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Hokey / Ancient
AAR: Gunsite 350RDS
Gunsite 350 RDS
August 22-26, 2022
Instructor Erick Gelhaus; coaches Jay Tuttle and Clint Achziger
BLUF: for my context, this particular course was a very good way to understand and adopt the regular use of RDS. Gunsite remains a great place to train, but the key advantage of this course was the instructor in regard to the course objective.
I traveled with Team Kansas on one of our annual sorties. Course selection was primarily driven by availability, but a lot of us are actively interested in developing or refining skill with RDS, and we were excited to train with Erick.
The principle of the course was straightforward— a very well-developed intermediate pistol course executed at a brisk pace so that curricula related to RDS can be introduced. The course followed the well known outline of 350 with RDS topics organically worked in.
These mostly avoided hardware considerations and were focused on training eyes that were used to the front sight to focus on the target and allow the dot to interpose itself. Hardware info can be gathered from the internet; retraining old eyes takes work and repetition, and that’s more effective when supervised and tested.
Erick carefully acknowledged his sources, provided some written materials in support of his lectures, and answered questions without letting the course be monopolized by preoccupation with incidental increments. He and the coaches offered enough information to be effective without going beyond what could be put into practical application and demonstrated to be tactically useful. The scope of the course was well managed, which I think is the byproduct of it being arranged around a 350 — participants were all reasonably competent and very safe and the core curriculum was sufficiently challenging to force the students to see and take the advantage RDS offer.
The course effectively advanced my thinking about RDS in and of themselves. I shoot better with them in a lot of circumstances , was given plenty of evidence for both their reliability and surviving if they fail, and think they’re worth the hit to concealment in most applications. It will take more work to figure out whether I will have to dedicate myself to RDS or be able to go back and forth — I think there’s reasonable arguments for the latter.
Making it a bit more personal, the course was just right for my profound level of rust. I think someone who is regularly in brass up to their elbows might get the same value from a more challenging class, but for me it was just humiliating enough to be motivating.
Besides the course, time with TK, among the staff at Gunsite, and leisure time at Little Thumb Butte is always a deep pleasure.
Gear notes will presumably be noted by Erick for the whole class. My own findings about gear and technique will be posted in my training journal.
Last edited by JAD; 08-28-2022 at 05:16 AM.
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Site Supporter
@JAD - thank you for taking the time to write the class up, your participation, and the kind words.
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