The gf is a new shooter.  I've taken her to the range a few times with me and she does excellent with the fundamentals, safety, etc.

A few weeks ago, I got her to take the NRA basic pistol class.  There's a personal protection the home course in the area coming up that I'd like her to take.

Too much for her or something that would do her good?  I know it's not a tactical handgun class or anything like that, but just want to make sure she'd be ok with it in advance.

Thoughts?

its actually one of the better courses the NRA offers.  She will,be fine and learn a lot.

I'm an instructor for it.  Most of it is analyzing scenarios and crime prevention, but it does include slightly more tactical shooting, including an emphasis on real-world marksmanship compared to the "pure" marksmanship in the basic class.



ETA:  has she been practicing?  The marksmanship requirements aren't particularly difficult, but it is a step above the "all your hits on a paper plate at short range" in the basic class.  

Thanks to both of you.

She has practiced a bit.  She just got her own place and wants her first firearm to keep there so I think the class would be good for her.  Hope to get her back to the range a few times before the class.

My wife and I will be taking this course this month.

At what distances do they have you shoot from? She has an M&P Shield and has difficulty shooting at at 20 yards and beyond with great accuracy as she is a new shooter. We're going to the range weekly together and she puts 50 rounds down range each time we go, but although she's improved markedly the past six months she's not yet ready for 25 yards 4" groups.

I'm an NRA PPIH and PPOH Instructor.

All shooting is done at 21' or closer.

Shooting distances were fairly close, though I don't remember how far.  We did double tap drills, shooting around walls, etc.  It was an excellent class and my GF, her mom, and I all had a great time.  A lot depends on your instructors, ours was awesome.

You'll have a lot of fun and learn a lot.  I've been shooting my entire life and this was my 2nd actual class.  First was NRA basic pistol and I have to say the PPITH course is WAY better.

Our instructors were horrible.

At no point did either of them demonstrate anything on the range.  I couldn't believe it.  What they basically were was Range Safety Officers having the students come up and throw rounds down range the best that they could.  I mean zero dry fire or anything. Just load, fire, and good luck everybody.

I also couldn't believe all they had us do was shoot an 8.5x11" sheet of paper at no more than 10 yards. They stated that combat accuracy was acceptable, but to me combat accuracy is the accuracy you can achieve when under extreme mental and physical stress not what you can achieve on a static range.  I think you need good accuracy and solid fundamentals first and then use that as a foundation to build on so that you can push yourself to do things like barricade shooting in different shooting positions, shooting on the move, shooting under stress, etc.  

We spent more time in class talking about "mindset" than the fundamentals.  I felt the mindset discussion was a waste of time, because a person of average intelligence should have already considered the psychological, legal, and reputation impact of being involved in a lethal encounter.  With such a limited window of time I felt that time would be better allocated to going over fundamentals.

Also, we had some real novices in our class including one woman who had NEVER fired any type of firearms before.  I think taking the NRA Basic pistol course should be a pre-req for taking the NRA's personal protection insider the home course.  

Being a glass half full kind of guy though it was good for my wife to be on a shooting line for the first time with other shooters, which is an experience.  
I kept my mouth shut throughout the whole thing though and just quietly listened and followed their orders, because I didn't want to be "that guy."  However, wow was I blown away that they didn't demo or discuss anything during the actual range segment.  I did see them give some individual help to some of the brand new shooters, but only after they started having real trouble like having their thumb right behind the slide of their rented Glock blocking it from cycling (poor lady).  

You look at the professional instructors and they're always demonstrating things, communicating the how and why in well thought out ways, and then you get two instructors who are really just giving you an "experience" of pew, pewing without much substance and it really opens your eyes to how BIG a difference instructors can make even in an NRA pre-scripted course.

Sadly the NRA is doing its best to run off real instructors in favor of computer based training and the style of class you witnessed.  All in the name of standardization and quality control.....

Of course there are still good NRA instructors, but the current push is causing many to drop off the NRA curriculum all together and leaving a bad taste in student's mouths- which won't benefit the NRA in the long run.

Yeah, I mean I get that they want to standardize, but if you're going to standardize than set a high standard.  A standardize class doesn't have to suck that bad.  With some of the best teachers in the world in the firearms community it's not like NRA doesn't have an incredible pool of talent to draw on to build up a real nice standard that would actually help people.

I'm an EPL NRA member right now, but by the end of the year I'll be a full Life Member.  I know I'm not a benefactor, but I'm going to the NRA Annual Meeting in 2015 and I'd like to find out what they plan to do about amp'ing their training up.  I mean whoever they've got overseeing that would be, if I had to guess, probably an older Fudd type.

The NRA training department is fairly small and overworked, it took months to get my pistol instructor credentials, and now they don't even mail a card out, you can just print one you download from the NRAInstructors site (yeah, that looks really professional).  They need more people, so they can actually do audits of instructors and training counselors to identify the bad ones and either get them to improve or revoke their credentials.  I know in my PPITH instructor class, one of the things the TC repeatedly encouraged was to do as much demonstration as possible, even in the classroom, as students frequently learn better with visual representations.  Get down behind the object being demonstrated as cover or concealment.  Turn off the lights and demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of using flash lights.  Anything to keep the students engaged with the material AND thinking about how they can apply it to their own homes and improve on it.  At the range, the instructor should be demonstrated each course of fire before having the students shoot it.  We were fortunate that we had a guy in a wheelchair in our class, so we were able to review accommodations to allow him to shoot safely in the various scenarios.



 

Yup, I appreciate that the NRA has limited funds and resources, but I agree with everything you posted man.  One of the great ways to promote the Second Amendment and keep the community strong is to help people become better shooters and see the value of hitting the range as often as possible. It is through the training classes and community involvement of belonging to ranges/clubs that we're going to be a stronger more passionate group.  Plus, nothing turns people away or causes them to just lose interest like being horrible at something.