How does a gun nut spend his vacation? Shooting of course. I wanted to improve my shooting skills and after a bit of research, I decided on a 4 day defensive handgun course at Front Sight, just outside of Las Vegas NV.
The first thing that needs taken care of is ammo. Front Sight is a great place, but they don’t exactly have cheap ammo. Based on the recommendation of some folks on AR15.com, I contacted Bill’s Buy and Sell. They’re easy to find on Freemont, just North of the Strip (703) 382-1133. He had some pretty good prices on ammo and I was able to purchase a case of .45 PMC for $215. Its not quite as cheap as you can find if you look on-line, but very good for a retail store. He has a pretty decent shop anyway and its worth a look.
My next piece of advise is to NOT stay in Vegas. Without traffic, its only about 45 minutes from the Strip to Front Sight, but the morning drive can be a disaster. Blue Diamond Highway has a huge amount of new construction and its only 2 lanes for quite a while. The 45 minute drive turned into a 90 minute drive one morning. Front Sight recommends staying n Pahrump and that’s a good suggestion. I thought staying in Vegas would have better entertainment in the evenings after class. That may be true, but by the end of each day, I was so exhausted, all I wanted was a bed and room service.
First, I’ll give a description of the facilities. It’s a work in progress. The ranges are awesome. There are 8 bays for pistol and shotgun classes. They have shooting positions out to 50 yards and have a covered area for classes. The bays are cut into the desert with walls about 12 feet high. At the end are 20 positions with electronically activated target positions. On the shotgun ranges, they’ve got a number of reactive metal targets as well. There are also a number of ranges where they hold the tactical scenarios and at least one rifle range. I also saw what looked like a sniper alley built into the ravine. I honestly don’t know how many ranges they have, nor the complete use for each, but it was a sight to behold.
They don’t yet have running water nor plumbing. The only permanent structure is the classroom. The pro-shop is in a large tent-like structure. Roads are not paved. There is a good bit of construction going on and its obvious they are on track to have things a bit more complete in the not-to-distant future.
The class itself is fantastic, although not exactly revolutionary. Almost every part of the class was a direct recitation of Jeff Cooper’s principles of pistol shooting. That’s not a bad thing. In fact, its one of the reasons I choose Front Sight. Throughout the class, I only noticed one deviation from Cooper’s teaching on pistol shooting and that is the fact that Cooper prefers keeping both eyes open, while Front Sight has you closing the non-dominant. Cooper isn’t vehement n this issue anyway.
What was really neat was that they teach in such a way that the class can handle all skill levels at once. Within our class, there was a number of law enforcement folks, one SWAT instructor, an IPSC shooter and at least 2 people who had never handled a gun before in their lives. There were several of us with skill levels between those extremes. There were some elderly folks and in an adjacent range there was a 16 year old kid who was top gun on his range. Even with this complete disparity in skill, age, speed and motivation, everybody seemed to come away better than they had started.
I was impressed that they were able to develop a curriculum where this was possible. They really started at the beginning, but advanced very quickly. They took things in small but rapid steps. Everything from malfunction drills, tactical and emergency reloads, grip, stance, sight picture, trigger pressure and after action drills were covered.
Between range time, there were lectures on legal, ethical, civil and moral issues regarding use of deadly force. These were excellent. They were brief enough to not be boring and were quite though provoking. It is a great reminder of just how serious all of this really is.
By the end of day two, all the basics were covered. By day three, things got interesting. The firing stroke was covered, along with tactical movement and the speed of everything increased. We also did some night shooting with flashlights. There was a man-on-man competition (I placed second in my group of 34) and finally, a skills evaluation.
Let me tell you about the skills evaluation. It ain’t easy. Not at all. The first part is shooting at targets that only appear for a short time. You have to draw from concealment and place two shots to the thoracic cavity before the target disappears. The first shot is at 3 meters and the last is at 25. The time ranges between 1.5 and 4 seconds, depending on the range. There are also some called head shots. Any shot outside the center thoracic and you drop 3 points. Hit outside the man shaped target and you drop 5 points. You shoot 25 shots for a total potential of 125 points. Then, there are timed drills where you are clearing all manner of malfunction and you can’t gain points, but if you fail, you loose 3 points. The times to clear these are not generous.
At the end, there is an award ceremony. For those who score 90% or better, there is special recognition as a Distinguished Graduate. 70% plus is Graduate and less than that still gets a certificate of completion. The 90% thing is a bitch. You can only drop 13 points and make it. With the times involved, that is no small feat. In my group of 34 students, only 2 made 90%. I dropped 14 points in the shooting and did the malfunction drills clean, leaving me a single point out of the DG category. Yeah... bummer I know. I’ll get over it.
So what did I walk away with? Well, I discovered that my stance was wrong, my elbow extends out too far, I can shoot better and faster with one eye closed, and that there is still a lot more that I need to learn. I discovered that checkering on the front strap of a 1911 is a bad thing and that night sights are a great thing. I shot my USP on days one, two and four, plus the night shooting on night three and shot my GSR on day three. I learned that both are excellent guns and I had no malfunctions of any kind with either pistol. I learned that Wilson mags hurt when solidly bumped into the pistol and that Novak mags are much more comfortable for changes. I learned that DA/SA pistols are nearly impossible to shoot well in a controlled pair at high speed. I learned that Glocks are not impervious to malfunctions (I witnessed several failures by other students). Finally, I learned that I really enjoy this kind of education.
In all, it was an awesome experience. I plan on going back. I had intended to take a rifle class, and I may still do that, but now I think I might just do the 4 day pistol again. As much as I learned, I have a feeling I could take that same course 10 times and learn something new each time.