AAR: Operation Specific Training: Advanced Pistol Marksmanship, Valencia CA, April 22 - 23, 2017

Mark Davis

Newbie
School: Operation Specific Training

Website: https://opspectraining.com/


Course: Advanced Pistol Marksmanship – 2 day

Primary Instructor: Jerry Jones

Adjunct Instructor: Ray Piedra

Date: April 22 – 23, 2017

Location: Private range near Gorman, CA

Cost: $450

My gear: Glock 34, Modified Safariland ALS holster, Magtech 115 gr FMJ and Speer Lawman 124 gr FMJ.

Class makeup: There were 6 students, including one LEO and couple of competition shooters. The other student’s guns included one Beretta 92, a Sig 226, a Sig X5, a Walther, and a M&P. Jerry and Ray both had custom Beretta 92’s. Everyone shot 9mm.

Course Description from Opspec’s website:

“The Advanced Pistol Marksmanship course is for a shooter who wants to become faster and more accurate for defensive or competitive shooting. This course places a heavy emphasis on process oriented technical marksmanship to solve various marksmanship challenges. The goal of this course is to take the shooter through a series of logically organized problems, and equip the shooter with the ability to solve them. This has been described as a very mentally challenging course that pays a dividend in overall technical skills. This is an advanced level course, and is offered in a one-day or two-day format (eight hours or 16 hours)”.

OpSpec Training teaches all over the country, including frequent appearances at the Sig Sauer Academy. Jerry Jones is a law-enforcement professional based in Kentucky with an impressive resume. Ray Piedra is another law enforcement professional and is a highly experienced shooter and instructor.

The course location was advertised as Valencia, but the actual venue was near Gorman, CA. The range was a 6-lane outdoor facility owned by a State agency. It wasn’t fancy, but I really enjoyed the mountain setting.

Day 1 started with an in-depth safety brief. Jerry was adamant that safety doesn’t interfere with performance. Jerry segued into a short lecture. He described his recent exposure to the Federal Air Marshal’s shooting program, and freely acknowledged that he’s changed some of his techniques based on what he saw in the FAM program.

We moved to the 3-yard line. The emphasis was on body position – keeping the shoulders back, standing fairly upright, and keeping the head up. This is something I’ve been working on after reading Eno’s book, but I’ve a tough time getting used to it after shooting in an aggressive “fighting stance” for several years.

Next topic was prepping the trigger under recoil. Again, this was a tough adjustment for me, since I’ve shot to reset for years. Ray, the Adjunct Instructor, was particularly helpful in explaining and coaching me on this point.

The next topic was trigger control. Jerry discussed the importance of applying just enough pressure to fire the gun, and not anything more. Learning the trigger was emphasized using the Bump Drill. This drill involves aiming at the target and gently “bumping” the trigger a number of times, increasing the pressure slightly each bump, until the gun fires. The goal is to bump the trigger 6 – 8 times, applying more and more pressure before the gun fires. With my stock Glock 34 I was generally able to get 4 – 7 presses before actuating the striker. For DA/SA guns, the drill is performed in SA mode. The Sig guys, who both had very light SA triggers, usually torched off a round on the first or second bump. I like this drill, and have incorporated it into my regular practice. It really has really helped with learning exactly how much trigger pressure is required to fire the pistol.

Shot cadence was introduced next. The goal, as explained by Jerry, is to achieve a consistence cadence from shot to shot. This skill was demonstrated by counting out loud, and firing at each number. We started slow. “one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand” and worked up to counting faster and faster. According to Jerry, if your average split is 0.25, each shot should fire about at 0.25, instead of one split at 0.19 and the next at 0.30.

We moved onto draw stroke, with an emphasis on drawing aggressively and fast, and prepping the trigger on the press out. A shot timer was used to test student’s time from holster to first shot. My fastest was 0.97 seconds, which is considerably faster than anything I’ve done before. Jerry explained that to shoot quickly and fast, a shooter has to develop an internal clock, and know how fast he needs to shoot to achieve the desired result. This in turn requires knowing your own draw time and cadence.

Jerry repeatedly urged us to go faster, stating that as long as we were safe, we had to push beyond our comfort zone. He repeated this throughout the weekend, explaining that a shooter needs to push his skills until the wheels fall off, then ease back just a little. Later in the course he also explained that high achievers often want to stay in their comfort zone, so their groups and targets look impressive and provide “emotional candy”. However, this approach will hinder further progress.

We ended the Day 1 working back to 25 yards, shooting at an 8” target.

Day 2 started with another Bump Drill. Jerry likes to start every range session with a drill that focuses on fundamentals and accuracy.

A new shooter joined the class on Day 2, but he appeared to have a ND early in the day. The shot went into the dirt, and no one was hurt. He was shooting a 1911 and I don’t know if it was equipment failure or operator error. After a short cease fire, he left the line and we didn’t see him again.

We then moved into one-handed shooting. Jerry firmly believes that practicing one-handed shooting is important because: 1) only one hand may be available, and 2) improving your one-handed shooting will generally improve your performance when using a two-handed grip. We worked on strong hand and weak hand shooting, stacking on top of the skills we’d learned on Day 1. Some shooters actually shot better one handed, and Jerry explained the support hand can mask or introduce problems.

For one handed shooting, a high thumb grip was taught. By keeping the thump up in the air, the web of the hand provides much more support to the pistol’s tang and backstrap.

Target transitions were introduced, with demonstrations of different types of transitions. We worked on that for most the remainder of the day, incorporating dummy rounds to help remediate pre-ignition push.

We finished the day back at the 25-yard line, comparing our results against yesterday’s. After picking up brass, there was debrief by Jerry and Ray, and certificates were presented. My total round count was 686 rounds, less than I expected.

This is not a complete description of the course, but covers the high points. My takeaways:

Jerry has an excellent teaching style. He’s has a lot of experience teaching at his agency, and is a good communicator. He or Ray demonstrated everything they discussed, and explained the rationale behind the techniques. The instructor/student ratio was outstanding. Ray Piedra is an excellent instructor and having him and Jerry coaching a total of 6 students allowed for a ton of one-on-one feedback.

We shot on paper targets for the whole class, and changed targets infrequently. At first I found this troubling, because I kept looking to my target for feedback. However, the goal of the course is to learn to trust the feedback from your sights, and not rely on visual feedback from your target.

The class ran from 0830 to ~1645 on both days. My only complaint has nothing to do with the instruction – it relates to student tardiness. Both days we started late due to student’s being tardy. This also occurred at lunchtime on Day 1, when two students left the range for lunch and were late back. I conservatively estimate that we lost 45 mins of instruction as a result. I attend these events to learn as much as I can, and missing that much instruction is a disappointment. Based on the relatively low round count and lost time, I’m pretty sure there was more on the curriculum that we didn’t cover, just due to a shortage of time. Jerry did his best to encourage folks to be on-time, but it didn’t seem to help.

All in all, I found the course to be excellent value. I’ve integrated many of the lessons into my dry-fire regime and my live practice. This coursework has probably resulted in the biggest single step forward in my pistolcraft that I can remember. It’s not a tactics course – its solidly focused on shooting more accurately and faster. If that is your goal, I highly recommend this course.
 
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