AAR: Frank Proctor Performance Pistol November 19th
Company: Frank Proctor, Way of the Gun.
Course Type: 1-day Performance Pistol
Date: 11-19-2014
Location: Boulder City Nevada, Pro Gun Club.
I want to write a quick AAR on this class, not only so others have an idea what to expect, but also to help me retain information that was presented through the class.
The class was composed of 16 students from varying backgrounds. There were a couple LEO's, at least 1 former 18-series, and several regular folks like myself, so a good variation when it came to skill levels. While I have shot a few USPSA matches prior, and have done some specific weapons training while working overseas as a Pilot on a DOD contract, this was my first formal pistol class. Frank has been on the short list of instructors I have wanted to train with for a while, I just needed an opportunity. I however almost missed the opportunity, as I didn't know that he was doing this class until only a couple weeks out. That meant I had very little lead time to ensure that I had my ducks in a row.
As for equipment, I wanted to shoot my CZ P-07 that is my carry pistol, but I didn't want to solely use my AIWB holster, which is from High Noon Holsters. While a decent holster, I wasn't sure how it would hold up during a class, also I had some issues with my right wrist in the weeks prior to the class, and doing lots of drawing from AIWB seemed to aggravate it. Unfortunately, I didn't have an OWB holster for my P-07, and since it's not exactly the most common pistol out there right now, getting one on a 2-week lead time was going to be almost impossible. I thought I would have to rely on my M&P9's instead. Fortunately, I stumbled onto a local holster maker, zero to hero concepts, and he was willing to get me one on short notice. In fact, he had my drop off my P-07, and three hours later I had my new finished holster. The quality was also better than the M&P9 holster I have from Bravo Concealment. Magazine pouches were HSGI Tacos on Raven Concealment Moduloader frames. Ammo was CCI Blazer Brass 115gr 9mm. Stated round count was 600 rounds. I brought about double that. I used 573 rounds.
I had 1 failure to extract, but that was after I had removed the magazine. This was while working out of the holster, 1 round on a steel target downrange. I knew the drill was about to be over, so I removed my magazine before I shot the last round so that would be empty after the final shot. Without the magazine in place, the round only partially ejected. Something to note for the future. In the future, I should have replaced the magazine with an empty.
My hope was to come out of the class with a better understanding of how to shoot more accurately, faster and have added confidence when it came to pistol craft. Additionally, I was hoping to have some ideas of drills/exercises that I can practice to continue improving as a shooter.
The class started at 9am, and we covered the expected administrative tasks, introductions and moved out to the range. The facilities were nice, and we had a very large bay set up for the class.
We started with range safety rules, and then started on some basic exercises, including some quick demonstrations by Frank on "seeing" and how much we can actually see while shooting. He had some interesting concepts regarding sight focus, which is going to be something I need to play with more and more. We also did some dry fire work from the holster while paired up with another shooter. This was a warmup as well as a safety exercise. From there, we moved on to live fire, with emphasis on "seeing". Not just seeing the sights, but noticing small variations and really understanding what our sights were telling us, not only prior to breaking the shot, but afterwards as well. Additionally, we did some work on gripping the pistol properly. Frank had some unique insights that I really liked. Additionally, he wanted us to work on loosening up our elbows when we shoot rather shooting "locked out". During this time, the shooter we were each paired up with examined our grip, our arms, etc. Frank also walked around and gave advice on what he saw. One thing that was interesting to me was how a subtle change in elbow position could have a major impact on grip. This is another aspect that I will be working on quite a bit.
For me, the "looser" style was a bit tough for me. The shooter I was paired up with, and I discussed what we were seeing. We both seemed to notice that the pistol at first seemed to recoil up higher, but that was likely an issue with perception as the recoil was absorbed by our arms. Hard to explain. But we both noticed that the front sight motion was more straight up, and it came down on target a bit faster. This is going to be something that I have to work on over time, I didn't fully naturally grasp it on the spot. During a lot of the exercises that we shot, I went back to being rigid and locked up. I think only a few times that I really started to loosen up. Those times that I loosened up, I shot better.
We then moved on to Frank's "Shake and Bake" exercise, which involved 2 stacked barrels, and a steel target downrange. The goal was to work around an obstacle, allowing parts of our body to unlock and allow certain movements which would then allow us to get our sights back on target rapidly and efficiently as we negotiated the obstacle. It was emphasized that the obstacle was not cover, this was not a drill, but an exercise to get to move more efficiently. Essentially, we had to unlock our support hand to allow our shooting hand the flexibility it needed for the motion. At the same time, it worked on us having efficient lower body movement - 1 step instead of 2. We were also to focus on solid gun handling skills, such as making sure to have finger outside of the trigger guard while going from one side to the other. For me, Frank noticed that I tended to be a bit jerky in my motions, slowing down definitely helped in that regard. Part of me wanted to slow down to get it perfect, part of me wanted to push faster to find my limit. We also did this drill with 2 steel plates, alternating one plate from one side of the obstacle, to the shooting the other plate on the other side.
After this, Frank added in the next step. We did the same drill, but after engaging the targets on each side a set number of times, we then came out from behind the obstacle and started to shoot at the 2 steel targets alternating, while advancing forward towards them to a set point. While relatively basic in appearance, this did create some difficulty for me. My mind was conflicted between counting so I shot the set amount, focusing on the exercise, moving in a way I wasn't used to all while shooting as well.
Next we moved on to a moving while shooting drill, rotating our bodies to shoot while walking perpendicular to the targets. My accuracy here was horrible to put it mildly. This involved 5 targets, 5 rounds each run, and we each did about 3-5 runs on it. I really need to set something like this up again and really work this on out.
Frank then moved us on to what he called the "Magic Man". This exercise really showed that the subconscious can shoot better than we can consciously, but also reinforced sights+target=shoot. The first few shots of this went well, then completely fell apart as my conscious mind started to fight for control. It wasn't until my third set of this that I started to grasp this, and the magic really started to occur. This will be something I practice again.
After this we went back to working on drawing more efficiently, with Frank coaching us through a more efficient way of drawing, without trying to push hand speed. We worked on making sure that when we came out of the holster, the pistol was lined up in front of our faces, with us looking through the sights, without us having to adjust. This definitely improved my speed and accuracy out of the holster, at least for the next exercise, later I seemed to go back to my old self, and it wasn't as good.
We then moved onto a relay, 4 shooters next to each other. First shooter drew, fired one shot at the 1/3rd IPSC steel @ 10 yards. 2nd shooter would watch for the hit, upon SEEING the hit, the 2nd shooter would then draw, and fire one shot. 3rd shooter and fourth followed the same pattern, working back to the 1st shooter. While another basic exercise on the surface, there was more to it that involved seeing, focusing on the target, naturally bringing the pistol up efficiently, breaking the shot once the sights were aligned (sights+target=trigger) without delay.
We then also worked with some auto turning targets. The targets were set so that on the press of a button the target would turn, giving the shooter a 2 second window to identify, process, draw and fire before turning again. We were to also identify where we were hitting based on what our sights told us. This was a major frustration for me for some reason, I was not picking up my sights as well as I would like, and my calling of shots was not what I would have liked. This exercise was done side by side with another shooter, (so two targets down ranged, synced on their movements). We also did some draw, 1-shot on our target, 1-shot on the other persons target, while trying to see what we needed to see.
While shooters rotated through that exercise, there were also two other setups for "the Focus Monster". Basically, this is 4 barrels setup so that you have to slalom through them smoothly while engaging 2 steel targets downrange, alternating between the two targets. This was done a couple of different ways, first 1 shot left, 1 shot right, rinse and repeat while walking and moving around the obstacles. Next we did what was best described as a 1-5 drill while doing the focus monster. Basically, 1 shot left, 2 shots right, 3 shots left, 4 shots right, 5 shots left. This was humbling to say the least. Conscious mind working on one thing, sub-conscious mind doing something else.
This was where I kept having a few issues, and I was a bit slow to fix. Essentially, go through the drill once, and that's 15 rounds. So at the end of the drill, reload, go back to the start and do it again. Except I seemed to be riding the slide stop, so the slide wasn't locking back on empty. Each magazine for me holds 15 rounds, so I should have done an emergency reload and then gone again. But I didn't. I did a tac reload, and unlike earlier in the class, I didn't do a press check. Had I done a press check, I would have seen that I did not have a round in the chamber. Worse, I think I did this 3-4 times. Turns out that 15 rounds fired out of a 15 round magazine, yup, means no round in the chamber. Math is hard sometimes.
I struggled to get a decent run. I had a few runs where the first shot was a miss, the other 14 were all good hits, which seemed counter intuitive to my brain. I did manage 1 decent run, missed 1 shot halfway through. Not terrible though.
Overall it was a solid class.
While we did not do a large number of drills/exercises, we were able to shoot each exercise several times through. This gave us more opportunities to get the concepts that Frank was trying to instill in us during the class.
This is not what I would consider to be a weapons manipulations class. While Frank did work with us on our work from the holster, grips and sights, this was more about seeing, processing and working on exercises to be better shooters. Many of the exercises were what Frank termed compound exercises, meaning that they were there to work multiple aspects of shooting.
This was also not a class where Frank would be standing over your shoulder telling what you are doing wrong or specifically critiquing your shooting. He would instead walk you through the process of analyzing yourself what you did wrong. That doesn't mean he didn't give points, or make adjustments for people, he did that as well. But as above, that was not the focus of this class.
One other thing that seemed interesting to me was how Frank changed up the exercises as we went. He clearly had specific exercises he wanted us to do, but then as we moved along, he would change things up and try new ideas out on us. There was no rigid playbook. That means you could take this class several times, and it probably won't ever be the same.
A few other things I took away from this class:
- The Tritium night sights on my pistol may be good in the dark, but they can be hard to pick up during the day. I will be getting a set of fiber optic sights shortly.
- Many of the exercises we shot could be simulated in the house using a SIRT pistol. I will probably be picking one up as well.
- I really want to do a 2-3 day class with Frank. We started at 9am, ended about 4:15. I think there was a lot more to explore, and I think a 1-day class is probably a bit too short. To be fair, there was a 2nd day available, focused on the carbine that I couldn't attend.
