AAR: F2S Consulting Practical Pistol 2 Day Course, Albuquerque, NM May 12 -13

[JFK]

I am starting this thread to organize the thoughts and AARs for this class. I am going to reserve my thoughts on this class until at least a few people post their own reviews, as I was the host.

On a personal note it was a pleasure to meet Jack and Chris. Both of them are true gentlemen as well as knowledgable and professional to the highest degree. Thank you for a terrific class.

[Bill Lance]

Subscribed. :cool:

[roadsiderob]

I, too, would like to thank Jack & Chris for a great class. It was great to have them out to New Mexico and I have high hopes that they will return for a carbine class.

The F2S Pistol class had 12 enthusiastic participants and was held at the Del Norte Gun Club in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The class was hosted by Jay and the Del Norte Defensive Shooters IDPA club. I recognised all but one person from the IDPA matches I have shot there. The skill levels of the shooters ranged from Expert class IDPA shooters with LE and military backgrounds to regular guys attending their first class. It was a fun 2 days and everyone got some serious trigger time and put about 1200 rounds downrange.

I've take a few classes put on at Calibers, one of our local ranges, as well as an EAG carbine class a couple of years ago and have been an active IDPA participant for 2 years. I also shoot in the Calibers pistol league as often as I can. This was my first dedicated 2 day pistol class. I generally shoot pretty accurately at the local matches but my aggregate times are generally about 20% more than the top shooters. My current training goal is to be smoother and faster in all areas so I can cut my times without compromising my accuracy too much. My goal for this class was to pick up some new techniques, refine my current stance, grip, and trigger control, and wring out my new Walther PPQ and Kaluban Cloak carry gear.

We started TD1 with a skills test so that the instructors could assess our abilities and then divided into 2 relays. The test had us shooting for groups at 25 yards and in. It was quite eye opening and the distance shooting really magnifies errors that you can't see at 3-10 yards. I've occasionally shot at 25 yards, but never for groups. I found this quite interesting. TD1 consisted of concentrating on the basics......draw, stance, sight alignment, trigger control, knowing your pistols POI/POA at different ranges. I was able to work on a more aggressive, head down, shoulders up stance that I see others do but has always seemed awkward to me. I'm sure this will be a solid basis to help me go faster. The longer distance shooting and one hand shooting served to highlight my trigger control. I found that I have to be careful how much trigger finger I use with the PPQ as I was pushing shots consistently left until I found the sweet spot. TD1 ended with a night shoot that allowed us to get a feel for different flashlight/gun techniques as well as play around with some weapon mounted lights. Chem lights make fun reactive targets.:cool:

TD2 started rather badly for me as I woke up unable to really bend my right elbow. Had to drink my coffee and comb my hair left handed. I suspect my new aggressive stance was using my arm muscles in new & unusual ways and I over did it a bit. I gave serious thought to bailing on TD2 but the little voice in my head kept telling me "harden up, buttercup!" So I scarfed a handful of Ibuprofen and did some stretching and worked out some of the kink. Once again TD2 started with the same skills test. I shot very poorly and was quite unhappy with myself. TD2 built on the basics of TD1 and went into moving & shooting, drawing and shooting while down on the ground, shooting off of reset, and reset on recoil. We also did some informal man-on-man competition incorporating a Texas star that was quite fun. The finale was another skills test to measure improvement (or not:p). I did much better on the final test, scoring a 227 out of 250 possible points (I think I calculated that correctly, regardless, my final test target looked a whole lot better than the one from that morning). The day ended a bit earlier so everyone could get home and spend a little time with their wives & mothers on Mothers Day. All in all, it was a lot of fun and I have several new skills and ideas to build on and play with.

[Failure2Stop]

This was a fun class to run.
Jay is a great host and we had some very good shooters (big nod to the Calibers crew and one large individual that shall remain nameless).
A big thanks to everyone that came out for the inaugural F2S Practical Pistol class.

Notes:
-Small .40 cal pistols are hard to shoot and reload.
-M&P pistols need to have their sights loctited as soon as they are zeroed.
-Didn't see any early unlocking with the M&Ps in class, but they represented the highest number of issues.
-All gen 4 Glocks present were failure free (other than a couple user induced failures such as improperly timing the slide release during a reload, one of which was mine).
-The high shooters were using Glock 17s,, M&P 9s, and a Walther PPQ.
-Albuquerque is higher in elevation than Denver, does experience rain, and can be a little brisk in May. Big learning point for us regarding preparation.
-Our camera went down, so there aren't many pictures to share, apologies.

In summary, it was a great trip and we are looking forward to heading out again for another class.

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[JFK]

I was able to take some pictures....

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7102/7200028862_f892be5866.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200028862/)
F2S Pistol May 2012 23 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200028862/) by Jay Koller (http://www.flickr.com/people/72663770@N08/), on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7220/7200026318_07855eb076.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200026318/)
F2S Pistol May 2012 19 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200026318/) by Jay Koller (http://www.flickr.com/people/72663770@N08/), on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7228/7200025334_728f564774.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200025334/)
F2S Pistol May 2012 17 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200025334/) by Jay Koller (http://www.flickr.com/people/72663770@N08/), on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7097/7200024018_8e8bfe9b22.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200024018/)
F2S Pistol May 2012 15 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200024018/) by Jay Koller (http://www.flickr.com/people/72663770@N08/), on Flickr

[JFK]

A few more...

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7245/7200023614_d508770161.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200023614/)
F2S Pistol May 2012 14 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200023614/) by Jay Koller (http://www.flickr.com/people/72663770@N08/), on Flickr

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5321/7200023010_daf553f636.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200023010/)
F2S Pistol May 2012 13 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200023010/) by Jay Koller (http://www.flickr.com/people/72663770@N08/), on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7235/7200019448_6b0ea7ff11.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200019448/)
F2S Pistol May 2012 7 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200019448/) by Jay Koller (http://www.flickr.com/people/72663770@N08/), on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7079/7200018404_fda1f2d68a.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200018404/)
F2S Pistol May 2012 5 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200018404/) by Jay Koller (http://www.flickr.com/people/72663770@N08/), on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7086/7200017936_95d03841d1.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200017936/)
F2S Pistol May 2012 4 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200017936/) by Jay Koller (http://www.flickr.com/people/72663770@N08/), on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7103/7200016714_de0e314ba1.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200016714/)
F2S Pistol May 2012 2 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72663770@N08/7200016714/) by Jay Koller (http://www.flickr.com/people/72663770@N08/), on Flickr

[roadsiderob]

Just a quick update:

It has been 1 week since the class. We had an IDPA match today with 4 match stages and an informal steel shoot afterwards. The 25 yard shooting we did in the F2S class served me very well.

Stage 1 had us shooting 6 shots at probably 20ish yards at one target and I came away with a really solid group I could cover with my hand. It wasn't quite all in the 0 zone (-2 I think), but considering the time pressure and the number of complete misses at that distance by some of the other shooters, I'm happy.

The informal steel shoot had 13 targets including the Texas star (5), swinging plates (4), poppers (2), & squirrels (2) at a distance of around 15 yards plus. I managed to clean it in 18 rounds. Again, the precision shooting at distance served me very well. Hopefully my times improved as well.

[JFK]

I wanted to add a personal progress update to this class.

The distance work under time pressure that F2S Consulting puts so much merit on is my biggest take aways from this. The second is the importance of shooting with others that have a firm grasp on the fundamentals, preferably better then you.

On point one. It was apparent during the class that almost all of us do not spend enough time over 15 yards with our heaters. This included some very accomplished shooters. The distance instantly exposed the way we were "getting by" with mediocre fundamentals. For me it was trigger control. Leaving the class I set a six month goal of reducing my group size at 25yard by half and reduce my points down by half in F2S's two hand precision test. I can sit here and gush about how fun and informative the class was but data does not lie.

Benchmark May 13th, 2012 - Group size at 25 yards was about 20" and inconsistent. Scoring for 2 hand precision. 94 out of 150.
Goal - Group size 13" and scoring 123 out of 150. Time line 6 months.
Result as of May 31st - Group size 13" and scoring 126 out of 150.

So I was able to reach my goal in less than a month. Clearly I should have been more ambitious and will set a new one to push myself. I credit the good instruction and conveyance of the importance of precision. The by product of this is my FAST metrics are improving faster. I can consistently get under 7.00 seconds now after being stuck at around 7.30 - 7.50 with dropped shots. I feel a few more months and I will be able to do 7.00 seconds on demand.

On point two. I walked into Calibers (local shooting range) and saw two other students practicing at 25yards. Clearly I was not the only one that was unhappy with my performance. I am lucky enough to be able to shoot with some really good shooters, including a FAST coin holder and a local instructor that also took the class.

I was struggling at one point feeling like my trigger control was good, but I was not seeing any improvement at my distance precision. I asked my shooting buddy to watch me and analyze. The following conversation went like this...

JN: "Your trigger control looks good, what do you think it is?"
Me: "I don't know it feels good."
JN: "Are you calling your shots? Can you see that front sight lift?"
Me: "Yes, of course."
JN: "How can you see the sight lift if I can see your eyes look over the sight after you break the shot? You are more concerned over the results than getting good hits."
Me: LIGHTBULB

My point being is both of us went through the class. Having someone who knew what I was trying to accomplish and knew the fundamentals was an asset that I think is overlooked. We were able to take Jack's training and expand on it after and continuing. To me the sign of good instruction and valuable information. Teaching the answer is one thing but it is much more valuable if you are taught how to learn.

If you are thinking about taking a class from F2S, do not hesitate. I have received several requests for a return of Jack and Chris. Thanks for the class guys, and for the info, and for the fun.

[Failure2Stop]

Great to hear that you are already meeting your goal!
It makes me happy to hear about the success of those that strive to achieve lofty goals.

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