You may recognize Bill from our pistol DVD. He did so good we sent him to Cali. No really, he just started up our facility outside San Diego. He travels the silly state spreading the gospel. We find it funny that the leader of the state has made millions pretending to carry a gun, but its so hard for a normal dude to own/shoot.
There is a lot of construction and development going on in SoCal, so if your there, or your going to be there give Bill a call.
Anyway, here is an AAR from one of the first CA classes.
You can reach Bill (619) 454-4192,
Kyle
AAR: Blackwater - Advanced Handgun Skills - 3 Apr 09 - 4 Apr 09
The Instructor:
I first met our instructor, Bill Go, at the 2008 Golden Gate IDPA Regionals, where he served as Blackwater’s main match sponsor. At the time, I figured that the company wanted to send a representative to principally ‘fly the flag’, meet the competitors and sell their training courses. Little did I know that their company rep actually wanted to shoot the match and did he ever! After having seen him shoot, I eagerly wanted into his pistol class. As part of his introduction, Bill spoke about his background as a retired Marine Corps officer, subsequent experience as a Blackwater private contractor and trainer and his history and love of competitive shooting. In fact, he started his shooting career at Richmond gun club while attending Navy post-graduate school.
The Students:
We had a diverse mixture of civilian and local LE presence for the class. Prior to the class registration, the Blackwater prerequisites included LE, MIL, or Competitive Shooting experience. As a result, everyone was dialed into the class from the first shots of the day. I was honored to attend with such an excellent group of shooters. On a personal note, I recognized several familiar faces from the countless pistol matches there so it felt really good to return to the NorCal area and see old friends again!
The Curriculum:
Bill mentioned that the original name for the class was the ‘Competition’ or ‘Technical Skills’ course but was later broadened to attract non-competition shooters. At class conclusion, I circled the words ‘Technical Skills’ because you will spend the majority of your time focusing on the technical aspects of shooting a handgun accurately, at speed while working out your inefficiencies. You will have A LOT of input to process so a notebook and a pen would be very much recommended.
Bill also mentioned that he believes that Blackwater’s training curriculum is ‘state-of-the-art’. I believe this may likely be the case not because they’ve somehow mastered the secrets to pistol shooting themselves but kept their curriculum open to emerging and innovative techniques from as many sources as possible. Or as Bill stated, ‘we learn as much from our students as they learn from us’. As regular procedure, Bill would ask about our other training classes that we’ve attended and what curriculum they were teaching. Even though he was our instructor, I got a sense that he is always a student as well.
The Class:
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Introductions and history lessons. Bill did quite a bit of name dropping that morning.
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Review of pistol marksmanship fundamentals. You should already be familiar with these due to the course prerequisites. Highlights include:
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Stance. Modified isosceles now dominates.
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Grip. Thumbs forward grip proven to work.
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Sight picture. Acceptable vs. Perfect (very important later).
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Trigger control. Slack is not part of the trigger press.
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Assessment phase. Cold bore shots from low and high ready to assess his strengths and weaknesses. I started to really enjoy shooting from high ready after this phase.
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Rhythm shooting. 6 shot groups at varying speed to test your grip, stance and sight alignment. You must shoot your gun to learn how it feels in recoil and how fast you can go. This section also serves to help you learn what is an acceptable sight picture… one of the first components to learning how to shoot fast.
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Draws. Blackwater teaches a 3-point draw so you can get the gun up and shoot from high ready as soon as possible. Bill’s teaching point about Presentation vs. Set was excellent as it shows you when to go fast and when to go slow. Big A-HA moment for me. Shown here, practicing your draw speed at 25 yards… hint… it’s the same speed as 7 yards.
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Reloads. Tactical, Reload with Retention and Speed Reload. My tactical reloads are much smoother now, after this class.
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Turns. Setting up to shoot is more important than the shot. Lead with your head, then legs and then the gun.
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Position shooting. Standing, Braced Kneeling, Monica, Squad and Prone. BW teaches prone shooting with the magazine touching the ground for added stability, similar to rifle shooting.
Shooting on the move. Let the sights dictate cadence of fire. Forward and backwards movement. Sideways movement also covered excellently. Bill Go demonstrates here with his ‘carrying a water glass’ method.
Malfunctions. I’m a Glock shooter so I slept through most of this part.
Failure drill. Mozambique is not always the solution. Notice the circled area here.
Angle shooting. Work transition speed and recoil control. Shoot, eyes snap, and shoot again. I could have shot this all day since it was so much fun!
Bill Drill. Allows you to integrate turns, transitions and rhythm shooting. Bill Go speaks to tracking the site through recoil.
One-handed shooting and one-handed malfunction clearance. You’d be surprised how quickly you pick this up after a little practice.
Barricade shooting. Don’t crowd your barricade, plant your foot and rotate at the hip.
Deadliest men. Fun contest involving a walk-back drill starting at the 7 yard line and ending up at the 30y line… shooting strong hand only. Here’s your winner:
Training regime. In some ways, I found this section the most important as the lessons of a training class can disappear quickly without constant reinforcement and practice. When Bill pulled out his training logs to detail his presentation and split times, I understood why he became the excellent shooter that he is.
Conclusion:
I’m sure I missed some training points as BW stuffs so much material into this 2-day course that it’s likely one of the best training values out there. If you’re looking for a one-stop shop, Blackwater presents an effective, innovative and tested curriculum that’s applicable to a wide range of shooters. If you’ve built solid pistol skills and are looking for a ‘graduate-level’ course, you will not be disappointed by looking these guys up. Plus, your graduation certificate looks really cool.