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Thread: First Person Safety - Critical Pistol Skills 03/11/2018

  1. #1

    First Person Safety - Critical Pistol Skills 03/11/2018

    COURSE OVERVIEW

    This class is billed as:

    "This course develops the skills needed to successfully operate your pistol with your non-dominant hand in the event that your dominant hand is not functional. Students will learn through a progression of freestyle and dominant hand only drills to ultimately draw, reload, and clear malfunctions using only their non-dominant hand. It is much more convenient to learn how to do this on the range than to have to figure it out under incoming fire."

    It does all of those things.

    INTRODUCTION

    Prior to this course I had about 60 hours of documented pistol training from a variety of local instructors covering defensive pistol skills and marksmanship. I have been shooting pistols for about ten years and have about five years of "serious" attempts at skill development.

    EQUIPMENT

    I shot the class with an HK P30 LEM V4.1 from a 5-Shot Leather SME. A 5-Shot Leather magazine pouch was used as my primary reload and I also wore two Custom Carry Concepts BMCs for additional ammo. All performed as expected and I experienced no malfunctions that were not deliberately induced. The P30 has a Wilson/Vickers rear and a Trijicon HD XR front, which is proving to be a great combo. The Wilson/Vickers rear is conducive to one-handed manipulations.

    REVIEW

    You'll start with a safety briefing. Lee discusses the four "lifestyle rules" and puts them in context for defensive shooting. He'll also provide a plan for what to do should the worst occur and somebody ends up shot. Medical supplies are on hand and an evacuation plan is available and discussed should that need arise.

    The reasoning for this course came from two anecdotes Lee shared. The one that really stuck with me involved an OIS where both a trainee and his FTO were shot and the suspect fled to wherabouts unknown, and while the trainee was dealing with EMS, he had to ask them to take his gun out of his holster for him because he had no idea how to do it. Had the suspect returned to the scene, things could have gone far worse from the sound of it.

    Moving on, Lee's teaching model seems to be a) dry-fire the crap out of everything and then b) put that dry-fire into practice in live fire. This class focuses on what Lee terms "critical pistol skills:" basically, in extremis manipulation of the pistol. You will do everything you need to do with a pistol freestyle and strong-handed... and then you'll do it weak-handed. Drawstroke is covered (the traditional defensive four-count draw) and contextual reasons are given for its use. He also discusses drawstroke as it relates to different cover garments. As to a weak-handed drawstroke, he demonstrates several methods and lets the students figure out what works for them. For me, I settled on pinning the gun between my knees as the safest and most sure method for me -- I had trouble getting the gun back into the holster when oriented weak-handed, and rather than fumble around live with that, I chose to keep the muzzle well away from my body and accept the mobility trade-off.

    Reloads are also covered -- again, freestyle, strong-handed, and weak-handed. After a discussion of magazine orientation, we spent time on various techniques for all styles. As before, Lee teaches several techniques and has the students work through them to find the best method for themselves. As with the drawstroke, I settled on pinning the gun between my knees for a weak-handed reload. For strong-handed, either holstering the gun or pinning the gun worked well for me depending on the need for mobility. Lee then moves on to malfunctions, a world he divides between double-feeds and everything else. Tap-racks are a straightforward affair: slam the magazine on something hard and rack the slide using the sights (Lee also showed a method for guns with sights that are not conducive to this). Double-feeds get interesting pretty quickly. Lee has you think through the process and get the problem solved dry. Of note, on some of the strong-handed and weak-handed clearances, I ended up with part of my shirt caught in the ejection port -- and thus another thing to clear. That's a possibility I hadn't really considered because I hadn't done much of this stuff except for a handful of times dry fire.

    You then move on to live fire. You do everything you did dry in live fire. Lee reminds you that it ain't a race -- the goal here is safety first as while shooting is an inherently dangerous activity, this sort of thing represents a few steps beyond that inherent danger. This was the first time I'd drawn a pistol weak-handed only in live fire... nevermind messing around with double-feeds and such. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, I had about three hours of sleep prior to the class and had just arrived after a three-hour drive so while I'm sure that added to it, I'll admit there was plenty of stress on my part and it took a lot of concentration on my part to complete this safety. As another first, I also dropped a loaded pistol for the first time in my life: doing a weak-handed double feed clearance under time pressure, the pistol came out from my knees. I listened to the instructions and did not reach for it (thankfully). Overall, I completed the live fire module with no holes I did not come to class with, so I considered it a success. I absolutely need more work on my WHO shooting and SHO shooting -- my trigger press and grip are simply not where they need to be, particularly with my SHO shooting (I give that more weight in my needs analysis).

    Lee leaves you with a timed course of fire that entails drawstroke, reloads, and malfunction clearances in all three styles (freestyle, SHO, WHO). The purpose of this is to provide the student with a baseline to track performance with. That's a useful thing to leave a course with.

    Learning absolutely occurred: I experienced simulated malfunctions as well as shooter-induced malfunctions while trying to clear those simulated malfunctions, and also exposed myself to the realistic possibility that a gun would fall during this stuff. None of this is stuff that happened to me in dry fire at home the few times I tried it. While these sorts of things were in the back of my mind as possibilities, it's another thing entirely to see them happen for real. Of note, one shooter ND'd during a weak-handed malfunction clearance. Due to his proper application of the techniques shown, the only thing hurt was the dirt in front of him. As a data point, he was using a Glock with some sort of aftermarket flat trigger (I did not ask which one). I shot the class with an LEM P30 and, while it's no substitute for good technique, I will say that the extra length of travel my trigger had gave lots of warm fuzzy feelings during some of this stuff.

    I'm pretty sure I can count the number of malfunctions I've experienced with my pistols over the course of my life on both hands and honestly cannot recall ever having anything other than a few squibs and a couple of dead primers, but nevertheless it's certainly better to work through these things in a safe and controlled environment rather than figuring it out under the worst case scenario (and, as Lee reminds you, if you're clearing a double-feed with your weak hand, you have definitely reached that worst case scenario level... and also should probably consider finding a new plan). It's definitely not a beginner-level course and, though it represents a great set of tools to have, I would personally focus on the fundamental defensive shooting skills and making sure those were working as intended before considering attendance. I believe Lee would concur with that assessment. He advises that, while this should be practiced, the overwhelming majority of one's practice should be devoted to other things.

    As with his shotgun course, Lee's instruction represents an absolute bargain for your training dollar. You learn what you need to learn from a professional with plenty of credibility on the subject matter he teaches. I certainly hope he keeps with it.

  2. #2
    Some fail during a SHO double-feed clearance:

    Last edited by ssb; 03-12-2018 at 08:55 PM.

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