05/13/17

Lima OH at Lima Sabres gun club range

Event coordinated by Steve Farmer of Ohio CCW training

Cost $299 (cost included range fee,snacks and drinks,pen,patch,certificate)

Instructor Robert Vogel Multi time world and national champion in various classes in IDPA and USPSA and LEO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Vogel_(marksman)

Course was from 0800-1700

My gear Stock Gen 4 Glock 19 with Cap front and Trijicon rear sight and .25 trigger polish, CCI brass 115 gr ammo, Whitehat hybrid IWB holster, Kytex mag pouches X2, SSp upper RX glasses and Pro ears Gold electronic ear muffs. I was the only student shooting IWB and concealed. All the other students used kydex OWB holsters some suitable for CC and some more competition oriented with drop and extended plus low cut front. No one ran a cover garment but then again this was a competition focused class.

Classroom The classroom was comfortable and ready to go when I arrived. Refreshments provided and the organizer was ready with cash,check or electronic payment accepted. Professional and prompt. Robert was there and friendly discussion while we waited for all to arrive. There were 11 students with Robert Vogel as the only instructor. Class started promptly at 0800 and ran until almost 1000 with a 10 min break.

Robert discussed safety rules and practices, Range safety and IDPA and related competition safety protocols. He continued with more on guns and gear primarily focusing on sights and triggers. He discussed his preferences and why. He continued with grip and some on stance but added how stance is fluid with application and how it mostly was from chest up very similar without regards to how the lower body was positioned or moving. He discussed grip strength training and the importance of grip strength for recoil control and speed/accuracy balance. He covered dry fire techniques and importance. As this was a shooting skills focused course he focused heavily on mechanics but briefly discussed application in self defense as his full and part time experience as a LEO(Patrol SWAT and Firearms Instruction) had similarities. Classroom session ended and we moved to the range about 2 miles away.

At the Range

The range was set up by the time we had our magazines loaded and eyes and ears on.

Drills

We started with Bill drills at 15 yards with no time limit done 3 times. Robert watched and added and came around correcting grip and stance issues. We continued with the Bill drill now with 6 second time limit repeated 3 times. Then same at 3 second time limit. Robert continued to make changes to peoples shooting stance.

We moved onto to fire at IPSC targets with Robert doing the trigger pull and the student managing the sights and grip. This was amazing at how fast and accurate the shots were for almost everyone. He then had each student place a finger on the trigger and he pressed their finger so everyone could feel how the press was done. Again with surprising speed and accuracy. This helped show how good he is as there were Glocks,CZs,PPQ etc.. All students were shooting 9mm.

We then moved on to shoot various drills at different distances from 5 yards to 15 yards mostly on IPSC targets. Some drills were timed with all students shooting together Robert running the timer with par time set. Other drills were ran one at a time with Robert running the Pact timer. We worked on grip,stance and basics shooting for A zone accuracy while working on speed as the general progression in the morning finishing with reloads. Robert suggests getting the reload time to the same as your draw time.

Lunch

A hot lunch from a local restaurant was offered with Steve Farmer taking orders while we reloaded and getting it before we stopped. This was nice for efficiency as we had a short break of about 20 mins and continued.

Afternoon

We continued running various drills.

Reloads, draw and presentation, plate rack,dueling tree, a swinging target set off by a small pepper popper. Most drills were timed with par time shot together or one at a time with Robert running the timer. We shot a walk back drill as a group starting at 10 yards and moving back 5 yards at a time as we lost shooters. Me and another student made it to 45 yards before we both had misses and hits repeatedly to finally him hitting and I couldn't match the hit to move on giving him the win.

We finished up doing a drill with 2 shoot boxes one behind cover and about 7 yards apart. We were to fire on a resetting plate rack moving position each time we cleared it for 45 seconds total time. Trying to get the most plates down as possible in the time limit 30 was max and 11 was minimum.

We ended the day with a end briefing and certificates being passed out. I asked if I could try Robert's Glock 35 competition gun with magwell,his sights and trigger set up and other mods using his 40 cal reloads and a WML used as a weight. He said no problem and handed me the unloaded gun and suggested I do a few dry fires. Wow what a difference. The trigger was quite light I would guess around 2.75-maybe 3 lbs and short reset with little difference in pull weight for almost no wall. The sights were new to me plain rear with wide deep notch and narrow FO red front (His namesake sights) The weight was significant coming from a 19 I shot all day and regular Glocks 17/22 and 19/32 as the WML weight and mag well added plenty as did the longer slide. The RSA was also lighter as he discussed on gun mods in class. It shot very nice and was easy to clear a plate rack 1 for one after I adjusted for the first hit on the first plate. It felt lighter in recoil by around 25-33% than my 19 even though it was a 40. It also tracked more linearly shooting very flat.

I tried to cover most things in the class but if there are questions I'll be glad to answer them PM or here. I did get pics and video but for personal use as there was a contract person who asked for media not to be shared publicly.


Short summary:

The class was run well and worth the money. It is good for anyone with fair to decent gun handling skills as long as they are safe to very skilled shooters and everywhere in between. Robert is modest,professional and super skilled but doesn't show off,over demonstrate or cover material/issues beyond his knowledge and scope.