good hits to stop a lethal force encounter. One constant in any Defensive Concepts course is their very high accuracy standard. I have taken several courses with DCNC and no matter the platform, the concept that you are responsible for every round that leaves your gun is highly stressed. Real world examples of lethal force encounters reinforce the need to place shots accurately.
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