AAR Frank Proctor Way of the Gun Maq, IA Oct 2-4 2012
AAR Frank Proctor Way of the Gun Oct 2-4, 2012 Maquoketa, IA
By Shawn C.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to host Frank Proctor for a 3 day Advanced Pistol/Carbine course in Maquoketa, IA. I had heard about Frank Proctor from an M4Carbine.net member that mentioned his name. After finding some info on the net about Frank, I knew that I wanted to train with him.
Frank's website: www.wayofthegun.us
Frank is currently a member of the 20th Special Forces Group and is the NCOIC in charge of that group's Special Operations Target Interdiction Course and is the Primary Marksmanship instructor for the Special Forces Advanced Urban Combat course. He has combat deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. He is a current USPSA Grandmaster and IDPA Master. Frank was extremely open about his background and how it plays into his current teaching methodology.
I contacted Frank and asked him a myriad of questions about the course and what he would require to come and put it on. He was very easy to work with and always answered e-mails in a timely fashion. I have been hosting instructors for the past 5 years so this wasn't the first time I have gone through this. The location I had available for the class would not support a large class so I was relieved to hear Frank say that the max number of students in the class would be 10. I also did not have to advertise the class as I have a pretty solid list of students who would be interested. We eventually ended up with a class of 9 which worked out well.
Frank rolled into town a day early and this gave us an opportunity to get together and figure out range set-up and to attend to any last minute details. There were a group of guys that met with Frank for dinner at a local restaurant and gave us an opportunity to ask Frank questions.
Frank is laid back and a soft-spoken individual. He didn't appear to be pushing an individual agenda or over inflating his accomplishments or where he has been and what he has done. This was "refreshing" to say the least. I'll go more into his instructing style later in the AAR.
The class was comprised of mostly LEOs and a couple of civilians. The class was structured to cover the carbine on TD1, the pistol on TD2 and integrate the concepts on TD3. Training was conducted from 0800 - 2100 on TDs 1and 2 and from 0800 - 1600 on TD3. I liked getting two night shoots in as it is something that doesn't get covered much. All beverages and lunch and dinner were provided. I like to do this as it minimizes down time waiting for guys to straggle back after lunches and dinners. It also gives everyone an opportunity to eat together and get to know each other a little better. Weather was typical mid-western fall. A little breezy on TD3 with just a splash of rain.
TD1
Frank started out with a lecture about the pros and cons of how he runs the carbine in the way that he does. He explained the DI gas system of the AR platform and that the inertia of the bolt carrier group is what creates felt recoil and is what most shooters strive to control when shooting the rifle. He is an advocate of using a "neutral shoulder" when bringing the gun up to fire. He described it as utilizing a position that centers the dot of the optic naturally in the center of the body of the optic instead of pushing either left or right. Loading the gun to the front or rear requires a counter-opposing force to bring the gun back to "neutral shoulder "which eats up precious 10ths of seconds. Extending the stock allows for more leverage on the rifle and is something he learned from 3 gunners after getting smoked by them during shoot house portions of competitions. He further explained that he was initially taught and successfully used a magwell hold, compact position and though that it was the best position to utilize especially inside a structure. This gave an insight into Frank in that he is not afraid to admit that when a better method exists he is not afraid to make a change instead of clinging to dogma. I'm sure that this part of his personality is one of the traits that allowed him to become an extremely successful shooter. Frank covered some other things and then it was onto the drills.
Frank is big into shooting onto reduced size targets. When we weren't shooting steel, we used IPSC cardboard targets as backers and shot on either 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper or 3 x 5 cards. The 3 x 5 cards were very good at exposing weaknesses in your game. Frank is big into "seeing" what you are shooting. This means "seeing" what the sights are doing, "seeing" what the gun is doing and "seeing" what the target is doing. We did some drills to work on "seeing" what the gun was doing. Frank is big on doing the drills dry then live. Frank explained these concepts in an easy to understand format. He appeared to be offering everything that he had on a given topic and wasn't holding anything back. He also does what most good instructors do in that he offers these suggestions as a way and not the way.
Frank dove into carbine manipulations. He said that in mounting the gun it is best to adopt a heads-up stance and bring the gun up to where you are looking. He said that our bodies are designed to see by standing straight-up. When hunched over our forehead and eyebrows could cut-off the top portion of our vision and also not allow all of the components of the eye to line-up behind the optic nerve and could create distorted or blocked vision. This becomes exacerbated when wearing glasses, hats or helmets and also when shooting from different positions as he would demonstrate later in the week. He explained that manipulations should be done off shoulder and close in with the stock tucked under the armpit for control. He demonstrated a different way to grasp magazines that allowed for consistency between speed reloads and tac reloads as well as with the pistol mags. He also explained that when inserting mags on a bolt lock reload there is not a need for a "pull" after pushing it in during insertion. After his explanation it made sense. Frank also explained that a focal shift should be performed from the target to the area that you are working on during manipulations to reduce the chance of fumbling something and taking more time.
Frank has designed his own sling which he sells on his website. He prefers a two point set-up and to have the two points attached at the furthest ends possible of the weapon. This allows for the rifle to be stabilized when moving the gun off shoulder to perform administrative tasks. He showed us his preferred method of stowing the rifle on his back and how the other methods of attachment won't allow you to do this as efficiently. Frank also showed how the sling can be loaded into by wrapping it around the hand when supporting it on vertical cover. He covered more applications of his sling during the positional shooting portion on Day 3.
This took us up to lunch.
After Lunch we worked on shooting on the move. Frank believes that when solely working on shooting on the move the best distance is 15 yards. He recommended lengthening your stride and demonstrated that for a given distance for example you could take 5 longer strides vs. taking 8 shorter strides. This would provide for only 5 potentially jarring impacts to disturb your sight picture vs. 8 of the same jarring impacts. We conducted several drills to work on this. Frank then showed us some different techniques for manipulating the gun when moving from point A to Point B. He said that breaking the gun off the shoulder and orienting the muzzle up-wards while tucking the stock under the armpit allows for a more natural arm swing and a more natural movement, especially while moving. Frank started to present some drills that allowed us to work on combining certain things to make us more efficient. One of the concepts that he presented is when moving from a position to another position is that on the planting of your foot to bring the gun up and safety off as you are settling into position vs. settling first then bringing the gun up. He said that for your continued existence on this earth that nothing else matters then getting your hit first. We did some more drills to reinforce these concepts.
This took us to dinner.
After dinner Frank began to talk about white light set-ups for the carbine. His golden rule was that it wasn't about the equipment but more about setting it up so it did not compromise your normal grip on the carbine to activate the light. Frank preferred to run his light off of the support side of his rail but still mounted close to his front BUIS. He said this allowed him to get as low as possible when canting the rifle to the weapon side to use on top of cover.
He explained that white light should be used for PID of potential threats and should be forward mounted to avoid shadowing. Light on, get work done, then light off and move to next breach point. Dial down the intensity of your optic so that your white light doesn't wash it out when activated.
Frank talked about carrying a spare load out of batteries on your person for all of your equipment that requires them and be able to determine their correct orientation when replacing them without light or by feel.
This finished out TD1.
Frank is a humble human. He offers you his advice and explains where he learned it from and why he has decide to incorporate it into how he does things. I don't think that I ever heard him bash anyone else or any other types of equipment. He is definitely not a shill for a particular brand or manufacturer and recommends certain types of equipment based on his own personal use of a type of equipment.
Frank set-up all of the targets and would paste new targets between strings. He was constantly on the move and had an endless supply of energy but never seemed rushed when he was teaching something. He was always asking if anyone had any questions and would always make sure to answer every question. There was never an air of arrogance that Frank displayed and I think that this showed that he was there for the students and was trying to pass on as much as he could in a short amount of time.
TD2
We started the day with focus on the pistol. Frank mentioned that the trigger finger should be indexed alongside the frame. Other than the obvious of keeping the finger off the trigger, he explained that it provides for counter opposing force when operating the slide release and mag release. He reconfirmed the efficiency of having a heads-up stance when shooting the pistol just like with the carbine.
Frank explained that the most important mechanical component of shooting a pistol accurately is recoil management. He said that with a rifle you have 3 points of traction control whereas on the pistol you only have 1. Any flaw in your grip such as a 1/16th of a gap between the pistol and the web of your hand, compromises this traction and could cost you 10ths of a second on follow-up shots which could be the difference in the bad guys getting rounds onto you. Frank covered pointing your support thumb at the target and placing it alongside the frame just under the slide. This locks your wrist and keeps the thumb from potentially dragging along the slide. Frank explained that your elbows should be kept "unlocked" to help lessen the effects of felt recoil and to create less jarring during shooting on the move.
Frank offered that on the draw stroke, both hands should come up from underneath the pistol with the support hand making contact with the gun at the trigger guard and should meet the weapon hand at the belt and help push the gun up towards the target. Support hand index finger should wrap around the weapon hand middle finger to prevent contact and interference with the trigger finger.
We began working the trigger press using a zip tie to take your gun slightly out of battery but still allowing the return spring to function. Frank explained that your trigger finger should not be perpendicular to the trigger but start high to low when placing it on the trigger. He says that this allows for more control and allows you to work the reset better. he does not believe in coming completely off the trigger as he believes this technique causes the sights to dip when taking the slack back up.
We fired some drills with the pistol continuing with an emphasis on the previous days theme of "seeing" what the sights are doing, "seeing" what the gun is doing and "seeing" what the result is on the target. We worked on 3x5 cards shooting on a single card then progressing to multiple cards set at different locations. He also showed us that by firing ten round strings that is the best way that he knows to help learn how to "see" your sights lift.
Frank prefers manipulating the slide by pinching the slide just in front of the ejection port with the thumb and fingers of the support hand. He believes that your support hand remains closer to the pistol during this manipulation and is more efficient than the overhand grasp method.
Frank showed us a way to release the mag with your support hand thumb and said that if you are releasing the slide with your support hand thumb then you should be releasing the mag with your support side thumb also. He recommended performing a focus shift from the sights or target to the magwell when performing reloads and a small pause just before insertion to ensure the mag is correctly oriented to the magwell before inserting into the magwell to avoid fumbling.
Frank went into the different types of focus and how you should incorporate learning these types of focus into your training. He further explained that the closer you are to the target the less focus you need to have on your sights which should thereby allow you to engage the target more quickly and reduce your split times. He said that subsequently when you are farther from the target then more focus needs to be spent on weapon orientation to the threat. This constant focus shift should become a natural part of your overall situational awareness. He reinforced this by demonstrating that every movement should be in such a fashion that you can shoot from i.e.; picking up a magazine from the deck. He said that instead of bending over at the waist, you should get in the habit of bending your knees and lowering yourself to the ground with your weapon up in the event that a threat presents itself you will be in a position to engage it.
We moved ( no pun intended ) into shooting on the move drills. The target area switched to 8 1/2 x 11 pieces of paper. We conducted drills moving to and from the target, weapon out and having to draw on the move. We also did drills in engaging targets to the obliques while moving. Frank explained that with a pistol your hands are somewhat isolated from the jarring impact of movement. Everything that was covered the previous day in regards to "smoothing"out your moves and all of the tips and techniques certainly applied.
Frank covered transitions from the carbine to the pistol. He believes that you should guide the carbine down to outside of your support side knee with your support hand. His sling choice factors into this and makes it fairly easy to accomplish this. This position allows for the rifle to remain against the side and allows it to remain clear of the knees while running. You should also be careful not to place the rifle so far over that it blocks access to your pistol mags. He does not think that twisting the rifle so the ejection port side is against your body is a good idea as he has seen this allow for the rifle to become un hinged and flop over.
Frank believes that the rifle should be placed on safe as you transition as there typically won't be enough time to figure out why your carbine went down and there is too much of a chance for something to get into the trigger guard while it is hanging there.
This brought us to the low light portion of the course. Frank does not utilize a pistol mounted light but carries a small handheld instead. He says the main reason for this is to allow him to search independently of where the muzzle is oriented. He showed many different types of handheld low light techniques. The gem of the course for me at least came when I picked up how to manipulate the light with my support hand only during reloads and malfunction clearance. I had previously relied on the Surefire combat ring to allow one handed manipulation but this new technique freed me from having to rely on this particular piece of equipment.
We worked through several low and no light drills as far as PID and engagement which included manipulations. We then did similar drills on the move.
This wrapped up TD2.
TD3
For TD3 we covered CQB and positional shooting.
Frank explained that the most important principle in CQB is to perform the maximum amount of work in the minimum amount of space. He said that if you could figure that out then you should be pretty successful. He said that CQB is common sense and that he has found that a lot of times concepts gets filtered down wrong or they are misunderstood.
He explained some of the bad habits as he sees it. The biggest one is when team members orient their muzzles down 3 feet in front of them along with the same team members awareness and focus. He believes this may be a bad habit developed during tape drills. He suggested that you should keep your head and ultimately your focus up and looking around.
He further explained the differences between center clears and corner clears and the priority of still maintaining collapsing sectors of fire.
We worked on drills for all of the above then conducted specific drills for PID while enroute to open breach points and the pros and cons of engaging and still making entry.
We took a crawl, walk and run approach to the drills and worked them individually then with a partner.
This took us to lunch.
After lunch we worked on positional shooting with both the pistol and carbine.
We started off with the pistol. We worked some different kneeling positions then Frank demonstrated a different type of roll-over prone. When rolling over 90 degrees to the side, there will be some offset issues in regards to where the bullet strikes. Always remember to hold off in the direction of the magwell. How much is determined by distance.
We worked some drills out to 100 yards to reinforce what we had learned and then moved onto carbine positional shooting.
Frank showed us different positions to use when in the standing over a flat surface. He explained that there are pros and cons to using the flat top surface of an object as support when shooting from a barricade. The pros are that it provides 4 points of contact ( weapon side elbow, support side elbow, magazine and body). The con is that leaning on cover exposes you more to incoming fire. An option is to move back and push front of magwell into object remaining cognizant of the curve of the object or any odd shapes to the surface that could interfere with the bore. To help deal with that, roll the gun over to the side so now what your optic sees, the bore sees. Use support hand to cup or grasp the outside of the optic to provide another point of contact when rolled over without interfering with being able to see through the optic like you would not be able to if using the support hand in grasping the forend.
Frank demonstrated a method of using a C-clamp with the support hand to load into the forend when working on vertical surfaces. He then demonstrated a method that takes advantage of his sling set-up of using a two-point sling with the front connection point closer towards the muzzle, you can wrap the sling around the support hand and load into the sling instead of having to count on just the index finger and thumb of the support hand when using only the C-clamp.
We moved onto kneeling.
Frank explained and demonstrated that when firing from the kneeling position and loading into vertical cover or barricade raise the same knee that corresponds with the shoulder in which you are shooting from. Position the knee forward in the direction you are firing from vs. pointing it out to avoid exposing that knee to incoming fire. Get low enough so that you can "clamshell" that knee with your elbow to "tighten-up"the position.
Positional shooting was the only circumstance in which Frank advocated switching shoulders with the carbine to better utilize cover. He further explained that when firing with the non-dominant eye, close the dominant eye to avoid the dot of the optic wanting to gravitate towards the dominant eye which is not directly in line with the target-optic relationship. Frank is not a big fan of double kneeling except for the limited use in that it can only be used when engaging from both sides of "skinny" cover. If there is any distance involved in having to shoot from opposing sides of cover from the kneeling then traditional kneeling provides for quick transitions and a more stable platform to shoot from.
Frank showed a couple variations on traditional prone. He explained that when shooting from the prone your upper body position should be almost exactly how it is when shooting from the standing position. He explained a variation of the traditional prone, the "canted" prone in which you rotate the magazine outboard to allow a lower position to the ground. Another variation is the "side-prone" position in which you roll your weapon elbow completely under your body so you are on your side then spread your fingers out of your support hand and place it flat onto the ground then rest the forend on the back of your hand. You can "crab" your fingers to provide for some elevation control. Push the rifle forward enough so that the magazine will load into your support side forearm for a third point of contact.
We did all of the carbine positional shooting from a dumpster, telephone pole or wooden fence. I really liked this vs. using constructed props as it really showed the versatility of the positions in their ability to conform to and be useful from available cover. I think that sometimes constructed props are built to take into account a specific shooting position in which you will never shoot from that position because there is nothing that replicates it.
This wrapped up the course. I wanted to give a shout out to the crew that stayed for the always dreaded brass call. I also had help from several volunteers who helped to keep the meal train on the tracks and everyone in the class expressed their appreciation for their efforts.
Frank did a quick certificate hand out and everyone was on their way.
Frank is an outstanding instructor that has the ability to take his training and combat experience and meld that with his competition experience and present a fairly simple yet extremely effective way of doing things. His instructions were straight forward and he was not tripping over his words looking for the right word to explain something which I believe says a lot about believing in what he is teaching. His biggest asset and a concept that I have not been exposed to before is the hurried yet precise method of combining all of the little things regarding singular task accomplishment. The other instructors that I have trained with have presented singular topics so they could be focused on and practiced then keep moving onto the other training task. Frank blends concepts so that you are working on about 5 things at one time and forces you to learn to not prioritize them but to focus on accomplishing all 5 tasks at the same time. I think that this more accurately reflects what goes on during "the chaos of the moment" and exposes you to some of the lag and stress that comes with it so you can overcome it and prevail.
After the class I saw a Facebook posting from Frank where he described the training that he provides as "Tactical Performance." I can't think of a better description.
If you are looking to take the training you currently have and make it work at speed and under reduced time constraints, Frank Proctor is the instructor that can get you there. If you are looking for an egoless and relaxing training environment that packs a ton of training value packed into a short time frame, Way of the Gun will exceed your expectations.
I would contact Frank sooner rather than later as I have a feeling he will be very busy in 2013.
