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Training
Minute - Rollover Prone
Rollover
prone and its varients is a
critical skill in being able to shoot under obstacles. Watch
lead Tiger Valley
instructor T.J. Pilling demonstrate the basics of rollover prone here.
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Elm Fork Wednesday Night Classes
The month of
June saw two more Tiger Valley evening classes at Elm Fork.
We get a wide range of shooters for these classes, including
many who have never had formal firearms instruction before. It's an
excellent chance to test the waters and see what Tiger Valley is all
about.
On July 9th we are offering an "AK Operator's" class. The AK
differs from the AR in many respects, especially in reloading and
safely working the weapon system. The class will touch on
carbine fundamentals and spend much of its time on AK-specific skills.
On July 23 is the "Advanced CQB Pistol". The focus will be on
using the pistol as a CQB weapon, with weapons retention, ground
fighting, and push-off drills.
Beginner to advanced students will all take away something from these
classes. Bring your weapon, 200 rounds of ammunition, and
safety gear. AK students will also need two magazine pouches.
The cost is $65, runs from 6:30 PM to 9 PM, and
pre-registration is not required, just show up and shoot.
On August 6, we are offering our first "Immediate Action Medical"
class. A Tiger Valley instructor will explain the tactical side
of dealing with such situations and an ER Doctor will brief students on
the basics of stabilizing the victim. The course includes a
blow-out medical kit that all students will take from the class.
The course is $85, including the medical kit, and runs from 6:30
PM to 9 PM. For this class, pre-registration is absolutely
required. Drop off your check to Tiger Valley's address listed at
the bottom of this newsletter or pay online to reserve your spot in the class. Space is limited.
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Tiger
Valley at the National SWAT
Championships
by T.J. Pilling
The additional
instructors brought by the growth and success of Tiger Valley has
provided me the opportunity to travel off
site to conduct training at various ranges and events. One
such event was the National SWAT Championships, conducted at the
Highland Ranch Law Enforcement Center near Denver, Colorado.
This event started on May 19th with two days of classes, followed by a
vendor day, and ending with two days of competition.
Thirty teams competed this year, with a Canadian teaming winning the
honors. The team that traveled the furthest to participate
came
from Portugal, the Maritima National SWAT team.
Tiger Valley taught two 1-day classes at the SWAT Championships on
pistol tactics. We had 18 or so shooters in both
classes.
We harped on second sight picture and worked off the timer on moving
and shooting, singles, doubles, target to target, transition drills,
drawing from the holster and most of all the reloads.
When first put to the timer reloads were in the 5-6 second times with a
few who shot very quickly. I explained that during a
competition,
reloads were going to separate the teams more then anything.
We
demonstrated that split times between the fastest shooters and the
slowest were only hundredths of a second apart. If you looked
at
the speed that reload times were being shot, it could be 3-4 seconds
difference. Add three reloads during a stage and that could
mean
12 seconds.
We had everyone start in slow motion and corrected as many flaws as we
could with the time allowed. Good down angle with the
magazine
release, if the slide went home when the magazine was bumped, not to
shuck live round on the ground were a few of the basics. We
pressed to keep the weapon up and in front of your body and not lose
sight of the targets and take the time to look at the magazine well and
get the reload on the first stab.
As always, the same tactics that we teach in the normal pistol classes
are the same that we were teaching to the likes of the Maritima
National SWAT team and they seemed to pull some good things from it.
They had a ton of vendors present: LaRue, POF, H&K, Mike Gibson
of
MGM targets to name of few. It was a great event,
professionally
done with great care on all levels. My hat is off to the
organizers of the National SWAT Championships, who worked so hard to
bring quality training and competition to the Denver area.
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Fundamentals
– Not
Those Again!
by Wayne Dobbs
We’re
going to spend some time
over the next few newsletters discussing some important fundamentals
whose proper execution are required to be a successful pistol
shooter. All of them are important at some level in
guaranteeing
good shooting results, but I’m going to take a risk here and
rank
them as “important”, “very
important” and
“critical”. These prioritizations will be
based on my
near 30 years of experience and knowledge in delivering firearms
training and in the operational use of service weapons.
It’s not my intention to start a dispute with anybody over
how I
rank these areas, but if that happens, it means that somebody is paying
attention. If the dispute is based on objectivity and solid
experience from another then we’ll all benefit and learn from
that discussion.
Fundamentals are not sexy and they’re not exciting, but they
are
essential for success, whether your goals are to effectively use a
pistol (or revolver for us old guys!) for self-defense, competition,
hunting or other recreational shooting. I spend
quite a bit
of time shooting at various venues and it’s my opinion, based
on
thousands of observations at those places, that the overwhelming
majority of “shooters” out there are either
completely
ignorant of proper fundamentals or are too lazy to employ
them.
Some of that is the shooters’ fault and some; perhaps most of
it
is due to the incompetence of their so-called
“instructors”. You can watch those folks
blasting
away at their targets and see that lack of knowledge very clearly,
since they are missing monster-sized targets at close range and
thinking that their 12” groups at seven yards are a truly
heroic
feat! In reality, they are wasting time, ammunition and money
(although the commercial ranges and ammo companies are happy to have
them around!). I think I just dissed a bunch of cops with that
observation! Oh well, that’s OK since I retired
from that
job after 25 years and know more ugly little secrets about cops, guns
and police training than the law should allow!
Larry Vickers is a retired US Army Delta operator, firearms trainer,
gunsmith and industry consultant whom I’ve been able to train
with and he blew me away with a remark during a recent class.
He
said, “Shooting a pistol is simple…but
it’s
NOT easy”. That’s 100%
accurate. It is simple
in that all we do is a) find the target, b) align the pistol on the
target and c) keep the pistol aligned on the target while we deliver
the shot. The difficulty rears up when we discover that
executing
those three steps requires levels of mental and physical energy and focus
that most folks don’t have on demand. If you want
that
mental and physical capacity you can have it, but it will take LOTS of
continuing work on your part. It’s my intention to
show you
what those fundamentals are in a concise manner and help you to
recognize how to achieve them.
If you’re a rifle shooter you may be saying that you already
know
what you need to know and no pistol shooter or instructor has anything
to teach you. I’ll respond to that bit of arrogant
thinking
by saying that ANY excellent motor skills
“operator” has
something we can learn from, be they a shooter, golfer, baseball
hitter, race car driver, mountain climber or whatever else they may be
skilled at! All of the foregoing practitioners require
excellent
skills execution at a subconscious level under extreme duress of some
type to achieve excellence in their field. Therefore, we can
learn from them about how to hold a metal (or polymer)
“rock” and under pressure, deliver shots from it to
save
our lives, win a contest, impress our friends, take a game animal or
whatever else the situation requires. Besides, I’ve
seen
that learning to shoot a pistol WELL will make shooting a rifle a piece
of cake. I’ve also seen more than a few really good
precision rifle shooters really stink up the place when you asked them
to perform with a pistol.
We’re going to cover stances, grips, sight usage, trigger
control
and follow through over the next few newsletters. Hopefully,
you’re going to have some “light bulb
moments” about
these skills and I’m going to have a blast passing the
information on. Feel free to contact me and give me feedback
as
we go along. I will know that we’re achieving
success when
I see that I’m learning as much or more than you guys are!
Next time: Stance (an “important”
fundamental)
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Honorable
Mention - "Citizen/Soldier"
The rock 'n roll industry is pretty consistent in its "I Hate America"
messaging. Standing apart from this monotonous crowd is a
fine
group of guys from Mississippi who make up the band 3 Doors Down.
Their self-titled and most recent album contains "Citizen/Soldier",
a proud tribute to all of those who serve in the National Guard.
Our hats are off to 3 Doors Down.
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Previous
Newsletters Available Online!
Check out our previous
newletters for fantastic training videos, equipment
reviews, and special articles. Find them here.
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Upcoming
Events
June
July
August
September
October
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Tiger Valley LLC.
Range Address: Hwy 84 at Joe Russell Rd. | Prairie Hill, TX 76678
Mailing Address: 6309 Scottsboro Ln. | Garland, TX 75044
Cell: (972)977-9512 |
