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Ga Shooter
08-23-2011, 02:55 PM
Personal Tactics AAR;

O.k. This is my first ever AAR from my first ever professional training class, so this is going to be quite long. I am going to start with my background so everybody has an idea of where I am coming from. I am a 40 year old male who has grown up around firearms my whole life. My father instilled a passion for shooting and hunting from a very early age. I held a FFL license for a time and about a year ago got into a local IDPA club. Having concealed carry for many years and being a “good shot” I did not think I needed professional training until I started shooting in IDPA. After several months of being humbled by those around me and what I consider to be unacceptable score on the qualifiers I became afraid to carry for fear of getting into an encounter and hurting an innocent person. I came across a listing for advanced gun fighting class on Pistol-Forum.com. I checked out, as best as I could, the instructor with those who had trained with him in the past and decided to give him a call. His name is Robert Wilson Jr of Personal Tactics in McDonough, Ga. I left him a message and he returned my call that afternoon. He informed me that he thought I could take the advanced class but I decided to start at the beginning and take his beginners class first. He offers this class just about every other weekend. Here is my experience.

Training Day 1

Not being from the Atlanta area Robert was kind enough to meet me at a location that I could find and let me follow him to the class. We met at around 8:30am and drove to the classroom. I helped him set up and talked while we waited for the other students to show up. Class started sharply at 10am. He began by giving us a detailed description of who he was/is, the training and life experience that he has pertaining to defending yourself with and without a weapon. He then began immediately talking about what we would be learning in the next 2 days and what we would not be learning. Robert does not teach “gun game” tactics but self defense methods with firearms. To clarify he has competed in the different leagues and does not talk bad about them he just does not teach you how to win at them. In this class I will not go into the specifics of the class because it would take to long and not do it justice, but I will give an overview. Until about 1:45pm Robert talked about the mindset one must have in a life or death situation and how important proper mindset, skill, training and tactics are if you are going to be the one who survives. We watched many videos of police and civilian shootings and what precursors the bad guys displayed before an attack. We also went over what went right and what went wrong in all of the videos and what could have been done better. We did some brainstorming with different scenarios so we could predetermine proper course of action. For not being a lawyer he went into a good deal of Georgia law concerning the different carry methods, licensing, and self defense laws. Being a beginners class he also went over all the popular handgun cartridges and theory on why each caliber was invented. He also had a bag full of holsters and a few knives to show us. While this was remedial for me there was a female there who had never even held a firearm before, so I think this is important for this level class because you never know who might show up.From 1:45-2:30 we ate lunch. After lunch he put up some 6 inch circles for some dry fire practice. We went over the basic gun handling rules and then did several different drills for drawing, drawing from concealment, reloading, making clear and safe re-holstering. He used this time to check for eye dominance, our ability to handle a firearm safely and trigger control. Much to my surprise I am cross eye dominant, which explains a whole lot about my results at longer ranges :-). He showed me and the other guy there who was cross eye dominate how to overcome come that easily. You will have to take his class to find out I’m not telling. Class ended right at 6:00 pm.

Day 2 Training Day

I will keep this section much shorter., I promise. Again he let me follow him to the range. We showed early to set things up. Class started at 9 am. Again 4 rules of safe gun handling. He demonstrated the course of fire before every stage so we could see how it was done. Very thorough instructions and follow through. Robert took his time with each student and corrected problems as he saw them in a very professional manner. He even took about 15 minutes with the young lady by herself and got her on target and comfortable with shooting without the pressure of the other guys next to her. By the end of the day she was laughing and “having fun”(her words). We ran through normal beginner drills and worked our way up to a “taste of gunfighting” with a couple of drills from his advanced class. Again he told everybody that no one would be yelled at for going slow in this class that he was more interested in shot placement and safety than speed. We did static shooting and shooting on the move and shooting from different points of retention. Finally he gave us our “exam”. He does not believe in giving people a certificate if they cannot perform to a certain level. Class ended at about 3pm after about 400 rounds.

My thoughts:

I loved this class and I think Robert is a very good instructor. I really did not think going into this that I would learn very much but I was surprised and he helped me with several different things that I could be doing better on. I really appreciate the time he took with every student to make sure they were doing everything right to minimize training scars. After taking his class I have been fine tuning my fundamentals because of his instructions and I have already seen quite an improvement. I am really looking forward to taking his advanced class. I was very impressed and will be back for more.

Who should take this class:

EVERYBODY! If you carry a gun for a living or just to protect you and yours you need this class or one just like it. I cannot say how much my confidence level went up after this class and while I am NOT a proponent of state mandated training everybody who shoots a pistol could benefit from this class. If you live within a reasonable drive distance from the Atlanta area it would be worth your time, money and ammo to make the trip.

Weapon used:
Glock G17 Gen 4. This was an early release model without the “counterbore”. Installed 021 spring, Vicker’s Slide Release, Ameriglo Hackathorn sights. Approx. 400 rounds. 2 FTE. The 2 FTE are the first I have had with the pistol but in all fairness both were when we were running contact shot drills. I had never done that before so they could have been due to my grip on the gun.

To contact Robert :

http://www.gaprotectivemeasures.com/

Al T.
08-23-2011, 05:22 PM
Excellent review! Thanks!

VolGrad
08-23-2011, 08:00 PM
I took Roberts advanced pistol class last year in the spring and will attest to value of his instruction. I learned a lot and found the drills used to be quite good. I too increased my confidence and skill as a result.

Al T.
08-24-2011, 07:59 AM
I have a lot of interest in this guy as I have some relatives in the area that want to learn to shoot. I reviewed a lot of his Youtube tapes.

I got the impression that he does not use/teach the four count draw. Is this correct?

Ga Shooter
08-24-2011, 09:22 AM
I have a lot of interest in this guy as I have some relatives in the area that want to learn to shoot. I reviewed a lot of his Youtube tapes.

I got the impression that he does not use/teach the four count draw. Is this correct?

I saw his YouTube videos and they really don't tell the story but they are fun to watch. He does teach the 4 count draw.

Al T.
08-24-2011, 10:34 AM
Excellent! Thanks! :)