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Thread: AAR: Kinetic Consulting LE RDS Instructor, Homestead FL, 23-24 November 2020

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    AAR: Kinetic Consulting LE RDS Instructor, Homestead FL, 23-24 November 2020

    Kinetic Consulting
    Law Enforcement RDS Instructor

    23-24 November 2020
    Homestead Training Center, Homestead, Florida
    Instructor: Jon Dufresne
    Class Size: 16
    Instructor to Student Ratio: 1:16
    Ammunition Requirement: 1,200-1,500 rounds
    Actual Rounds Fired: 735
    Tuition: $450


    Introduction & Training Background

    This was my first live-fire course with Jon, having previously taken one of his Stop the Bleed classes, and my 20th class since I started taking training seriously in 2012. The majority of my firearms training has been with Randy Cain of Cumberland Tactics (primarily handgun). I’ve also trained with Pannone, Langdon, Douglas, Gonzalez, Jedlinski, and Reston (having just attended a joint Jedlinski/Reston RDS pistol class the weekend prior to Jon’s class). I’m typically at the range two or three times per month, shooting on average around 10,000 rounds annually, though as of this writing in December 2020, I’m approaching 25k for the year as my interest in shooting has continued to grow. I work in security management and I ride a desk, so my reason for taking this class was purely to further my proficiency for self-defense, as I do not carry a gun on the job. Going into this class, aside from the Jedlinski/Reston class, I’d also taken Don Edwards’ RDS pistol class in July, and I’d been shooting a dot for a little over a year and around 24k rounds.


    Location

    The class was hosted at Homestead Training Center. I’ve taken a number of classes here, and it’s one of two ranges where I regularly shoot, as it’s just fifteen minutes from my house. HTC is a nice facility, with multiple bays ranging from 15 to 500 yards, a shoothouse, air-conditioned classrooms, and permanent bathrooms with running water. We used two different action bays for class. A downside to taking classes at HTC is that it is due south of the flightline on Homestead Air Reserve Base, which is active enough that engine noise can be a distraction from the instructor. Additionally, with the number of bays at HTC, the noise from other folks shooting on adjacent bays can make hearing the instructor difficult.


    Gear

    Concealed carry was permitted for this class, so I shot my EDC rig: Phlster Floodlight and JM Custom Kydex AIWB High-Ride Spare Magazine Pouch on a Graith Specialist belt. I shot one of my VP9s, upgraded with Grayguns Striker-Fired Action Package, Parker Mountain Machine Comp. Tracker and HK threaded barrel, SweatyMuddyBloody grip work (they’re no longer around), milled for an RMR by Primary Machine, and equipped with an X300U (itself upgraded with Phlster ARC switches). Purchased new in May 2015 and dedicated as my range beater, at the start of class, this gun had 30,610 rounds on it. Magazines were all HK OEM 15-rounders, upgraded with Taylor Freelance +5 extensions and coated in NP3+ by Robar.



    Apparel consisted of TAD/Kuhl pants and ExOfficio Air Strip shirts, my favorite for shooting classes.
    PPE consisted of Sordin Supreme Pro-X muffs upgraded with NoiseFighters gel seals over EAR Inc. custom-molded plugs and Rudy Project Tralyx Slim glasses with ImpactX-2 photochromic lenses.

    I had no gear-related issues.


    Course Description

    From the Kinetic website: “This will be a ‘Train the Trainer’ course that covers various aspects to using an RDS (Red Dot Sight) equipped handgun. Learn about how to employ your handgun with an attached RDS.”

    About the instructor: “Jon served with 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, deploying multiple times in various capacities. The Ranger Battalion also provided Jon with training and first hand experience in small unit tactics, airborne operations, field medicine, breaching, foreign languages and small arms. Upon leaving the Army, Jon worked in executive protection and acted as a law enforcement consultant, molding his military experience into a contextual view of the threats faced outside of combat environments. Jon comes to the firearms industry with an ideal blend of military and citizen; shaping his courses to apply to Mil, LE and citizen students alike.”


    Day 1
    0900-1700
    Wx: Low 73°, high 82°, fair/partly cloudy with 10-16 MPH winds
    312 rounds fired


    Class started with student and instructor intros, a safety brief, and an overview of optic selection. As this was a law enforcement class, all but two of the students were from various South Florida agencies. The two of us who were not LE both work in security. With the admin stuff out of the way, we moved onto the range for live fire:

    • Zeroing. We started at 10 yards shooting braced off barrels, confirming at 25.

    • The perfect shot = (problem-solving/decision-making) + (gun + trigger press + sight picture + body mechanics). Each one of those things is its own little bar graph, and when all the bars are at 100%, you have a perfect shot.

    • Grip pressure. Take all the mush out of the grip by squeezing hard. Strong hand squeezes front to back. Squeezing with the fingertips of the strong hand pushes the dot left (discovery learning through dry-fire).

    • Locking arms causes dot to bounce more. Putting slight bend in elbows allows full use of arms as shock absorbers and smooths out tracking the dot in recoil and helps it to settle consistently back on target.

    • Trigger prep. Just taking the slack out of the trigger is not prepping the trigger. There is still some distance the trigger can (and should) be moved past the point of initial resistance. If you only take out the slack and stage the trigger at the point of first resistance, you might only be at 50-60% of the trigger travel. That means if you break the shot from there, the trigger still has to move 40-50% of its travel before the shot breaks, which increases the chances for disrupting the sight picture. Instead, work in dry fire on prepping the trigger past the point of initial resistance, trying to get as far as you can (85-90%) of the trigger travel, then cleaning up the sights and breaking the shot. This way, there is less opportunity to disrupt the sight picture. We practiced this through dry fire by staring at our trigger fingers as they worked the trigger in order to visualize just how much movement there was in the trigger before reaching the break. This was huge for me, and was something I had just heard for the first time in the Jedlinski/Reston class the weekend prior.

    • Trigger finger placement. Unique to each shooter because of hand size. Jon went over tip of finger, center of pad of finger, and sinking the finger in nearly to the knuckle. He advocated as much trigger as possible because the closer to the knuckle you get, the less mush there is in your finger, and the easier it is to apply a consistent amount of pressure to the trigger. We practiced this dry, then live. Tip: some guns, like my VP9, won’t reset, but the trigger will return to the forward position in dry fire. Although you lose the break on follow-up shots, you can still use this to observe dot movement while simulating multiple shots. Glocks need to be shimmed slightly out of battery to do this (use a cable tie or piece of tape folded up between the barrel and slide near the breech-face).

    • RDS vs. iron sights. With irons you risk eye fatigue constantly shifting focal planes from front sight to target, and a front sight focus can be difficult to achieve when there is a threat in front of you.

    • The red dot will wobble. Get over it. Embrace the wobble!

    • Target focus, but don’t look for hits. This was practiced by placing the dot on the bottom edge of the target (meaning rounds would pass beneath the target) and paying attention to the dot movement. Where was the dot before the shot, during recoil, and where did it return? How high off target the dot tracks is less important than getting it to return to the same spot—the latter is the true indicator of your recoil control.

    • Shot calling. This was practiced with a partner at 25 yards. The intent was to see if you were really paying attention to where the dot went. I’m not 100% at this, but this is why I love the dot, because it is a fantastic tool for self-correction by making it painfully obvious when you screw up a shot.

    • Parallax. We shot from 5 to 25 yards deliberately placing the dot in the four extreme edges of the optic. Max POI shift at 25 yards for me was about 2 inches, or not enough to worry about. In other words, don’t worry about over-confirming the dot and centering it perfectly in the window. Doing so is unnecessary and wastes time.

    • Moving the dot. When transitioning from one target to another, if you wait until the dot is centered in the target, you are likely to break the shot late. Instead, start to break the shot when the dot crosses the outer edge of the acceptable target zone, because by the time the shot actually breaks, you’ll be well inside the acceptable target area. This was practiced at 5 yards on a 2-3” circle, moving the gun from left to right and deliberately breaking the shot as soon as the dot crossed the edge of the circle. This was another lightbulb moment for me, and this was a technique we would continue to build on throughout the rest of class.

    • Presentation from the holster. Don’t do the “tactical turtle.” If you were going to point at something, you wouldn’t duck your head to get behind your finger, you would lift your finger into your line of sight. Why do this differently with a pistol in hand?

    • Shooting on the move. We shot this from probably 10 yards moving to 5 yards, starting with one round, then two, ramping up the pace until we were shooting 8 rounds, which really tested your ability to track the dot in recoil.

    • Diagonal movement. With a piece of B/C-zone steel, we moved at about a 45˚ angle toward the steel, from 20 to 10 yards, firing as quickly as we could track the dot back on target. This was another application of breaking the shot as the dot crossed the edge of the steel rather than waiting until it was centered. This was repeated moving from left to right, and from right to left.

    At that point, we called it for the day and performed a quick debrief, asking for a takeaway from each student.


    Day 2
    0900-1700
    Wx: Low 73°, high 82°, fair/partly cloudy with 8-21 MPH winds
    423 rounds fired


    Day two wasted no time moving right into live-fire:

    • Accuracy on demand, shooting 5 rounds at 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 yards.

    • More on grip pressure. With a loose grip, pressing the trigger may press the gun back into the mushy part of your hand and result in the muzzle angling up slightly.

    • Emergency reloads. Set up your grip for optimal performance, not to facilitate a low-probability reload. However, you can experiment with pushing the support thumb into the side of the frame of the gun, which can open up space for the slide release to function without interference. For a stuck mag, don’t waste time shaking the gun to get the mag out. When the support hand comes up to insert the new magazine, just strip the mag. Resting your strong hand thumb on the slide release and then inserting the magazine with enough force will push the gun (and slide stop) up into your thumb, dropping the slide. Using a traditional over-hand “power stroke” to run the slide puts the support hand far away from the gun. A more efficient technique may be running the support hand thumb over the top of the slide forward of the ejection port, which sets the hand up closer to reestablish a firing grip.

    • Malfunction clearance. Diagnostic versus non-diagnostic. For a failure to fire which occurs on the first round, tap and rack. If the failure to fire occurs after a few rounds have been fired, do you really need to ensure the magazine is seated? Or can you save a little time and just run the slide? For a failure to extract, the more efficient method is to strip the mag (all the way out of the gun to allow any loose rounds to fall free), reinsert the mag, and rack the slide. Significantly faster than the traditional lock-rip-rack-rack-rack-reload method. Extended baseplates or baseplates with scalloped edges help get a positive grip when stripping the magazine.

    • Eye issues. Shooters with astigmatism may not see a crisp dot. If they see something different (streak, starburst, etc.), ensure they are picking a consistent point on what they see to zero.

    • Cheap sunglasses may cause shift of POI due to poor optical quality of the lens.

    • To drive home target focus, you can write sentences on the target with cues to shoot at various intervals between the words, and force students to read the words aloud.

    • Occluded optic techniques. One technique starts with the front sight high and aligned with the top center of the optic housing to establish windage, then dropping the muzzle until the top of the optic is perpendicular to the target. I was consistently shooting way high with this method. Another option that worked very well for me, at least at 5 yards, was slightly canting the gun and using the length of the edge of the slide as a gross aiming device.

    • One-handed shooting. Don’t do dumb stuff with the hand that isn’t on the gun. If it’s truly injured to where it can’t be used, let it dangle. If it’s not that injured, you could be using it to help stabilize the gun even if you can’t establish a full grip. Avoid the traditional fist in front of the sternum.

    • Thumb placement shooting one-handed. We experimented with three different methods: thumb curled and touching the tip of the middle finger, thumb straight forward and pushing inboard, and thumb flagged high. A flagged thumb may help strengthen the grip of your other fingers. I have mostly shot with a curled thumb, but I’m starting to experiment with a flagged thumb and I’m seeing decent results.

    • Target transitions. Eyes lead the hands, but for close together targets, the head doesn’t need to move at all. Setting up three targets spaced about a yard apart from each other can represent a single target moving laterally. When shifting from one target to the next, don’t follow through and then move to the next target, drive the gun to the next target while recovering from recoil. This was practiced on single targets by drawing 3-4” circles on the target and firing two rounds at each, then three rounds at each.

    • Larger transitions. Traditional tank turret relies on obliques which are weaker than your legs. Better to use quads to shift your hips around and basically point your junk at the next target. For very large transitions, pivot on your feet.

    • For targets that are relatively close together, try to match split times with transition times and maintain cadence rather than double-tapping each target. As targets spread out farther and farther there will come a point of diminishing returns where the transition time has to increase due to the distance and there is no value in slowing down your splits to match. We practiced shooting singles, doubles, and triples on three adjacent targets, again incorporating the technique where we start to break the shot as soon as the dot crosses the edge of the acceptable hit zone.

    X-Box. Three targets downrange about a yard apart, square set up with cones with near edge 10 yards from the targets, and the cones 10’ apart. Starting from back left cone, move forward, then right, engaging each target with two rounds while moving in each direction. From front right cone, go muzzle up or down and move to back right cone, then move diagonally to front left cone, engaging each target with two rounds. Avert the muzzle and move to the back left cone, then move diagonally to the front right cone, again engaging each target with two rounds. Drill is timed, with C-zone hits adding 0.5, D-zone hits adding 1.5.

    • Mini-stage. This was a neat course of fire involving drawing and engaging B/C-zone steel at 10ish yards with one round, backing around a set of barrels and engaging three paper targets on the move with two rounds each at 2-3 yards, engaging the 10ish yard steel with another round, then transitioning wide to another B/C-zone plate approximately 25 yards across the range.

    • Another drill, can’t recall the name. Eight rounds in the gun, three targets spaced a yard apart, 5 yards from the shooter. On the buzzer, fire 6 to the body of T2, 2 to the head of T1, reload, fire 4 to the body of T1, and fire 3 to the head of T3.

    Day two ended with another debrief before parting ways.


    Summary and General Observations

    I was initially hesitant to take an LE instructor-level class, thinking that there might be a lot of emphasis on writing policy and establishing department SOP, which would have been lost on me. (Initially I was scheduled to take Jon’s open enrollment RDS class in St. Augustine, but I switched over to this class at the recommendation of a friend who had taken it before.) Fortunately, I was wrong. This really was a train-the-trainer class, where the instructor provided a number of ways of attacking each problem, then let us do some discovery learning with each technique both dry and live, which let each individual start to figure out what worked best for them, but also gave them the tools to share with their students, who might find more success with one of the alternative methods.

    Getting to hang with a bunch of cops was a great time, as most of them seemed like they wanted to be there. Jon himself was incredibly personable, with a laid-back style that I really appreciated. Story-telling was kept to a minimum and didn’t distract from the curriculum. Time management was good, with breaks just long enough to hydrate and jam mags and get back on the line. Although the instructor-student ratio was a little on the high side, Jon kept busy working up and down the line and providing constant feedback to each shooter.

    Overall, the progression through various topics was well-refined, and the drills we did toward the end of day two clearly brought together most of the different skillsets we had covered in class. Always nice to see that culmination; I think there’s more value in that than a class consisting of a bunch of different drills that don’t really build on each other. Nothing was repetitive in nature. While we repeated some drills a few times, we never got into a rut of “up” drills, which kept everyone mentally engaged.

    I was happy to see how certain techniques crossed over from the Jedlinski/Reston class. While Jon’s class was a very different class, he approached many things in a similar fashion and nothing really conflicted with what we had covered the weekend prior (this was a relief to me, as I was worried about taking two classes back to back without any time between for the information to marinate).

    I was pleased with my performance in class, although I definitely held back on some of the drills where I should have pushed a little harder to find my failure point. I have a tendency to do this because I want a nice, clean-looking target, but in doing so I am shortchanging myself and missing an opportunity for development. I have to keep working on setting ego aside and being ok with failure in the interest of the learning that comes with it.

    In closing, great class. Despite this being 20th course I’ve attended, I still walked away with some new perspectives and techniques, and I’m excited to keep working on those in my own practice sessions. I will definitely train with Jon again in the future.

  2. #2
    your reviews are always so helpful. Thank you for taking the time to post.

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