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I just wanted to share with peeps my experience at the class I just attended.
WARNING : Loooooooong Post
Where: Reed's Indoor Range, Santa Clara
When: Sat, Sun 8.30am to 5pm approx
Cost: $500
Ammo Reqs: 200-250 buck, 50 rounds slugs
Next class: Nov 2007. But call Reeds and ask to be put on a list.
First of like all of Louis's classes he teachings are basically advice. He gives opinions but there is none of the "you do it this way" as this is my class. The only time he steps in, is to and point out what is not working for you and why and suggest that you try it another way. The main point is that he lets you make a decision to pick what works for you based on the information he gives you.
We had 9 people in class. There was supposed to be 10 but 1 person never turned up. Anywho, from a hardware standpoint 7 out of 9 shotguns where Vang modded Remington 870s. We had 1 person shooting a Benelli M4 and me shooting a older FN Police shotgun which is basically a winchester 1300 Defender with a 7 round capacity. The 870s, had the usual modded kit. Vang comped barrels, ghost ring sights, surefire forends. Not sure if they had a magazine extender. The Benelli is one sweet shotgun. It was pretty much good to go out of the box. Pistol grip, 1913 rail on top for glass, ghost ring sights, 8 round capacity. Little ole me just had a plain old bead sight and the only pimpy accessories was a knoxx spec-ops adjustable stock.
Day 1, Sat. In class
We spent 4+ hours in class without firing a single shot (pun intended). This time was spent downloading a lot of information into our brains before we hit the firing line. In a nutshell, the shotgun as a weapon system is a fairly complicated weapon. He stress that shooting is not the issue but manipulation/ammo choice is. A shooter must assimilate a lot of information to make a decision on what will work for him. The important points he made are the following
Minimalist gear on your particular gun. Basically don't bolt on p00p that you don't need. Extra stuff will get you killed in a gunfight. He did add that you will cool though. "The number one rule is to look cool.."
The bare necessities are a correctly sized stock, sling and light. If you have to have a magazine extension use all factory parts. A particular emphasis placed on the correct stock length. You can get all sorts of fancy work done on it. But if your shotgun is going to be used by a female or someone smaller than you have to watch out for that. In general most stocks are too long for the general usage. A good test is put the butt of the shotgun on inner joint of your arm (the joint were you bend your forearm). If your trigger finger's first knuckle (from the palm of your hand) does not reach the trigger, then is too long. Saw it off, fix it. Please don't forget that body armour and thick clothing will affect your reach as well. Another point was that your significant other could use a 20ga with a youth stock.
Ammo selection. His opinion based on his abilities was that he only ran slugs. Why?. I quote "I got the brain the size of a pea". He stress that based on his limitation and abilities he run slugs so he does not have to think about ammo in a gunfight. The basic idea in ammo selection is know what and how your guns pattern at various distances and figure out at what distance you are most likely to use your shotgun. He talked at length about slug types and how if you use a sabot you might have difficult time explaining why your sabot took off at 90 degrees and hit an innocent bystander. His slug choice was a Original Brenneke. It has a felt wadding screwed into the base of the slug. So whatever leaves the barrel is the slug. There was talk about the ballistics of the regular shot and slug and not about the low recoil 'tactical' stuff we were shooting.
Sights. He made a point that those using a ghost ring sight with a dot had to decide if they were going to use the top of the front sight post of the dot. This has implications when shooting slugs at long range. In general the human eye is conditioned to automatically focus on a circle within a circle and a shooter might not want that. A story he told was a state trooper that could clover leaf a slug at 75 yards with a bead sight. That trooper was told that he had to have a ghost ring sights on his shotgun. Louis emphasized again, stay with what works for you.
Day 1, Sat. On the range
We spent some time working on the manipulations of our respective weapons systems. This was interesting as 1 of 7 870s was used by a left handed shooter with a left handed ejection port. The Benelli was used by a gentleman who was recovering/undergoing physical therapy on his support arm/hand. Yours truly was shooting a right handed Win 1300 with his left. I've got cross eye dominance issues and I need to shoot a long gun southpaw. At this point I never appreciated weapon ergonomics as I did now. The winchester 1300 had the safety in a not very reachable place for a combat shotgun. And the action release was in a shall we say a inhospitable place. Basically, given my setup and my method of usage I had to figure out how to work the gun efficiently and consistently. In particular, the unloading of my gun was pretty icky. I just ended up on the first day jacking my rounds onto the floor to unload. Eventually, Louis was satisfied that we knew of to manipulate or guns safely and to the limit of our physical abilities.
Patterning. We then proceeded to pattern the shotguns. I must say that the modded 870s were very very impressive shooting pretty tight groups at various distance. The two factory shotguns shot respectable groups. IMO the Benelli was tighter than my Winchester. At this point you begin to get the idea of the limitations of your weapon and begin to make decisions based on the information provided during class. ie. that since my groups ain't that tight, if I can shoot slugs accurate and consistently, that should be what I use for ammo.
More shooting... Into negative targets. Again he was not interested in our shooting unless one of us blew a shot. He was interested in our manipulation, making sure we stroked the gun and making sure we kept our guns topped up. At this point the class was learning to load without looking at the guns. We had some guys try to load the guns while starting at it. Even though we couldn't see jack with the loading port underneath the gun. We also learned real quick that it pretty much impossible without incredible upper body strength to keep the gun out and pointing at the target and trying to reload.
Rolling Thunder. This was the final drill of the day and was it a blast!. Developed by Clint Smith, its a drill that brings together shooting, manipulation and communication. It goes something like this. 5 shooters 5 targets. From the left to right you and the targets are numbered 1 to 5. You will be shooting 5 strings. In the 1st string you shoot one shot on the left most target. In the 2nd string you shoot twice, one shot first target, 2nd shot on 2nd target. And so on and so forth until you shoot 5 shots one in each target on the 5th and last string. Your verbal cue to start blasting (accurately of course) is for the person on your left to yell "DONE". The 5th person on the line yells "CLEAR" and shooter 1 will start his shooting string. As you can imagine this got pretty exciting as you try to load your damn gun to make sure you have enough ammo to shoot your string when your time came. You also have to deal with malfunctions and people who are not in the habit of yelling. The Remington's were at a disadvantage as they held 5 rounds max and they were constantly reloading.
Note:. At this point we were only shooting buck and no slugs. That was reserved for the next day where we were to go right to the range at 8.30am as we covered more Day 2's class information in Day 1.
Phew, this was long. And I enjoyed writing it. It helped me think about the last 2 days and the choices I need to make in regards to my shotgun. Let me know if you want me to post about Day 2. Which includes, slugs, zeroing, movement and squad tactics in a modified rolling thunder drill.
btw. The knoxx specops stock is the sczhnit. No bruising, just comfortable shooting all day long.
WARNING : Loooooooong Post
Where: Reed's Indoor Range, Santa Clara
When: Sat, Sun 8.30am to 5pm approx
Cost: $500
Ammo Reqs: 200-250 buck, 50 rounds slugs
Next class: Nov 2007. But call Reeds and ask to be put on a list.
First of like all of Louis's classes he teachings are basically advice. He gives opinions but there is none of the "you do it this way" as this is my class. The only time he steps in, is to and point out what is not working for you and why and suggest that you try it another way. The main point is that he lets you make a decision to pick what works for you based on the information he gives you.
We had 9 people in class. There was supposed to be 10 but 1 person never turned up. Anywho, from a hardware standpoint 7 out of 9 shotguns where Vang modded Remington 870s. We had 1 person shooting a Benelli M4 and me shooting a older FN Police shotgun which is basically a winchester 1300 Defender with a 7 round capacity. The 870s, had the usual modded kit. Vang comped barrels, ghost ring sights, surefire forends. Not sure if they had a magazine extender. The Benelli is one sweet shotgun. It was pretty much good to go out of the box. Pistol grip, 1913 rail on top for glass, ghost ring sights, 8 round capacity. Little ole me just had a plain old bead sight and the only pimpy accessories was a knoxx spec-ops adjustable stock.
Day 1, Sat. In class
We spent 4+ hours in class without firing a single shot (pun intended). This time was spent downloading a lot of information into our brains before we hit the firing line. In a nutshell, the shotgun as a weapon system is a fairly complicated weapon. He stress that shooting is not the issue but manipulation/ammo choice is. A shooter must assimilate a lot of information to make a decision on what will work for him. The important points he made are the following
Minimalist gear on your particular gun. Basically don't bolt on p00p that you don't need. Extra stuff will get you killed in a gunfight. He did add that you will cool though. "The number one rule is to look cool.."
The bare necessities are a correctly sized stock, sling and light. If you have to have a magazine extension use all factory parts. A particular emphasis placed on the correct stock length. You can get all sorts of fancy work done on it. But if your shotgun is going to be used by a female or someone smaller than you have to watch out for that. In general most stocks are too long for the general usage. A good test is put the butt of the shotgun on inner joint of your arm (the joint were you bend your forearm). If your trigger finger's first knuckle (from the palm of your hand) does not reach the trigger, then is too long. Saw it off, fix it. Please don't forget that body armour and thick clothing will affect your reach as well. Another point was that your significant other could use a 20ga with a youth stock.Ammo selection. His opinion based on his abilities was that he only ran slugs. Why?. I quote "I got the brain the size of a pea". He stress that based on his limitation and abilities he run slugs so he does not have to think about ammo in a gunfight. The basic idea in ammo selection is know what and how your guns pattern at various distances and figure out at what distance you are most likely to use your shotgun. He talked at length about slug types and how if you use a sabot you might have difficult time explaining why your sabot took off at 90 degrees and hit an innocent bystander. His slug choice was a Original Brenneke. It has a felt wadding screwed into the base of the slug. So whatever leaves the barrel is the slug. There was talk about the ballistics of the regular shot and slug and not about the low recoil 'tactical' stuff we were shooting.
Sights. He made a point that those using a ghost ring sight with a dot had to decide if they were going to use the top of the front sight post of the dot. This has implications when shooting slugs at long range. In general the human eye is conditioned to automatically focus on a circle within a circle and a shooter might not want that. A story he told was a state trooper that could clover leaf a slug at 75 yards with a bead sight. That trooper was told that he had to have a ghost ring sights on his shotgun. Louis emphasized again, stay with what works for you.
Day 1, Sat. On the range
We spent some time working on the manipulations of our respective weapons systems. This was interesting as 1 of 7 870s was used by a left handed shooter with a left handed ejection port. The Benelli was used by a gentleman who was recovering/undergoing physical therapy on his support arm/hand. Yours truly was shooting a right handed Win 1300 with his left. I've got cross eye dominance issues and I need to shoot a long gun southpaw. At this point I never appreciated weapon ergonomics as I did now. The winchester 1300 had the safety in a not very reachable place for a combat shotgun. And the action release was in a shall we say a inhospitable place. Basically, given my setup and my method of usage I had to figure out how to work the gun efficiently and consistently. In particular, the unloading of my gun was pretty icky. I just ended up on the first day jacking my rounds onto the floor to unload. Eventually, Louis was satisfied that we knew of to manipulate or guns safely and to the limit of our physical abilities.
Patterning. We then proceeded to pattern the shotguns. I must say that the modded 870s were very very impressive shooting pretty tight groups at various distance. The two factory shotguns shot respectable groups. IMO the Benelli was tighter than my Winchester. At this point you begin to get the idea of the limitations of your weapon and begin to make decisions based on the information provided during class. ie. that since my groups ain't that tight, if I can shoot slugs accurate and consistently, that should be what I use for ammo.
More shooting... Into negative targets. Again he was not interested in our shooting unless one of us blew a shot. He was interested in our manipulation, making sure we stroked the gun and making sure we kept our guns topped up. At this point the class was learning to load without looking at the guns. We had some guys try to load the guns while starting at it. Even though we couldn't see jack with the loading port underneath the gun. We also learned real quick that it pretty much impossible without incredible upper body strength to keep the gun out and pointing at the target and trying to reload.
Rolling Thunder. This was the final drill of the day and was it a blast!. Developed by Clint Smith, its a drill that brings together shooting, manipulation and communication. It goes something like this. 5 shooters 5 targets. From the left to right you and the targets are numbered 1 to 5. You will be shooting 5 strings. In the 1st string you shoot one shot on the left most target. In the 2nd string you shoot twice, one shot first target, 2nd shot on 2nd target. And so on and so forth until you shoot 5 shots one in each target on the 5th and last string. Your verbal cue to start blasting (accurately of course) is for the person on your left to yell "DONE". The 5th person on the line yells "CLEAR" and shooter 1 will start his shooting string. As you can imagine this got pretty exciting as you try to load your damn gun to make sure you have enough ammo to shoot your string when your time came. You also have to deal with malfunctions and people who are not in the habit of yelling. The Remington's were at a disadvantage as they held 5 rounds max and they were constantly reloading.
Note:. At this point we were only shooting buck and no slugs. That was reserved for the next day where we were to go right to the range at 8.30am as we covered more Day 2's class information in Day 1.
Phew, this was long. And I enjoyed writing it. It helped me think about the last 2 days and the choices I need to make in regards to my shotgun. Let me know if you want me to post about Day 2. Which includes, slugs, zeroing, movement and squad tactics in a modified rolling thunder drill.
btw. The knoxx specops stock is the sczhnit. No bruising, just comfortable shooting all day long.
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