Default.mp3
12-02-2012, 06:34 PM
I apologize ahead of time for any vagueness, omissions, or mistakes in the AAR, as my notes are a bit incomplete, given the nature of the class, as there were very few students, and thus no time off the line to compile my thoughts. The darkness also didn't do much for my already horrid handwriting.
This course is for the Armed Citizen who wishes to train in Low-Light and No-light conditions with a handheld and/or weapon mounted flashlight. Participants will train on threat identification, gaining/maintaining standoff, use of cover, and proper light employment. Participants will engage multiple targets while moving away from the threat and/or towards cover.
This is my fourth formal pistol training course, having of previously taken a Vickers Tactical Basic Handgun, Vickers Tactical Handgun I, and a pistol-training.com Aim Fast, Hit Fast. I used an H&K P30LS with the Grayguns Reduced Reset Carry Perfection Package, with an X400 mounted with the DG-11 (CROZ3212 was kind enough to lend me its usage, so mad props to him) and zeroed for 7 yards, and OWB carried it using a RCS Phantom at about the 0200 position. I also had two mag carriers, Cane & Derby Pardus SSLs. My handheld was the Surefire E1B, belt was Ares Ranger belt.
Kenan Flasowski was the primary (and only instructor). Class started at 1430; weather was relatively sunny, with one or two intervals of about a minute of light showering. Wind was mild for the most part, but noticeable at times. Sunset was at approximately 1730, with complete darkness at 1830, moonrise at about 2000, with it supplying enough illum to see the ground at about 2100. There was only one other student, Dan, who was using a Nighthawk 1911 and what I believe was a Surefire G2Z with combat rings. Kenan was using a Glock 19, and for the most part, what I think was a Surefire LX2 LumaMax with a lanyard. Everyone was right-handed, and used strong-side OWB kydex.
Class was actually slated to start at 1400; I had planned to arrive at the range at ~1330, maybe a little later to pick up lunch/dinner, but my plans fell prey to Hofstadter's law. On the Round Rock stretch of I-35, I got caught in traffic, and managed to traverse only ~3 miles in 1 hour. Thus, I arrived at 1430. There were suppose to be two more students for the class, but they were no-shows, which I guess saved me the embarrassment of being "that guy".
The class started out with Kenan going over the emergency medical response. He had a laminated card attached to his sizable first aid kit that gave instructions of how to contact emergency services, and the exact latitude and longitude of the site so that LifeFlight would be easier to coordinate, as the best case response time to the range was at least 20 minutes. On the back of the card was a bit of a multiple choice kind of thing that guided one along into describing the nature of wound. The kit itself had the usual QuikClot, compresses, chest seals, etc. He also had a minor scrapes kit for more minor injuries. This was followed by a brief overview of the basic safety rules, along with some common sense ideas (e.g., no reason to speed holster, slight hip turn when holster OWB so as to minimize the amount of flagging that is done to one's self through the holster, etc.).
The first drill was just 15 yard, 10 round slow fire against a standard B-8 target. The idea here was to establish a baseline of best scenario performance, and then be able to see the differences in performance when doing only SHO, under stress, etc.
Kenan's belief is that one should be mostly measured against one's past performance, rather than some arbitrary standard, since once the standard has been beat, complacency may set in.
As 15 yard slow fire was basically what I do most of my time at the range, I was able to keep all the rounds in the black without straining too hard.
After the 15 yard slow fire, Kenan then moved us back to 25 yards. The idea here is that while 15 yards can be fairly illuminating about one's basic accuracy, there are still some sloppiness than one can get away with at 15 that one could not get away with at 25 yards. The drill itself remained the same, 10 rounds, as much time needed as possible. An old "trick" was to start one's day at the range with this drill, and end with this drill, so as to be able to see what one can actually do.
This time, I had issues keeping it in the black. There was enough wobble so that I would be outside the black, though not significantly. Still, about half of my shots were outside of the black, high and to the left. The group size itself of those outside the black were not too bad, and when Kenan shot 5 rounds through the P30LS, he also had the same issue, although to a lesser degree. Kenan stated that I may need to slightly drift my sights.
We then moved on to SHO for basically the rest of the course. To start out with, Kenan stated that the stronger the grip, the less trigger control mattered; however, most people are unable to grip the gun hard enough to be able to be sloppy with the trigger (he points to Rob Leatham as being one of the few people able to actually get by with sloppy trigger pulls if need be due to Leatham's freakishly powerful grip). What Kenan found for the grip though is that the pinky plays a far larger role than most people tend to think. He demoed for us that one experiences less front sight lift when using only the pinky and index finger to grip the gun (SHO) than compared to all the fingers except the pinky. The reason for this is due to the fact that the gun recoils in the web of the hand, which thus makes that act like a fulcrum. The pinky is the furthest away from the web of the hand; thus, it is kinda like being the point on the lever the furthest from the fulcrum, which thus gives it a disproportionate amount of usable force to reduce the recoil. Kenan stated that during his advisory role, he found that he was able to get Afghan women to be able to handle the recoil way better when deliberate force was utilize from the pinky, compared to when it was not. Also, canting the gun slightly would help control the gun better in SHO. Interestingly, Kenan does not advise riding the safety when shooting SHO; instead, he advocates putting the thumb down, like making a fist, for better recoil control. The drill ran was SHO at 10 yards, 5 rounds, both slow fire and timed (the latter to induce artificial stress).
The pinky thing, while unintuitive, certainly helped reduce recoil. This would be something I would need to practice changing the forces I apply when gripping the gun. As for not riding the safety, I did feel that there was some minor improvement in recoil management, but the grip overall was flat-out uncomfortable for me, since I had never, ever shot that way. Kenan did stress that the not-riding-the-safety was just something that he found works for him, and that if I felt better riding the safety while SHO, rock on, so I shot most of the rest of the class riding the safety.
Next, we moved up to the 5 yard line, for SHO shooting as fast as possible. One of the things Kenan found that really helped recoil management, rifles included, was the "positive shoulder", something that he readily admitted stealing from Pat McNamara. Here, one is suppose to tighten not just the arm, but also the shoulder and lats and such, so that when the handgun fires, it shouldn't just be part of the arm moving, but the whole arm and shoulder.
I found that really concentrating on the pinky and tightening the shoulder itself helped reduce the recoil quite a bit. Being weak and scrawny, I had issues with the front sight completely leaving the target after a shot; after these adjustments, I was able to keep the front sight at least on the target during recoil. Kenan stated that, ideally, the front sight should be able to stay in the black. At this point, the other student's 1911 started exhibiting a failure to reset the trigger, which continued sporadically through the course.
We then went over the most basic flashlight holds. Kenan's preferred hold was to hold the flashlight with the first three fingers, and have the pinky finger under the flashlight, with the tailcap going into the base of the thumb and controlling the light that way. When utilizing this hold, one can usually naturally pivot the flashlight between the pinky and ring finger from the standard holding position to a more cigar-like hold, the latter of which is used for reloads and malfunction clearances (using pinching the slide A.K.A. slingshotting, rather than overhand racking), since the thumb and index would be free. A more basic hold was the basic fist hold, which while very easy and intuitive to use lights with, makes reloading the malfunction clearing a whole lot harder. In order to do those, Kenan stated that generally one would stick the light into the strong side armpit, and then manipulate the gun as need be then. While basic and somewhat slow, it works well enough. He also stated that sticking the light in one's mouth is certainly workable, too, but did not want to do that on the range since the lights are liable to be dirty. He also greatly preferred push-to-activate clicky switches rather than the click-on, click-off switches, due to the difficulty of maintaining light discipline with the latter. The drill for this section was 5 yards, just holding the flashlight using the modified head index (place the knuckles of the hand on top of the head; this allows the weak hand to ward against blows, too), and fire at one's own speed. Kenan stated it was important to try to illuminate the target as soon as possible, preferably before the gun is even drawn.
This is where the shortcomings of my equipment started to come into play. The first issue was the obvious one of the inconvenient tailcap design; it was a click-on, click-off type, which lend itself to light discipline issues later on. The second was that it was too small to utilize Kenan's preferred way to hold the light, as it was not easy to pivot the light into the cigar hold and back. On the other hand, it was small enough so that I was able to reload while using the fist hold without having to stick the light into my armpit, although I was admittedly slower and far less consistent doing that compared to Dan's usage of Kenan's hold, with many fumbled reloads. The third was a bit more minor, which was the dual output feature of the light; during some of the drills, I would end up running on the low output due to having of clicked on and off.
The next drill was to include a little thinking while holding the light. Kenan would call out "gun", and one would fire one round into the target. Keeping the gun on target, one would fire one round again when Kenan called out "shoot", and continued to way for him to call either "shoot" again or else "holster", ending that string of the drill. The idea here is to reinforce the fact that one is inherently unsure of when an adversary is truly incapacitated, given the huge variance in how much damage people are able to take before being taken out of the fight.
I had done drills like this before, but never SHO while having to hold a light.
In the next drill, we took down the B-8s and utilized both humanoid-shaped paper targets and steel plates. Kenan would call out a body part (head, hips, or chest), and we would engage in the proper area on the target, get two good hits, then transition to the smaller steel plates to the side of the paper targets (all SHO with light in hand). The idea here was to teach transitions, showcasing the need for the eyes to lead, then have the sights follow in.
I had already done some transitions in the AFHF class, along with the steel challenge, so it wasn't a particularly difficult drill for me. IIRC, both Dan and I were still using the modified head index position.
Next, Kenan showed us what he referred to as the "index position", which was essentially a shooting from retention position. For him, the most important thing was to find a repeatable point of index that shot within the target area. For him, the bottom of the magazine is against the ribs, and the gun is canted outward (which is a necessity for any compensated gun); for others, the position may be different. Kenan was able to get good rounds on target (within the marked chest area of the target) with the index position relatively far back, up to 3 or 4 yards. We started out with just a couple of tries of just drawing from the holster and going into the index position (with handhelds in hand using the modified head index) while arms reach from the target, then moved onto drawing and moving backwards while engaging the target until Kenan called that the threat was down. (whether or not the index position was used depending on quickly you drew and how fast you moved back).
I had never done any type of shooting from retention, so this drill was totally novel to me. The concussion of having the gun that close was unnerving rather unnerving. I was able to utilize the laser on the X400 for a rough estimate of where I was shooting, which confirmed that I had a decent index point. It was here that the DG switch started showing hints of how awesome it was.
The next drill was a bit more unusual. It involved sitting down at a table, and then drawing to engage three steel targets about 5 yards away, while illuminating them with the handheld (which unrealistically start in hand, but because of the huge variance in handheld carry modes, it made the most sense; since I carry mine in my pocket, not even with the clip out, it substantially simplified things for me.). Kenan stressed the importance of putting one's feet together and getting them out toward the weak side so as not to flag one's self when drawing; when using appendix, he recommends spreading one's legs instead to minimize the amount of flagging that might occur. We did it several times dry before trying it live.
A very interesting drill, one largely done to prep us for one of the final drills done at night, this was largely to get us familarized with drawing while seated and then engaging, while it was still daylight and Kenan could see if we were able to complete the drill safely, so that we would be able to properly execute the later one.
The next section was devoted to learning the utilization of cover. First, Kenan demonstrated the significance of proper handheld light placement while utilizing cover. For example, if the handheld is too far back from the cover, a large amount of light is splashed back onto the shooter, making it far easier for the aggressor to see the shooter clearly. However, if shining directly at the aggressor, with proper clearance of cover, the aggressor can be disoriented greatly by the shining light, being able only to see the light itself and not being able to see the body of the shooter. Kenan also suggests having the strong side leg forward, and simply bending the knees in order to pie around the corner. At this point, Kenan stressed the need to have the gun out, then putting the light under the wrist, if one was to try and use the Harries technique, in order to minimize the odds of flagging one's self. For the most part, Kenan himself preferred to mostly the offset position for the handheld, moving the position of the light as need be in order to shine the light on the target while minimizing his own profile. The drill attached to this was a series of steel plates about 5 yards away that ran right to left, which we were to illuminate and then engage one by one while pieing the corner, then retreat to the other side of the cover, and go left to right. Any reloads done were to be done in cover.
At this point, the sky had darkened significantly, and I recall switching out to clear eye pro at this point. Having of never done barricade shooting before, this drill was very disorientating for me, particularly when I started to do it while disabling my X400. I ran a the drill a couple of times with both the X400 and the handheld, and did very well in the shooting portion, due to the fact that the laser combined with the DG switch made it almost like cheating to do. However, I had a very strong tendency to bring the handheld closer and closer to my head as I pied the corner further and further, while also tending to keep the handheld too far from the cover and thus having quite a bit of backwash lighting. The former was something that Kenan noted that all people, himself included, seemed to tend to do. This was suboptimal because of the fact that the light is often a target indicator, along with the fact that it's far easier to wind up blasting your own sights with the light and screw with your sight picture, which I definitely experienced when I disabled the X400, enough so that I would miss what was seemingly easy shots until I corrected where I was pointing the hand held, which would sometimes take me way longer than it should have. I also found that Harries was a bit easier to index and use to good effect when pieing from the right corner, while I had to use an offset hold while pieing the left corner.
Kenan pointed out at this juncture that going walking backwards from a threat isn't always as bad as it seems to be at first blush; this is due to the fact that often, you just walked from that area, and would be aware of any possible trip hazards. While lateral movement is generally harder for the aggressor to shoot at, it is more likely to be movement into unknown terrain as opposed to moving backwards. Either way, what's important here is that there is movement. Kenan also notes that while many say it's easier to trip up when crossing one's legs while moving laterally, doing a shuffle-type movement is also generally slower than crossing one's legs, so one must make a decision on what's more important at that point in time, speed of movement or insured stability of movement.
The drill used to reinforce this point was the usage of a target that also had a hostage on it. Kenan would call "gun", and one would move both forward and laterally, while keeping the illumination on the target. After reaching the barrel simulating cover, engage if one hasn't already, but be sure not to hit the hostage. After this was run a couple of times, steel plates, one on each side of the target, were added, to simulate the hostage taker moving and thus teach us about light transitioning (which was a very heavy part of the class); after engaging the target sufficently, Kenan would then call out for us to hit the plates next to finish the drill.
At this point, I decided that I would focus mainly on using the handheld, as running the X400 with the DG switch was, as far as I could tell, fairly similiar to daylight shooting, while shooting with the handheld had been very difficult for me, especially with the manipulations that would be needed. I found engaging the "hostage taker" not too difficult, since it was a single target, but I still had issues with poor light positioning that would screw with the sight picture. The transitioning of the lights to the steel target was a bit more difficult, with me sometimes not directly illuminating the target, but still able to hit the target for the most part, assuming I didn't have light cast all over my sights again.
At this point, we took a slight detour, to test the usage of tritium sights; this issue came up when in the previous drill, Dan noted that he was at times utilizing the tritium dots a bit, mostly when he had poor illum on the target, but was still able to see it from the splash from the ground. Both Dan and I found it far easier to use just the sight outline when there was direct illum on a target, but that the tritiums were fairly easy to pick up if the target was lit by the light outside of the hot spot. We also confirmed the ability to hit relatively large steel targets that were painted a light beige at about 10 yards using only the tritium sights.
I found the usage of the tritium sights to be very disconcerting; what happened was that I utilize soft contacts, and I would often have a "lens flare" type effect when seeing the dots, thus producing corresponding green slivers on both sides of the actual dots, which greatly complicated the sight picture. Using the Heinie Straight Eights, I perceived 6 sources of light; I'm fairly certain I would have been much worse off using a traditional 3 dot set up. This may be an issue I could overcome with familiarization, but at this point, I know I am definitely much slower to pick up the sights than I could be if I had uncorrected vision or was utilizing eyeglasses.
We then worked on closing in on the target (against paper realistic human ones, like the aformentioned hostage taker) from 7 yards to 3 yards, utilizing both the standard offset hold (whether off to the side or on top was up to us) and the Harries, essentially a SHO SOTM shooting on the move drill.
Both Dan and I found the Harries to be more difficult to use than a typical offset hold when SOTM, with issues keeping the hotspot of the light on target. Kenan noted that this was fairly typical for new shooters, that Harries was generally harder to learn, and less effective when the shooter was still new to it, but that when practiced regularly, could have a higher skill plateau than the offset.
Kenan then had us work on the reverse: starting at arm's length and then moving backwards. Kenan would call out "gun", and we would illuminate the target while backing up and drawing to shoot, shooting until we were able to retreat to one of two barrels that represented cover (the barrels were in the back left and back right position respectively at about 7 yards). We could use the previously learned index position if wanted, but if we had backed up far enough while drawing, that would be pointless. After getting to the barrels, Kenan would call out a body part (head, chest, hips), we were to illuminate the target, put in two good shots into the target area, and then move laterally to the other barrel with the light off.
Kenan noted that while was able to move faster if one allowed their legs to cross, this was arguably much less table, as it created trip hazards much easier. Whether or not to cross legs was dependent on the situation and how much speed was needed. I found hit verification to be relatively difficult, and I moved a couple of times without getting the requisite two good hits. The lateral movement itself was done with crossed legs on my part, although I was more just walking forward with my trunk twisted so as to keep my gun and light pointed down range. While backing up, I found the modified head index to be the most consistent in terms of being able to get good illum on target, as it gave me an actual index/pivot point, and I started using that for most of the rest of the class.
At this point, Kenan noted that we sometimes did not notice the gun had run dry during the darkness, and tried to fire an empty gun after a transition. His solution was that his trigger finger was generally in the ejection port itself when off target, so if the slide was locked back, he'd instantly notice the difference and know to reload.
Dan had this issue come up, which was partially a function of the fact that he only had 8 round mags while mine were 15. I also had my finger in the ejection port whenever it wasn't on the trigger, but I had never thought about this benefit before.
The next drill was essentially the table drill combined with first cover drill. Starting at the table, one would illuminate the steel targets, draw, engage the three designated ones, then move back to the cover, pieing the corner and engaging the 6 targets from right to left, then going to the other corner and pieing left to right engaging the same 6 targets. All reloading done from cover.
Basically, this drill was a partial culmination of what we had done so far, and it highlighted my weaknesses. I still had issues with utilizing cover properly and light placement. Even worse, something that both Vickers and Green had noted before bit me in the ass: my specific feet placement. I typically always put my left leg forward while using my normal shooting stance; this is purely instinctive, and probably a relic of my old TMA days. One handed shooting, I would typically put the same leg forward as the arm being used. However, holding both the light and the gun, I would default into thinking I was doing two handed shooting, which hurt me a lot trying to pie the corners going from right to left, as I ended up bending my trunk a lot, which then screwed with my sight picture a bit, made my light come in closer and closer to my neck (thus flashing the Hell out of my own sights), and made my overall position much less stable. Kenan stated that this position was fine when engaging a target at the far right, which meant I was using the cover best in that circumstance, but it would then hurt me as I continued trying to pie the corner without moving my feet. With the right foot forward, pieing the right side of the cover was generally easier, because one could just bend the legs to get further and further out, even if it did leave the body slightly more exposed to the right most targets.
The next drill was a more complicated movement drill. One would start at the right end of the range, and move steadily left. There were 4 landmarks set up at the 5 yard line, suppose they were, from right to left, A, B, C, and D. Starting on the far right and traversing to A, illuminate and keep engaging the steel target that was between them, until reaching A. After reaching A, just move toward B. Upon reaching B, illuminate and engage both targets there until passing point C, while heading for D. After reaching D, engage the last target until reaching the left-most berm. If reloads were being done while in a segment where one was suppose to be shooting, just keep going, as reaching the berm on the other side was the primary concern. After this was run a few times, it was mirrored, going from left to right; however, being that we were right handed, going from left to right would be more difficult. One of the main issues was to be very aware of the position of one's light and the position of the handgun, as an inattentive shooter could flag their handheld hand if they were shooting at something they had already passed up. Also, recoil management was also compromised, due to the strong hand being faced away from the targets as we traversed the points.
This drill really showcased my weakness at SHO SOTM, both from right to left and left to right. While I was moving quite fast from point to point, I was also dropping quite a few shots. After I forced myself to slow down a bit, stopping dropping shots, but it something I definitely had to actively force myself to do. I also had issues with the fact that I was very slow to start engaging the target, due to the fact that I was struggling to figure out how much I needed to see for the sight picture before engaging.
We then ran a somewhat similar drill. Starting from the right most berm, we would engage the steel target at about 7 yards. After passing point A, we would then keep going toward B until Kenan called "gun", at which point we would then engage a reactive steel target that had clothes on. We were to keep engaging that target until it went down; if we reached B before we could, use B as cover. After successfully putting donw the first target, we then moved to C, engaging a steel target. After passing C, Kenan would then again call gun, and we'd engage another clothed reactive steel target until it was down, using D for cover if need be.
The drill didn't quite go as planned. At first, my 9mm was unable to defeat the reactive still target even after multiple good hits in the head area, forcing Kenan to adjust the amount of force needed to knock down the target. Then, both Dan and I were able to hit the target COM and/or head and bring down the target relatively quickly. The idea had been to show the need for good hits, as a kind of aim small, miss small thing. He had previously found that students, when engaging a mix of steel targets and smaller areas of the paper targets, would generally do okay against the steel, but completely miss the designated areas on the paper targets, as they would treat the paper target like the steel target, where a shot anywhere on target was considered good. The reactive steel targets has been set up so that only good COM or head shots would put it down. Overall, I had learned to slow down as need be for SOTM, so I was able to do this drill okay. I also have my second failure to return to battery on this gun on this drill; seeing how I had just cleaned and lubed it a couple days prior, I believe it was probably due to a botched reload, since it occured right after a particularly sloppy one.
The last drill was a simple walkback using handhelds and SHO, with three shots to complete the hit.
All three of us did fine at the 25 yard line, but surprisingly, only I was able to get a hit in at 35 yards. Dan was able to get a hit at 50 yards, too, while Kenan expressed severe disappointment at himself for being unable to hit the targets. He stated that this was definitely the shortest walkback drill he'd ever done. The walkback also highlighted the weakness of Dan's incandescent light compared to Kenan and mine's LEDs.
The class ended at about 2200, but both Dan and I stuck around to help breakdown the range and bullshit some more with Kenan, so I was not actually on the road until 2230. Kenan declared Dan the best shooter of the course, which was well justified, as his SOTM skills were considerably stronger than mine, as was his consistency in illuminating the target.
The main points of learning for me were to be more flexible with my feet positioning, the need to practice transitions with the offset handheld holds, the need to practice utilization of cover, the huge differences made in sight picture when the light is illuminating the target versus having some of it splash all over the sights, the need to practice SHO (which can be useful far beyond just low light usage), a WML makes things way easier, the DG switch with the WML is basically like cheating, and DG switch with a laser and light is flat out cheating.
A note about the class itself. I had previously taken only courses from Todd Green and Larry Vickers, both of whom had been teaching the same classes for quite some time in the civilian world before I took their class. Kenan, on the other hand, had only been teaching this particular course about 1.5 years (although he had extensive experience doing advisory work prior to that), and I think it did show a bit, as the class was a bit ad hoc in manner. However, this could also be simply due to the fact that the class was so small, and it was more just Kenan altering the class on the fly as needed, and it did not detract from the learning experience, IMO. He was more than happy to entertain questions, and a couple of times we got into tangents (such as the tritium experiment that was done), even concerning stuff that had little to do with shooting. Still, Kenan seemed to be very much concerned about the student's actually getting something from the material; in fact, in the email that he sent me that had the registration form and release of liablity, he also sent a some reading material, such as stuff about handgun ballistics, his own list of recommendations on gear, etc. While most of the stuff I had already seen before, I was impressed that he would send such material that, while had little to do with the class, could be very educational for any shooters that were new to the discipline, as this was all stuff I certainly did not know when I first started shooting. Both Vickers and Green were relatively humorous guys, and Kenan was no different. Overall, I found the class to have been both hugely educational (learning at least as much as I did at AFHF, if not more) and educational.
Gearwise, several issues existed. Already mentioned were the issues with the tritium sights, along with the short comings of the E1B for this roll. I also consistently had failures to lock back the slide on empty. This had previously never exhibited itself in my SHO shooting, but apparently when stressed, I would sometimes not only be pushing down on the safety lever with my thumb, also forward. This would lead to my thumb actually pushing down on the slide release, thus not having the slide lock back. I am still somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of not riding the safety when shooting SHO, but will need to see if this will be an continual issue or if I can fix my thumb position when stressed. Finally, I found the OWB in the 0200 to be rather painful, as it dug the holster and belt right into my hip bone. I had originally planned to run the RCS appendix carry (I had recently added foam wedges that had done wonders to both the concealment and comfort of the setup) with a Wilderness Instructor Belt (which is a lot less stiffer than the Ares Ranger belt), but Kenan had advised me to utilize OWB at first just so that the fundamentals part would go a little quicker. Later, when it got dark, I decided I'd rather just run it OWB in the interest of safety and speed; seeing how slowly I already holstered appendix style in the daylight, I didn't want to slow down the class with 30 second reholsterings.
Overall, 432 rounds were expended, all of them Aguila Ammunition 124 gr.
This course is for the Armed Citizen who wishes to train in Low-Light and No-light conditions with a handheld and/or weapon mounted flashlight. Participants will train on threat identification, gaining/maintaining standoff, use of cover, and proper light employment. Participants will engage multiple targets while moving away from the threat and/or towards cover.
This is my fourth formal pistol training course, having of previously taken a Vickers Tactical Basic Handgun, Vickers Tactical Handgun I, and a pistol-training.com Aim Fast, Hit Fast. I used an H&K P30LS with the Grayguns Reduced Reset Carry Perfection Package, with an X400 mounted with the DG-11 (CROZ3212 was kind enough to lend me its usage, so mad props to him) and zeroed for 7 yards, and OWB carried it using a RCS Phantom at about the 0200 position. I also had two mag carriers, Cane & Derby Pardus SSLs. My handheld was the Surefire E1B, belt was Ares Ranger belt.
Kenan Flasowski was the primary (and only instructor). Class started at 1430; weather was relatively sunny, with one or two intervals of about a minute of light showering. Wind was mild for the most part, but noticeable at times. Sunset was at approximately 1730, with complete darkness at 1830, moonrise at about 2000, with it supplying enough illum to see the ground at about 2100. There was only one other student, Dan, who was using a Nighthawk 1911 and what I believe was a Surefire G2Z with combat rings. Kenan was using a Glock 19, and for the most part, what I think was a Surefire LX2 LumaMax with a lanyard. Everyone was right-handed, and used strong-side OWB kydex.
Class was actually slated to start at 1400; I had planned to arrive at the range at ~1330, maybe a little later to pick up lunch/dinner, but my plans fell prey to Hofstadter's law. On the Round Rock stretch of I-35, I got caught in traffic, and managed to traverse only ~3 miles in 1 hour. Thus, I arrived at 1430. There were suppose to be two more students for the class, but they were no-shows, which I guess saved me the embarrassment of being "that guy".
The class started out with Kenan going over the emergency medical response. He had a laminated card attached to his sizable first aid kit that gave instructions of how to contact emergency services, and the exact latitude and longitude of the site so that LifeFlight would be easier to coordinate, as the best case response time to the range was at least 20 minutes. On the back of the card was a bit of a multiple choice kind of thing that guided one along into describing the nature of wound. The kit itself had the usual QuikClot, compresses, chest seals, etc. He also had a minor scrapes kit for more minor injuries. This was followed by a brief overview of the basic safety rules, along with some common sense ideas (e.g., no reason to speed holster, slight hip turn when holster OWB so as to minimize the amount of flagging that is done to one's self through the holster, etc.).
The first drill was just 15 yard, 10 round slow fire against a standard B-8 target. The idea here was to establish a baseline of best scenario performance, and then be able to see the differences in performance when doing only SHO, under stress, etc.
Kenan's belief is that one should be mostly measured against one's past performance, rather than some arbitrary standard, since once the standard has been beat, complacency may set in.
As 15 yard slow fire was basically what I do most of my time at the range, I was able to keep all the rounds in the black without straining too hard.
After the 15 yard slow fire, Kenan then moved us back to 25 yards. The idea here is that while 15 yards can be fairly illuminating about one's basic accuracy, there are still some sloppiness than one can get away with at 15 that one could not get away with at 25 yards. The drill itself remained the same, 10 rounds, as much time needed as possible. An old "trick" was to start one's day at the range with this drill, and end with this drill, so as to be able to see what one can actually do.
This time, I had issues keeping it in the black. There was enough wobble so that I would be outside the black, though not significantly. Still, about half of my shots were outside of the black, high and to the left. The group size itself of those outside the black were not too bad, and when Kenan shot 5 rounds through the P30LS, he also had the same issue, although to a lesser degree. Kenan stated that I may need to slightly drift my sights.
We then moved on to SHO for basically the rest of the course. To start out with, Kenan stated that the stronger the grip, the less trigger control mattered; however, most people are unable to grip the gun hard enough to be able to be sloppy with the trigger (he points to Rob Leatham as being one of the few people able to actually get by with sloppy trigger pulls if need be due to Leatham's freakishly powerful grip). What Kenan found for the grip though is that the pinky plays a far larger role than most people tend to think. He demoed for us that one experiences less front sight lift when using only the pinky and index finger to grip the gun (SHO) than compared to all the fingers except the pinky. The reason for this is due to the fact that the gun recoils in the web of the hand, which thus makes that act like a fulcrum. The pinky is the furthest away from the web of the hand; thus, it is kinda like being the point on the lever the furthest from the fulcrum, which thus gives it a disproportionate amount of usable force to reduce the recoil. Kenan stated that during his advisory role, he found that he was able to get Afghan women to be able to handle the recoil way better when deliberate force was utilize from the pinky, compared to when it was not. Also, canting the gun slightly would help control the gun better in SHO. Interestingly, Kenan does not advise riding the safety when shooting SHO; instead, he advocates putting the thumb down, like making a fist, for better recoil control. The drill ran was SHO at 10 yards, 5 rounds, both slow fire and timed (the latter to induce artificial stress).
The pinky thing, while unintuitive, certainly helped reduce recoil. This would be something I would need to practice changing the forces I apply when gripping the gun. As for not riding the safety, I did feel that there was some minor improvement in recoil management, but the grip overall was flat-out uncomfortable for me, since I had never, ever shot that way. Kenan did stress that the not-riding-the-safety was just something that he found works for him, and that if I felt better riding the safety while SHO, rock on, so I shot most of the rest of the class riding the safety.
Next, we moved up to the 5 yard line, for SHO shooting as fast as possible. One of the things Kenan found that really helped recoil management, rifles included, was the "positive shoulder", something that he readily admitted stealing from Pat McNamara. Here, one is suppose to tighten not just the arm, but also the shoulder and lats and such, so that when the handgun fires, it shouldn't just be part of the arm moving, but the whole arm and shoulder.
I found that really concentrating on the pinky and tightening the shoulder itself helped reduce the recoil quite a bit. Being weak and scrawny, I had issues with the front sight completely leaving the target after a shot; after these adjustments, I was able to keep the front sight at least on the target during recoil. Kenan stated that, ideally, the front sight should be able to stay in the black. At this point, the other student's 1911 started exhibiting a failure to reset the trigger, which continued sporadically through the course.
We then went over the most basic flashlight holds. Kenan's preferred hold was to hold the flashlight with the first three fingers, and have the pinky finger under the flashlight, with the tailcap going into the base of the thumb and controlling the light that way. When utilizing this hold, one can usually naturally pivot the flashlight between the pinky and ring finger from the standard holding position to a more cigar-like hold, the latter of which is used for reloads and malfunction clearances (using pinching the slide A.K.A. slingshotting, rather than overhand racking), since the thumb and index would be free. A more basic hold was the basic fist hold, which while very easy and intuitive to use lights with, makes reloading the malfunction clearing a whole lot harder. In order to do those, Kenan stated that generally one would stick the light into the strong side armpit, and then manipulate the gun as need be then. While basic and somewhat slow, it works well enough. He also stated that sticking the light in one's mouth is certainly workable, too, but did not want to do that on the range since the lights are liable to be dirty. He also greatly preferred push-to-activate clicky switches rather than the click-on, click-off switches, due to the difficulty of maintaining light discipline with the latter. The drill for this section was 5 yards, just holding the flashlight using the modified head index (place the knuckles of the hand on top of the head; this allows the weak hand to ward against blows, too), and fire at one's own speed. Kenan stated it was important to try to illuminate the target as soon as possible, preferably before the gun is even drawn.
This is where the shortcomings of my equipment started to come into play. The first issue was the obvious one of the inconvenient tailcap design; it was a click-on, click-off type, which lend itself to light discipline issues later on. The second was that it was too small to utilize Kenan's preferred way to hold the light, as it was not easy to pivot the light into the cigar hold and back. On the other hand, it was small enough so that I was able to reload while using the fist hold without having to stick the light into my armpit, although I was admittedly slower and far less consistent doing that compared to Dan's usage of Kenan's hold, with many fumbled reloads. The third was a bit more minor, which was the dual output feature of the light; during some of the drills, I would end up running on the low output due to having of clicked on and off.
The next drill was to include a little thinking while holding the light. Kenan would call out "gun", and one would fire one round into the target. Keeping the gun on target, one would fire one round again when Kenan called out "shoot", and continued to way for him to call either "shoot" again or else "holster", ending that string of the drill. The idea here is to reinforce the fact that one is inherently unsure of when an adversary is truly incapacitated, given the huge variance in how much damage people are able to take before being taken out of the fight.
I had done drills like this before, but never SHO while having to hold a light.
In the next drill, we took down the B-8s and utilized both humanoid-shaped paper targets and steel plates. Kenan would call out a body part (head, hips, or chest), and we would engage in the proper area on the target, get two good hits, then transition to the smaller steel plates to the side of the paper targets (all SHO with light in hand). The idea here was to teach transitions, showcasing the need for the eyes to lead, then have the sights follow in.
I had already done some transitions in the AFHF class, along with the steel challenge, so it wasn't a particularly difficult drill for me. IIRC, both Dan and I were still using the modified head index position.
Next, Kenan showed us what he referred to as the "index position", which was essentially a shooting from retention position. For him, the most important thing was to find a repeatable point of index that shot within the target area. For him, the bottom of the magazine is against the ribs, and the gun is canted outward (which is a necessity for any compensated gun); for others, the position may be different. Kenan was able to get good rounds on target (within the marked chest area of the target) with the index position relatively far back, up to 3 or 4 yards. We started out with just a couple of tries of just drawing from the holster and going into the index position (with handhelds in hand using the modified head index) while arms reach from the target, then moved onto drawing and moving backwards while engaging the target until Kenan called that the threat was down. (whether or not the index position was used depending on quickly you drew and how fast you moved back).
I had never done any type of shooting from retention, so this drill was totally novel to me. The concussion of having the gun that close was unnerving rather unnerving. I was able to utilize the laser on the X400 for a rough estimate of where I was shooting, which confirmed that I had a decent index point. It was here that the DG switch started showing hints of how awesome it was.
The next drill was a bit more unusual. It involved sitting down at a table, and then drawing to engage three steel targets about 5 yards away, while illuminating them with the handheld (which unrealistically start in hand, but because of the huge variance in handheld carry modes, it made the most sense; since I carry mine in my pocket, not even with the clip out, it substantially simplified things for me.). Kenan stressed the importance of putting one's feet together and getting them out toward the weak side so as not to flag one's self when drawing; when using appendix, he recommends spreading one's legs instead to minimize the amount of flagging that might occur. We did it several times dry before trying it live.
A very interesting drill, one largely done to prep us for one of the final drills done at night, this was largely to get us familarized with drawing while seated and then engaging, while it was still daylight and Kenan could see if we were able to complete the drill safely, so that we would be able to properly execute the later one.
The next section was devoted to learning the utilization of cover. First, Kenan demonstrated the significance of proper handheld light placement while utilizing cover. For example, if the handheld is too far back from the cover, a large amount of light is splashed back onto the shooter, making it far easier for the aggressor to see the shooter clearly. However, if shining directly at the aggressor, with proper clearance of cover, the aggressor can be disoriented greatly by the shining light, being able only to see the light itself and not being able to see the body of the shooter. Kenan also suggests having the strong side leg forward, and simply bending the knees in order to pie around the corner. At this point, Kenan stressed the need to have the gun out, then putting the light under the wrist, if one was to try and use the Harries technique, in order to minimize the odds of flagging one's self. For the most part, Kenan himself preferred to mostly the offset position for the handheld, moving the position of the light as need be in order to shine the light on the target while minimizing his own profile. The drill attached to this was a series of steel plates about 5 yards away that ran right to left, which we were to illuminate and then engage one by one while pieing the corner, then retreat to the other side of the cover, and go left to right. Any reloads done were to be done in cover.
At this point, the sky had darkened significantly, and I recall switching out to clear eye pro at this point. Having of never done barricade shooting before, this drill was very disorientating for me, particularly when I started to do it while disabling my X400. I ran a the drill a couple of times with both the X400 and the handheld, and did very well in the shooting portion, due to the fact that the laser combined with the DG switch made it almost like cheating to do. However, I had a very strong tendency to bring the handheld closer and closer to my head as I pied the corner further and further, while also tending to keep the handheld too far from the cover and thus having quite a bit of backwash lighting. The former was something that Kenan noted that all people, himself included, seemed to tend to do. This was suboptimal because of the fact that the light is often a target indicator, along with the fact that it's far easier to wind up blasting your own sights with the light and screw with your sight picture, which I definitely experienced when I disabled the X400, enough so that I would miss what was seemingly easy shots until I corrected where I was pointing the hand held, which would sometimes take me way longer than it should have. I also found that Harries was a bit easier to index and use to good effect when pieing from the right corner, while I had to use an offset hold while pieing the left corner.
Kenan pointed out at this juncture that going walking backwards from a threat isn't always as bad as it seems to be at first blush; this is due to the fact that often, you just walked from that area, and would be aware of any possible trip hazards. While lateral movement is generally harder for the aggressor to shoot at, it is more likely to be movement into unknown terrain as opposed to moving backwards. Either way, what's important here is that there is movement. Kenan also notes that while many say it's easier to trip up when crossing one's legs while moving laterally, doing a shuffle-type movement is also generally slower than crossing one's legs, so one must make a decision on what's more important at that point in time, speed of movement or insured stability of movement.
The drill used to reinforce this point was the usage of a target that also had a hostage on it. Kenan would call "gun", and one would move both forward and laterally, while keeping the illumination on the target. After reaching the barrel simulating cover, engage if one hasn't already, but be sure not to hit the hostage. After this was run a couple of times, steel plates, one on each side of the target, were added, to simulate the hostage taker moving and thus teach us about light transitioning (which was a very heavy part of the class); after engaging the target sufficently, Kenan would then call out for us to hit the plates next to finish the drill.
At this point, I decided that I would focus mainly on using the handheld, as running the X400 with the DG switch was, as far as I could tell, fairly similiar to daylight shooting, while shooting with the handheld had been very difficult for me, especially with the manipulations that would be needed. I found engaging the "hostage taker" not too difficult, since it was a single target, but I still had issues with poor light positioning that would screw with the sight picture. The transitioning of the lights to the steel target was a bit more difficult, with me sometimes not directly illuminating the target, but still able to hit the target for the most part, assuming I didn't have light cast all over my sights again.
At this point, we took a slight detour, to test the usage of tritium sights; this issue came up when in the previous drill, Dan noted that he was at times utilizing the tritium dots a bit, mostly when he had poor illum on the target, but was still able to see it from the splash from the ground. Both Dan and I found it far easier to use just the sight outline when there was direct illum on a target, but that the tritiums were fairly easy to pick up if the target was lit by the light outside of the hot spot. We also confirmed the ability to hit relatively large steel targets that were painted a light beige at about 10 yards using only the tritium sights.
I found the usage of the tritium sights to be very disconcerting; what happened was that I utilize soft contacts, and I would often have a "lens flare" type effect when seeing the dots, thus producing corresponding green slivers on both sides of the actual dots, which greatly complicated the sight picture. Using the Heinie Straight Eights, I perceived 6 sources of light; I'm fairly certain I would have been much worse off using a traditional 3 dot set up. This may be an issue I could overcome with familiarization, but at this point, I know I am definitely much slower to pick up the sights than I could be if I had uncorrected vision or was utilizing eyeglasses.
We then worked on closing in on the target (against paper realistic human ones, like the aformentioned hostage taker) from 7 yards to 3 yards, utilizing both the standard offset hold (whether off to the side or on top was up to us) and the Harries, essentially a SHO SOTM shooting on the move drill.
Both Dan and I found the Harries to be more difficult to use than a typical offset hold when SOTM, with issues keeping the hotspot of the light on target. Kenan noted that this was fairly typical for new shooters, that Harries was generally harder to learn, and less effective when the shooter was still new to it, but that when practiced regularly, could have a higher skill plateau than the offset.
Kenan then had us work on the reverse: starting at arm's length and then moving backwards. Kenan would call out "gun", and we would illuminate the target while backing up and drawing to shoot, shooting until we were able to retreat to one of two barrels that represented cover (the barrels were in the back left and back right position respectively at about 7 yards). We could use the previously learned index position if wanted, but if we had backed up far enough while drawing, that would be pointless. After getting to the barrels, Kenan would call out a body part (head, chest, hips), we were to illuminate the target, put in two good shots into the target area, and then move laterally to the other barrel with the light off.
Kenan noted that while was able to move faster if one allowed their legs to cross, this was arguably much less table, as it created trip hazards much easier. Whether or not to cross legs was dependent on the situation and how much speed was needed. I found hit verification to be relatively difficult, and I moved a couple of times without getting the requisite two good hits. The lateral movement itself was done with crossed legs on my part, although I was more just walking forward with my trunk twisted so as to keep my gun and light pointed down range. While backing up, I found the modified head index to be the most consistent in terms of being able to get good illum on target, as it gave me an actual index/pivot point, and I started using that for most of the rest of the class.
At this point, Kenan noted that we sometimes did not notice the gun had run dry during the darkness, and tried to fire an empty gun after a transition. His solution was that his trigger finger was generally in the ejection port itself when off target, so if the slide was locked back, he'd instantly notice the difference and know to reload.
Dan had this issue come up, which was partially a function of the fact that he only had 8 round mags while mine were 15. I also had my finger in the ejection port whenever it wasn't on the trigger, but I had never thought about this benefit before.
The next drill was essentially the table drill combined with first cover drill. Starting at the table, one would illuminate the steel targets, draw, engage the three designated ones, then move back to the cover, pieing the corner and engaging the 6 targets from right to left, then going to the other corner and pieing left to right engaging the same 6 targets. All reloading done from cover.
Basically, this drill was a partial culmination of what we had done so far, and it highlighted my weaknesses. I still had issues with utilizing cover properly and light placement. Even worse, something that both Vickers and Green had noted before bit me in the ass: my specific feet placement. I typically always put my left leg forward while using my normal shooting stance; this is purely instinctive, and probably a relic of my old TMA days. One handed shooting, I would typically put the same leg forward as the arm being used. However, holding both the light and the gun, I would default into thinking I was doing two handed shooting, which hurt me a lot trying to pie the corners going from right to left, as I ended up bending my trunk a lot, which then screwed with my sight picture a bit, made my light come in closer and closer to my neck (thus flashing the Hell out of my own sights), and made my overall position much less stable. Kenan stated that this position was fine when engaging a target at the far right, which meant I was using the cover best in that circumstance, but it would then hurt me as I continued trying to pie the corner without moving my feet. With the right foot forward, pieing the right side of the cover was generally easier, because one could just bend the legs to get further and further out, even if it did leave the body slightly more exposed to the right most targets.
The next drill was a more complicated movement drill. One would start at the right end of the range, and move steadily left. There were 4 landmarks set up at the 5 yard line, suppose they were, from right to left, A, B, C, and D. Starting on the far right and traversing to A, illuminate and keep engaging the steel target that was between them, until reaching A. After reaching A, just move toward B. Upon reaching B, illuminate and engage both targets there until passing point C, while heading for D. After reaching D, engage the last target until reaching the left-most berm. If reloads were being done while in a segment where one was suppose to be shooting, just keep going, as reaching the berm on the other side was the primary concern. After this was run a few times, it was mirrored, going from left to right; however, being that we were right handed, going from left to right would be more difficult. One of the main issues was to be very aware of the position of one's light and the position of the handgun, as an inattentive shooter could flag their handheld hand if they were shooting at something they had already passed up. Also, recoil management was also compromised, due to the strong hand being faced away from the targets as we traversed the points.
This drill really showcased my weakness at SHO SOTM, both from right to left and left to right. While I was moving quite fast from point to point, I was also dropping quite a few shots. After I forced myself to slow down a bit, stopping dropping shots, but it something I definitely had to actively force myself to do. I also had issues with the fact that I was very slow to start engaging the target, due to the fact that I was struggling to figure out how much I needed to see for the sight picture before engaging.
We then ran a somewhat similar drill. Starting from the right most berm, we would engage the steel target at about 7 yards. After passing point A, we would then keep going toward B until Kenan called "gun", at which point we would then engage a reactive steel target that had clothes on. We were to keep engaging that target until it went down; if we reached B before we could, use B as cover. After successfully putting donw the first target, we then moved to C, engaging a steel target. After passing C, Kenan would then again call gun, and we'd engage another clothed reactive steel target until it was down, using D for cover if need be.
The drill didn't quite go as planned. At first, my 9mm was unable to defeat the reactive still target even after multiple good hits in the head area, forcing Kenan to adjust the amount of force needed to knock down the target. Then, both Dan and I were able to hit the target COM and/or head and bring down the target relatively quickly. The idea had been to show the need for good hits, as a kind of aim small, miss small thing. He had previously found that students, when engaging a mix of steel targets and smaller areas of the paper targets, would generally do okay against the steel, but completely miss the designated areas on the paper targets, as they would treat the paper target like the steel target, where a shot anywhere on target was considered good. The reactive steel targets has been set up so that only good COM or head shots would put it down. Overall, I had learned to slow down as need be for SOTM, so I was able to do this drill okay. I also have my second failure to return to battery on this gun on this drill; seeing how I had just cleaned and lubed it a couple days prior, I believe it was probably due to a botched reload, since it occured right after a particularly sloppy one.
The last drill was a simple walkback using handhelds and SHO, with three shots to complete the hit.
All three of us did fine at the 25 yard line, but surprisingly, only I was able to get a hit in at 35 yards. Dan was able to get a hit at 50 yards, too, while Kenan expressed severe disappointment at himself for being unable to hit the targets. He stated that this was definitely the shortest walkback drill he'd ever done. The walkback also highlighted the weakness of Dan's incandescent light compared to Kenan and mine's LEDs.
The class ended at about 2200, but both Dan and I stuck around to help breakdown the range and bullshit some more with Kenan, so I was not actually on the road until 2230. Kenan declared Dan the best shooter of the course, which was well justified, as his SOTM skills were considerably stronger than mine, as was his consistency in illuminating the target.
The main points of learning for me were to be more flexible with my feet positioning, the need to practice transitions with the offset handheld holds, the need to practice utilization of cover, the huge differences made in sight picture when the light is illuminating the target versus having some of it splash all over the sights, the need to practice SHO (which can be useful far beyond just low light usage), a WML makes things way easier, the DG switch with the WML is basically like cheating, and DG switch with a laser and light is flat out cheating.
A note about the class itself. I had previously taken only courses from Todd Green and Larry Vickers, both of whom had been teaching the same classes for quite some time in the civilian world before I took their class. Kenan, on the other hand, had only been teaching this particular course about 1.5 years (although he had extensive experience doing advisory work prior to that), and I think it did show a bit, as the class was a bit ad hoc in manner. However, this could also be simply due to the fact that the class was so small, and it was more just Kenan altering the class on the fly as needed, and it did not detract from the learning experience, IMO. He was more than happy to entertain questions, and a couple of times we got into tangents (such as the tritium experiment that was done), even concerning stuff that had little to do with shooting. Still, Kenan seemed to be very much concerned about the student's actually getting something from the material; in fact, in the email that he sent me that had the registration form and release of liablity, he also sent a some reading material, such as stuff about handgun ballistics, his own list of recommendations on gear, etc. While most of the stuff I had already seen before, I was impressed that he would send such material that, while had little to do with the class, could be very educational for any shooters that were new to the discipline, as this was all stuff I certainly did not know when I first started shooting. Both Vickers and Green were relatively humorous guys, and Kenan was no different. Overall, I found the class to have been both hugely educational (learning at least as much as I did at AFHF, if not more) and educational.
Gearwise, several issues existed. Already mentioned were the issues with the tritium sights, along with the short comings of the E1B for this roll. I also consistently had failures to lock back the slide on empty. This had previously never exhibited itself in my SHO shooting, but apparently when stressed, I would sometimes not only be pushing down on the safety lever with my thumb, also forward. This would lead to my thumb actually pushing down on the slide release, thus not having the slide lock back. I am still somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of not riding the safety when shooting SHO, but will need to see if this will be an continual issue or if I can fix my thumb position when stressed. Finally, I found the OWB in the 0200 to be rather painful, as it dug the holster and belt right into my hip bone. I had originally planned to run the RCS appendix carry (I had recently added foam wedges that had done wonders to both the concealment and comfort of the setup) with a Wilderness Instructor Belt (which is a lot less stiffer than the Ares Ranger belt), but Kenan had advised me to utilize OWB at first just so that the fundamentals part would go a little quicker. Later, when it got dark, I decided I'd rather just run it OWB in the interest of safety and speed; seeing how slowly I already holstered appendix style in the daylight, I didn't want to slow down the class with 30 second reholsterings.
Overall, 432 rounds were expended, all of them Aguila Ammunition 124 gr.