12/7 Chris L Pistol Class
Class Schedule 0900-1700
-Actual time @0830-1800
Cost $125
-Chris reduced this to $100 as one student’s income reduced just prior to the class so he could attend.
Estimated round count 450rds
-Actual round count 420rds
Casa Grande Police Range
Background:
I have wanted to get some of my close friends who own firearms into a proper firearms course awhile. This was the first class for everyone except me. So I contacted Chris to see if he was interested.
Quick description of ChrisL classes.
-Low EGO
-Low student to instructor ratio 1 instructor to 6 students max
-Excellent at diagnosing shooters issues (my opinion from what I’ve seen in other classes)
-High value
Class:
2 malfunctions Glock 35 forget details
1 ammunition induced malfunction - Freedom Munitions out of spec round wouldn’t chamber in my gun. Missed it when stuffing magazines
The class was similar to classes he has taught in the past and you can see the past ChrisL AAR’s on this forum.
First half of the class started with introduction and safety brief then moved into the basic pistol shooting fundamentals. The class varied from striker, 1911 to DA/SA pistols and Chris through this portion talked about different techniques for the different handgun types. One thing I really like is Chris has experience with and likes all the different types of pistols. So he can diagnose different handgun type specific issues.
Something Chris recently added too this part of his class is recording video of students individually performing tasks (draw, close up on grip while firing, holstering) on a tablet then showing them things they are doing good and what needs improvement real time. I thought this portion of the class was very well done. I could see this having potential for being a huge time sink if done wrong but that wasn’t the case. We all received our personnel videos in email to review on our own. He mentioned he had learned this from Mcphee.
I brought a grill and we were able to eat at the range while talking as a group so minimal downtime for lunch.
Second half of the class things ramped up and we started on some drills. I had originally mentioned to Chris that the class was at entry level skill but I had underestimated my pals a bit. We started varying timed drills freestyle, strong hand, weak hand from 25 yds with emphasis on accuracy. Everyone did well and applied what they had learned in the first portion of the class and the improvements were obvious.
Next we moved on to drills involving movement, freestyle/stronghand/weakhand and shooting on steel. This involved some of his personal drills and some of TMACs drills that Chris insured to give him credit for. First one was Grid of Fire and then one I forget the name on but was Start at 50yd line sprint to 25 and fire one round, then sprint to 15, then 7 and go in reverse. We did a few more drills mixed in ending on a walk back drill every going out to max distance of @ 85 to 95 yds. Everyone was dialed in at this point and there were very few misses with most runs ending clean.
The class ended by slowing down and returning to the fundamentals on paper from 25 yds which really showed how much everyone improved. I thought this was a really good way to end the class. Feedback to me from everyone that attended is that they enjoyed the class, improved as a shooter and would be willing to attend another.
Chris tried to refund the class tuition to one student that had to leave halfway through the class for personal reasons but student refused because the first half on its own was worth over the price of admission.
I usually attend 2 handgun classes a year from varying instructors. I’ve been lucky to attend a number of great classes with very few less then stellar ones mixed in that just make me appreciate ones like this more. I wasn’t going to post an AAR on this class as it was set up by me but decided afterwards it’s a good reminder to spread the word on good local instructors as well as the big name ones. I'm hoping to take a class with another local instructor I met at a well known instructors class, will put up an AAR if it's good.
For disclosure Chris and I are friends but weren’t when I did the first AAR’s on prior classes I’ve attended of his. TBH He doesn’t have any open enrollment classes currently scheduled and teaches a very limited number of classes a year.
