Don't hate us because we're beautiful. I am also completely Smuckers over the class. When the boy's a bit older, i guess...
Don't hate us because we're beautiful. I am also completely Smuckers over the class. When the boy's a bit older, i guess...
Ignore Alien Orders
On Monday, we started the class with 1 Advanced, 4 Intermediate, and 5 Basic.
On Friday, the Rogers staff handed out pins for 4 Advanced and 6 Intermediate. Every student improved over the course of the week with an average of 16 points gained between Monday and the week's best run.
It was a lot of fun to spend the week with such a great group of shooters. I'm sure others will be sharing their more in-depth thoughts on the class.
Everybody passed as Intermediate or better? Wow. How common is that?
-C
WOW!!! That's awesome... way to go guys!Originally Posted by ToddG
Random thoughts on the difficulty of the different stages of the Rogers test...
This is based on the results for the top three shooters in the class, who scored Advanced ratings 16 out of 18 total attempts. The number of times (out of 18) that a particular test was shot clean by these three:
1 -- 13 times
2 -- 8 times
3 -- 14 times
4 -- 18 times
5 -- 9 times
6 -- 2 times
7 -- 7 times
8 -- 3 times
9 -- 8 times
Test Six is, I think, the only time when you have x-number of bullets to hit x-number of targets and if you miss, they disappear before you can reload and make them up. It doesn't surprise me that this was the hardest to clean.
Text Eight is the WHO blast drill, the single longest course of fire in the entire event. With 23 possible shots and one (or two) WHO reloads, it's very hard to keep everything together for 30 seconds without making a single mistake.
In contrast, Test Four begins with failure drills to two targets (2 to a giant steel plate and one to the head, at ~7yd and ~8yd). This played to our strengths because we were all able to engage and double the big steel chest plate much faster than the time allotted (1.75s I think). There is also a pretty generous reload pause (2.5s?) and the first two head plates stay up during the reload. So even if you miss one of the heads on the first part of the string, you can reload and make it up with tons of time left over to hit the remaining three plates at the wall. It was easy enough 2H that all three of us cleaned it every single time. But Test Seven is the same drill WHO, and combined we cleaned it less than half the time.
Thanks to Todd for organizing the class!
I went to Georgia with the sole objective of earning an advanced rating from 100% legit concealment (AIWB under polo shirt). For me, this kind of expenditure was a once in a lifetime thing, so I knew I only had one shot to make something happen.
Two weeks prior to the class, both of my P30s began behaving badly. My diagnosis was that I had suddenly become a limpwrister. I made the drive down simply hoping for the best.
Sunday night:
Bill Rogers gave a lecture, and when he started talking numbers, I knew I was in for a rough ride. My FAST data tells me I have a 2 second draw and .36 splits, so I suspected I would have trouble keeping up.
Monday:
Shooting from the extended ready was new to me, and it took a while for me to adjust to the speed required. From the holster, I was simply too slow. The school requires students to start with their hands in the prayer position, which I adherred to the entire week, but it made my right-hand draw glacially slow. I scored a 95 with one stoppage during the test. I didn't think much of the stoppage at the time.
Tuesday:
I struggled with the speed requirements. I briefly considered switching to open carry late in the week if things got really desperate, but ultimately decided to accept my fate from concealment. I scored a 96 with another stoppage during the test. Now I was concerned, and I cleaned my guns.
Wednesday:
My speed and accuracy slowly improved. I scored a 105 with a hard stoppage that required switching to the secondary P30 to finish the test. At this point the hypothesis was that the chamber design of the P30 and the residue of the special ammo gums up the chamber and results in failure to extract. I inferred that my gun/ammo combination was only good for half a day, so my plan for the next day was to switch guns at lunch. I cleaned the guns again.
Thursday:
I scored a 115 in the AM and finally achieved my objective. I had a stoppage during a drill immediately after the test, so I switched guns at lunch as planned. With the pressure off, I relaxed and shot a 106 in the PM. While cleaning the guns that night, I began to wonder if the 115 was simply luck. I decided that I had to try to shoot advanced again to prove to myself that it wasn't a fluke.
Friday:
With the pressure back on, I scored a 113. I could go home with no regrets.
Definitely a unique, fun experience. It was great meeting everyone. Props to Mario for shooting from concealment and shaving his head. Congrats to JV for shooting so spectacularly. Thanks to Todd's friend for dropping some knowledge on the nuances of the subject matter.
Since this post has filled my internet posting quota for the next five years, that's all, folks!
Any gear - esp trigger observations that jump out? There was much talk about light LEMs in this course yes?
Any insights from the engineering mind of Bill Rogers about the Gen 4 Glocks challenges over the past couple of years?
Any new insights about "flip and press"?
Did those who are press out shooters change and try his method for the school?
Thanks
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
Overall I had a great time. I tried some new techniques and have new things to consider.
The Rogers flashlight method enabled me to get better hits than the jaw index, but my SureFire tore up the skin in between my fingers - and my finger rests on the Sig mag button. I need to do a lot more flashlight work to see what will work best.
I don't practice WHO/SHO stuff that often, but I had fun working on it this week. I will integrate WHO/SHO into all of my range sessions. Watching Kyle, Adam and Ronnie demo some of those drills was great; they have fantastic WHO/SHO followup shot speed and accuracy. I would like to get a lot better.
I don't have much to add over what the others have posted, except that I have more things to ponder and need to branch out my training to include tactics - which is normally a topic of very little interest.
For those of you like Todd, Vinh, Mario, Chris, and anyone else that shot from concealment - great job! I admire your commitment. I was too concerned with my score to intentionally handicap myself. I also wanted to thank the two Todds for their tips and tricks, it certainly helped me.
No.
No. Bill said the goal is to not come off the trigger and out of the trigger guard, and resetting in recoil was an acceptable alternative.
I used their method of working the trigger ASAP with the extended confirmed ready position. I used the press-out with everything else, especially with the SHO draw. I've never worked from that position before and was there to try new methods and techniques. I prefer pressing out and working the trigger when I can see my sights are on target, and I acknowledge that working the trigger only when on target is slower from that position.
Last edited by JV_; 05-13-2012 at 06:55 AM.
No-no, can't do, not until we learn about the top secret SHO draw..
Congratulations on advanced score, way to come through knowing that this was likely first and last trip to Rogers. As a fellow P30 shooter, it gives me hope that advanced is doable with LEM. Bummer on malfunctions though. Anybody knows what exact ammo Rogers uses/provides for his students?
RSS requires frangible or TMJ ammo. School ammo is 147 Blazer TMJ, but you can bring what you want, as long as it is frangible or TMJ. In March, I shot Lawman 124 TMJ.
To my knowledge, this is the first Advanced shot with a LEM HK.
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