Mark Smith is the founder and lead instructor of JBS Training Group, where he teaches performance-focused pistol, carbine, scoped gas-gun, night-vision, and professional firearms programs. His work centers on measurable skill, deliberate practice, and helping students continue developing after formal instruction ends.
Professional Biography
Smith began pursuing formal firearms education seriously in 2011. Since then, he has completed more than 1,000 hours of outside professional training while developing his skills through structured practice and competition. Rather than grounding his instructional authority in a military or law-enforcement résumé, he built it through demonstrated performance, continued study, competitive achievement, and the ability to help other shooters improve.
He earned Grand Master classification in the United States Practical Shooting Association’s Carry Optics division. His competitive experience also extends beyond handgun shooting to carbine, 2-gun, night-vision, and precision gas-gun events. Professional biographies published by JBS and the Texas Tactical Police Officers Association credit him with winning the Elite division at The Proving Grounds and twice winning the Tactical Sniper Series overall championship.
Through JBS Training Group, Smith has taught armed citizens, law-enforcement officers, tactical teams, and military personnel. His curriculum includes performance pistol and rifle work, rapid precision with scoped semiautomatic rifles, night-vision integration, and safety and security training for churches and other organizations.
Training Philosophy
A central feature of Smith’s instruction is teaching students how to train, not merely giving them a collection of drills or preferred techniques. His approach uses measurable standards, observation, shot calling, experimentation, and deliberate practice to help a shooter identify limitations and evaluate possible solutions.
This model treats technique as a means to an outcome. Students establish a baseline, apply a change, observe the result, and retain methods that reliably improve performance. The goal is a shooter who can diagnose problems and continue progressing independently rather than remaining dependent on an instructor for every answer.
Smith also distinguishes competitive shooting from tactics while recognizing competition’s value as a laboratory for shooting skill. Timers, scoring, unfamiliar problems, and direct comparison expose inefficiency and provide immediate feedback. Those tools can improve the technical performance of professional and defensive shooters without suggesting that a match replicates an armed confrontation.
Professional Instruction
Smith’s law-enforcement and military instruction applies performance-shooting methods to users who must work within mission, policy, and accountability requirements. His programs emphasize producing accurate results at useful speed while maintaining control and responsibility for every shot.
The Texas Tactical Police Officers Association has hosted Smith as an instructor for courses including Performance Out Yonder and American Gas Gun — Rapid Precision. These programs extend conventional carbine skills into positional work, distance shooting, observation, and rapid precision while keeping the curriculum relevant to service weapons and professional users.
P&S Connection
Smith is part of the Extended Primary & Secondary Network through his participation as a P&S podcast panelist and his production of video content for P&S. Those contributions brought his performance-based approach to the broader P&S audience and supported discussions about measurable standards, effective practice, and continued shooter development.
His role within the network reflects a core P&S interest: separating demonstrable results from unsupported tradition. Smith’s experience provides a useful bridge between competitive performance methods and the needs of armed citizens, instructors, military personnel, and law-enforcement professionals.
Key Areas of Experience
- Performance pistol and carbine instruction
- Scoped gas-gun and rapid-precision shooting
- USPSA Carry Optics Grand Master performance
- Deliberate practice and shooter diagnostics
- Law-enforcement, SWAT, and military firearms training
- Night-vision integration
- Competition-informed skill development
- Church safety and security training
- Podcast and instructional-video contributions
Selected Sources
- JBS Training Group — About Mark Smith
- JBS Training Group — Law Enforcement Programs
- Texas Tactical Police Officers Association — Mark Smith
- TTPOA — American Gas Gun: Rapid Precision
- Big Tex Ordnance — JBS Carbine Spin Up AAR
Profile last reviewed: September 10, 2026.
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Mark Smith · Mark Smith JBS · JBS Training Group · performance shooting instructor · USPSA Carry Optics Grand Master · performance pistol · performance carbine · scoped gas gun · rapid precision · deliberate practice · shooting diagnostics · law-enforcement firearms training · military firearms training · night-vision shooting · Primary & Secondary · P&S podcast panelist