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Thread: AAR: Jeff Gonzales/The Range at Austin Pistol 2

  1. #1

    AAR: Jeff Gonzales/The Range at Austin Pistol 2

    ...alternatively, The Course Formerly Known as Defensive Pistol 1.

    I signed up for this class on a whim after Jeff offered those of us who showed up for a short development session earlier in the week a discount on the 2-day class. I happened to be sitting on a case of ammo that would give me the rounds on hand to take the class and had been intending to take it in October anyway, so I said "ah fuck it," raided my vacation fund, and did it.

    For clarity, this class was offered through The Range at Austin (TRA) as Defensive Pistol 1 until maybe a month ago, at which point it was renamed to better fit into TRA's revised training curriculum (an introductory/familiarization pistol course is also offered and became Pistol 1, Defensive Pistol 2 became Pistol 3, etc.). Pistol 2 is intended for shooters already familiar with shooting handguns, but need reinforcement on fundamentals of presentation, grip/stance, marksmanship, and holster draws. Of particular interest to me was the fact that passing Pistol 2 would also grant me the ability to get holster draw authorization at TRA. Given that TRA is my "home range," this was a major motivating factor for me to take Pistol 2 as my first formal shooting class.

    That said, I took a lot away from this class. The vast, vast majority of my range time is spent with a focus on untimed slow fire marksmanship. While this is certainly a valuable skill, it's become apparent that it's also woefully inadequate for further development as a handgun shooter. Pistol 2 covered a lot of my known knowns, my known unknowns, and introduced a handful of unknown unknowns that served as major eye-openers I don't think I'd have learned about or recognized the importance of otherwise, such as targeted grip strength influencing recoil control (Jeff spent some time going over his "crush grip" concept, which emphasizes a strong grip in the ring and pinky fingers).

    Class began with a classroom portion in which mindset, physiological responses, the OODA loop, and how to leverage those in a fight are discussed. From there we moved to a discussion on the fundamentals of marksmanship with relation to stance, posture, and the aforementioned "crush grip." We then moved to the range and executed a number of dry fire exercises before moving to holster training, marksmanship drills, malfunction/clearance/reload drills, and diagnostics that would continue throughout both days, as well as an occasional bout with a steel plate at 20-25 yards.

    The steel plate was, oddly enough, where mindset finally "clicked" with me. I put up an absolutely dreadful performance both times we shot steel on day 1, and Jeff was great about providing feedback to help me sort the problems I was having. However, what I think made the difference when I shot the steel drill on day 2 was a simple recognition that I was mentally racing the other shooters, and in doing so losing focus. For day 2, I made a mental commitment to only focus on my own times and performance, took my time on the steel drill, and cleared it perfectly with a speed right on par with the best shooters in our class of 6 students. With the limited class size, Jeff was able to help us as needed on an individual basis as we went through our drills and graded evolutions and provided plenty of constructive feedback as we went. Dry fire remedial practice and diagnostic drills helped to further isolate issues on the line.

    Overall, I am very pleased with the class. I managed to pass despite making the poor decision to handicap myself by bringing a P30L V1 LEM that I had only really just begun to familiarize myself with in live fire. Putting it through the wringer like I did has greatly improved my confidence with the LEM system and in the reliability of the gun itself - I normally try to clean my handguns at 300-400 rounds but burned through roughly 800 during the class. I experienced no failures of any sort; the other shooters were firmly divided between Wilson Combat 9mm 1911s (1 failure, didn't see what the exact issue was) and Gen 3 Glock 19s (1 failure, stovepipe FTE). I came to some realizations about my gear that will need to be corrected in the future, such as mounting my magazines bullets-forward and adding an ALS Nub Mod to my Safariland holsters, as I failed to make par time on one evolution due to my thumb slipping off the ALS mechanism and thus not releasing the firearm on my drawstroke. I definitely see a shot timer in my future, and will probably never purchase another box of Federal Champion unless there's no other cost-efficient options available to me (having lead flakes spat out all over my upper arms is not a good sign; the Fiocchi I also shot had no such issues).

    I don't have much context to compare this class to, but I found that I caught it at just the right point in my development as a shooter to find the material and practice incredibly useful. Jeff is a great instructor who was very approachable and patient, and TRA remains one of the best indoor facilities I've ever been to - taking a class there only highlighted the quality of their layout. I would recommend this class to "familiarized" shooters who aren't yet fully confident in their ability to perform on demand, but for more experienced shooters or familiarized shooters who are more willing to drink from the fire hose and don't feel a need to get the range holster certification Pistol 2 offers, Pistol 3 may be a better fit.

  2. #2
    Member oljames3's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2016
    Location
    central Texas
    Thanks for the review. I started participating in matches at TRA in the summer of 2018. I'm registered for Pistol 2 on March 16-17, 2019, for the same reason; I want to be able to draw from the holster in matches at TRA. I agree that Jeff is a good instructor. I have personally asked both Tom Givens and Karl Rehn about Jeff and they both suggested I train with him.

    O. Lee James III
    CPT US Army (Ret)
    Honorable Order of St Barbara

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