I recommend taking a solid shooting course from respected instructor(s) to all gun owners, however, what you learn from the first class shows you 80% of the curriculum of nearly every other class. Much work can be done on your own for little cost, provided you have a brain and don’t need every piece of information spoon fed to you.

 

Consider Art of the Dynamic Handgun a class offered by Travis Haley and Chris Costa of Magpul Dynamics.

 

The class begins with a review and hands on with fundamental marksmanship. Slow fire group shooting. What? No tactical scenarios, Force On Force and room clearing during the first five minutes? No, timmy, you shoot groups. Slow fire.  Doing so shows that you aren’t afraid of your own gun and can actually put bullets near where intended.

 

What sort of standard? Center of a silhouette (8 inches) at 25 yards, standing, two hands, unsupported. If you can train yourself to shoot an 8 inch group at 25 yards slow fire, you effectively duplicated 25% (the morning portion of day one) of this $550 two day class. Note this is the exact same size of the bull on a B-6 bullseye target.

 

Next is fundamental gun handling. Msrs Costa and Haley’s approach mirrors the approach top-flight practical competition shooters have been using for many decades now. Review Brian Enos’ book Practical Shooting: Beyond Fundamentals, originally written and published in the late 1980’s, for proof that top tactical trainers of today are finally using ideas originally developed by competition shooters many years prior. Once again, here is yet another example of top tactical trainers seeing the light and using the good ideas already created, developed and used in open, organized shooting competition.

 

Note that none of this is a condemnation of Magpul Dynamics, the instructors or their curriculum. When I point out that they are using ideas from the competition world I intend nothing but compliments. They see something that works and make it their own. Good for them! That is the best way to do things. I mention it only due to the continued ignorant bleating of “games’ll getcha killed” crowd when the best tactical trainers realize the folly of this and recognize good ideas when they see them.

 

“Games’ll getcha killed” tactiturds ignore competition shooting, fail to attend inexpensive local events and continue to shoot like crap. Actual operators-turned-trainers wisely benefit from competition shooters by improving their personal skills. These trainers then repackage what they learned and charge tactards hundreds of dollars per day of training to learn what they could have experienced a decade ago from competition shooters for cheap or free.