AAR: MODERN SAMURAI: Red Dot Fundamentals & Performance, SIG Academy 12-2019
MODERN SAMURAI PROJECT
modern-samurai-project.myshopify.com
Red Dot Pistol: Fundamentals and Performance
December 19-20, 2019
Instructor: Scott Jedlinski
Location: Sig Sauer Academy Indoor Rifle Range, Epping, NH
Round Count: 990 Blazer brass 9mm 115gr
Class size: 19 students: 17 men, 2 women
Hardware: M&Pc 3.6” w/ Holosun 507CG
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Note: I missed a lot of the details as my head was not entirely in the “game” a close family member was just placed on hospice the night before the class started and I found myself not as present as I should have been. Do not take this AAR as a complete review of the class as I probably missed or forgot a ton of the important details.
This was my first time at SIG Academy…an amazing place. So many classrooms and ranges. A top-notch shooting facility. One of the “perks” is when you check-in in the morning you are able to order lunch to be delivered into the classrooms at lunchtime. In the building we were in there were vending machines with beverages, coffee and all sorts of snacks available. Full clean heated restrooms were also in the classroom building. Our range for the two days was the 50-yard rifle range which was heated, ventilated and impeccably clean. The only thing that was somewhat issue was the floor was slab concrete. A killer on your legs after eight hours, but that was a user error issue, not facility issue. Very impressive facility and the staff was fantastic. Good job SIG ACADEMY!
In the introductions, Scott made it clear that this was not going to be a defensive tactics class, but more of a red dot shooting class. He did not care if we performed administrative reloads while on the line or top off our magazines in between reps. This was a class about dot technique, the economy of motion and getting faster. We went around the group saying what we wanted to get better at in the class, 80-90% of us said finding the dot faster upon presentation from the holster.
Scott said he believed we would learn as much if not more from watching another student perform the task/drill so we paired up with another student and broke into two groups. I was Rocco’s partner and I was on the line with the first group. We were going to check our zeros at ten yards on a one-inch square. Three shots. My first two I felt a slight flinch and was ¼” low my third shot was inside. Scott came by each student to confirm they had the correct setting. He was a little unsure on my target as two were low and one was in, but Rocco confirmed he noticed my flinch. Rocco’s turn was 100% inside all three shots. We did it again and I made two out of three inside. I looked at the other targets and thought to myself…OH BOY, these guys can shoot well, and the head game started for me. The male ego is fragile…
We were shown how to be target focused and not dot focused, which was hard for me, after so many years of front sight focus. We practiced visual cues and trigger presses once the dot was at the top of an acceptable shot placement to press the trigger. We were shown how to prep the trigger as the recoil was coming down and to break the shot at the top of our “window” and not to use trigger reset. Another thing I had trouble with. I am so used to pinning the trigger and waiting for the sights to be back on target before releasing the trigger. We did a lot of reps burning these new concepts in.
We worked on our grip with Scotts slightly different techniques that worked very well. Scott went down the line giving each of us induvial attention and coaching while the rest of the line burned the skill it in. That was his thing. For all new techniques and concepts, Scott would watch and coach each of us for an iteration while the others on the line burned the skill in. A lot of reps were accomplished this way. We began to predict where the dot will be and where it moves to before, during, and after the shot.
Scott showed us how to shorten our draw time by using an economy of motion and using a push-down technique to spring off the holster and belt and use the momentum of force to decrease the time getting the gun up and seeing the dot while focusing on the target. We were shown how to go fast at the beginning of the presentation where it does not matter and slow it down as the gun is coming on plane to the target. We tried several different speeds and found our wall and came back just a tad.
We shot from 25 yards and close up at five yards learning on how visual cues are where you decide to press the trigger. At five yards you have a much longer visual cue during recoil to place a bullet in an acceptable area of the target than at 25 yards. “…don’t over confirm the dot…”
We learned how to see multiple targets at once and pressing the trigger when the dot when it was just over the top of the acceptable area we wanted to hit was. We followed this up with a more efficient way to transition to the next target by letting the gun move to the following target, not us driving the gun. Interesting, we practiced and burned that in under Scott's coaching eye.
Scott showed us different ways to shoot on the move and shoot single-handed both strong hand and dumb hand. We found which way works for us the best and burned those in while Scott watched us and gave us correction when needed. The last pressure test of the class was a course of fire with six targets plus two steel targets that we each ran three times, the winner was awarded a SureFire light. Man, there were some really fast and accurate shooters in the class.
We cleanup and debriefed, Scott thanked us and we all thanked him for his time, his skill, his teaching methods, and his overall teaching style. There was no unhappy student that I saw throughout the two days, everyone was eating his information up.
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I enjoyed the class, it was a very different class from all other classes I have taken. It was the first time I was on a timer and speed was preferred over exact marksmanship. At first, it was counterintuitive, but after a while, I understood how it has its place in defensive shooting. It was weird not reloading as needed and not doing a situational scan after the drill was over, but I got used to it and it became natural setting up the gun for the next iteration.
Scott is an excellent instructor, that is clear and respectful to all students, he pushed each of us past our wall and did it without harassment or with attitude. Not all instructors are like that, he treated you like a human being and a customer of his. Again, not all instructors are like that.
I am pretty sure that I was consistently last in each timed drill that was scored, but it did not matter to me. I was learning new ways to shoot the dot and his techniques made sense. My greatest takeaway was being target focused and being able to see multiple targets at once while not concentrating and get lost in the dot. I will absolutely take his class again and if you run a dot sight this class will definitely help you increase your skill, speed, and understanding of shooting with an RDS.
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