Grey Group/Vickers Tactical 1-day Basic Pistol Class - June 12th, 2010
This class was held at Drake’s Landing, Fuquay-Varina, NC on June 12th, 2010. Temperature was ~94º in the shade, and exceeded 98º in the sun, according to my Casio G-Shock temp sensors.
Instruction was provided by Larry Vickers, obviously from Vickers Tactical. NCpatrolAR and Josh from Grey Group made sure everything ran smoothly, and kept everyone in their lanes.
There were 19 shooters, including NC and Josh. Some M&P’s, a couple 1911’s, some Sig239’s, a Springfield XD, and several Glocks. All three main calibers were represented: 9mm, 40S&W and 45acp. Holsters and mag pouches ran the entire gamut from Raven Concealment, Comptac, Safariland 6004’s, Serpas, Bladetech, and some ones I didn’t specifically identify.
Larry started the day with a brief overview of the safety rules he expected everyone to follow, and they very closely mirror the NRA’s basic four. In concert with his version of the safety rules, he explained to us why accuracy was so important in shooting, and self-defense shooting in general.
- Every bullet has a lawyer attached to it in the real world of civilian and LE shooting.
- We only want the bad guys to get hurt, and in many cases the only real backstop we have to stop the travel of the bullet is the torso or body of a bad guy. Accuracy matters.
- For the purposes of this class, anything off the paper bullseye target, even if on the IPSC target backer, would be considered a “miss”.
- If we found ourselves repeatedly off the paper target, or even out of the black, to slow down, make adjustments, and get the shots back in the black.
Next Larry covered the most important aspect of shooting: Trigger control. His opinion is that next to trigger control, all the other elements of shooting are easy to learn, and easier still to teach. Sight alignment can be covered with a nice graphical representation, of how the sights should look in relation to the target, and on what you should focus. Grip can be taught and corrected with physical input from the instructor, and demonstrated correctly ad nausem.
It’s with trigger control that we enter a gray area of our brain, and the physical nature of our trigger fingers, that make trigger control something that can change from shot to shot if proper attention is not paid to squeezing straight to the rear with the sights aligned on your target. Which lead us right in to our first drills:
Dryfire Ball & Dummy
Livefire Ball & Dummy
Command fire Ball & Dummy
Dryfire Ball & Dummy starts out with a partner placing an empty case on the front sight of your pistol, the shooter squeezes the trigger smoothly to the rear and if done properly the case should remain atop the front sight.
Livefire Ball & Dummy requires your partner to load your pistol, but he may choose to load an empty chamber, or a live round, you don’t know until you pull the trigger. Again, El Snatcho manifests itself, even on seasoned shooters, in this drill. It’s meant to reinforce that the most successful route to good shooting is good trigger control.
Command fire Ball & Dummy has your partner setting your gun up as in the live fire portion, but this time, the shooter comes from the low ready on the timer, and squeezes the trigger when the sights are properly aligned on the target. The timer, as always, introduces an eliminate of stress that the shooter must overcome to maintain their shot to shot consistency.
It can’t be said enough: Trigger control, Trigger control, Trigger control.
Each of these drills is meant to diagnose imperfections in your manipulation of the trigger. From experience, the shooter knows, or anticipates, that when he pulls the trigger there is going to be a loud bang, a flash, and recoil. In order to eradicate this virus, and focus on the correct trigger pull from shot to shot, Larry really sets the foundation in these first drills.
We practiced some dry runs drawing the gun from the holster, and incorporating a good draw, good trigger control, good follow through, and scanning/assessing.
Next we incorporated the draw on basic multiples from 2, 5, 7 and 10yds. Larry had us start at 2yds from the holster, and draw on the timer and shoot two shots in the X. Then draw and fire three shots. Then draw and fire four shots. Take two steps back…rinse & repeat. Again, these drills provided immediate feedback to most shooters that their technique for trigger control and sight alignment was on, or needed some minor adjustments. It also helps to build confidence in what you’d learned during Ball & Dummy.
Larry then had us draft semi-pro dodgeball teams, not really, but we did get to answer some trivia, for team captains, followed by playground recruitment for our teams of six.
First team relay put us on the line with six rounds in the gun, gun in holster about 7yds away from the target. First man draws and fires six rounds in to his target, taps the man to the left of him, repeat x5. Total time + any dropped shots adding to the total time. Anything off the bullseye target was considered a miss or +5 seconds, anything else out of the black was +1 second.
These drills emphasize that even little things like the timer, or pressing not to let down your team, can cause your brain to go mushy, and snatching the trigger is a typical result. As Larry points out, good trigger control practice isn’t an instantaneous fix for poor habits. It must be practiced over time, and will eventually make you a far better shooter than if you focused purely on sight alignment issues, grip issues, etc.
…continued below…
I was just mashing the button as fast as I could. Thank god my trigger control is just slightly better than my camera button mashing control. 
