AAR: M3 Strategies Handgun-1 with Stephen Pineau

After Action Report


Course: HANDGUN-1
Date: 04/27/2013
Location: Cresson, TX
Instructor: Stephen Pineau / M3 Strategies





Just a quick FYI, I am a novice shooter, 2 years in the making. I was considering taking my CHL sometime soon, but after taking this class, I have decided to wait. To me there is more to a firearm than JUST carrying it. Lately I’ve experienced people jumping on that bandwagon and not really understanding the responsibility involved in that. IT bothers me, it me bothers me a lot.
Shooting paper targets is great to practice “shooting” as WE call it. As a novice, I thought I was doing well with a 10” group at 10 yards and a couple MAGPUL DVD’s. Nope. Not this guy. I wanted to get better. With ammo the way it is, I wanted to make my target ammo work for me. What a better way to do that, I decided to take the class.
Honestly, the price that Stephen was asking for his HG1, your not going to find that anywhere. The level of instruction I got, because I listened, is invaluable. I don’t want to spoil it for you so I’m just going to give it to you in a nutshell form.
What I really liked prior to starting the course is that Stephen spoke a while about how there are other methods aside from lethal force. He preached the importance of keeping yourself out of bad situations. That’s an excellent way to begin a course like this. Right off the bat he was letting people know right then and there that he is not there to teach you how to use your gun so you can kill somebody. I don’t want people misconstruing this class as a MAGPUL DVD course, because it’s not. Stephen has centered this class around concealed lifestyle and applying proper fundamentals. Stephen took a look at everybody’s rig and asked us if that’s how we “carry” on a regular basis. My brother and I had our Blackhawk holsters with our Army/Navy store mag pouches. He’s right though, why train like that if that’s not how you would carry. He then moves on to talk about grip, stance, and the “compressed ready”. With regards to that, he reiterates how you can incorporate dryfire into you leisure time to improve your fundamentals. That is very important - taking what you get out of this class and practicing it over and over and over again until it becomes familiar. Again, this is not a run and gun course. There are lectures in between shooting exercises. We had a lengthy discussion during lunch and he even brought out one of his less lethal devices showing the class how efficiently it could ward off an attacker. Towards the end of the class we did this exercise called MALFUNCTION MAYHEM. This requires you to use a two-phase procedure on clearing malfunctions. The concept is very simple, but I found it tough to get used to right away. At one point my brothers Glock 19 got a “hard-locked casing” and had to be mortared. It was very interesting to watch because these are things that could really happen. A friend of mine, who also took the course with me, found out that his CZ was very difficult to mortar when he also got a stuck case as well. Now you start seeing things about your particular weapon system that may or may not be a good thing.
Throughout the lectures and exercises Stephen remained approachable. He’s got that “no question is stupid” attitude. He wants you to ask questions, he really cares about what he does. He really cares that you get something out of his course. Shit, the class was only supposed to be 8am-6pm. He stayed for an hour after the class ended and gave me pointers on how to shoulder my shotgun. The dude loves to teach as much as he loves to shoot. Show up with an open mind, you don’t necessarily have to take copious notes, but if you listen to him and use some common sense, I guarantee you will come out a better shooter. I keep stressing this, I’m a huge advocate about firearm responsibility, if you carry and you’ve never had any formal training such as this, please take a course. If not this one, take any. See how good your fundamentals really are. Remember, there are other lives out there you can save aside from yours, god forbid you ever have to use that thing. Thank you for your time.

A. Medina