ONSIGHT FIREARMS TRAINING: Defensive Pistol- Rochester, MA 10-13-2018

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ONSIGHT FIREARMS TRAINING www.oftllc.us
Defensive Pistol $150.00
October 13 2018
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Weather: Rain. Cold, raw in the 40s with a slight sun break in the late afternoon
Clothing: light base layer btms, insulated jeans. T-shirt, base layer mid-weight, fleece pullover mid+ weight, pullover rain jacket. Merrell hiking boots gtx, tough socks

M&P 2.0 compact w/rmr, apex duty trigger
3 magazines standard capacity
G-code owb mag carriers (x2)
Phlster AWIB
Blue Alpha Gear: Low Profile EDC Belt

Round Count: 550 Fiocchi 115 gr. FMJ
Backup guns if primary fails. Extra frame, barrel and spring M&P2c + G43,IWB

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Followed Ben DeWalt from meeting place to the range. Five-minute drive. Private range inside a cranberry bog. Dirt road with large bumps and even larger mud puddles. Everyone else in the convoy had trucks and I was struggling with a Camry. The range was a private range 100 yards long with about 8 firing lanes. All sand. A small covered area, a picnic table, and a portable toilet.

Ben introduced himself with a brief bio and work history. Each of us introduced ourselves and answered what we wanted to work on today or get out of today's class. For me, it was fundamentals and AWIB. This was the first class I AWIB.

It was a small class starting off with five students. One student left at 11 am. He was a pop-in. Down to 4 students! (Awesome for us, not so awesome for his business income) We had a range of abilities and I was somewhere in the middle.

Ben talked us through the range orientation, what to do if there was a training accident and medical was needed. People were given jobs in the unlikely event something happened. Who to call, the correct words to say and the words not say.

Showed us a simple, safe draw from concealment- demo’ing it a few times. We talked a lot about the importance of grip and sight picture.

First shots of the day: a string of shots in the black circle of what seemed like a butter plate sized circle 25 yards away. It was a ball buster….and humbling. Welcome to my class MF’ers! Never have I taken a class where we did not start out 5ish yards away from our target and work our way back. Cool-, this dude likes to mix it up!! Paraphrasing something Ben said “you’re only good as your first cold shot. If you need to actually pull the trigger in self-defense it’s going to be a cold shot.”

Before each drill, Ben would explain it, demo the entire drill and explain it again. I like that teaching approach. I like to hear the instructions and then see it being done correctly. There was absolutely NO ego.

We worked mostly between 5-15 yard lines. We did a little shooting 20-25 yards. One drill we worked our way out to about 75 yards And were making hits on steel. Interesting data point: The pistols with RMR’s were making hits on steel from 50-75 yards while the students with irons were not.

We did a lot of drills. We did a lot of drills. Because our class was small the pace was fast. We did a lot of drills! One of the standout drills in the morning was setting your gun up with one in the pipe and no mag. We paired off with one person shooting and the other watched the front sight of the shooter's gun. No movement on the sight when the gun goes click. We always worked from the holster getting the practice. It was great, as I need the practice AWIB.

Because I had so many layers on I was slower and more conscious of making sure all my shirts were out of the way. One of the draws my T-shirt was stuck in the bottom of my palm as I grab the pistol, as I drew the gun the shirt yanked my hand open and the gun went to the ground. (smooth move Jeff. I was embarrassed for a second and then that went away and realized it was awesome. Best learning!)

One of the many things that I liked and stood out from other classes, was Ben talking about the drill we were doing in real-world defensive situations. IE You are in a mall and this happens. You are in a bar or a concert and that happens. For me, it was the first time in instructor put us in the mindset of a defensive encounter, rather than just building the skill. We analyzed misses as possibly killed good guys by accident. The real world has consequences.

One thing that I found odd was I was always shooting the drills until I got it right. If we were told two in the chest and two in the face and I missed one I always would shoot an additional shot where I missed. I was told not to, and always did without thinking.

We talked about the anatomy of the human body where to aim for maximum results. We talked about the crazy things bullets do sometimes when they hit hard things like the human skull and bones. Ben and I had a bonding moment when proclaimed his love for throat shots. #METOO! I love the throat shots.

Another drill that I enjoyed was the one hole. We paired off. One shot was shot in the cardboard and the other person needs to shoot the same hole. My first two shots were off as I found my offset location and then it was all fun me and my partner just went back and forth. As the hole got too big we started a new one and moved back. I liked this drill, it was new to me.

We shot from retention and if we had a mag change we practiced giving the target a big slap to the face with our pistol as we step back and perform the reload.

We took turns shooting the rubber dummy in the heart and face. First time I shot a 3d rubber humanoid target. Unique -cool experience.

We switched the paper for steel (just as the rain was slowing) and did a bunch of the same drills we did on paper. Love shooting steel, it's forgiving and instantly rewarding. ALL GOOD!

We incorporated movement while shooting forward and backward. Keeping the gun steady and in line with the other students was a new stress as the rate and rhythm of fire was a fast/constant.

We learned how to run with our gun out safely and we did. We did a lot of running in the sand without guns out. First time I did a run and gun. We would run 10-15 yards in the sand to the line and then shoot. Running in the sand used muscles that have not been awake for decades. OH MY! My heart rate was up my muscles were sore and I was making hits. HOW MUCH MORE COULD I WANT? How about relay races?

We got into teams of two and ran it a number of times. Running in the sand was tough, but a good tough and still a lot of fun.
We did the box drill running from corner to corner, side to side shooting steel. We shot from concealment-cover. We talked a lot about if this was real you need to be moving to cover and moving often. We shot from one knee, and on both knees.

We learned how to run safely and communicate with a partner while your gun was out to another piece of cover/concealment while another student ran from that cover to yours with his gun out. My partner for this drill was hearing impaired and his hearing aid had failed. We had to use hand signals as I was too far away for him to read my lips. It was fine and our system worked perfectly. We were all doing thing safely. New Skill!

Ben talked about getting to the skill point of only thinking about your sight picture and holding steady. Everything else should just happen itself allowing most of your concentration to the sight picture when pulling the trigger.

This was a great class. I really liked Ben. He is knowledgeable, skillful, funny, humble and sometimes appropriately inappropriate. He is a down to earth dude, that is easy to talk to fun to be around. We did a lot of new stuff and new drills for me to practice. I got a lot out this class, I connected with his teaching style. I will take more classes taught by Ben.
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Lessons learned:
  • KORE belt failed. An hour in my belt came loose. My KORE belt buckle broke, the non-ratcheting end piece broke off. Happy that I had a blue force gear belt in my range bag. (one is none was true today)
  • I did not check my OWB mag carriers when I put them on. A screw came out and it had no retention on one of them. When I ran it was useless. Lesson learned. Check gear.
  • Need to slow down when my heart rate is up. Was pulling the trigger sometimes before I was sure of the sight picture.
  • Had a washcloth in my pocket to dry my wet hands. Super useful
  • Not sure if many layers of shirts/pullovers/rain shell are better or worse than a T-shirt and a winter warm jacket/rain shell?
  • At one point my hands were wet and cold. I brought glove liners (Terramar Body-Sensors Glove Liner). I wore them for a few drills and they worked great. I ordered and was wearing one size smaller.
  • Knee pads in your range bag on the side of the line does your knees no good. Wear them.
  • Brought a thermos of chicken Mazaball soup from whole foods. That tasted so good and was hot enough to warm me up. Jewish penicillin. Brought a large thermos of hot coffee to drink all day helped warm me up during reloading
  • Have my red-dot zero’d for 20 yards. Might rethink a closer zero
  • No jams or dead rounds. Both the gun and ammo ran boringly dependable.
  • Found myself slapping the trigger when I lose my concentration.
  • Running in sand sucks. My hamstrings are hurting!
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