brchixwing
Sharpshooter
Highly recommend this course! Aaron Cowan's videos on YouTube are great, and his in person classes are even better. He is a no-BS trainer that develops his curriculum very thoughtfully for the real world, and clearly delineates what is best for civilians / LE and why (and if you ask questions, he goes down the rabbit hole for logic). Aaron doesn't just lecture and run drills, he pro-actively evaluates each shooter's form & targets. I took the course with a few friends and we all found the class to be a tremendous value add, I plan on re-taking next year.
Key takeaways worth sharing
Key takeaways worth sharing
- The RDS on a handgun is a diagnostic tool, every time you take a shot you have real time data on your shooting. I found myself adjusting my grip between drills, consciously watching how the dot moved when I presented the gun and more importantly when I was shooting. Watching how the dot bounces during shots tells you a lot about your grip.
- At self defense distance, don't worry about parallax. You can accurately fire the handgun with the dot on the far edges of the screen. For me personally, I shaved off time on every shot by not consciously centering the dot at all on the glass.
- You don't need to have the dot perfectly centered, take the shot when the range of movement of the dot approximates the size of the parameters (we used the A-Zone on his targets).
- You quickly realize where the dot should be with common sense but you should practice finding it from different positions. Day one we practiced a bit from high ready, low ready, post reload.
- You can accurately shoot your handgun with the front window completely obscured. We masked off the front of our optics and shot a few drills, even at distance this works very well.
- You can generally shoot your handgun with the entire sight obscured, the optic can be used to point shoot, but you will shoot higher than you expect
- Clearing type 3 malfunctions (double feed), strip the mag and rack it hard, don't toss your mag -- its still good if it did not confetti. Philosophically, another takeaway from this drill was that many trainers teach things "they way things have always been done", which is not prudent.
- Great trainers don't waste class time zeroing and telling irrelevant stories on the line, we wasted no time at all during the entire weekend. Everyone came with their weapons zeroed and even during our breaks we discussed gear.
- If you take Aaron's class, he has you shoot a "qualifier" drill at the end, that demonstrates that you were proficient & passed the course. This may come in hand should you need an expert for testimony, Aaron knows how to make a case.
- He started his class at 9AM sharp with a short safety brief, no zeroing as mentioned so come with your handgun ready to go. Have mags to carry at least 60 rounds on the line. Round count was well below the stated 1000, est. 300-350 per day.
- The class was suitable for different levels of experience. I was relatively new (<1000 rounds through RDS handgun prior), and some guys have shot RDS handgun for years.
- You can run any RDS handgun, LEO's shot their service weapons, some civilians ran fancy tricked out guns, I comfortably ran a subcompact (Glock 43x) the entire weekend.
- You can run any holster, LEO's ran their duty belts, Aaron runs an appendix IWB rig (which is impressive with a light and comp), I shot from concealment with an OWB
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