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View Full Version : AAR Pat Goodale PFT's Handgun CQB - 17 & 18 Sept 2011 - Alderson, WV



greyghost
09-20-2011, 02:28 PM
The past weekend I had the opportunity to attend PFT's Handgun CQB class held 17-18 September 2011 at their home facility near Alderson, WV. This will be the first time I have taken this class from PFT but have trained with Pat on several occasions prior.

This class consisted of 15 good shooters, broken down to 14 males and 1 female. Instruction would be conducted by Pat Goodale and Rob Tackett.

Weather for both days would be outstanding. Temperatures were from mid-50s to low-70s and mostly overcast with some sun making its way through later on T2.

T1:

We began at 0900 in the class room for a short admin and safety brief. Following that we had about an hour instruction on mindset, tactics, and real world focus on dealing with VCAs.

Now it was time to hit the range for some warm up and drills. We started on paper targets and began with a dot drill to get everyone warm and ready. Then we moved to shooting IPSC style targets and worked on timed drills. Expanding further we worked at contact distances, shooting from retention. Combining strikes and spears with retention firing. Working back to about 12 yards. These drills lead to some of the basics PFT stresses during the week; NSRs and managing ammo.

PFT teaches 3 basic engagement zones. Center chest, pelvic, and head. These lead to the Vertical NSR that PFT recommends. This is basically a NSR that zippers up the body from pelvis to head through the entire line of the body.
Managing ammo was stressed and the 2 basic reloads are the tactical and emergency reloads. They teach 2 basic tactical reloads, one of which is to remove the magazine from the pistol secure it and load with a full magazine. Another one they teach is to bring the new magazine to the pistol and then do the magazine exchange. However they are not married to any style and one of the students was performing his tactical reloads by dropping the magazine and loading a fresh one, a basic speed reload then during the lull bending down and retaining the partial magazine. The shooter explained his reasoning and they had no problems with this.

We worked on strong and weak hand only drills as well as began working on more dynamic drills. Started on movement to cover, movement from cover, movement around cover, and movement back to cover. This lead to some more dynamic drills. Ran a few drills with lateral movement from cover to cover. We ran the zig-zag drill which had the shooting changing directions multiple times while moving forward and engaging the threat. We also ran a shuttle drill where we dash laterally several times, changing directions while engaging targets using both primary and off-hand.

This lead to the 180 drill. Where you enter from a doorway to a step-wall engaging targets from the various steps then moving cover to engage more targets then going back to another step wall and then to another barricade to engage more targets. This was done with 4 people on the range and was fairly intense. Looks of movement and over shooters shooting behind and beside you...very cool and not something you can do just anywhere.

Finished off the day on the plate rack to cool off and to keep the competitive juices flowing as you were shooting with/against another student.

T2:

Started with a warm up on paper and moved into some of the ground fighting portion. Moved into drills where we were shooting from right/left side fetal, roll-over prone, supine, and from the "felony" prone position. Fighting up from the position, to kneeing, then to standing.

Things heated up from there...lots of stuff today. Got to work on a reactionary target that presented itself for about 1.5 seconds and was required to be engaged from the holster. Then moving to the downed partner drill, here we had to fight from cover to get to our partner who was a 160lbs or so railroad tie and drag them to cover and then re-engage the threat.

Had a "bloody hands" drill where we used Engine Tuner to get our hands and pistol all nice and lubed up. And working with a doctored magazine had to work with malfunctions as well as a very slippery firearm to engage the threat. This lead to another interesting drill where you got to retard the slide of your firearm as Rob fired it for you. Leading to a drill with a malfunctioning firearms and having to engage a threat at contact distance, conducting an NSR and moving to cover to engage the threats buddies who happened to show up.

Things heat up again. Another drill has us at contact distance trying to de-escalate a situation, moving away from the threat and then finally when away turning and walking from threat...then Pat hits you with his Singapore training cane (simulating taking a hit) causing you to go down, clear the holster and engage the target from the fetal position.

More fun...and time to get you even more out of your comfort zone. Seated in a chair, you are attacked and are forced to engage your threat after getting driven into the ground by Rob as he knocks your ass out of the chair and onto your back...even better when the back of your head bounces off the ground and your feet and somehow now entwined in the chair.

Haven't had lunch yet which is a good thing based on what's coming next. It’s time to play spin the shooter. In this drill we get blindfolded and spun around by our fellow students for a good 20 or so seconds...then it's go time, blind fold is ripped off and you have to make your way to your weapon which is on the ground about 5 yards away in condition 3. World is spinning but you need to engage your target which is now about 10 yards away 6 times....Pat recommends staying low as you will be able to deal with the disorientation and spinning better than if you are standing up which is good since I hit the ground after the spinning and had to crawl to the pistol anyway Smile

Now on to some weapon retention stuff. Here we have exchanged our firearm for a blue gun and our actual weapon is located in condition 3 downrange. Object of this drill is to retain your weapon then when time is called get to your real weapon and engage the target. For me, Rob and three of the big guys gave me a very nice beat down for about 20 seconds as I struggled to maintain control...which I did thankfully, I know that those 20 or so seconds seemed like a lifetime and that was the idea...this really has a drill that made you understand how important it is to retain your firearm.
Last drill before lunch was an instructor on top of us in the mount position and various hulks of students holding us down with our goal of fighting out of this and engaging our threat. After this struggle, you still need to draw and engage target while controlling the instructor.

This was a great way to break for lunch...we needed the short break it would give us.

After lunch we moved on to a our first house scenario. Here was a simple one room clear with you starting in the living room watching TV...simple isn't the proper word as anyone who has done work in a shoot house knows. Excellent scenario that will build us up for later in the day.

Time for some real world windshield work. Rob and PFT have put together an awesome windshield simulator system. This is able to hold a real windshield at the correct angles of a real vehicle and allows you to sit behind the windshield as you would in a real car. Various calibers were used as well as FMJ and carry ammo to see how everything is effect under real world conditions and how point of aim/point of impact is effected and deflection of a windshield effects trajectory. One of the students had a .380 Ruger LCP and it was a learning experience to see how the .380 round was effected by the windshield...Very very cool.

Now we moved into more vehicle operations. We ran drills both by ourselves and with a teammate and worked around the car shooting various positions and from a variety of angles. The teamwork function was outstanding and it says a lots where I can operate out of a car with a partner who I had never shot with prior to the weekend, it says a lot about the instruction at PFT and the students themselves.

Now we started working on Fighting Out of the Hole and Fighting Into the Hole. Starting from contact distance, had to fight out of the hole and our contact target with an NSR and then engage 4 additional targets at various ranges and angles while fighting to cover. Then this was reversed as we fought from cover into the hole and finishing with a contact distance NSR and firing from retention.

Next up was the more complex shoot house scenario. Here we had to clear multiple rooms and secure the house. This scenario was well thought out and had a lot of situations that really pushed you and showed you how fucked you can be in a situation. Like Pat says, there are no good answers just bad and worse ones. I won't spoil the fun of the house but there were shoot/no-shoot, hostages, and some really mind-fucking photo realistic targets that can make your head spin. The house was able to give us low light and no light which necessitated the use of a light to clear.

We ended the day on a modified Tuller Drill using some of the Clint Smith 3-D targets where a balloon is covered by a t-shirt and you have to hit the balloon to drop the threat. The mover system had the threat moving at you but also allowed it to sway from side to side which increased the difficulty of the drill. Not to mention that Pat was standing next to you with Shocknife , which simulates the feeling of being cut. Like Pat says, "No one is afraid of a plastic knife". This was a great motivator and getting hit with it on the inner thigh is not the best feeling in the world.

Ended the day with a couple of cool down runs on the steel plates with and against our fellow students.

Gear:
I ran my Glock 19 RFT2 and it ran without issues. On TD1 I ran an RCS Phantom and on TD2 an RCS Phantom LC as I was running with my Surefire X300 on TD2 these as usual ran great.

Most of the shooters were running Glocks, a few had Sigs, one XD, and one shooter was running a 9mm Ruger.

Only equipment issue was a late model high round count Glock that suffered a broken trigger spring, shooter was able to get it back running after lunch while he ran with a spare.

Takeaways and impressions:

Once again I learned a metric assload from Pat and Rob. This is a fairly physical class and I know that I need to get into shape as I could feel the wind getting sucked out of me during the weapon retention portion. The drills were physical and demanding and I still feel sore Smile

Nothing in the class was over the top and while it was demanding and intense safety was stressed and everything was realistic and nothing was done just to be done. The reasons for every drill were explained and were based in the real world. Again the shoot house was an adrenalin dump, very realistic and dynamic...lots of learning occurred.

I know that I am much better prepared should I have a violent physical encounter after this class then I was before, and that's the whole point.

Great class of shooters, this wasn't a class for beginners and everyone was rocking! Had a few guys I had taken classes with before and it was great to see them again. Made a couple new friends from the class. Had a great time shooting with the WVCDL group that was here, you represented WVCDL well and will have added a new member to your rolls.

Will not forget "mama jama"

PFT rocked the house as usual! The Windshield targets are the bomb!

Thanks again to Pat Goodale and Rob Tackett for making this happen. Real world knowledge, no hype, no bullshit, and as usual I will be back for more training from PFT.

Al T.
09-22-2011, 06:59 AM
Very informative ARR! Thanks!