AAR: Tom Givens, Advanced Combative Pistol, 3 Day w/ Vehicle Defense Module, 5/19/17

[acpjunkie]

I'm new to taking professional dedicated handgun training, I saw this as a personal lack that should be corrected, so when the opportunity to train under Mr. Givens was presented I took it, the fact that it was also a 3 day course with an included vehicle module only made it that much better. This isn’t an AAR so much as it’s a skim of the points that I found most valuable, other shooters who wish to add please do so.

First, to understand my perspective and where I am coming from,
- NRA High Power, held M classification my last season shooting.
- Appleseed Instructor, several years.
- 6 years GAANG, 11B
- Trained under Eric Lund for a scattergun class, I still hate shotguns
- Southnarc ECQC, EWO grad.
- Various gun games, USPSA, Bowling pin, action pistol, 3 Gun, 2 gun, whatever

The host for the class was Mr Lee Weems, who made the OCSO range and classroom facility available for the course. Mr. Weems hospitality and support for the shooting industry is excellent. The fact that the range entrance is where the story material for Deliverance came from is irrelevant.

The class began in the air conditioned classroom with a long talk on safety. What the rules mean, why we follow them. This included talk on why we only ever use the 4 rules and the limits of human ability. More than the 4 rules allows people to forget or otherwise break the important ones, i.e. every gun is always loaded and dont point the gun at anything you arent willing to destroy. We finished the safety talk with 2 absolutes, muzzle awareness and trigger discipline.
We also covered marksmanship, tempo, shooting position, grip and sight alignment and focus.
Two things that were new to me, Givens teaches a high thumbs grip, not the thumbs forward grip seen elsewhere. He has good reasons for doing so, I will be working on keeping a high thumbs grip.
He also teaches that the elbows should not be locked, that with flex recoil can be better absorbed.
The Executive summary, Front sight focus, trigger control.
The rest of the morning and afternoon we spent on the range working on the things covered in class. That with larger close targets we can be more accepting of poor sight alignment and of movement. That as targets get smaller we must shoot more carefully to insure hits.
We do not shoot at Targets, we shoot targets. Period.

[acpjunkie]

Day 2 also began in the classroom,
We covered tactics and mindset. The sad fact is that short of working with groups, no one is going to be there quick enough to help you. You must be able to handle the problem long enough for either backup to arrive, or for LEO’s to get on scene.
We covered a very in depth case study of the Miami Dade shootout, and talked about the correct and incorrect actions of the players involved. This was my first time being exposed to this detailed of an examination of the events and so will probably stick with me. In many ways the Miami Dade events were the perfect storm, the bad guys were well trained, highly motivated, smart and well-armed. The good guys were undertrained, under gunned and ill prepared for the events either through bad luck or poor planning.
Key take away
- No one is coming, its up to you to survive.
- Never bring a handgun to a gunfight.
- Never go looking for trouble without expecting to find it
Once at the range we worked on speeding up the cadence, and then applying thinking to our shooting by bringing out the numbered shape targets. Being forced to do many things at once while shooting enhances our exposure to stress and forces us to both think and shoot.
It was here that we all got to witness a sub 11 second Casino drill, exceptional shooting from an OCSO Deputy. Sorry Sparrow, you got usurped.

A note on equipment.
I brought two modified G19s, one with undercut and finger bumps removed and one with the full Roland Special mod package, comp, RMR, X300 etc. I shot my standard G19 on day 1 and shot the Fuaxland Special on day 2. I will probably be sending the Fauxland down the river and pick up something else. Its fun to shoot, and shoots very well, but so does my G19 and my G19 is much more likely to be in my pants when I need it. I used my less modified G19 on day 3 as well and it served me well.

Day 3

Again we started our day in the classroom, but the AC was nice and the chairs were fluffy so who am I to bitch.
Classroom time was devoted to talking about vehicles, getting out of them, shooting around them, not being near them unless absolutely necessary. We also had some instruction on best practices for getting out of a vehicle under fire and where and when to emerge to counter the threat.
Key notes, cover is your friend, but don’t hug it, rounds will ricochet at low angles, don’t be there. Get out of the vehicle first, then produce your handgun and engage. Car doors and windshields are not bulletproof, but they will seriously affect the trajectory and velocity of incoming rounds, some cover is better than no cover. Keep in mind when shooting into a vehicle as well.
Once on the range we warmed up with a few quals, including the FBI standards and the Rangemaster standards qual to check on learning after the previous two days of shooting. We then brought a car graciously donated by OCSO to practice the techniques we covered in class. On a personal note, I never want to have to bail out of a car the size of the one donated, big man, small car.
We then performed some ad-hoc ballistics testing with various available duty rounds on both the windshield and the side doors. The only ones that reliably penetrated were of the .40 S&W and .45 ACP variety. I don’t remember any of the 9mm rounds penetrating with bullet integrity intact. On a side note, Brenneke 12 Gauge slugs do quite well on cars.
After clearing the car from the range we shot one last qual, I think it was the FBI qual but I could be mistaken. The entire class all shot over 90% on the qualification. The shooters all were exceptionally talented and showed that even in the heat and humidity that their shooting abilities were not diminished. Oconee County Sheriff’s Office also has a very large percentage of extremely skilled shooters, Mr Weems has certainly instilled a culture of high standards and expectations in his deputies.

[jlw]

The car was a Mercury Grand Marquis. Our friend is a large fellow.

---

OCSO Captain James Hale shot a 10.33 Casino Drill. We had six OCSO personnel in the class. Two are GA POST instructors who have also completed the Rangemaster Instructor Development course and the Rangemaster Shotgun Instructor course. The the other four were in the class as a reward for good work and for having shot a 95 or better on the state qualification course. One of these guys started in the jail and recently went to patrol. He shot a 295 on the Rangemaster Bullseye course and a 100 on the FBI qualification course.

Every member of the class shot above a 90 on the FBI qualification course.

[JHC]

Thanks for writing this up.

Edit: I must have heard a hundred times good 9mm can keep up regarding car shooting and then . . .

[Mitch]

That is some awesome shooting. That's a smoking fast casino drill.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jlw]

Thanks for writing this up.

Edit: I must have heard a hundred times good 9mm can keep up regarding car shooting and then . . .

None of the pistol ammo got the job done through the car doors.

[BJJ]

Was the car shooting done with practice or carry/duty ammo?

[Mobettadefense]

Excellent class! Mr. Givens and Chief Weems are superlative. Control the gun work the trigger press to get hits. Hits are the only thing that counts....missing fast is no good. Cadence and tempo matter and should vary based upon the shooting challenges presented. Shoot with a much more aggressive pace and close targets of sufficient size, shoot carefully at more challenging targets and shoot precisely at difficult targets....hard to see any reason to draw/present slowly. The timed, scored Casino Drill, FBI "SWAT" Qualifier and the FBI Instructor Qualifier were all highlights and I was personally very pleased to shoot well on both those runs. It is fun for me to smoke past 90% on FBI level courses but the most fun was the head to head "race games" not just shooting against the clock/course or shooting against yourself for time but shooting against the other class members (who all proved they can shoot well) is pressure packed fun and underscores whether you are advancing your skill set or not.

My takeaway from the vehicle portion: .40 9mm .45 ACP duty rounds are all not to be relied upon shooting into vehicles... they may or may not penetrate and retain sufficient power to stop the threat. Also, I do not want to have to rely on vehicles to stop incoming rounds. Way too much seems to be subject to variables when firing into or taking fire in vehicles.

[jlw]

Was the car shooting done with practice or carry/duty ammo?

Tom shot it with his Federal carry ammo. We also ran 9/40/45 Critical Duty through it. There were a few others, but I don't remember all the specifics on them.

[jlw]

To make it clear, we are referencing the vehicle doors.