BassCliff
Professional
Greetings Patriots!
Tonight was another fun-filled evening full of mirth, merriment, and mayhem. This clinic was at the newer Fletcher Arms facility and was full to capacity. Their defensive clinics have gotten very popular. We started in the classroom to go over a few essentials.
This was a fast-paced clinic. We had a lot of students with a lot of drills to run. There were several speed and accuracy drills, several targets, pivoting, cognitive challenges, some motion, lots of speed reloads, and getting off the 'X'. Fun stuff! I'll give you the highlights.
We started by separating the class into two squads. The squads took turns running the drills. First, we lined up for the Bill Drill.
I was in squad A. I like being the last one to run the drills.
This was my result, six shots in 4.86 seconds with one flier. Drat. There were faster shooters but Instructor Ashley liked my cadence.
The next drill was an accuracy drill. Of course we were aiming for the white dot in center mass, five quick shots, two strings. But, wherever our first hit landed would become our new point of aim. The idea was to make one hole in the target.
Of course, my first shot was a little low/left, so that's where I put the rest. At least Instructor John complimented me on my grouping. We did two strings of five shots.
The next targets were really fun. This was a cognitive drill. We had to think. Let's see if I can explain this properly. We each drew a playing card from the deck. If we got a face card our first shot would always be a letter. If we drew a number card our first shot would always be a number. That just meant we were not all shooting the same targets for the drill, we couldn't cheat off our neighbor. The instructor would yell a shape or color, usually followed by other nonsense commands like other colors, numbers, or letters. We were to take that first command and shoot the drill assigned to us by the card we drew.
I had a number card, four of spades. I would always shoot the numbers first, then letters. For example, the instructor yelled "Green! Square! Blue!" All that meant for me was that I would start with a green target that had the lowest number. I'd put three rounds in the green circle with the 2, then three in the green circle with the A, then three rounds in green circle B. John could start with either a color or a shape, but you still had to shoot your proper drill, think about your target, and not dally at full presentation trying to remember what you're supposed to be shooting at.
If you hit any white portion of the target it was considered an innocent bystander. I did pretty good on this one. My target is in the middle.
We shot a few strings and incorporated 90° pivots for this drill to make it more interesting. The next drill used the silhouettes and we would fire two, speed reload, fire two more, with 90° or 180° pivots as commanded. We had to remember to step off the 'X' when doing our reloads. This is squad B at the firing line. We ran this drill several times.
Next was my favorite drill of the clinic, a shoot/no shoot drill. We had multiple targets that would swing front or back that had different combinations of threat and non-threat characters. We were to engage three to five shots on the threats and then yell at the non-threats.
All of us ran this drill twice. It was pretty dang fun. The instructors didn't see anyone putting hits on the non-threats, but I did. I didn't tell.
The last drill was a "withdraw" drill. On command, engage the threat center mass while stepping backwards, firing as many rounds as you want, must perform a speed reload, take cover behind the barrel, take a knee, then fire one head shot.
All my center mass hits were good but I pulled my head shot a little left, winged his ear. That's a little farther than I'm used to shooting. Practice, practice, practice!
I shot up another 100 round box of WWB and about 70 rounds of LAX Ammo. Everything ran great tonight except for one stovepipe. I just knocked it out of the slide and kept on going. I did not shoot any AAC tonight.
A good time was had by all. I like this clinic. They change it up every session so we're not doing to same drills all the time. I haven't decided which class or clinic I'll take next month. You'll be the first one to know as soon as I decide. I'm also hoping, if I get all my chores done, to get back out to the range again later this week for some pure accuracy practice. This old noob needs all the help he can get. Thanks for letting me share my fun.
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
Tonight was another fun-filled evening full of mirth, merriment, and mayhem. This clinic was at the newer Fletcher Arms facility and was full to capacity. Their defensive clinics have gotten very popular. We started in the classroom to go over a few essentials.
This was a fast-paced clinic. We had a lot of students with a lot of drills to run. There were several speed and accuracy drills, several targets, pivoting, cognitive challenges, some motion, lots of speed reloads, and getting off the 'X'. Fun stuff! I'll give you the highlights.
We started by separating the class into two squads. The squads took turns running the drills. First, we lined up for the Bill Drill.
I was in squad A. I like being the last one to run the drills.
This was my result, six shots in 4.86 seconds with one flier. Drat. There were faster shooters but Instructor Ashley liked my cadence.
The next drill was an accuracy drill. Of course we were aiming for the white dot in center mass, five quick shots, two strings. But, wherever our first hit landed would become our new point of aim. The idea was to make one hole in the target.
Of course, my first shot was a little low/left, so that's where I put the rest. At least Instructor John complimented me on my grouping. We did two strings of five shots.
The next targets were really fun. This was a cognitive drill. We had to think. Let's see if I can explain this properly. We each drew a playing card from the deck. If we got a face card our first shot would always be a letter. If we drew a number card our first shot would always be a number. That just meant we were not all shooting the same targets for the drill, we couldn't cheat off our neighbor. The instructor would yell a shape or color, usually followed by other nonsense commands like other colors, numbers, or letters. We were to take that first command and shoot the drill assigned to us by the card we drew.
I had a number card, four of spades. I would always shoot the numbers first, then letters. For example, the instructor yelled "Green! Square! Blue!" All that meant for me was that I would start with a green target that had the lowest number. I'd put three rounds in the green circle with the 2, then three in the green circle with the A, then three rounds in green circle B. John could start with either a color or a shape, but you still had to shoot your proper drill, think about your target, and not dally at full presentation trying to remember what you're supposed to be shooting at.
If you hit any white portion of the target it was considered an innocent bystander. I did pretty good on this one. My target is in the middle.
We shot a few strings and incorporated 90° pivots for this drill to make it more interesting. The next drill used the silhouettes and we would fire two, speed reload, fire two more, with 90° or 180° pivots as commanded. We had to remember to step off the 'X' when doing our reloads. This is squad B at the firing line. We ran this drill several times.
Next was my favorite drill of the clinic, a shoot/no shoot drill. We had multiple targets that would swing front or back that had different combinations of threat and non-threat characters. We were to engage three to five shots on the threats and then yell at the non-threats.
All of us ran this drill twice. It was pretty dang fun. The instructors didn't see anyone putting hits on the non-threats, but I did. I didn't tell.
The last drill was a "withdraw" drill. On command, engage the threat center mass while stepping backwards, firing as many rounds as you want, must perform a speed reload, take cover behind the barrel, take a knee, then fire one head shot.
All my center mass hits were good but I pulled my head shot a little left, winged his ear. That's a little farther than I'm used to shooting. Practice, practice, practice!
I shot up another 100 round box of WWB and about 70 rounds of LAX Ammo. Everything ran great tonight except for one stovepipe. I just knocked it out of the slide and kept on going. I did not shoot any AAC tonight.
A good time was had by all. I like this clinic. They change it up every session so we're not doing to same drills all the time. I haven't decided which class or clinic I'll take next month. You'll be the first one to know as soon as I decide. I'm also hoping, if I get all my chores done, to get back out to the range again later this week for some pure accuracy practice. This old noob needs all the help he can get. Thanks for letting me share my fun.
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
