runningwolf
Member
I had the opportunity of attending one of Pat McNamara's two day T.A.P.S. courses in October, this course was in Destin, Florida and hosted by Grey Tactical Outfitters. I'll try to organize this AAR in a semi legible manner starting with info on our hosts followed by, gear used, student population, the range, day one, day two, and concluding with lessons learned. Forgive the grammar and punctuation errors, I slept through most of my English classes growing up.
Our Hosts:
The course was hosted by Grey Tactical Outfitters, they are a veteran ran business in Destin, FL. GTO run's both a training branch as well as a gear store, I visited the store prior to the course and was pleasantly surprised. Gear stores in the deep south are few and far between and GTO does not disappoint. Brands included BCM, HSGI, BFG, Magpul, SureFire, TacMed and numerous others, I can't even recall all of the brands but I don't think I saw anything other then mid to high quality manufactures, everything from rifle and pistol parts to nylon gear to medical. The store is stocked to say the least, I could outfit several departments with the amount of gear in there. The staff was awesome, they made this course easy and enjoyable. Anyone passing through the Destin, FL area should definitely try to get out to the store, your wife/ wallet will hate you but at least you'll be smiling for a little while.
Gear:
For this class I used personally owned duty weapons, for the rifle a BCM EAG Carbine with T1, BFG sling, Griffin Armament M4SD-II Suppressor and PMAGs, rifle was fed from either my back pocket or a BFG belt mounted rifle mag pouch. For a sidearm I used a Glock 19 with a SF X300U, a Raven Phantom holster and Raven single pistol mag pouch. No issues with the pistol or support gear for it. Rifle only gave me one issue, failure to extract contributed to some carbon build up on the chamber, my own. BFG belt pouch worked great, I've been wearing it fairly regularly the thing is surprisingly concealable makes keeping a rifle mag on you for any low vis or plain clothes work easy.
Student Population:
The student population was 18 and went from one end of the spectrum to the other. From a couple that was new to shooting to a bunch of BTDT Mil guys, heck it was more like a class reunion for Pat. We had a couple cops and a few folks that have trained with some quality instructors prior as well as some of GTO's employees, a couple fairly new to shooting and about 5-6 military (current and retired). The level of experience in this class alone made it worth it. I, by pure luck, ended up on the same end of the line as most of the mil guys sandwiched between two BTDT guys that forced me to work my tail off to keep up. On note, they both had some amazing comps on their rifles, which i'm sure helped with their follow up shots, but sucked for me. Suppressors are your friends. I found myself competing with these guys both on the line and then later on when we were moving through some more technical drills, I gained a lot in this course and a good chunk of that can be attributed to having these guys to compete with.
The Range:
GTO's range is way back in the middle of no where just south of Defuniak Springs. The range was very nice, about 200+ yards with some stacked shipping containers in the back that served as both storage for some very nice steel targets and as a base for a high angle shooting platform. The range had amble room for the 18 of us there and could have handled maybe 4-5 more without getting too crowded. Ground was sand, no sharp rocks or gravel so no real need for knee pads. A note on the weather, this course took place in Florida, so I packed for Florida, someone's got a sense of humor because it felt like someone accidentally set the A/C to 60 and forgot about it.
The Instructor:
I arrived early for day 1 and got to meet some of the other students and speak with Pat before the class. Pat's a fairly down to earth guy and easy to talk to, which in turn makes it easy to ask questions being that he is more then happy to answer them. For those that haven't met him he is just as intense in person as he is in his videos. Pat has a way of explaining things that just make it stupid easy to understand and is more then willing to offer advice and guidance on subjects both to do with the course and completely unrelated subjects, I've found he is willing to go the extra mile to help his students learn but at the same time he expects, or rather demands that if he is gonna give you 100% you have to give him 110%. To those that take this class you will quickly learn that Pat is not an instructor he is a teacher.
Day One:
Some of the things we learned on day 1 and day 2 may be mixed up as i'm going off of memory.
Our first day started with a safety brief from both Pat and the staff of GTO. GTO has a former Corpman working for them that was present throughout the course for any medical issues. The course started with zeroing the rifles, this was done at 50 yards with Pat explaining why he likes the 50 yard zero. Once rifles were zeroed we began Basic Rifle Marksmanship, Pat went through the basic fundamentals as well as four separate shooting positions, standing, kneeling, sitting, and prone. We practiced shooting in these positions for a while before taking a "BRM qualification" which consisted of shooting so many rounds in each position, moving between four targets, a target for each position. Once we were finished Pat went on the explain parallax and POI shift when the weapon is tilted and when forces are exerted on the barrel. Basically the rounds will impact in the direction in which the forces is placed on the barrel.
We didn't spend two much time on rifle and moved to pistol which we spend the rest of the day on. Pat has the belief that by learning to be a better pistol shooter with in turn make you better with a rifle thus a lot of time was spent on the pistol. Almost all of the drills ran with pistol were from the holster with most drills on day one done on line. One that stuck out to me as it was particularly tricky was a modified national match event starting at the 50 yard line with both hands, moving to the 35 yard line with your strong hand and finally 25 yards support hand. This drill seems simple but I found it to be fairly challenging. Pat is a strong believer in being able to shoot well with both hands not just your dominate side.
Day Two:
Day two we hit the floor running. We started out on rifle going through the uses of cover and concealment and methods of using a barricade to provide both the most protection as well as the most stability for more accurate shots. Pat also went over some interesting ways to use your sling for added support and showed us a invention of his called the "Sling Ding" that is so simple it makes me feel stupid for not thinking of it, but it works. Pat showed us three rifle drills two of which required you to actually think about them in order to do it "right". Pat is a big believer in getting his students out of the flat range mentality and forcing them to not just move but to think about every shot they fire and learn from each shot. The third drill was called "Bilateral" and was basically a standing unsupported 50 yard shot on a steel target, the tricky part is you switch arms each shot for 20 rounds, it was a fun exercise.
One of the three drills was Pat's version of the scrambler, this required a good bit of thinking as the number of rounds in your magazine was limited and you could only shoot certain targets from certain positions requiring you to move and reload in a certain order that Pat did no describe leaving you to figure it out on the fly, he would not even describe the course of fire to you until you were walking up to the line. This forces you to think fast, oh yea it was also timed.
Once everyone had the chance to run through the drills a couple times Pat held a little competition to see who had the fastest time we all ran through it and thought we were doing good, at the end Pat walks up to the line and runs the course super slow, even turning around to talk to us in the process. His time smoked the rest of us horribly. The term "slow is smooth, smooth is fast" made complete sense after this.
After the rifle portion we spent the rest of the day on pistols. We went through several drills all of which called for you to shoot with either both hands, or in the case of one of the drills was akin to calculus on the range. As stated before, Pat is a big proponent of making you think and making you use your non-dominant hand. The drills included Blaze X, Grid of Fire, Turn and Burn, and the final most complicated (like doing calculus) one's name escapes me. We spent a couple hours on these, I ran through those first three so many times competing with the other guys in the class that by the end of the day I was having cleaner and faster runs than I have ever done, I'm no Robin Hood by any means but I tend to hit fairly well but for all my focus on accuracy I tend to be a slow shooter this course changed that.
Lessons Learned:
I learned a ton at this course, not just from Pat, but from the other students as well, they made the class. One of the biggest things that stood out, and that made a huge difference once I got used to it was the amount of finger I had on the trigger. I've grown up being told you only use the tip of your finger to shoot as any more would effect the trigger pull. Pat explained that he had been having an issue where his rounds were impacting off to the side and had asked a buddy that shot competitively what to do about it. His buddy recommended putting more finger on the trigger, Pat tried it and it worked. I had been having a similar issue and decided to try it out myself, I initially was not having any success with this and was preparing to write it off when we started doing our last four pistol drills. It was during these and my attempts (My family's legendary stubbornness) to catch up to guys that have clearly been doing this longer then me that it finally clicked, and once it did I started shooting more accurately and way faster then I ever have before. I went from slow runs with several make up shots to only clean runs the rest of the day with runs getting faster and faster.
The off hand shooting we did in this class was awesome, I've shot off handed before and practice it occasionally as it's a requirement for pistol qualification but I never really liked practicing off handed and it wasn't until this class that I actually got good at shooting off handed, I'm hitting 250/250 left handed and 249/250 right handed on my pistol qualifications now, 250 on left hand isn't anything new, but a 249 on my right hand is a vast improvement. I'm also hitting just shy of expert with right hand on my MIL rifle qualifications and hitting consecutively at 300m. This course made all the difference on my off hand shooting.
Pat's a great teacher, anyone considering taking one of his classes should jump on it. Likewise the guys at GTO were awesome, looking forward to getting back out their way in 2016 and hopefully catching another course with Pat also.
Our Hosts:
The course was hosted by Grey Tactical Outfitters, they are a veteran ran business in Destin, FL. GTO run's both a training branch as well as a gear store, I visited the store prior to the course and was pleasantly surprised. Gear stores in the deep south are few and far between and GTO does not disappoint. Brands included BCM, HSGI, BFG, Magpul, SureFire, TacMed and numerous others, I can't even recall all of the brands but I don't think I saw anything other then mid to high quality manufactures, everything from rifle and pistol parts to nylon gear to medical. The store is stocked to say the least, I could outfit several departments with the amount of gear in there. The staff was awesome, they made this course easy and enjoyable. Anyone passing through the Destin, FL area should definitely try to get out to the store, your wife/ wallet will hate you but at least you'll be smiling for a little while.
Gear:
For this class I used personally owned duty weapons, for the rifle a BCM EAG Carbine with T1, BFG sling, Griffin Armament M4SD-II Suppressor and PMAGs, rifle was fed from either my back pocket or a BFG belt mounted rifle mag pouch. For a sidearm I used a Glock 19 with a SF X300U, a Raven Phantom holster and Raven single pistol mag pouch. No issues with the pistol or support gear for it. Rifle only gave me one issue, failure to extract contributed to some carbon build up on the chamber, my own. BFG belt pouch worked great, I've been wearing it fairly regularly the thing is surprisingly concealable makes keeping a rifle mag on you for any low vis or plain clothes work easy.
Student Population:
The student population was 18 and went from one end of the spectrum to the other. From a couple that was new to shooting to a bunch of BTDT Mil guys, heck it was more like a class reunion for Pat. We had a couple cops and a few folks that have trained with some quality instructors prior as well as some of GTO's employees, a couple fairly new to shooting and about 5-6 military (current and retired). The level of experience in this class alone made it worth it. I, by pure luck, ended up on the same end of the line as most of the mil guys sandwiched between two BTDT guys that forced me to work my tail off to keep up. On note, they both had some amazing comps on their rifles, which i'm sure helped with their follow up shots, but sucked for me. Suppressors are your friends. I found myself competing with these guys both on the line and then later on when we were moving through some more technical drills, I gained a lot in this course and a good chunk of that can be attributed to having these guys to compete with.
The Range:
GTO's range is way back in the middle of no where just south of Defuniak Springs. The range was very nice, about 200+ yards with some stacked shipping containers in the back that served as both storage for some very nice steel targets and as a base for a high angle shooting platform. The range had amble room for the 18 of us there and could have handled maybe 4-5 more without getting too crowded. Ground was sand, no sharp rocks or gravel so no real need for knee pads. A note on the weather, this course took place in Florida, so I packed for Florida, someone's got a sense of humor because it felt like someone accidentally set the A/C to 60 and forgot about it.
The Instructor:
I arrived early for day 1 and got to meet some of the other students and speak with Pat before the class. Pat's a fairly down to earth guy and easy to talk to, which in turn makes it easy to ask questions being that he is more then happy to answer them. For those that haven't met him he is just as intense in person as he is in his videos. Pat has a way of explaining things that just make it stupid easy to understand and is more then willing to offer advice and guidance on subjects both to do with the course and completely unrelated subjects, I've found he is willing to go the extra mile to help his students learn but at the same time he expects, or rather demands that if he is gonna give you 100% you have to give him 110%. To those that take this class you will quickly learn that Pat is not an instructor he is a teacher.
Day One:
Some of the things we learned on day 1 and day 2 may be mixed up as i'm going off of memory.
Our first day started with a safety brief from both Pat and the staff of GTO. GTO has a former Corpman working for them that was present throughout the course for any medical issues. The course started with zeroing the rifles, this was done at 50 yards with Pat explaining why he likes the 50 yard zero. Once rifles were zeroed we began Basic Rifle Marksmanship, Pat went through the basic fundamentals as well as four separate shooting positions, standing, kneeling, sitting, and prone. We practiced shooting in these positions for a while before taking a "BRM qualification" which consisted of shooting so many rounds in each position, moving between four targets, a target for each position. Once we were finished Pat went on the explain parallax and POI shift when the weapon is tilted and when forces are exerted on the barrel. Basically the rounds will impact in the direction in which the forces is placed on the barrel.
We didn't spend two much time on rifle and moved to pistol which we spend the rest of the day on. Pat has the belief that by learning to be a better pistol shooter with in turn make you better with a rifle thus a lot of time was spent on the pistol. Almost all of the drills ran with pistol were from the holster with most drills on day one done on line. One that stuck out to me as it was particularly tricky was a modified national match event starting at the 50 yard line with both hands, moving to the 35 yard line with your strong hand and finally 25 yards support hand. This drill seems simple but I found it to be fairly challenging. Pat is a strong believer in being able to shoot well with both hands not just your dominate side.
Day Two:
Day two we hit the floor running. We started out on rifle going through the uses of cover and concealment and methods of using a barricade to provide both the most protection as well as the most stability for more accurate shots. Pat also went over some interesting ways to use your sling for added support and showed us a invention of his called the "Sling Ding" that is so simple it makes me feel stupid for not thinking of it, but it works. Pat showed us three rifle drills two of which required you to actually think about them in order to do it "right". Pat is a big believer in getting his students out of the flat range mentality and forcing them to not just move but to think about every shot they fire and learn from each shot. The third drill was called "Bilateral" and was basically a standing unsupported 50 yard shot on a steel target, the tricky part is you switch arms each shot for 20 rounds, it was a fun exercise.
One of the three drills was Pat's version of the scrambler, this required a good bit of thinking as the number of rounds in your magazine was limited and you could only shoot certain targets from certain positions requiring you to move and reload in a certain order that Pat did no describe leaving you to figure it out on the fly, he would not even describe the course of fire to you until you were walking up to the line. This forces you to think fast, oh yea it was also timed.
Once everyone had the chance to run through the drills a couple times Pat held a little competition to see who had the fastest time we all ran through it and thought we were doing good, at the end Pat walks up to the line and runs the course super slow, even turning around to talk to us in the process. His time smoked the rest of us horribly. The term "slow is smooth, smooth is fast" made complete sense after this.
After the rifle portion we spent the rest of the day on pistols. We went through several drills all of which called for you to shoot with either both hands, or in the case of one of the drills was akin to calculus on the range. As stated before, Pat is a big proponent of making you think and making you use your non-dominant hand. The drills included Blaze X, Grid of Fire, Turn and Burn, and the final most complicated (like doing calculus) one's name escapes me. We spent a couple hours on these, I ran through those first three so many times competing with the other guys in the class that by the end of the day I was having cleaner and faster runs than I have ever done, I'm no Robin Hood by any means but I tend to hit fairly well but for all my focus on accuracy I tend to be a slow shooter this course changed that.
Lessons Learned:
I learned a ton at this course, not just from Pat, but from the other students as well, they made the class. One of the biggest things that stood out, and that made a huge difference once I got used to it was the amount of finger I had on the trigger. I've grown up being told you only use the tip of your finger to shoot as any more would effect the trigger pull. Pat explained that he had been having an issue where his rounds were impacting off to the side and had asked a buddy that shot competitively what to do about it. His buddy recommended putting more finger on the trigger, Pat tried it and it worked. I had been having a similar issue and decided to try it out myself, I initially was not having any success with this and was preparing to write it off when we started doing our last four pistol drills. It was during these and my attempts (My family's legendary stubbornness) to catch up to guys that have clearly been doing this longer then me that it finally clicked, and once it did I started shooting more accurately and way faster then I ever have before. I went from slow runs with several make up shots to only clean runs the rest of the day with runs getting faster and faster.
The off hand shooting we did in this class was awesome, I've shot off handed before and practice it occasionally as it's a requirement for pistol qualification but I never really liked practicing off handed and it wasn't until this class that I actually got good at shooting off handed, I'm hitting 250/250 left handed and 249/250 right handed on my pistol qualifications now, 250 on left hand isn't anything new, but a 249 on my right hand is a vast improvement. I'm also hitting just shy of expert with right hand on my MIL rifle qualifications and hitting consecutively at 300m. This course made all the difference on my off hand shooting.
Pat's a great teacher, anyone considering taking one of his classes should jump on it. Likewise the guys at GTO were awesome, looking forward to getting back out their way in 2016 and hopefully catching another course with Pat also.
