I am reading it now. It is a good read, but I am interested in other opinions.
Read it a few years ago. Great book and I wish I could have trained with him prior to his death
I’ve got it in my library.
The information on ballistics is dated and I don’t necessarily agree with everything Mr. Cirillo (RIP) presented in the gear discussion, but the sections on fighting and mindset are very valuable, in my view.
Walt Rauch has an excellent book out there as well.
Have an autographed copy. Worthwhile read. As noted, some info is dated.
I read it several years ago. It was a worthwhile read.
Be sure to also pick up “Jim Cirillo’s Tales of the Stakeout Squad” by my pal Paul Kirchner. It is a must for one’s library.
Rosco
I just finished it. Everything he wrote on mindset jives with my experience, admittedly my experience is much less than his.
It is a sobering point that many excellent shooters are not capable of performing well in actual combat.
I certainly agree with his assessment about IPSC. Again, I have limited experience in that world, but I did shoot in one IPSC match. I used a stock Glock 17 (got a lot of looks) and shot accurately, if slow, but one particular incident stays with me. The last target on one stage was closed door that you approached, opened, and engaged a target at point blank. What happened was; I approached the door, opened it, stood in arms reach of the target and performed a reload on my empty gun, and finally shot the target. Ha, I don’t think I lost points for that one. Also, the fact that shooters got to rehearse the stage before actually shooting certainly goes against the principles of training that Cirillo advocated; though I can understand the safety factor. Like it said in the book, IPSC should probably be renamed ISC.
It indicates the disconnect between police management and the job that the NYPD command staff expected former firearms instructors to volunteer to work a high risk assignment. While it doesn’t apply to the people in my in-service training unit nor to many other commands, many instructors are looking for the Monday to Friday assignment with no risk of confrontation
It’s an interesting look at what worked for him at the time. I have an autographed copy that sits in my bookshelf o’ favorites, and I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Cirillo and hear some of his stories firsthand before he passed on.
As previously stated, a lot of the ballistics info is dated, but the mindset aspects are timeless.
i have the book and have trained with Jim back in the day. the book is great but to train with the man and hear the stories was worth the price of addmition.
I picked up a copy last weekend at the gun show. It’s a good read, please pass on my compliments to Mr. Kirchner.