SAC Tactical Shotgun Skills Class, Columbia Falls MT 21-May-2022 AFTER ACTION REPORT
Folks:
I recently conducted a day long shotgun class in northwest Montana. What follows is an after action report ("AAR") that I prepared.
"SAC Tactical
By Bruce Cartwright
8 Hour Essential Shotgun Skills Class, Columbia Falls MT
After Action Report
21-May-2022
Copyright May 2022
I conducted a one day (8 hour) Essential Shotgun Skills Course on 21-May-2022 at the North Valley Sportsman Club in Columbia Falls Montana. This is a private, membership range located in the Flathead valley about 20 minutes north and east of Kalispell, Montana. Thanks to the North Valley Sportsman Club (“NVSC”) for allowing me to teach a class at this facility (Link: “https://www.nvsc.info/”).
STUDENTS: The class consisted of six students. All were civilians. Three were either retired or former law enforcement officers. As previously noted, I generally limit enrollment in my classes to ten students, unless I have a vetted assistant instructor assisting me. That said, I favor smaller classes because it allows me to assist more students and do so in an in-depth fashion. My students did an exemplary job doing the police call and breakdown of the range. That is emblematic of the quality of my students and something I deeply appreciate.
WEATHER: The weather was cool, sunny and breezy with temperatures in the mid-50s with low humidity. There is a covered firing point on the range in question which facilitated breaks. One very nice feature was the presence of a wood stove, which we made use of during the morning and early afternoon portions of the class. A well-maintained fire in the wood stove was a nice addition during breaks.
RANGE: There were no issues related to using the NVSC Range. If you are in the Flathead Valley area of Montana, please support NVSC with a membership.
WEAPONS: As to hardware, one shooter ran a Benelli M2, another a Beretta 1301, two shooters ran Mossberg 590s and two shooters ran Remington 870 shotguns with shortened stocks. All shotguns were in 12 gauge. Handguns included a Wilson Combat full size single stack 1911 in 9mm, a Wilson EDC X9 in 9mm, a Sig P229 in 9mm, two Glocks in 9mm and an FN in 9mm. No malfunctions were noted with any of the handguns or shotguns during the class. In other classes I have had to lend weapons to students whose weapons failed during class. You cannot always count on the instructor having a spare available for you, especially if they are required to fly to a class venue. It is really wise to bring a spare weapon to class if at all possible. Using a weapon in a class setting, especially during adverse conditions tends to let you gauge a weapon’s reliability.
Shotguns and their ammunition tend to be heavy by their nature. All but two of the shooters ran extended magazine tubes on their shotguns. This adds significantly to the weight of the shotgun which in turn contributes to greater fatigue. Too each his own, but I tend to favor shotguns with a short a barrel as legally possible with standard capacity magazine tubes and shortened butt stocks. Shotgun fit is critical to a shooter’s success. One shooter found that when using the “push-pull” recoil mitigation technique, that his Mossberg 590 needed a slightly longer stock. His weapon is equipped with a Magpul stock and this is a “quick fix” for him.
On a personal note, I recently acquired a Springfield SA-35 in 9mm. This is Springfield Armory’s version of the venerable Browning Hi Power. I have always been a fan of the Hi Power design. I have added a beavertail to my SA-35 and stippled the front and back straps. The SA-35 has not malfunctioned with any of the ammo I have run through it. The enhancements made by Springfield have brought the SA-35 up to date. I am very much impressed with the SA-35. One feature I am particularly impressed with is the factory zero of the fixed sights. Bench rest testing at 25 yards confirmed my SA-35 is zeroed at 25 yards for 147 grain ammunition. The use of 115 grain practice ammunition is surprisingly close to the same zero as the 147-grain ammo.
LUBICATION: As I have written in a variety of other AARs, please lube your weapon and bring spare lube with you to class. There were no lubrication related malfunctions during this class.
SLINGS: This course covered the fighting use of a full-size shotgun; hence, a sling was necessary. As a general rule, for most applications, an adjustable two-point sling works the best. Typically, I see 90 plus percent of my students using two-point slings. One very switched-on shooter attended class with a new Benelli M2 which, despite diligent efforts on his part, was not equipped with a sling. This shooter persevered and did fine. Transitioning from shotgun to handgun required him to fire dominant hand only. A sling for a long gun really is analogous to a holster for a handgun.
One additional point about slings. Once they are fitted to your long gun, get to the range and use them in a variety of drills. Don’t forget to include some transition to handgun drills as well. It is fine to try something new, in terms of sling or gear placement, but you need to confirm that the sling (or accessory) placement doesn’t interfere with other equipment.
AMMUNITION TYPES AND PATTERNS: One thing I have students do during shotgun classes is to pattern their weapons with defensive ammo, typically some form of buckshot. We did this in class. Two shooters ran Federal Flite Control 9 pellet 00 buckshot ammunition and were rewarded with incredibly tight, well centered patterns. Two shooters ran more commonly available generic 00 buckshot. Their patterns were larger and realistically limited them to about 20 yards of effective range. One of the generic buckshot shooters indicated a desire to standardize on slugs because of the large patterns he was getting. I typically use only slug ammunition in my defensive shotguns. This is a hold over from my time in the FBI. We tended to favor slug ammunition because of its greater range, greater penetration and greater accuracy. The mission drives equipment selection and I am comfortable with using slug ammo. As a side note, I choose high penetration slug ammo due to the threat posed by grizzly bears where I live. One of my neighbors who lives about a half a mile away from me has reported several sightings/encounters with the big beasts.
Concerning ammunition availability, sometimes we are forced, through no fault of our own, to use ammunition we can find rather than ammunition we prefer. This is never optimal, but part of life. The pandemic and assorted issues have made finding ammunition difficult. While ammunition supplies are beginning to increase, finding certain types of premium ammo is still difficult. The referenced Federal Flite Control buckshot ammunition is nearly impossible to find and when/if you locate any, the price is elevated. By patterning your weapon and knowing the capability of various types of ammo, you have options.
Some individuals advocate the use of “birdshot” ammo for defensive uses. This is typified by the one and one eighth (1 1/8) ounce loads of small shot (think Number 7.5 or so) loaded to about 1,100 feet per second. I discourage such thinking. I have hunted game birds using this type of ammunition and occasionally you knock birds down but do not kill them out right. If bird shot ammo doesn’t reliably stop small game birds, I suspect it would be less than optimal for defensive use. This concept was illustrated during class. I employ a rotating target sold by MGM Manufacturing (https://mgmtargets.com/product/spinner/). This target requires shooters to “spin” the target. Shooters using birdshot at 15 yards struggled to “spin”” the target. Once they switched to buckshot, they easily accomplished this task. The Top Gun award went to a shooter who “spun” the target with just two (2) rounds of buckshot.
I rarely see any 40 S&W chambered weapons anymore.
OPTICS: One shooter ran a miniaturized red dot optic on his Beretta 1301. This optic was very easy to use and does for the shotgun, what red dot optics did for the AR-15/M4 family of weapons. Hits were easy to achieve. We shot a significant amount of ammunition in this class (the empty hulls filled a 5-gallon bucket when we cleaned up the range) and there was no zero shift with this shooter’s optic. Two shooters, incidentally both running Mossberg 590 shotguns had variations of the Ghost Ring sight and did very well with them. I tend to favor the use of barrel mounted adjustable rifle style sights. I run Remington 870 shotguns with “deer” barrel type sights. I replace the “bead on a post” front sights with a typical blade sight (http://skinnersights.com/front_sights_5.html) and paint the face blaze orange.
AMMUNITION MANAGEMENT: Most shooters used some form of “side saddle” ammunition carrier. One shooter used the older rigid, plastic style and the others used the newer semi flexible Velcro backed “cards” with attached elastic loops. The newer elastic loop style worked fine during class and I never observed any dropped rounds. The Top Gun shooter combined the elastic “cards” with AR style magazine pouches and had a very slick way to quickly replace depleted “cards” from his shotgun with fresh “cards”. I think this system has lots of merit for dedicated shotgun users.
While typical real world defensive uses of shotguns tend to be rather low round count affairs, the idea of having spare ammunition actually attached to the shotgun has merit. Also, the ability to quickly switch types of ammunition can be an advantage as well. I have often said that fights are “come as you are” events and being able to access spare ammunition with the shotgun is a good thing.
WHITE LIGHT PLACEMENT: This class did not cover low light shotgun use but a number of shooters had white lights attached to their shotguns. Placement was as varied as the shooters themselves. Two observations: First, make sure that you can easily operate your light when you are firing your shotgun. If something doesn’t work, change it. The only way you figure this stuff out is to get to the range and actually shoot your weapon a bit. Second, make sure your light (and any other attachments) is securely attached/bolted onto your shotgun. Shotguns recoil significantly more than typical M4 223/5/56 caliber carbines and attachments can easily loosen from use. Be sure to check/tighten all the stuff you hang on your shotgun (or any long gun for that matter.) The original Surefire fore-end light mount is still the one to beat in my estimation. As a reminder, I typically remove the bulb and batteries from my Surefire fore-end during day light training events because the recoil, even from low powered trap/skeet/competition loads can crush the ends of batteries sufficiently to reduce their length and thus impair their ability to generate power for the light. Even with LED type bulbs, during daylight training, I remove them just as a precaution.
TACTICAL RELOAD: My early mentor told me that any use of a shotgun was “always a reloading match”. I absolutely agree with this. Shooters were taught to “top off” every time they got a chance. This “topping off” became the “norm” rather than the “exception” and spilled over to the “tactical reload” for handguns when we did transition drills. Carrying a handgun with a partially depleted magazine is similar to carrying a spare tire for your personal vehicle with half its normal tire pressure.
VALUE OF AAR: I have written about this before. I carefully review and analyze each class I teach. I take student comments seriously and am always seeking to improve the content and delivery of my courses. Conducting written AARs forces me to put pen to paper and reduce my thoughts to coherent (hopefully) statements.
CONCLUSION: Many thanks to my students and my host range. Thanks also to my readers for their attention to this AAR."
Bruce
AAR Addendum: Essential Shotgun Skills Course, Columbia Falls MT; 21-May-2022
Folks:
What follows are several comments made by one of the students in the recent Essential Shotgun Skills class that I conducted in Columbia Falls Montana on 21-May-2022. In reviewing the comments, I felt that they warranted inclusion in the After Action Report (“AAR”) that I posted and am including them for your reference and consideration. This student was the winner of the Top Gun award in the class and is switched on in terms of shooting and weaponcraft. He ran a ghost ring sighted Mossberg. Here are his comments in BOLD with my responses in Italics:
Shotgun cards: I started off having brass down on some shotgun cards to make feeding the tube easier, but noted the shells were working their way out. I switched to all brass up on the shotgun cards to better hold onto the ammo, and sacrificed fast tube loading. I also noticed high brass loads stuck in the cards better, and low brass was in more danger of working out. This sort of information is what proves the value of preparing AARs. The “base up/high brass” comments are truly useful information.
Something I like about the cards is they allow me to load from the same place. Usually on shotguns, one must load from several places, especially if they are carrying more rounds. Agreed. I think any time you can simplify your weapon handling/manipulation procedures, that is a good idea. The reality for most folks deploying a shotgun for defensive purposes is that they will grab the shotgun and reload from an onboard ammunition supply. I believe that most fights are ‘come as you are” events. Training to reload from belt mounted pouches when you carry your reloads in a side saddle makes little sense. Great observation and suggestion.
The cards will wear out over time and are disposable. If a shooter wants their gun to hold onto shells for years, they may prefer a plastic side saddle.
The 2 round flip was done with standard buckshot instead of flight control. Even at short range, I would have expected flight control to deliver more energy on target than standard. Could have been luck with only one sample though. What my student is referring to is that he was able to spin/flip the MGM Rotator target with the fewest number of rounds (2).
The 1301 semi auto shotgun offered significant ease of use over pump guns. I think they might be the way to go for frequent shotgun shooters. While I am a confirmed fan of the Remington 870, there is no denying that the Beretta was way easier to use. Many thanks to my student for allowing me to test drive it a bit. If I was starting over, I’d take a long look at the Beretta 1301.
My favorite drill was the single load two man flip drill. The timing and coordination combined with performance pressure was a lot of fun and encouraged more heads up awareness than most drills. That is a great point. One of the things that I find most shooters struggle with is what can loosely be termed “situational awareness”. By running drills on the steel rotator, especially team drills, it forces a shooter to do more than merely run the gun. They are forced to watch the target and react accordingly. Team drills require a shooter to watch/interact with a partner. This tends to teach not only “how” to shoot but, more importantly, “when” to shoot. I will be including more steel drills in all of my classes, where practicable.
Thanks to my student for reaching out with his thoughts.
Bruce
