Langdon Tactical Tactical Pistol Skills AAR Culpeper, VA April 22-23, 2017
Quick personal background: I'm prior-service Marine Corps and PA Army National Guard, my total military service totals just shy of 12 years. I have worked in a gunshop for the past 8 years. Previous to that I worked for 10 years as a school district administrator and for 5 years as a part-time Apple employee.
I reserve the right to misremember in whichever way that I do not recall. If anyone that was present in the class is reading, feel free to correct me!
DAY 1 April 22, 2017
Rain. Not full-on, but a constant drizzle broken by an occasional bout of steady rain or nothing at all.
The intro to the class has been well documented and was basically the same for me. I won’t rehash here, but I will add that reading it versus being present are different - never substitute book knowledge for real world experience. We did a “sound off” and the class was a mix of prior service (heavy leaning to the Marines) and LEO. Handguns were a mix of PX4 Compact Carry (3, 4 if you count me bringing mine as a backup/alternate), Glocks, two 1911s, a CZ P07, a SIG classic P-Series, Beretta APX, S&W M&P .45 (LEO issue) and a CZ 75 variant. I ran my G17 Gen4 completely stock except Ameriglo Hackathorn sights. Ammo used was American Eagle 147 FMJ (AE9FP) as that is the ballistic equivalent of my carry ammo, Federal 147 HST.
We started off with dry fire practice so that Mr. Langdon could, I assume, gain some insight into the fundamental level of each student and also to warm us up. I already knew my grip would draw attention as it shouldn’t really work well and, well, it did draw attention. Mr. Langdon showed me where I should have my support hand and the thumb of my firing hand. I did modify my grip for the first live fire drill and my group, well, sucked. I returned to my previous method and my groupings went back to normal (for me). I will work on incorporating the modified grip into my practice, but even Mr. Langdon had said that he didn’t expect anyone to make these changes on the fly as it takes a lot of time to undo muscle memory.
The day progressed into basic marksmanship drills that then turned into timed marksmanship drills. The great thing was the drills were appropriate for the next period of instruction: each part of the class built the foundation for the next part and the first building block was set at the very beginning of the class. The progression was basically: dryfire, marksmanship, timed marksmanship, draw and fire, timed draw and fire, reload, timed draw and fire with a reload, SHO fire, timed SHO fire, WHO fire, timed WHO fire, timed distance fire, increased distance timed fire. The day ended a bit early (due to the forecast Mr. Langdon explained that there would be more focus on drills being performed and less talking (stories, etc.)). Day One ended with a drill that I cannot remember the name of that ran as follows: From 7(?) yards from the holster draw and fire 6 rounds into PT circle, reload with 6 rounds from retention and fire 6 rounds SHO reload from retention, transition to WHO and fire 6 rounds. I ran it in 20.38 seconds clean and had the fastest run in the first relay (honestly surprised the hell out of me). I did have one goof (actually more, I had the grace of a baby giraffe): on my reload to WHO I had closed the slide BEFORE the magazine was fully inserted and had to chamber a round on the fly. This cost me a good deal of time. I was beaten on the second relay by a former Marine who was running a CZ variant - his time was 16 and change. He is an excellent shooter and won most of the prize drills for the entire class. Total rounds fired on day one was ~355.
DAY 2 April 23, 2017
Day 2 started without any rain, a bit chilly, and overcast. I don’t have any detailed notes as the tempo was faster and there was a lot more shooting and thus reloading. These things will be out of chronological order. My thumb split open where it rides against the slide serrations and i wound up putting a Band-Aid over it about 1/4 into the day as it was causing a distraction and thus accuracy issues.
We began with dry fire and moved right into marksmanship drills.
Soon we were running a FAST Drill. I knew from reading AARs on this class that it was part of the course. I had never run a FAST Drill. Ever. I knew what it was, knew how the drill was run, but never had attempted it. I can tell you that when you have Ernest Langdon running the shot timer over your shoulder for a FAST Drill your heart is racing and the adrenaline is pumping. I did my best to zone out and wait for the timer to “set me free”. The buzzer sounded and I drew, fired the head shots and went into reload without even knowing if my head shots were clean (no point really as you can’t correct a dropped shot), and proceeded to fire four rounds into the 8” circle. Then I heard 7.28 from Mr. Langdon. It was a clean run. I was happy and unhappy, but not pissed, with my run: I ran it clean but missed the hat pin. Of the 15 students only two took home a hat pin.
We then talked about steel targets. Their use, good and bad construction, safe distances, and angles of fire. Then we shot steel.
We did movement drills. Advance on target, retreat from target, contact retreat, etc. We did barrel drills, the alleyway drill. Very cool stuff. The first of the alleyway drills was as follows: from left to right fire 2 shots on three steel targets. I SMASHED it - I even knew I smashed it. By my third step (or so, it was well before I was halfway between the barrels and I was moving at the appropriate pace) I had already cleaned each target. Stupidly I decided to dump as many rounds as I could by the time I reached the opposite barrel - and I performed the ballistic equivalent of circa 2011 Charlie Sheen and proceeded to miss 10 for 10 the remainder of the drill. When I came off the line Mr. Langdon said, and I paraphrase: You were solid and going to get a “damn!”, but you fucked it up. Lesson learned: if you completely ace a run, stop while you’re ahead. We also did fire from cover after having gone over the difference between cover and concealment and then the basics of using cover while shooting. The gravel to my knees sucked and I looked like who-knows-what while trying to shoot, but I was making consistent hits. Even given the discomfort I was shooting well and I will now always bring kneepads to a course - even if they are not on the packing list.
We did a Hackathorn Drill for a product coupon. I shot a 91, time unknown as I did not hear what it was. I think I can safely say it was well under 10 seconds.
I ended up getting a Defense Targets setup as a direct result of using it in class, they are very well made! Total rounds fired Day 2 ~675.
Total rounds fired for the class ~1030, zero stoppages or malfunctions encountered.
Post Class Thoughts
I’m going again, hopefully to the Advanced Pistol Skills course. I noticed that most guys in the upper tier of performance would have the occasional bad run, dropped shot, too few rounds in mag, no mag, empty chamber, etc. All of that just reinforced that we are all human and make mistakes.
I want to learn how to run a TDA pistol. I have a CZ P-07 that I haven’t even shot yet, but given the layout of it I think I can run it without the issues I had with the PX4 CC. Having gone through the class I feel I now have a path of drills to help myself achieve a quicker familiarization with a pistol as well as to better my shooting overall. I’ll be ordering some LTT-1 targets to use with my new Defense Targets steel plate and devising a 50 round drill to use initially with a TDA pistol on a regular basis. Bottom line: the class is worth every penny!
Thanks for reading. If anything is confusing let me know, I’ll do my best to clarify/correct it. I'm off now to give the P-07 a spin.
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