Front Sight Members Check In Here!

[beanz2]

Wow, 88! I only got 33 classes in since 2012. This danged job keeps getting in my way.

[-hanko]

I'd guess that when Piazza started Front Sight, Pahrump and Vegas were too expensive so he ended up in BFE where land was literally dirt cheap. Vegas was not especially hot on concealed carry eager. Other than shooting, the scenery definitely nothing special. When the shootings over, you're still in BFE.

Piazza did and still does know nothing about keeping a business going. But it's never is fault.

[Paseclipse]

88 classes in 10 years is pretty good. I know if I had a memebership I’d have probably made it out there 2-4 times a year. Which brings up another strange facet of this situation. Their location is BFE for anyone outside of Pahrump or Vegas. I’m honestly surprised that people bought Uber expensive memberships with the intention of moving out there. I suppose if you’re retired and all you wanna do is shoot; or if you’re super rich and add it to your list of vacation pads.

I'm not retired or anything, my work schedule just worked out well with their schedule. Plus, a few times per year I'd do course "triple stacks" and sign up for three courses at a time. There were certain times of the year where you could easily do this, usually before and after Christmas. I'm REALLY going to miss the friends I met at Front Sight and would meet up with during the annual night courses.

I can understand why the people who bought the uber expensive memberships are p$^^ed off. I'd be a little ticked off too if I had the same level membership as someone who paid very little for theirs a few years later. I didn't have one of the expensive memberships which is why I say I DEFINITELY got my money's worth.

Wow, 88! I only got 33 classes in since 2012. This danged job keeps getting in my way.

Beanz.... You and I partnered up in a Gabe Surez AK course one time a few years ago.

[Maulerrr]

Biggest turn off and red flag for me was how Piazza strictly uses a headshot he took of himself in 1990 despite us being in the 2020's now. Pretty sure he's probably aged some since then.

[VolvoWrench]

All of us that are on or, near Knight membership level are on the "board of directors".

So, why can't we call a meeting of the board?

[NapalmCheese]

It was always clearly structured like an MLM, but unlike most MLMs once you bought in you didn't have to buy in again allowing you to reap the benefits for the cost of dealing with insane rambling emails 2 or 3 times a day.

Mr. Piazza rights US a letter, letting US know he's blaming US for HIS failure to do HIS due diligence? I'm not interested in going back. I certainly don't need to pay money to get treated like that

[k1dude]

I feel bad for Pahrump. This will really hurt their economy. 80,000 multi-day visitors a year for a town that size is darn hard to replace. Even if Front Sight manages to keep half of their members (which I doubt), 40,000 is hard to replace. The hotels and restaurants will get crushed.

[Mustard]

Sad I didn't take more coursework under the old business model; I've only done carbine and up to ATHG. I missed out on all the shotgun stuff, multi-gun, and HCMP.

Has anyone curated the topics covered in all these different courses? Like in the entry level hand gun courses, what do they cover? Answer: the "three secrets" of marksmanship, controlled pair, ragged hole drill, 5 point draw, modified weaver, malfunction clearances. There are only so many ways to skin the cat of being a solid shooter in various platforms, but having the list of things to know would be helpful.

[SkyHawk]

I just celebrate the 10 year anniversary of starting the "Front Sight Members Check in Here!" thread over in the Competition, Action Shooting, and Training Forum with well over 13K posts and over 1.7 million views.

Wow I just read the last few pages of that thread. Couple of notes - first there are a lot of dupe posts or even 3x posts because the thread is probably slow with that many posts and so people keep hitting 'submit reply'. It is a compounding problem - the bigger the thread gets the more dupe or 3x posts which makes the thread bigger and slower adding to dupe posts. Rinse and repeat. Consider starting a new thread every year or two.

Next point - I feel dirty for having even visited that thread. All these crazy membership levels, pizza bucks, I can't even begin to keep track of all the weird ish going on there - it really does seem like a Scientology spin off. It appears to stand in stark contrast to the experience people actually have on the ground when training, but never the less there it is.

And people acting like it is normal. It is isn't. If that is the rabbit hole one has to go down to get gun training, I don't want gun training. Just take my money and train me. I don't need to be called President, Founder, Knight, whatever...

[Jerry1834]

Well, I guess my days at FS are over. I was really on the fence with the last Knights Membership offer - glad I didn't bite the apple. I will say, it was a good run for our Florida group - good training for sure.
Sig Sauer has classes in Florida which works for me and I know they are teaching in California not sure where. There is also Gunsite in SC - once a year but with this happening they may expand to more offerings.

ICM2014 responded to your PM - sorry for the slow response.

[Sam1234]

Are there any Front Sight members here?

Front Sight just announced a total restructuring of their operations. All lifetime memberships have been summarily canceled. Any orders placed with them have been canceled and no cash refunds will be issued. They will magnanimously provide a partial credit in the company store, maybe, with conditions.

While I personally do not believe this is legal and think law suits will be a flying that is a discussion for a later date.

I feel like I just found out my best friend whom I have loved and supported is a child molester.

Any members here?

[acegunnr]

We are all over here:

https://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=518454

[Vinnie Boombatz]

I have thought quite a bit about this since getting the email early yesterday morning.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I have always wondered how they heck they were able to keep up running that place the way they do without charging more and like most of us, knew this day would come at some point.

I have only been a FS member for just under 2 years. In that time I have taken 6 classes and have/had a 7th planned coming up in May. I did this with a full-time graduate school and work schedule. I was gifted my first 4-day class and bought my Commander membership for $175. I absolutely got my money's worth.

Despite my better judgement I upgraded to a Knight in November, solely for the private training, and immediately after organized a trip with 8 friends, some who are current FS members some who aren't. I could have cared less about the "free" 1911 or the ridiculous shield and sword. I didn't even want those items.

I really have always had an amazing time at FS, the instructors have been amazing and have always met incredible people while out there. With all that said, and although I wasn't happy about it, I would have paid a monthly membership fee and the per/day fee for classes and still been happy. But Piazza absolutely lost me on two accounts.

First being the ammo requirement. This is absurd and makes ZERO sense. This really pissed me off. I've also not heard it mentioned, but what about guys who load their own ammo for a precision rifle class? That makes no sense whatsoever to me.

Second, and the most important reason of why I am not going to be continuing my membership is because Piazza blamed all of us for having to make these changes. That's just incredibly tactless, disrespectful and shows he true colors.

I should have trusted my gut and not upgraded to the Knight membership. I have donated $100 a few times when they were closed because of the pandemic and donated to the legal fight and used that as a way of getting a bunch of 4-day course certificates which I gave away to friends so they could come along to classes. So even with that I've spent a total of $2,475 have taken 6 classes and brought a bunch of buddies out there with me and had a lot of fun. Not bad in the whole grand scheme, and is it TBD if myself any my buddies will still be heading out for our private (which would be my 7th trip to FS), but I'm tempted to just do it because so many of them have make plans to take off work, we've put deposits down on accommodations, some have purchased plane tickets, have already stocked up on ammo they now can't bring. etc. But after that trip no more for me.

I really loved taking classes there, but based in principle alone I can't continue to support someone who refuses to be a man and stand up for his own mistakes and admit when he messed up. I would have been essentially been willing to "meet him halfway" so to speak because I still feel like the classes and a membership are worth it, but forcing us to buy ammo from them and blaming us for these changes along with things he's done in the past are what had led me to decide that I probably don't want to have anything more to do with the organization.

[Bainter1212]

I have had one of the cheaper memberships for years, and have gone to FS twice. Training was fine - not great, but perfectly adequate.

What is absolutely hilarious, is that he complains in that email about sending massive amounts of emails asking people to help and not getting enough response.

That idiot would send so many spammy emails that I shut them down years ago by unsubscribing. He spent years spamming the hell out of my inbox with worthless crap and I finally unsubscribed.

Maybe he should have only sent out important emails, instead of blasting out endless spam, and then people like me would have seen what was happening.

I am only just now hearing about it because somebody posted about it in the OT section.

That guy is such an idiot

[Bainter1212]

I have had one of the cheaper memberships for years, and have gone to FS twice. Training was fine - not great, but perfectly adequate.

What is absolutely hilarious, is that he complains in that email about sending massive amounts of emails asking people to help and not getting enough response.

That idiot would send so many spammy emails that I shut them down years ago by unsubscribing. He spent years spamming the hell out of my inbox with worthless crap and I finally unsubscribed.

Maybe he should have only sent out important emails, instead of blasting out endless spam, and then people like me would have seen what was happening.

I am only just now hearing about it because somebody posted about it in the OT section.

That guy is such an idiot