BassCliff
Professional
Greetings my friends,
Saturday was my last training session at the Lytle Creek Firing Line Handgun Skill Builder Workshop. It was bittersweet because I had to say goodbye to all my friends here but we had an excellent training day. We did a lot of 'shoot-n-scoot' with stationary and moving steel targets, some drills on paper, plus a tourniquet usage lesson. It all started with a beautiful drive up the canyon.
I said my last "Good Morning!" to the Old Man in the Mountain.
I arrived a few minutes before the range opened, as I usually do. I chatted with a couple of the other students while we waited for the gate. When it opened we made our way to the range office to pay our fees then on down to the training bay. The sun was just peaking up over the hill. It was a beautiful day.
I could tell the bay was set up for some really fun stuff. It was a good sized class today. With a couple of students we haven't seen for a while, there were nine of us this morning getting kitted up and ready to rock.
Oh yes! This was going to be work, we were going to get dirty, but it was a ton of fun. We ran this 'shoot-n-scoot' drill a few times. The pallets were our shooting stations, used as cover/concealment. The first station we shot the red targets from prone. All the steel targets were 36 yards away from this station. At the second station we shot the black steel targets from the kneeling position. We would move to the third station and shoot the white steel target while standing. Then we'd move back to the second station and shoot black targets kneeling, and finally back to the first station to shoot the red targets prone again.
These were our targets, a selection of steel to make it fun.
Here's a student engaging the red targets prone from the first station. Yep, we're in the dirt. There were no nice, clean yoga mats for us.
On to the second station to engage the black targets from a kneeling position. The angle added an extra challenge.
Engaging the white steel target from the third station.
Then we completed the course by reversing back through the stations. Needless to say, I didn't hit very much from these distances, about 35 yards, 30 yards, and 25 yards, but it was good to crawl around in the dirt, perform mag reloads on my belly, and just generally get out of my comfort zone. You'll see on the video later this old noob was just trying to stay on his feet.
After we completed this course we ran over to the tourniquet station where we were given a quick lesson in how to apply your own tourniquet. If you've got a major bleed you'll have about 15 seconds to get this tight before you lose consciousness and bleed out.
Needless to say, I need lots more practice with a tourniquet, as you'll see in the video later. I tightened it up so much that my arm was bruised. Then we ran the drill a couple more times. Here I go!
For our last run we had to apply our tourniquet and then go through the drill. This was to give us a feel for operating with an injury if necessary.
I know this may look rustic, but this training is really top notch. In addition to the coach, there are some very experienced shooters here who are all willing to share their knowledge and experience to make everyone better.
Another student runs the course of action with a tourniquet applied to his strong arm. I must say, once a little adrenaline gets going you don't even notice the tourniquet.
After running this drill a few times we have our debrief. I decided I need to run faster and shoot better.
Because I'm leaving so soon I find myself lingering on every detail. There was a little rainstorm a couple days ago and it left some snow up in the mountains. Beautiful.
I also noticed that the moon had not yet set. Beautiful.
OK, that's enough of that. We've got more work to do. I'll finish up this After Action Report in the next post. I'll share some video too. Thanks for looking!
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
Saturday was my last training session at the Lytle Creek Firing Line Handgun Skill Builder Workshop. It was bittersweet because I had to say goodbye to all my friends here but we had an excellent training day. We did a lot of 'shoot-n-scoot' with stationary and moving steel targets, some drills on paper, plus a tourniquet usage lesson. It all started with a beautiful drive up the canyon.
I said my last "Good Morning!" to the Old Man in the Mountain.
I arrived a few minutes before the range opened, as I usually do. I chatted with a couple of the other students while we waited for the gate. When it opened we made our way to the range office to pay our fees then on down to the training bay. The sun was just peaking up over the hill. It was a beautiful day.
I could tell the bay was set up for some really fun stuff. It was a good sized class today. With a couple of students we haven't seen for a while, there were nine of us this morning getting kitted up and ready to rock.
Oh yes! This was going to be work, we were going to get dirty, but it was a ton of fun. We ran this 'shoot-n-scoot' drill a few times. The pallets were our shooting stations, used as cover/concealment. The first station we shot the red targets from prone. All the steel targets were 36 yards away from this station. At the second station we shot the black steel targets from the kneeling position. We would move to the third station and shoot the white steel target while standing. Then we'd move back to the second station and shoot black targets kneeling, and finally back to the first station to shoot the red targets prone again.
These were our targets, a selection of steel to make it fun.
Here's a student engaging the red targets prone from the first station. Yep, we're in the dirt. There were no nice, clean yoga mats for us.
On to the second station to engage the black targets from a kneeling position. The angle added an extra challenge.
Engaging the white steel target from the third station.
Then we completed the course by reversing back through the stations. Needless to say, I didn't hit very much from these distances, about 35 yards, 30 yards, and 25 yards, but it was good to crawl around in the dirt, perform mag reloads on my belly, and just generally get out of my comfort zone. You'll see on the video later this old noob was just trying to stay on his feet.
After we completed this course we ran over to the tourniquet station where we were given a quick lesson in how to apply your own tourniquet. If you've got a major bleed you'll have about 15 seconds to get this tight before you lose consciousness and bleed out.
Needless to say, I need lots more practice with a tourniquet, as you'll see in the video later. I tightened it up so much that my arm was bruised. Then we ran the drill a couple more times. Here I go!
For our last run we had to apply our tourniquet and then go through the drill. This was to give us a feel for operating with an injury if necessary.
I know this may look rustic, but this training is really top notch. In addition to the coach, there are some very experienced shooters here who are all willing to share their knowledge and experience to make everyone better.
Another student runs the course of action with a tourniquet applied to his strong arm. I must say, once a little adrenaline gets going you don't even notice the tourniquet.
After running this drill a few times we have our debrief. I decided I need to run faster and shoot better.
Because I'm leaving so soon I find myself lingering on every detail. There was a little rainstorm a couple days ago and it left some snow up in the mountains. Beautiful.
I also noticed that the moon had not yet set. Beautiful.
OK, that's enough of that. We've got more work to do. I'll finish up this After Action Report in the next post. I'll share some video too. Thanks for looking!
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
Definitely will be sharing this with some of my shooting buddies. Excellent exercise in self-applying a tourniquet, and that’s now on my training to-do list.
