The Phone Call Refresher Course

A female acquaintance called while I was taking a break from swearing at the mess a coworker left me, yesterday. She asked if I had any pepper spray she could borrow since her unit had broken. Told her she could have some of mine and ordered myself a replacement when I got home. Easy enough.

But our conversation got to the reason behind the evening call - she was planning to go pick up a ram to add to her flock from a guy she didn't know a couple counties away. From there, her concerns over being rusty with her .380 Shield EZ came up so she would just make do with spray and a knife. I pushed her a bit and found a block of free time before lunch, today, she could fit in to meet me at the range. A hole in the schedule best measured in minutes and one box of ammunition (preferably with enough left as a carry load) were what she had to work with. My break being over, I wrote up a lesson plan on company time...


3 Yards - 18 rounds - Werner-esque Rule of Threes drills:

Using the 6" white circle in the Pistol-Training Q target, we went through three reps of the following
1) Low-ready to three shots
2) High compressed ready to two shots
3) Draw to a single shot

Working back to the draw, varied strings of fire from one to three rounds, lots of safety usage.


5 Yards - 8+1 rounds - Safety Safety Safety:

Stapling a 6" paper plate over the target and taping any loose hits from before, we added a precise aiming spot to the center of the plate. She then went through an entire 8+1 load of low-ready to a single shot and back to low-ready.

A longer range, reasonably tight target, and reps of safety engagement/disengagement. She kept all hits on the plate. All but a couple were in the 4" center flat as an opportunity to offer an attagirl.


7 yards - 10 rounds - The Pick-Up Truck Qual:

With a 3/4 ton pick-up running near enough seven yards in length, we put up some BT-5 targets and ran the LAPD retired officer qualification. She mashed one trigger pull to dump one in the gut-level 5 zone, one in the 8, a couple in the 9, and other six in the 10 ring.


And finally brush/lube the pistol before policing the range.


Our trip went about as planned but we added several single shots from the draw into a 2" circle on the Pistol-Training target to tighten things up and have a reminder to "aim small, miss small" before moving back to 5 yards. She felt confident enough in the refresher and a suggested dryfire drill* for the morning of that she'll be carrying the pistol along on her trip in addition to her fresh spray. Did we conquer the world in about forty rounds fired? No. Did we knock the rust off and establish some measured confidence? Yes. Particularly with range conditions featuring wind stout enough to tear paper targets, no gloves, temperature in the twenties, and the guy next to us on the firing line sighting in a braked AR.


* Up to a target and off safe, back down to ready and on safe. Maybe work in some trigger presses if she wishes but the primary focus is reps of on target, off safe; off target, on safe.

You done good! Back in the day when we didn't shoot as much as now it could sometimes be 2 months from one range trip to the next. We almost made it a rule; the first box we shared was mainly just to get us back to being used to shooting again. Kept the targets at 20ft and didn't care too much about accuracy. We used 3 inch dots at that time (indoor range, pretty slow fie only) & I can remember both of us saying, yeah, that was a miss but the bad guy is still hit pretty badly.