Training

Everybody I know comes to me to talk guns and tactics. In my social circles, I'm that guy. However, they will heed my advice when it comes to what gear works, ways to utilize that gear, measures to help with their home defenses, and prep activities. The two areas that they don’t seem interested in are bugging out and training. The odd part to me is, I think these are two enthralling subjects and I stress them more than anything else yet it's the most ignored advice in those circles.

Obviously, I touched on bugging out last week. I'm going into more detail with that in the upcoming weeks. I started filming a bugout video for youtube. A buddy and I will be doing a bugout exercise in a couple of weeks that I'm going to include so that project has to wait until whitetail season is over.

That leaves training on the table. Guys will buy gun after gun, assuming that makes them more dangerous. Maybe to themselves and their comrades, but not to their enemy. It may have been Elmer Keith that said “ Do not fear the man with many guns, fear the man with one gun for he likely knows how to use it.” I know folks who count themselves among patriots who are not to be trifled with, and yet they own guns that have never been fired. I cant take that seriously. They give me the wink as they say “When the shit hits the fan, you and I will kick ass and take names” I try to be polite, but in short, if we haven't trained together I'm not real sure I want you around. If you haven't trained at all, I prefer you stay far, far away from me.

With all the quality trainers in the US right now, it's hard for me to imagine not going to some classes. On top of that, too many guys don’t practice anything. I can find a thousand videos from quality instructors with great advice on how to practice . Hell, I invite dozens of folks to come practice. Usually met by excuse after excuse. Back when I competed, I always had multiple shooters available to practice with. When it comes to defending ones self, there is LESS interest in practicing? I don’t get it.

I know that ammo is scarce at the moment, but the practice I see needed most doesn’t even require ammo. We could all be more accurate and fast shooters, but the area that is most neglected is weapon manipulation. Watch somebody, or even yourself handle your pistol. Does the draw look smooth? How about the reload? I see guys with 10 handguns and 15 rifles and when they load up a semi-auto pistol it looks like they have never racked the slide previously.

I ran a dry practice idea past a pal of mine that paid huge dividends. He followed all the standard dry practice rules and he did one drill, for 15 minutes a day and in under two weeks he handled his Glock like a pro. He had two magazines so we worked with that. 5 dollars later, he had 10 dummy rounds. Deal was load each mag with 5 dummies. The drill was to draw, aim in, and press the trigger. Giving him repetitions on his draw. Obviously there was no shot, so he could go right into a failure drill. Tap the mag, rotate it outboard an rack the slide. Immediately followed by getting the sights back on target. Trigger press at that point didn’t matter. Reholster and repeat. When the mag locked back on the last failure drill, it was time to reload the fresh mag. There were times that he reloaded to the fresh mag at random times as well. Now when he goes to the range to use up some precious ammo, he doesn’t fumble fuck his weapon handling and focuses on putting holes in the paper where he wants them to go. He got much better in a short amount of time with little to no cost. Why aren’t we all doing this? It's rhetorical , no need to answer.


FYI, for those of you who think that I must be the guy with dozens of guns in my closet, you would be wrong. I own 1 carbine, 1 full size handgun, one compact handgun, one pocket pistol. And 2 .22s (one rifle, one revolver) that have been passed down from family members. I don’t own a deer rifle, I don’t own a shotgun. No AK, FAL, no 30 caliber guns at all. The 22 will serve for small critter gathering, and I'm sure the carbine can handle larger critters. I spend the rest of my gun budget on ammo and training. A few years ago all that training and practice paid some dividends. I made IDPA master class in 2 divisions and won a state championship. I don't think that would have happened if I just would have plugged my budget into more 1911s and multiple AR15s.

Get in touch with me over on facebook if you want to practice. I haven't taught a class in awhile, but I think I'm going to put some more focus on that in the upcoming months. I certainly can point you towards some quality training if you are interested.

Podcasts are coming soon, I'll post them here when they are good to go. Be on the lookout for a youtube video on my everyday carry gear. If there is anything you'd like to know about, leave a comment or post it on facebook and I'll do my best.