Modern Samurai Project Red Dot Pistol Course
As promised, here’s my AAR for the Red Dot Pistol Course this past weekend, taught by Scott Jedlinski of Modern Samurai Project. The class was at Alpha Range in Mchenry, IL. I’m admittedly biased as my home club for USPSA shoots there and I’m a member, but this is an excellent range. Shoothouse walls allow a true 180, there’s a full complement of barrels, walls, fault lines, steel targets, paper target stands, and so on.
Class began began with some admin notes, and then a technical discussion on red dot sights themselves. This included a discussion of best practices for mounting, maintenance, sight selection, etc as well as a discussion on obtaining department approval for the deployment of pistol mounted RDS. These discussions alone for me were worth the price of admission because of my current attempt to get these approved for my team.
We then discussed zeroing RDS and everyone then confirmed zero at 10 yards. Following that, we did some recoil control, group shooting and sight tracking drills and worked on “coarse sight picture” options with an RDS. Then we did fast strings of fire on an 8” target at 5 yards and an exercise going from an easy target and coarse sight picture to a tight target and precise dot placement before working on draws, bill drills, and transitions. This is a pretty standard progression, but what made it both unique and extremely valuable was Scott’s take on how to teach everything. He’s a life-long martial artist, and treats shooting the same way. He’s very in tune with the nuances and subtleties that make technique effective and efficient. The coarse sight picture options for optical sights were another knowledge bomb worth the price of admission. The bill drill was done as a contest with hit factor scoring. I was a little out of control but managed 5 As and a C in the 1.8s. That’s roughly .25 off from my iron sight bill drill PR. Considering I shot a total of about 100 rounds threw the gun at most before the class I consider that a testament to Scot’s instruction.
Sunday we did shooting on the move with single and multiple targets and worked on three practice modes a la Steve Anderson - accuracy, speed, and match modes. We then did a match mode draw to B/C steel at 10 yards as another contest. (I got stuck in speed mode for that one and ganked it.) Then we ran a USPSA style stage a few times.
This was an excellent class. Scott’s teaching style is affable and informative. He has so many “jediisms” that I started calling him a hashtag factory. He has obviously put a great amount of thought and research into his shooting and it shows, both in his performance and his instruction. I quite honestly struggled a little with the dot. I’m so used to Irons that shooting fast at close ranges with coarse sight pictures was messing me up. I was trying to shoot at my normal pace but the sighting isn’t intuitive enough yet. However, I left the class knowing exactly what to do to get better, and confident that I could get there quickly. I would recommend this class to any pistol shooter. Even if you normally shoot irons like I do, borrow a dot gun and take the class. Your iron sight shooting will improve from the experience. And if you want to learn to shoot accurately AND fast with a RDS pistol, this class will drastically shorten the learning curve.
