JDC Defensive Shotgun Skills 9/28/2019

[vaspence]

As stated in the AARs done by mtnbkr and LittleLebowski, these folks do a great class for the shotgun.

Instructors were Brett Harnish and Tim Chandler (TCinVA). Ty Cooper (another JDC Instructor) was also in the class as a participant and offered up some good feedback/observations. Class size was 6, about evenly split LEO/civilian. All students showed up ready to go.

The safety briefing was one of the best I've sat through. Very thorough emergency/evac plans, assignment of roles, etc. Even better was the back and forth with the students in regards to the 4 rules. A great way to keep everyone engaged and not a quick assumption that everyone understood the rules.

I'll echo mtnbkr in saying that you should have some skill at running the shotgun for this course. I wasn't very familiar with doing reloads from a sidesaddle, not to mention reintroducing myself to running a slide. Brett and Tim quickly realized a few of us could use help and adapted the class script to get everyone familiar with reloading techniques. The identifying of an issue and then being willing to detour from the script to address the issue is awesome. I was unaware it wasn't part of the class until later in the day. A 1 to 3 instructor to student ratio insured everyone got plenty of 1 on 1 instruction. They also switched up frequently so you were getting feedback from both instructors.

As mentioned by Tim in the shotgun forum, we got a chance to pattern our shotguns from 5 to 25 yards. With the mix of shotguns and sights in the class it was interesting to see how the Fed FC patterned in different guns.

Other parts of the class included operating the shotgun under stress, working positions from cover, drills that required problem solving as well as shooting and the same with use of cover. The talk on justifiable use of force was excellent and the qualification at the end very challenging.

I chose to run an 870 because I wanted to see how effective the push/pull method would be. Tim and Brett combined got it through to me fairly quickly. I don't recall our total round count but it was north of 200 including a fair amount of buckshot. The method works.

Equipment: 870 police with Vang Comp barrel work. Scattergun Technologies ghost ring sights, Magpul stock and forend, Mesa 6 shell side saddle. I bought the 870 used last week and it was set up this way by the prior owner. I did remove one spacer from the Magpul stock and verify zero at 25 yards with my chosen slugs and buckshot. I used a dump pouch on my belt for extra shells.

Ammunition: Fed FC 00 9 pellet buckshot and Fed Truball slugs. Birdshot was a mix of Remington and Estate #8 dove loads. I did bring some of the Hornady 8 pellet Critical Defense hoping it would pattern without the flyer I was getting from the 9 pellet FC. As Tim mentioned it was a horrible pattern at 5 yards and I returned immediately to the Fed 9 pellet FC.

The facility is nice and only an hour and a half drive from Richmond. I left the class a better shotgun user than I was that morning. The guys are good instructors and quick to pick up if someone needs a bit more explanation or a different tool for the task at hand. I'd also strongly recommend them for a first time student with their other classes. You'd be hard pressed to find a more welcoming environment.

The class is a steal at the price and I look forward to training with these guys again in the future!

[TCinVA]

It was great to have you in class, dude!

Thanks for coming out!