Instructors:

Tom Perroni and Pete

Students – Les and son, KAC, Dale, and myself, all MDShooters. Only 5 of the planned 10 showed up. I know Ripper was diagnosed with pneumonia and that is serious but others did not show or call. Because of this I have a prediction – All future classes must be paid in full in advance, Tom needs to turn a profit. Tom, classy guy that he is, held the class anyway. 5 students to 2 instructors made for a great day of training for the 5 that showed!

Weather – Mild to partly awesome! T-shirts were the rule of the day!

Round counts – Over 200 bird shot, 6 00 buck (patterning), 12 slug, 120 9mm

Start – Class room lecture and power point presentation. Excellent material and the tag team instructional approach kept the class engaged. KAC and Les’ AARs covered the lectures in detail so I will stay high level.

Loading – This was divided in to lecture and hands on at the classroom and then used throughout the day at the range. There are two types of loading, combat reload and admin reload (see definitions below). After lecture the class used their shotguns and did both types of reloading with dummy rounds. This really sent the lesson home and paid off big time when we got to the range.

Definitions:

Combat reload – Dropping a shell in through the ejection port and then chambering the round (slide forward on a pump, slide release on a semi). This is done while keeping the shotgun pointed in the direction of the threat (the shotgun is ready to fire). A Combat reload can be done from up and over or down and around. Both ways have advantages and disadvantages. For me, up and over worked best for reloading from the side saddle shell carrier but down and under worked best when reloading from the belt.

Admin reload –This is done after the Combat reload. The operator loads shells in to the tube magazine while the shotgun remains pointed at the threat. Reengagement can occur at anytime as you are already on target.

Note: These techniques were used throughout the day.

Lunch – Evidently I am a cheap b****d and do not want anyone to waste training time on eating, instructors included. It is all about me after all. LOL. All kidding aside, everyone had brought a lunch except Pete, he did not get the memo. There was enough food so he was good to go. This was a good time for the students to gear up and prepare for the range.

Patterning – To get all 9 pellets of 00 buckshot reliably on target, 15 yards is the maximum range. Tom spoke highly of Tac8 00 buck and I may be able to extend that range with that ammo (instead of 9 pellets there are 8, this makes room for the flight control wad). I was using Federal 00 with a flight control wad of some sort and was patterning pretty tight compared to the other ammo my classmates were using. 15 yards is fine for my home defense needs as I do not live in a mansion. LOL!

Fight to your feet – You know the drill. You start lying on your back as if you were knocked over. From there you engage the target (paper, 5ish yards out) with 1 round holding the shotgun, turned 90 degrees, stock above your shoulder, weak arm locked out to absorb recoil (you will know if you got this wrong), sighting down the side of the barrel. Then you move to seated position shotgun either above your shoulder or rotated down on and engage the target again with one round, then the same for kneeling and standing.

One arm drills – Ouch. These drill had the shooter running his shotgun one handed, both strong and weak side. Pete had the Sarah Conner reloading technique down to a science. The other technique was to capture the shotgun between your legs and rack the slide to reload. Semi autos would have ruled here but the experience would have been missed. The class practiced these dry before going hot. Both were used but I think the capture method was the preferred technique. Oh yeah, this was one of the more strenuous drill we did. Arm pump anyone???

Slug, close range – Simple drill, starting with an empty gun combat load one slug and engage paper target with one round to the head, oh yeah the target was a bad guy holding a hostage. This drill helped us see where the slug will hit in relationship to our sights at close range. Pretty much POA is POI. We also did some quartering with buckshot and bird shot. If you only have a shotgun with shot and you need to take out the bad guy and he is holding a hostage move your POA up and away from the hostage side. If you know how your shotty patterns you should be able to estimate better where to aim. Quartering will not put all the pellets on target but will put some on while reducing the likelihood of hitting the hostage.

Note: Maximum effective range with a slug from a smooth bore is about 50 yards.

Slug, 20 yards – This drill utilized Tom’s new barricade with high, med, low ports, curb, railing, and wall. It is set about 20yards out from the new steel plate racks (one on each side of the range, 12 eight inch plates on each, very nice). There was a rifle steel silhouette set in front of the plate rack (5 plates visible from each side). The shooter engaged the rifle steel with one slug through the high port then transition to pistol and shot the plates from the lower wall. This drill was tough and it brought out the weakness in my pistol skills (it was a tough shot but I was not doing my part). As KAC said in his write up, Tom called an audible and we all got a much needed mini pistol refresher. KAC really did well, he cleared that rack like a champ. He credits Tom’s Tactical Pistol 1 and 2 courses but it was KAC behind the trigger. Both courses are now on my list of things to do.

Shooting on the move – Tom and Pete served up a dish of “let’s see what their made of” and it was good. And it went a little something like this:

Targets - Starting from range right the first rack of plates was target 1 (remember 12 plates) then the 5 paper targets about 5 yards apart were targets 2-6 and the last plate rack on range right was target 7.

The plate rack looked kind of like this but there were 12 plates and it was built like a brick house of poo.



Start – The shooter had anywhere from 1 to 3 rounds in the gun at the start (shooting a shotgun well in a tactical environment demands the shooter be proficient at reloading). The shooter then faced range right (all shooters were right handed) with shotty at low port. Upon the range command move the shooter walked until Pete called out contact left and a target number. Example: “contact left one two one” This command required the shooter to shoot one plate then the fist paper target then back to another plate. Pete served up many varied combinations including single handed and my favorite, load to capacity and unleash on the plate rack. Then we switched it up and moved from range right to range left. This means left hand carry and shooting. Oh yeah, and left hand and only left hand shooting/reloading.

Conclusion – We started with the basics and then advanced through tougher and tougher drills. We were pushed to failure then reeled back in. I consider myself fairly competent with a shotgun and still found myself learning new things about how to run a shotgun. Student experience ran from having never fired a shotgun to experienced 3 gunners. All students saw big improvements by the end of the day and left the farm with new tools in the tool box. This was a great course and I recommend it for both the beginner and experienced shooter.

Recommendations to Tom:

1. On the shoot and move drills, replace the paper targets with rifle steel. Instant feed back and less damage to the paper target holders.

2. More dummy rounds for class room drills.

Equipment recommendations:

1. California Competition shell holders. I like the 4 rounders. I can grab four shells and load the tube with one hand or select however many I needed.

2. Single Point Sling. Choose your poison. Good equipment is not cheap and cheap equipment is not good. My cheap hunting sling on my shotgun has got to go! Transitions were less than optimal. Pete rigged up a single point sling mount out of 550 cord for Dale and it worked great. I have a GGG single point sling mount but I need to make some modifications for it to work the way I want it too (such a fussy young man).

3. Side saddle shell holder. The one I use holds 6 shells. It is super quick to snatch a shell and roll my hand over top of the receiver to drop it the port. I will always add one of these to any shotgun I own. Note: on my 590A1 the serial number is covered by the side saddle shell carrier. Chad from Scott’s gunsmithing stamped the serial number on the carrier. He also did some trick clean up of the shell port.

JT http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=27925