MDS
11-09-2014, 02:10 PM
This weekend, I drove to the 88 Tactical facility in Tekamah, NE to meet and hang out with some people I've met on BushcraftUSA forum. I've been spending a lot of time in the woods since I move to CO and the people at BCUSA are a fine bunch, rivaled only by PFC in terms of a place on the Internet where civility rules and just being full of good people. I went mostly to learn and practice bushcraft, and to meet and greet the forum members, but part of the weekend's agenda included a couple of miniature pistol and tactics classes. I had no idea what to expect from this, but of course I'm not going to pass up any chance to learn and see how people do things!
The four mini-classes were a close-range "unsighted fire" segment, a fundamentals session, a low-light segment, and a kit-bag segment.
Unfortunately, I was getting sick so I bailed last night, and am missing the kit-bag segment today. But I did discuss with the instructor, Kurt, and he basically said that 1) the HPG video on drawing from the kit bag is the basis. (I think he was referring to this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssjLQhhzEa8), it goes into a good bit of detail.) Kurt does prefer to use a small holster, like the VG2. The main thing he emphasized was to make the unholstering process as rock-solid as possible; that is, the bag, and the holster inside the bag, should move as little as possible while you take the pistol out. So, as Scott Hill mentioned in the video, tie the holster down as tight as possible so the cord attaching the holster to the inside of the kit bag doesn't give you a lot of room to pull before the holster pops off. Kurt went to far as to tighten the loop inside the kit bag, to really minimize the slack available. Further, Kurt advocates holding the kit bag to your chest with your off-hand (being careful to keep the elbow high and out of the muzzle's path) so that the bag doesn't move on your body as you draw. I'm sorry I missed this class, it's probably going on, like, right now as I type. But I think these are the main take aways he intended to give.
The low-light segment happened on Friday night. Instead of yet another take on which technique to use to shoot with a flashlight, this was a pure light tactics intro. Using a flashlight effectively when there is or might be a bad guy hiding in the dark, independently of actually shooting with a flashlight. Just a couple of hours in the dark through a building with a wide array of window, corner, door, and room configurations. Also outside, especially around cars. The idea was to discuss how to use light effectively to help you see what you need to see, while giving the adversary as little benefit as possible in terms of letting them see what's going on and trying to keep from presenting yourself as an easy target. From that perspective it had a bit of a room-clearing flavor, even though that wasn't the topic. An easy lesson that's very powerful is the idea of organizing your movement so it goes from darker places to more well-lit places. I learned a ton about using the reflective properties of various surfaces to illuminate a large area quickly. This lets you get a flash picture then move away so to process and think about the afterimage, rather than sitting like a target while I shine the light slowly all around. The vehicle stuff was taught from the perspective of an officer approaching a vehicle at night - I'm not a cop but the concepts were well developed and clearly presented, and they're applicable to all kinds of situations. All in all, I enjoyed this segment a lot. I'd like to take a longer class just on this topic.
The fundamentals session wasn't earth-shattering. What it was was grounded and solid and efficient. During a 2-hour segment there just wasn't enough time to do more than introduce the fundamentals and do some basic diagnosis for the students that needed it most. But it's always good to focus on the fundamentals. The class was run smoothly, with one instructor, and 4 AI's for safety and personalized attention. With a huge array of gear and experience on the line, the AI's were constantly dealing with safety (e.g., the guy with the cross-draw holster was put on the safe end of the line and watched closely,) manipulations (the guy with the break-top revolver got a lot of personalized attention for his unique procedures,) malfuntions, and other issues. These were all handled with grace and ease, and without negatively impacting the rest of the class. For a lot of folks there, this was their first ever formal training. They all walked away much better shooters than they showed up. The rest of us walked away with a nice tune-up. It's hard to really get a sense of the instructors' nuances from such a short session, but it's obvious there's no snake oil or tactifool shenanigans here. If a buddy told me he was taking a fundamentals class from these guys as his first class, I would heartily approve.
The "unsighted fire" segment was very interesting to me, because I've never taken a class on that. The idea isn't at all like hip-shooting or anything. You do all the same things you do during regular sighted fire....except you just keep your focus on the threat instead of bringing them back to the sights. I was happy to hear that their opinion is that normal sighted fire is the ideal, and that practicing that way is how you build skill. Their thinking is that during a close distance fight, say about 5 yards and in, you're unlikely to have time to adequately focus on the sights before shooting - and that even if you did have time, you weren't likely to overcome the natural tendency to keep focusing on the threat. So instead of fighting that reality, they believe you should accept that you probably won't use your sights very rigorously or at all during a fight, and make sure you can make adequate hits without using your sights. "Acceptable accuracy" for unsighted fire is about a palm-sized group at 3-5yd. "Tight groups look good, but don't cheat yourself from this learning experience by using your sights - see what you can do while staying focused on the threat." I honestly had trouble looking at the threat, my OAK VISION is ingrained enough that I had to make a concentrated effort to keep looking at the target...and often failed even with consciously trying! I won't lie, I was pretty pleased about that. At the same time, I got enough reps of truly unsighted fire (again, this is still with press-out at eye level, just no fine adjustments based on feedback from the sights because I am barely or not at all aware of the sights while truly focused on the target) that I'm confident I can keep COM hits at speed, if my OAK VISION fails me during a real fight. In the end, I came away with a powerful insight: it seems to me that sighted vs unsighted fire is really a spectrum, rather than a binary choice. The common phrase, "see what you need to see" is an expression of that spectrum. When you don't need to see almost anything at all then true unsighted fire is OK! When you need to make a tight, careful headshot, then you need to be able to count those serrations on your front sight. There's an infinite number of settings in between. And after all's said and done, you'll get the best sight picture you can manage within the time frame dictated by the situation. For myself, I'll continue to practice with full-on OAK VISION...but I may spend a few rounds once in a while doing unsighted fire just so I know what I'm capable of.
I won't bore this forum with the fire- and shelter- and knot- and other bush-related stuff I learned. 88 Tactical is a great group of guys, and they also offers wilderness, medical, and other classes. I'm going to see if I can swing a wilderness class with them in December.
The four mini-classes were a close-range "unsighted fire" segment, a fundamentals session, a low-light segment, and a kit-bag segment.
Unfortunately, I was getting sick so I bailed last night, and am missing the kit-bag segment today. But I did discuss with the instructor, Kurt, and he basically said that 1) the HPG video on drawing from the kit bag is the basis. (I think he was referring to this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssjLQhhzEa8), it goes into a good bit of detail.) Kurt does prefer to use a small holster, like the VG2. The main thing he emphasized was to make the unholstering process as rock-solid as possible; that is, the bag, and the holster inside the bag, should move as little as possible while you take the pistol out. So, as Scott Hill mentioned in the video, tie the holster down as tight as possible so the cord attaching the holster to the inside of the kit bag doesn't give you a lot of room to pull before the holster pops off. Kurt went to far as to tighten the loop inside the kit bag, to really minimize the slack available. Further, Kurt advocates holding the kit bag to your chest with your off-hand (being careful to keep the elbow high and out of the muzzle's path) so that the bag doesn't move on your body as you draw. I'm sorry I missed this class, it's probably going on, like, right now as I type. But I think these are the main take aways he intended to give.
The low-light segment happened on Friday night. Instead of yet another take on which technique to use to shoot with a flashlight, this was a pure light tactics intro. Using a flashlight effectively when there is or might be a bad guy hiding in the dark, independently of actually shooting with a flashlight. Just a couple of hours in the dark through a building with a wide array of window, corner, door, and room configurations. Also outside, especially around cars. The idea was to discuss how to use light effectively to help you see what you need to see, while giving the adversary as little benefit as possible in terms of letting them see what's going on and trying to keep from presenting yourself as an easy target. From that perspective it had a bit of a room-clearing flavor, even though that wasn't the topic. An easy lesson that's very powerful is the idea of organizing your movement so it goes from darker places to more well-lit places. I learned a ton about using the reflective properties of various surfaces to illuminate a large area quickly. This lets you get a flash picture then move away so to process and think about the afterimage, rather than sitting like a target while I shine the light slowly all around. The vehicle stuff was taught from the perspective of an officer approaching a vehicle at night - I'm not a cop but the concepts were well developed and clearly presented, and they're applicable to all kinds of situations. All in all, I enjoyed this segment a lot. I'd like to take a longer class just on this topic.
The fundamentals session wasn't earth-shattering. What it was was grounded and solid and efficient. During a 2-hour segment there just wasn't enough time to do more than introduce the fundamentals and do some basic diagnosis for the students that needed it most. But it's always good to focus on the fundamentals. The class was run smoothly, with one instructor, and 4 AI's for safety and personalized attention. With a huge array of gear and experience on the line, the AI's were constantly dealing with safety (e.g., the guy with the cross-draw holster was put on the safe end of the line and watched closely,) manipulations (the guy with the break-top revolver got a lot of personalized attention for his unique procedures,) malfuntions, and other issues. These were all handled with grace and ease, and without negatively impacting the rest of the class. For a lot of folks there, this was their first ever formal training. They all walked away much better shooters than they showed up. The rest of us walked away with a nice tune-up. It's hard to really get a sense of the instructors' nuances from such a short session, but it's obvious there's no snake oil or tactifool shenanigans here. If a buddy told me he was taking a fundamentals class from these guys as his first class, I would heartily approve.
The "unsighted fire" segment was very interesting to me, because I've never taken a class on that. The idea isn't at all like hip-shooting or anything. You do all the same things you do during regular sighted fire....except you just keep your focus on the threat instead of bringing them back to the sights. I was happy to hear that their opinion is that normal sighted fire is the ideal, and that practicing that way is how you build skill. Their thinking is that during a close distance fight, say about 5 yards and in, you're unlikely to have time to adequately focus on the sights before shooting - and that even if you did have time, you weren't likely to overcome the natural tendency to keep focusing on the threat. So instead of fighting that reality, they believe you should accept that you probably won't use your sights very rigorously or at all during a fight, and make sure you can make adequate hits without using your sights. "Acceptable accuracy" for unsighted fire is about a palm-sized group at 3-5yd. "Tight groups look good, but don't cheat yourself from this learning experience by using your sights - see what you can do while staying focused on the threat." I honestly had trouble looking at the threat, my OAK VISION is ingrained enough that I had to make a concentrated effort to keep looking at the target...and often failed even with consciously trying! I won't lie, I was pretty pleased about that. At the same time, I got enough reps of truly unsighted fire (again, this is still with press-out at eye level, just no fine adjustments based on feedback from the sights because I am barely or not at all aware of the sights while truly focused on the target) that I'm confident I can keep COM hits at speed, if my OAK VISION fails me during a real fight. In the end, I came away with a powerful insight: it seems to me that sighted vs unsighted fire is really a spectrum, rather than a binary choice. The common phrase, "see what you need to see" is an expression of that spectrum. When you don't need to see almost anything at all then true unsighted fire is OK! When you need to make a tight, careful headshot, then you need to be able to count those serrations on your front sight. There's an infinite number of settings in between. And after all's said and done, you'll get the best sight picture you can manage within the time frame dictated by the situation. For myself, I'll continue to practice with full-on OAK VISION...but I may spend a few rounds once in a while doing unsighted fire just so I know what I'm capable of.
I won't bore this forum with the fire- and shelter- and knot- and other bush-related stuff I learned. 88 Tactical is a great group of guys, and they also offers wilderness, medical, and other classes. I'm going to see if I can swing a wilderness class with them in December.