Rifle/pistol combat training classes?

Seniorb · May 12, 2016

SFGIANTSGUY28 said:
@SCARed

Have you ever taken a class from TR? How would you know how safe or unsafe it is? You can watch all the videos you want but until you try something for your self it is unrealistic to make judgments.

Don't knock it till you try it. Just my

Anyone else's out there going?

Can you send me a link for the class

BlackRyder · May 12, 2016

If you're in the neighborhood of Lynnwood Gun, drop in and talk with Rich (he's their resident gunsmith). He teaches a few combat/defensive pistol and carbine classes a year out at Fort Discovery near Port Townsend. I'm not sure if he's any good as an instructor but he's definitely a good guy and seems to know his business. Of course, my experience in this whole area is about zero so his classes may be useless for all I know... Just thought I'd pass on some new info I picked up.

Highsite · May 25, 2016

Thebastidge said:
Understood, and I sympathize. But with all due respect, you need to find the money to train. Volunteering is all well and good, until you volunteer yourself out of business. I volunteer a great deal of my time- WA Hunter Education, political activism on the 2nd Amendment front, Safari Club of SW Washington, Clark County Dive Rescue Team, and hopefully soon as a part time trainer for Clark Co Sheriff's Office. But one has bills to pay. These types of training can only be made available if people are willing to prioritize them by putting their money where their mouth is. Volunteer instructors will have a hard time maintaining the kind of proficiency you're talking about too.

Venues to do realistic training are few and far between, and they cost a LOT of money to rent or buy. Even BASIC live fire practice is hard to fit into the schedule of public or private non-profit ranges. Some non-profits won't allow any classes that have a an entry fee. Insurance for instructors costs money- and anybody who will take on instructing unknown folks without instructor's insurance is not a person whose judgement you should trust as a student. A great deal of your training needs a solid risk management focus. As a member of the Association of Defensive Shooting instructors, I firmly believe in one of the tenets there: The benefit to students of any particular technique or training exercise MUST outweigh the risks. This takes time and experience to assess and plan exercises with risk mitigation factors built in. It's not as easy as "Let's go out to the woods and do some REAL combat training."

Round count is not everything, either.

I completely agree with the concept you are talking about, but with as many CCW carriers and those who live in areas that are most likely to need it probably would be a stretch to be able to afford these schools. I offer time for my friends and their family/children and though I am not a LEO I do think that LEO's would be well served to help out with training people who can't afford it, and how to react if they need to hold their ground until police arrive and what to do when the police arrive. I understand the monetary perspective, but is it good to deny critical training to those who may be more likely to actually need the training.

Jonnyuma · May 30, 2016

I've been really wanting to get some defensive carbine and/or pistol training, take some classes, get a bit of professional instruction, etc. That's pretty much what led me to join this fantastic forum (I only belong to two others), to get to know some gun guys close by and find out where the good local classes/training is. Then I read this thread and changed my mind...sort of.

Somebody mentioned that there was a difference between offering training, and offering a "Gun Adventure" (my apologies for forgetting who the poster was...I read that a few hours ago). After a little bit of light-duty introspection disguised as soul-searching I realized that he was RIGHT! I don't want training, I want run-n-gun fun, something different than static paper-punching, I want...an adventure.

I'm not saying all that to be silly...it's pretty much the truth and very intuitive on that poster's part. Although I haven't recieved any firearms instruction since my last Marine Corps qual, I still remember the fundamentals and practice them whenever I go out shooting (at least I think I am). And I'm not even implying that I couldn't use some help to possibly undo some bad habits I've picked up over the intervening years. I'm just saying that what I'm really wanting is a more dynamic and satisfying way to use my firearms...cabine+pistol+BUG+shotgun...build speed, build skills, expend ammo at an alarming rate, expend Hoppes #9 at an equally alarming rate, put the boomers away, have some beers, tell lies, and look forward to the next session.

Sorry for the long post. Sometimes I disguise my stream-of-consciousness with rambling...or maybe it's the other way around.

Member 42848 · May 30, 2016

SCARed said:
Seattle Firearms Academy is good and have quite a variety of classes. 2 day classes for around $385.

Sword International comes to PDX a couple times a year. it's about $350 for a 2 day class.
<broken link removed>

Check out Soconusa.com as well.

There is quite a bit of training in the PDX area that isn't advertised, by some of the highest level BAMFs in the world. Delta, Seals, Rangers, Marsoc, take your pick. It's a matter of connecting with the groups that are hosting it.

Forgot Glenn...http://www.immediateactionconcepts.com/
I've taken a class from him as well. $150 for a 1 day class. Well worth the money.

All Solid dudes!!!

U8395279 · May 30, 2016

Thebastidge said:
Understood, and I sympathize. But with all due respect, you need to find the money to train.

What an usual concept to believe in: that learning skills and honing them is important.

I run into the same thing on photography discussion boards, and even with some local photographers that I know. I see people all the time investing really big bucks into expensive professional grade photography gear, believing that will turn them into an awesome photographer. And then the owners put their state of the art cameras in full Automatic mode, and wonder why on earth so many occasions their pictures come out looking awful.

I've tried to convince many of these people to just invest in a little education to get a good understanding of the fundamentals of photography, so they can better understand how their camera works, how they can recognize when an exposure is going to be bad, and how to deal with common problem situations in photography. But I often find that people don't want to invest any time or expense into doing that. They just want to point and shoot their cameras, and get good results. While modern cameras are now so good that one can often get by doing that, there are still a great many circumstances when doing that is going to result in failure.

I think that a sort of a similar mentality exists with many gun owners. They just want to point and shoot their guns. However, rather early in my life I realized that in order to get good at any shooting discipline, that you had to both learn not only good basic fundamentals and techniques, but you also needed to train and practice a lot, in order to develop real shooting talent.

As a young man in my late teens and early 20's, I used to do some competitive target shooting. And I discovered that in order to get really good, one had to train constantly. The great legendary 5 time NRA National Pistol Shooting Champion Steve Reiter belonged to the same shooting range as I did back then. And whenever I would show up at the range to practice, he would ALWAYS already be there! I could not believe it. No matter what day or time of day I came to the range to practice, Steve was ALWAYS already there shooting! I found out later from talking to others that he was constantly at the range training.

At that time, Steve was not yet famous outside of Northern California. He was a bit older than I, but still fairly young. He would win all of the local NRA pistol matches in Northern California, though, and was thus quite renown locally. Now mind you, this was WAY, WAY BACK in the early 1970's.

Well, over the following decades there were many changes in my life, graduating from college, different jobs, living in different cities and states. But all of a sudden, I hear about Steve Reiter again two decades later in the 1990's because he had won the NRA National Pistol Championship! And then guess what, he then goes ahead and wins it a total of FIVE times! I believe that only the great Brian Zins and William Blankenship have won more national bullseye pistol shooting titles.

It may have taken him a quarter of a century of training and practice, but he eventually made himself the best pistol shot in our nation.

The difference that separates ordinary good marksmen and people who win national and international shooting titles is not either their raw shooting talent, nor the expensive gear they use. It is the amount of training and practice that they have done.

That is what separates the truly great shots from the rest of us.
.

RogueWeasel · Nov 14, 2016

eliduc said:
I was wondering if there are any law enforcement or ex military experienced in combat technique that would be willing to volunteer some group training for concealed carry and home protection. I know there are schools but a $400-$500 fee for a two day course plus 400 to 700 rounds puts it out of reach for a lot of us. I am sure there are those who would be willing to travel a couple hundred miles for some affordable instruction. At least a couple of Sheriffs have asked those who posses cc licenses to carry since the Paris and Calif. terrorist attacks. One or two armed and competent civilian shooters could prevent a massacre.

Not sure if it's helpful or not, but there are quite a few guys around with a metric ton of real world and training experienice that do small personalized classes around $45-50 an hour. They will come to you and gear the classes to what you looking for.

eliduc said:
I was wondering if there are any law enforcement or ex military experienced in combat technique that would be willing to volunteer some group training for concealed carry and home protection. I know there are schools but a $400-$500 fee for a two day course plus 400 to 700 rounds puts it out of reach for a lot of us. I am sure there are those who would be willing to travel a couple hundred miles for some affordable instruction. At least a couple of Sheriffs have asked those who posses cc licenses to carry since the Paris and Calif. terrorist attacks. One or two armed and competent civilian shooters could prevent a massacre.