I’ll start with the class description:
Hosted by Direct Action Resource Center ( www.darc1.com)
US citizen, no felonies
$700
You must register for this course prior to attending
3500rds ball
Quality belt holster
Minimum of 4 high capacity
2 mag belt pouch
Eye pro (day/night)
Hand held tactical light
Knee pad
Athletic cup (for force on force)
Force on force pistol use and ammo is included
Class starts @ 0800 on 27June and graduates around 4pm on 29June.
Day01 - 0800-1700
Day02 - 0800-2300
Day03 - 0900-1600
Our instructors were Rich and the Mr. T (forgot to ask if he minds if I use his name so I’ll stick to Mr. T). They were both very humble and I figure if you know them already you know their background. If not it isn’t my place to tell it.
On to my experience. I’ve taken a few classes that lasted a day or half day. So my pistol experience was limited compared to some in the class. We had one guy that does fairly well (top 5) at local idpa and ipsc matches, one who had recently bought their first pistol and the other 5 ranged between those extremes.
Day one started with about 2 hours in the class room going over getting the grip correct. The goal was to build a habit of picking the gun up with the sights lined up with the forearm/upper arm to use it like the stock on a rifle. The support had wrapped around with an aggressive thumb forward grip. After that we moved to the range to start plinking the steel.
The first round we all started by getting the grip we’d been working on and starting shots already lined up on target. Our instructors worked with each student as needed to make even small changes to the grip. We’d then take a few more shots to get used to index points on the gun for when the grip was “right”. It was pretty impressive to me how much subtle changes can impact overall accuracy and speed. After the instructors were comfortable with our grip we began moving backwards through the draw. First starting at a high ready, then starting with the gun low and near the holster, then holstered with our hand on the correct grip, then holstered no grip, then hands up with no conceal garment and finally drawing from concealment. We shot around 1000 rounds this day. I know that is a lot compared to other classes (and given the current price mess) but the amount of familiarization with the process was great.
Day 2 We started briefly with the instructors showing us dry fire drills to do at home and a bit of discussion around the importance of dry fire. Then we moved to the range and started with the gun fully presented and ready to shoot. The instructors tweaked anything they saw astray. Which was very little given the amount of practice the day before. Day two was done fully from concealment and began adding more layers of difficulty. Some rounds were shooting multiple targets, shooting head shots only or shooting chest (10x10 plate) only. Those three core options varied between 7, 10 and 17 yards and with various rounds at a speed to ensure zero misses, then fast enough to be comfortable and mostly hit (90%+) then a few flat out speed drills where accuracy wasn’t the primary focus. The latter speed only drills were very few in number just to get a feel for where our limits were. During all this we would occasionally do reload drills where the mags were all loaded with 1-3 rounds. In the afternoon we moved to strong hand only and then weak hand only (including reloads) all while doing variations on the drills above that combined different distance, target qty and tempo for each drill. As dark settled in we began working with lights. The trainers were fans of not using a wml. The main logic for using a hand held light was: first, you have to point your weapon at anything you need to identify, second with the aggressive thumb forward grip we used you had to break your grip in some way to activate the light and finally splashing light off a wall or wanting to keep the light to one side means your pistol would be way out of a good position.
Day 3 We started with a few multiple target drills, then movement drills and time for any questions about what we’d done up to that point. Early in morning we moved off the range, put up the pistols and got into the sim gear. We all switched to the provided g19 size sim guns, put on whatever protective gear you wanted + the required throat pro, eye pro and sim helmet and started having fun. We did various drills starting with one on one draw and shoot, then adding other students as no shoot targets (poor sim sponges it turned out on some rounds), then got into “worst case” stuff. We’d start backed into a corner with an attacker aggressively trying to pin you to the wall and keep you from drawing and getting good shots into them. Next we moved outside and simulated getting jumped from behind where we were pinned and doing ground work while trying to either get away or eliminate threat with a pistol. The last drills were a simulation of using aggressive movement to throw off an attacker drawing a pistol against you. Either to seek cover or make the attackers odds of hitting lower.
All in all it was an amazing class with some great instructors and students. I’ve got a long list and a few pages of notes of things I took away from the class. My main takeaways though are:
- Dryfire - I knew this but much of the discussion helped reinforce this and motivate me to keep with it. In fact my sirt pistol is on the way for practice.
- Stress sucks - Shots that were dead simple on the range on day three took on a whole knew level of difficulty when the target is moving and trying to leave sim tatoos on you.
- Self diagnose and keep yourself accountable. We didn’t have to do push ups for missing targets on the accuracy drills. But there was…feed back from one another and the instructors on misses. Ranging from “good job grizzly you just shot your wife in the face” to “choke yourself for a miss like that”. It is worth noting this was toward the end where we’d built up a good relationship and knew such jokes would be received as motivation to get better not a manhood measuring competition. Each correction (the serious ones) started with a “why did that happen?” so we learned to figure out what we were screwing up.
- A high round count is effective. I’ve read more than one article how shooting more than 500 rounds in a day or class is counter productive. With the methods we used I’d argue that is not the case. Each drill was different from the last and more difficult. The building blocks we were given at each step made the next easier. Shooting close to 3500 rounds cemented those blocks in place.
The worst part is the infrequency of open classes. They spend a lot of time with leo/mil classes so their handgun/carbine classes seem to roll around once a quarter. They post them on facebook and I’m hoping will post them more on forums.
I’m trying to get some pictures or video from somewhere besides facebook or my personal youtube account but my luck seems limited so far. If you are on FB look for DARC and you can see a few good videos.