Crash-7
Newbie
My background: 13 years as a cop, I work for the Denver Police Dept. I'm currently assigned to a pro-active violent crime type unit (small team: 7 guys). In my time, I've worked patrol, as well as spent 5 years on a more regional-type SWAT team back in the Midwest, before I came to Denver. I've been to some schools, been to some training, both agency paid and out of pocket. I train on my own and I shoot often.
Range: Meade Hall Range, McLoud, OK. This range has 10 bays with turning target stands, a shit-load of steel, and a variable speed lateral mover (paper only, for now). The range goes back to 300+ yards as near as I could tell, although for this class we only went out to about the 25 yd line. The range was well thought out, with a well organized target shed, milk-crates of supplies for each set of target stands, rehab targets, etc; on hand and close by. (This will come up later). As well as very nice bathrooms with running water, de-leading soap, shaded area for jamming mags and hydrating, etc. Am I too good to piss in a porta-john? Absolutely not. But given the choice, I choose the porcelain with running water, every time. Good training with good facilities beats good training with rough facilities. You don't have to be miserable to get shit done. On top of that, fatigue is a real thing. If you can't get out of the sun and the heat to hydrate and get a short break from time to time, your effective ability to soak up information is going to deteriorate.
Class Demographics: 14 shooters, 6 or 7 cops, myself included. I'm not sure what the rest were, but I believe they were some version of armed civilian that trains and shoots often, etc; and at least one competition shooter.
My Equipment: I ran my duty rig :
- Glock 34, Dawson FO front, Dave Sevigney black rear (Overwatch Precision trigger, front cocking serrations, stippled frame, TTI competition magwell) etc
- Magpul 21 rd Glock mags
- Mix of American Eagle 124gr 9mm ball, and Remington UMC 115gr ball
Of the 14 shooters, there were only 3 of us running irons. All cops. My agency does not yet authorize RDS on pistols (although, rumor is that's about to change really soon) so I ran this class with irons. I was initially concerned I wouldn't be able to hang, but I managed to do alright. It was definitely harder, and required more concentration, but this class is absolutely do-able with iron sights.
Class: The course was split over two days. We started promptly at 0800 both days. Chuck churned through the usual admin/med/overview brief adequately but quickly, and then moved right on to: "Grab 3 mags of ten, meet me on the 25 yard line". 0810 hrs, not a single shot yet fired, and we headed to the 25 yard line cold for a diagnostic. We shot 3 strings of 10 rds/10mins at 25 yard line, the target was the B-8. If you've never done that before, and had your accuracy standard be a 5" black bull; well then you're fixing to get your shit pushed in. But that's ok. Because it only hurts at first.
There's a saying in skiing: "You don't suck at skiing moguls, you just suck at skiing and the moguls reveal it." The 25 yard line is like moguls for shooting. You don't suck at shooting distance, you just suck at shooting, the distance just reveals it. Chuck engaged in a type of instruction that is rare: he didn't push or pull on any student, or tweak a grip or anything else. As he would remind us often: "I can't see what you see. I can't feel what you feel. I can only tell you what right should feel and look like. It's up to you to experiment to figure out how to get there yourself." He would offer ideas and suggestions to help fine tune what we needed, in order to discover what right looked like. And damn, it worked.
Chuck is very big on round accountability. Which I appreciated. I've been to many courses (both outside, and agency run) where by halfway through the first morning, we're shooting on shot-out targets that have fliers all over them, some of the centers are shot out, we're engaging our partner's targets for "multiple target drills". And eventually - you can't tell where you're hitting. So, the speed creeps up, and guys start overrunning their headlights, but no one can tell - because you can't see where the rounds are hitting. Not this class. With Chuck, we pasted up B-8 repair centers every 10-20 rds. Round accountability - always.
This is where the well thought out logistics of the range came in to play. Because between each set of target stands, behind the rail-road tie wall that protected the stands, were milk crates with spray-adhesive, pasters, staplers, refill staples, and a hard plastic box of B-8 repair centers. We never had to walk anywhere to get supplies to rehab a target. It was all within arms' reach. This facilitated the pace of the class to stay quick, steady and it never lost momentum. The admin-time of target rehab was minimal, and usually filled with instruction, next course of fire directions, or a relevant experience that drove home a point on the previous drill. The well-thought out logistics of the range were not lost on me.
Having seen how a course can absolutely grind to a halt and the initiative is lost with the simple task of target rehab or mag jamming (agency courses are particularly prone to this). Having seen a 5 min mag jamming break turn into a 30 minute bull-shitting session, or a target swap break turn into a 45 minute water break, I really appreciated the pace at which Chuck kept his class moving. It never felt frenetic. Just moved forward purposefully. Chuck is a well polished instructor, it was obvious he had a very clear idea of his course of instruction, which drills were next, what lessons he intended to impart before, during, and after each drill, and what was coming next. The class never felt like it was on pause while Chuck figured out what was next, or which direction to take the class based on the previous evolution's performance. It was clean, streamlined, and it just flowed. It had a very similar feeling to classes I've attended that were taught by Paul Howe.
The first day was spent moving back and forth at various distances between the 25yd to the 7yd line. Each student was tasked with his own growth, finding his own ragged edge limit between acceptable accuracy (keep that shit in the black, son!) and speed. The afternoon of T1 was spent in similar fashion as the morning, but all on Strong Hand Only. Unsurprisingly, I actually shot better scores strong hand only, than my initial free-style scores. Improvement was quick and dramatic on T1.
T2 - started back at the 25 yard line, Weak Hand Only. I shot my best score of the class left-handed. Go figure. I shot a 93, 2x. Is that hot shit? Nah. But from a guy who used to get all fucked up by the flincheys weak-hand-only at the 7yd line, being able to put up a mid 90s, from 20+yds away left-handed was evidence of dramatic improvement. Once we had gone through the same drills weak hand only, we got out a bunch of steel and began to work on faster shots, moving while shooting, and multiple targets.
The beauty of steel really shines here: round accountability without the need for target rehab as often. And again, the range was ready with milk crates of paint. Well stocked, and ready to go. We then moved on to using the mover that was available at Meade Hall Range. We placed no shoots on the target stands and had the mover run back and forth behind them. Accuracy on the mover was still stressed, but now we were also accountable for any misses, and had to be aware of the foreground and background of the mover while we tracked it.
We got some time to work on shooting the mover while we were moving. That's a walk and chew-gum moment. But again, round accountability was stressed. Each shooter had to go paste his target after his run so he could see where he hit. We finished the day on Bianchi Plate racks, from the 10, 15, 20, and 25 yd line, with a time standard and accuracy standard.
We finished at 1800 on T2. This was not a run and gun class, and I've certainly been more (physically) exhausted by run and gun classes or shoot house classes in full kit, etc. But this class was mentally exhausting. 10 rounds in 10 mins from the 25yd line, doesn't sound hard, but it will wear you out mentally if you're doing it right.
Chuck had some time so he offered to stay late for anyone who wanted to hang and do a shooters clinic. As I understand it, he hung out with those who were able and shot more stuff, "until the sun goes down or ya'll run out of bullets" was the offer. Unfortunately I had to get to driving back to Denver, so I couldn't stay. But, I was impressed. Chuck had clearly delivered all he said he would in the 18 hrs of instruction he'd already given. He wasn't under any obligation to stay, but did anyway because there were several motivated hard-shooting mofos who would benefit from it. That did not go unnoticed.
Takeaways: I came to this class with little in the way of expectations. I didn't really know who Chuck was or what his background was. I had a buddy from Indianapolis, another cop who shoots and trains, who called me up and said: "Hey bro, I took this class last fall. I'm going back in May. You need to come listen to what this guy has to say." I trust him, so that was good enough for me. So I paid my money and drove the miles without much more to it than that.
I was very impressed. I'm not world-class, but I'm a pretty solid handgun shooter. I shoot USPSA on the side, so my idea of what "good" is isn't limited to "cop-good." Chuck absolutely made me a better shooter in 2 days. Shit, he made me a better shooter in the first 30 minutes. No shit. He's also responsible for a big paradigm shift in my way of thinking. I started shooting USPSA to get gooder at shooting, and to shoot fast. And it worked.
But Chuck's class has re-oriented my way of thinking about gun-fights. It's not as simple as "speed vs accuracy". His class stresses accuracy, but it's all about being able to asses your shooting solution moment-by-moment, knowing your own personal skill set and what you can "get away with" and still make your shot to an accuracy standard. And my accuracy standard has absolutely been revised.
Final Thoughts: Do you need this class? Do you carry a gun for a living? If you do - then absolutely. Without question. You owe it to yourself to take this class. I've been to a lot of courses, taken a lot of instruction. But from the angle of "making hits when it matters", I've yet to get better than what Chuck is putting out. You may work for an agency that can teach you some good shit. You may have been to some outside training and learnt some shit too. But when the time comes, as Chuck reiterated multiple times: "Nobody gives a shit about your gun problems, your eye problems, your gun's zero, your training, nothing. Nobody gives a shit about anything except where those bullets landed." So when it's time to drop the hammer - where those bullets go is all on you. You want to get better at that? Get to a Presscheck class.
note: I know this is my first post here on P&S, and I'm an unknown. I used to hang out over on LF.net. I didn't come here to jerk Chuck off. He doesn't need me to do that, and he didn't ask for it. I only put this up here, for the guys like me - who pay for their own training, and who will travel 1500 miles round trip in a weekend for a good class, because we carry guns for a living, and at the end of the day - we know there's more out there than what the big Agency machine is churning out. But there's a lot of training out there now, and we have to pick and choose. IF that sounds like you - you need to get to one of Chuck's No Fail classes. It will change your life (as far as you professional life: how you shoot, how you train, and how you think about gun fights).
Range: Meade Hall Range, McLoud, OK. This range has 10 bays with turning target stands, a shit-load of steel, and a variable speed lateral mover (paper only, for now). The range goes back to 300+ yards as near as I could tell, although for this class we only went out to about the 25 yd line. The range was well thought out, with a well organized target shed, milk-crates of supplies for each set of target stands, rehab targets, etc; on hand and close by. (This will come up later). As well as very nice bathrooms with running water, de-leading soap, shaded area for jamming mags and hydrating, etc. Am I too good to piss in a porta-john? Absolutely not. But given the choice, I choose the porcelain with running water, every time. Good training with good facilities beats good training with rough facilities. You don't have to be miserable to get shit done. On top of that, fatigue is a real thing. If you can't get out of the sun and the heat to hydrate and get a short break from time to time, your effective ability to soak up information is going to deteriorate.
Class Demographics: 14 shooters, 6 or 7 cops, myself included. I'm not sure what the rest were, but I believe they were some version of armed civilian that trains and shoots often, etc; and at least one competition shooter.
My Equipment: I ran my duty rig :
- Glock 34, Dawson FO front, Dave Sevigney black rear (Overwatch Precision trigger, front cocking serrations, stippled frame, TTI competition magwell) etc
- Magpul 21 rd Glock mags
- Mix of American Eagle 124gr 9mm ball, and Remington UMC 115gr ball
Of the 14 shooters, there were only 3 of us running irons. All cops. My agency does not yet authorize RDS on pistols (although, rumor is that's about to change really soon) so I ran this class with irons. I was initially concerned I wouldn't be able to hang, but I managed to do alright. It was definitely harder, and required more concentration, but this class is absolutely do-able with iron sights.
Class: The course was split over two days. We started promptly at 0800 both days. Chuck churned through the usual admin/med/overview brief adequately but quickly, and then moved right on to: "Grab 3 mags of ten, meet me on the 25 yard line". 0810 hrs, not a single shot yet fired, and we headed to the 25 yard line cold for a diagnostic. We shot 3 strings of 10 rds/10mins at 25 yard line, the target was the B-8. If you've never done that before, and had your accuracy standard be a 5" black bull; well then you're fixing to get your shit pushed in. But that's ok. Because it only hurts at first.
There's a saying in skiing: "You don't suck at skiing moguls, you just suck at skiing and the moguls reveal it." The 25 yard line is like moguls for shooting. You don't suck at shooting distance, you just suck at shooting, the distance just reveals it. Chuck engaged in a type of instruction that is rare: he didn't push or pull on any student, or tweak a grip or anything else. As he would remind us often: "I can't see what you see. I can't feel what you feel. I can only tell you what right should feel and look like. It's up to you to experiment to figure out how to get there yourself." He would offer ideas and suggestions to help fine tune what we needed, in order to discover what right looked like. And damn, it worked.
Chuck is very big on round accountability. Which I appreciated. I've been to many courses (both outside, and agency run) where by halfway through the first morning, we're shooting on shot-out targets that have fliers all over them, some of the centers are shot out, we're engaging our partner's targets for "multiple target drills". And eventually - you can't tell where you're hitting. So, the speed creeps up, and guys start overrunning their headlights, but no one can tell - because you can't see where the rounds are hitting. Not this class. With Chuck, we pasted up B-8 repair centers every 10-20 rds. Round accountability - always.
This is where the well thought out logistics of the range came in to play. Because between each set of target stands, behind the rail-road tie wall that protected the stands, were milk crates with spray-adhesive, pasters, staplers, refill staples, and a hard plastic box of B-8 repair centers. We never had to walk anywhere to get supplies to rehab a target. It was all within arms' reach. This facilitated the pace of the class to stay quick, steady and it never lost momentum. The admin-time of target rehab was minimal, and usually filled with instruction, next course of fire directions, or a relevant experience that drove home a point on the previous drill. The well-thought out logistics of the range were not lost on me.
Having seen how a course can absolutely grind to a halt and the initiative is lost with the simple task of target rehab or mag jamming (agency courses are particularly prone to this). Having seen a 5 min mag jamming break turn into a 30 minute bull-shitting session, or a target swap break turn into a 45 minute water break, I really appreciated the pace at which Chuck kept his class moving. It never felt frenetic. Just moved forward purposefully. Chuck is a well polished instructor, it was obvious he had a very clear idea of his course of instruction, which drills were next, what lessons he intended to impart before, during, and after each drill, and what was coming next. The class never felt like it was on pause while Chuck figured out what was next, or which direction to take the class based on the previous evolution's performance. It was clean, streamlined, and it just flowed. It had a very similar feeling to classes I've attended that were taught by Paul Howe.
The first day was spent moving back and forth at various distances between the 25yd to the 7yd line. Each student was tasked with his own growth, finding his own ragged edge limit between acceptable accuracy (keep that shit in the black, son!) and speed. The afternoon of T1 was spent in similar fashion as the morning, but all on Strong Hand Only. Unsurprisingly, I actually shot better scores strong hand only, than my initial free-style scores. Improvement was quick and dramatic on T1.
T2 - started back at the 25 yard line, Weak Hand Only. I shot my best score of the class left-handed. Go figure. I shot a 93, 2x. Is that hot shit? Nah. But from a guy who used to get all fucked up by the flincheys weak-hand-only at the 7yd line, being able to put up a mid 90s, from 20+yds away left-handed was evidence of dramatic improvement. Once we had gone through the same drills weak hand only, we got out a bunch of steel and began to work on faster shots, moving while shooting, and multiple targets.
The beauty of steel really shines here: round accountability without the need for target rehab as often. And again, the range was ready with milk crates of paint. Well stocked, and ready to go. We then moved on to using the mover that was available at Meade Hall Range. We placed no shoots on the target stands and had the mover run back and forth behind them. Accuracy on the mover was still stressed, but now we were also accountable for any misses, and had to be aware of the foreground and background of the mover while we tracked it.
We got some time to work on shooting the mover while we were moving. That's a walk and chew-gum moment. But again, round accountability was stressed. Each shooter had to go paste his target after his run so he could see where he hit. We finished the day on Bianchi Plate racks, from the 10, 15, 20, and 25 yd line, with a time standard and accuracy standard.
We finished at 1800 on T2. This was not a run and gun class, and I've certainly been more (physically) exhausted by run and gun classes or shoot house classes in full kit, etc. But this class was mentally exhausting. 10 rounds in 10 mins from the 25yd line, doesn't sound hard, but it will wear you out mentally if you're doing it right.
Chuck had some time so he offered to stay late for anyone who wanted to hang and do a shooters clinic. As I understand it, he hung out with those who were able and shot more stuff, "until the sun goes down or ya'll run out of bullets" was the offer. Unfortunately I had to get to driving back to Denver, so I couldn't stay. But, I was impressed. Chuck had clearly delivered all he said he would in the 18 hrs of instruction he'd already given. He wasn't under any obligation to stay, but did anyway because there were several motivated hard-shooting mofos who would benefit from it. That did not go unnoticed.
Takeaways: I came to this class with little in the way of expectations. I didn't really know who Chuck was or what his background was. I had a buddy from Indianapolis, another cop who shoots and trains, who called me up and said: "Hey bro, I took this class last fall. I'm going back in May. You need to come listen to what this guy has to say." I trust him, so that was good enough for me. So I paid my money and drove the miles without much more to it than that.
I was very impressed. I'm not world-class, but I'm a pretty solid handgun shooter. I shoot USPSA on the side, so my idea of what "good" is isn't limited to "cop-good." Chuck absolutely made me a better shooter in 2 days. Shit, he made me a better shooter in the first 30 minutes. No shit. He's also responsible for a big paradigm shift in my way of thinking. I started shooting USPSA to get gooder at shooting, and to shoot fast. And it worked.
But Chuck's class has re-oriented my way of thinking about gun-fights. It's not as simple as "speed vs accuracy". His class stresses accuracy, but it's all about being able to asses your shooting solution moment-by-moment, knowing your own personal skill set and what you can "get away with" and still make your shot to an accuracy standard. And my accuracy standard has absolutely been revised.
Final Thoughts: Do you need this class? Do you carry a gun for a living? If you do - then absolutely. Without question. You owe it to yourself to take this class. I've been to a lot of courses, taken a lot of instruction. But from the angle of "making hits when it matters", I've yet to get better than what Chuck is putting out. You may work for an agency that can teach you some good shit. You may have been to some outside training and learnt some shit too. But when the time comes, as Chuck reiterated multiple times: "Nobody gives a shit about your gun problems, your eye problems, your gun's zero, your training, nothing. Nobody gives a shit about anything except where those bullets landed." So when it's time to drop the hammer - where those bullets go is all on you. You want to get better at that? Get to a Presscheck class.
note: I know this is my first post here on P&S, and I'm an unknown. I used to hang out over on LF.net. I didn't come here to jerk Chuck off. He doesn't need me to do that, and he didn't ask for it. I only put this up here, for the guys like me - who pay for their own training, and who will travel 1500 miles round trip in a weekend for a good class, because we carry guns for a living, and at the end of the day - we know there's more out there than what the big Agency machine is churning out. But there's a lot of training out there now, and we have to pick and choose. IF that sounds like you - you need to get to one of Chuck's No Fail classes. It will change your life (as far as you professional life: how you shoot, how you train, and how you think about gun fights).