Professional Biography
Matt Little, known professionally as Greybeard Actual, is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces combat veteran, retired Chicago Police Department officer, former SWAT training coordinator and operational supervisor, competitive shooter, author, martial artist, and firearms instructor. He is the founder and primary instructor of GreyBeard Actual LLC, a service-disabled-veteran-owned company providing advanced firearms, tactics, and combatives training.
Little’s professional background spans a dual military and law-enforcement career. He served in Army Special Forces and completed 21 years with the Chicago Police Department, including five years in instructional assignments. His law-enforcement work included responsibility for training and operational supervision on a major metropolitan SWAT team. He has also worked as a government contractor in non-permissive environments and has instructed U.S. and foreign military personnel, law-enforcement officers, private-security professionals, martial artists, and responsible armed citizens.
That experience informs an approach built around measurable performance rather than credentials alone. Little has explained that practical-shooting competition exposed shortcomings that had remained less visible within professional training systems. He responded by restructuring his practice around honest assessment, deliberate repetition, and retesting. He subsequently attained Grand Master classification in USPSA after earning Master classifications across USPSA, IDPA, and Steel Challenge.
Through GreyBeard Actual, Little teaches pistol and carbine skill development and application, tactics, combatives, and instructor development. His courses distinguish technical shooting ability from tactical judgment while showing how each supports the other. The emphasis is on giving students methods they can use after a class: establish a standard, identify the limiting component, practice it deliberately, and measure the result.
Little is also a lifelong martial artist with black belts or equivalent rank in multiple disciplines. He runs a Pekiti Tirsia Kali study group and is a SPEAR System instructor. This background supports a broader view of armed performance that includes movement, physical contact, weapon protection, and decision-making rather than treating firearms skills as an isolated discipline.
He created the 3.45 Drill, a demanding pistol-performance standard, and is the author of The Way Is in Training. The book extends his training philosophy beyond shooting mechanics into fitness, mindset, strategy, leadership, and continual preparation. His more recent work also examines the disciplined use of virtual-reality shooting systems as a way to increase purposeful repetitions and obtain immediate performance feedback.
P&S Connection
Little contributes to the Primary & Secondary network as a subject-matter expert on firearms training, close-quarters tactics, instructor development, competitive performance, and combatives. He joined Matt Landfair, Kurt Weber, and Scott Wolf for P&S ModCast 269 — CQB, bringing operational and instructional experience to a discussion of realistic close-quarters considerations.
Selected Sources
- GreyBeard Actual — About
- GreyBeard Actual
- ACE Member Spotlight: Q&A with Matt Little
- GreyBeard Actual — “Cyberpunk Shooting”
- P&S ModCast 269 — CQB
Profile last reviewed: September 10, 2026.
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Matt Little; Matthew Little; Greybeard Actual; GreyBeard Actual LLC; U.S. Army Special Forces; Green Beret; Chicago Police Department; Chicago SWAT; SWAT training coordinator; SWAT operational supervisor; firearms instructor; tactics instructor; combatives instructor; instructor development; USPSA Grand Master; competitive shooting; Pekiti Tirsia Kali; SPEAR System; 3.45 Drill; The Way Is in Training; virtual shooting; deliberate practice; Primary & Secondary; P&S ModCast 269.