AAR: Havoc Shooting Solutions-Critical Handgun Manipulations (Jan 7 & 8 2017)

adam_s

Regular Member
Havoc Shooting Solutions-Critical Handgun Manipulations

Jan 7 & 8, 2017.

DoubleTap Training Grounds-Calera, AL

First off-this AAR is exceedingly tardy, owing to life concerns on my own end. This also means that this will be written more from a narrative point of view, as opposed to a direct set of notes.

About the course: Critical Manipulation handgun class is a class that goes beyond standard handgun training. This is class is taught through the use of heavy weapons manipulations, one handed shooting and transtional shooting drills. We expand upon already learned concepts of malfunctions, reloads, barricades and movement drills. This class will push your ablity to do one handed drills, engage threats and will also show you your weaknesses with support hand shooting.

Topics include:

Malfunctions-two handed, strong handed and weak handed
Malfunctions clearance-using gear and the environment
Draw stroke-Strong and support handed
Reloads-one handed
One handed drills-both strong and support
Weapon recovery-one handed
Postional shooting-one handed
Handgun transitions-both strong handed and support handed drils
Movement drills-up, down, forward, back, laterally ect
Injured shooter drills
Multiple threat engagements
Barricade drills-2 handed transitions, one handed positional

About the Instructor: Bob White is the founder of Havoc Shooting Solutions. Bob has been a FBI Certified Firearms instructor for over 10 years now. Bob is a graduate of the USMC Coaches course and he is a USMC Veteran. While in the USMC Bob was a graduate of the USMC Security Force School. In that school he was trained in Close Quarters Battle (CQB), and was a member of the CQB team. In addition, Bob has been training recruits for the Police Department and Academy for the last 10 years. Bob is a 13 year Veteran of the Tuscaloosa Police Department. He has served in the TPD's Street Crimes Unit, Narcotics unit, Patrol and Traffic Division.

Gear

Eyes: Smith Elite Director, Clear Lenses (prescription)
Ears: Peltor TEP-100 Active In Ears
Gun: Glock 19 with KKM Compensator, RMR06 (milled by ATEi), stipple by Boresight Solutions (aka a Roland Special)
Ammo: Speer Lawman 115gr 9mm
Mags: Glock OEM, Magpul Glock P-Mag. Some mags had Dawson Precision or Taran Tactical Industries extended baseplates installed.
Holster: Raven Concealment Systems Roland Special Holster or a JM Custom Kydex AIWB rig
Mag Carrier: Raven Concealment OWB Double Magazine Holster
Belt: Ares Gear Aegis Enhanced
Attire: Cold weather gear. All of it. And then some. And I was still cold.

Day 1

Day 1 of the course stated with driving from my home in middle Alabama up to Calera, AL where the range was. Normally I would have driven up the night before, but, this was the night of a rather large ice storm here in Alabama. As such, my friend Jon and I decided discretion was the better part of the valor, and to drive to the range the morning of-a ~1.5hr drive. Our day started off behind the curve as it turns out that said ice storm had frozen the topper on Jon’s truck bed shut, and the locks to his truck. He may have left the door handle to one of his doors on my workbench due to it breaking off due to the cold.

Once we were able to actually get into his truck, and load up, we pointed towards the range, arriving around 8:30am local time. Bob was quite understanding of the extenuating circumstances, and encouraged all of the students to take their time and arrive safely, as opposed to making a set start time.

The class started with the usual introductions (see Bob’s background above), safety brief, and group introductions. There were several concerned civilians present (including myself), several LEO, and also Jake Sebens, the owner of Ares Gear. One point stressed during the initial briefing was that though this was a manipulations class-and we would be dong manipulations in manners we were very much not accustomed to, we would still be held to accuracy standards. This would come back to haunt us over the next few days with the various drills, and qualifiers undertaken.

Normally in a handgun class, this is where everyone would break, jam mags, and then roll out to the range for a baseline drill to let the instructor see how much work you need (B8’s at 25yrds, dot torture, or the like). However, given the nature of this class, Bob started it off on much a different footing. After ensuring that all live ammo was stored away, and there were only empty mags/guns on the range, we were each given a handful of dummy rounds to fully load into magazines. With this done, we worked through each particular malfunction that we may encounter, working two handed. Each malfunction was discussed in terms of potential causes, and ways to fix it, and then actually worked through as dry fire manipulations.

As a momentary digression-I have always considered myself a less-than-spectacular pistol shooter. Of particular note, I have a very pronounced anticipatory flinch that means low/left is where my shots tend to group. This was the class that started to break me of that. I attribute it to the fact that the morning consisted of dedicated, dry practice. I was focused on the gun, and what it was doing, and could see what I was doing wrong, and work on isolating and improving that. Without the pressure of analyzing shot placement (and that would come), I was able to have a more critical analysis of my shooting mechanics, and where I could potentially improve.

Once all the various two-handed manipulations were gone over, and practiced until we all felt relatively comfortable with them, the class then transitioned to single hand only work. With the weapons remaining loaded only with dummy rounds, we started working with single-hand only draws (no big deal if you are OWB, but a change if you are running AIWB, like I was at the time). After this, we proceeded to one handed malfunction clearances. This presented its own set of challenges, as is perhaps obvious, but, Bob drove home the point of using what was available to solve your problems. A well made holster, or belt, or boot…or even a particularly large chunk of rock on the range could be used as a reference to manipulate a slide, slide stop, or magazine release. The goal was to solve the problem, not worry about the finish on a particular gun.

Progressing from this, we moved to single hand only reloads. Given that it was silly cold (I think it had warmed up to maybe 28* F by this point), those of us running AIWB were at a disadvantage on these, as reholstering would prove difficult due to having to manipulate multiple garment layers one handed, with a gun in it, before you could even find a holster to stage your gun in to reload. Bob took the opportunity to point out that if you were shooting positionally (urban prone, prone, supine, etc), and you were not in a hands on type situation, you could use the ground to hold your gun (gravity works), while you loaded a mag into it.

At this point, we broke for lunch, without a single round being fired. Of note, it was still stupid cold. The day would not see above freezing according to my memory. As a Floridian by birth, and Southerner regardless, this whole cold weather thing was less than fun. When I mentioned that I was wearing all the cold weather gear-I was. My buddy Jon, who still lives in Florida was at least as miserable as I was, if not more so.


Resuming after lunch, we finally were cleared to load magazines, and make ready to commence shooting. The shooting portion started with Bob’s accuracy standards-B8 sized targets at 7 & 10 yds, strong hand only. On command, we were to draw, and engage the target once (at 7 yards), or twice (at 10 yards). Each was repeated 5 times. After checking targets, we repeated this, to make sure we were all on our game physically and mentally. The cold is no joke, even for my making light of it so far.

With this done, we were handed another handful of dummy rounds, and started working malfunctions two-handed, with live fire. We stayed at 7 yards and out, even for this, and all the while still being required to have accurate shot placement. The big three malfunctions were hit, each with multiple reps: failure to fire, stovepipe’s, and double feeds. With two handed manipulations done, we switched gears to doing each malfunction type first strong hand only, and then support hand only. It was between these evolutions I switched from running AIWB to my OWB holster. However, I run my OWB gear still very close to centerline (which to this day draws comment, but, it works for me), so this was not too radically different from a drawstroke mechanic, and was easier to do without fighting multiple clothing layers. Each malfunction was rehashed, again, with each hand. We were encouraged to remember what worked for us during the dummy round only section, and not forget what we had spent all day learning up to this point.

At this point, the sun was dropping rapidly in the sky, and the temperature was falling along with it. To end the day, Bob set up what he called the, “Malfunction Scrambler.” This particularly fiendish end-of-day exercise involves setting up steel targets, and then cones at various distances from the targets. At each cone, there is a gun (each student contributes theirs to the pile), with a malfunction setup. On go, the student runs to the first cone, picks up the gun support hand only, fixes the malfunction, and then engages a target successfully with two rounds. The cones are not just set up linearly, but are scattered over the width of the bay as well, so the student does not just run from the 25, to the 20, to the 15, etc. I will fully admit that by this point I was physically smoked, and exceedingly cold-so my accuracy was suffering. Shivering makes it rather hard to hit targets it turns out. All the same, other shooters performed admirably in this, even with the myriad of guns present (DAO Sigs, an Agency Arms gun, an oddball Glock 19/26 hybrid that may have appeared somehow, a Roland Special, and even a Sig P320, that only went bang when you wanted it to, amazingly enough).

Day one ended with ~350 rounds being fired.
 

adam_s

Regular Member
Reserved for day 2, because real life sucks, and interferes horribly with me completing things.
 
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