Course: Sig Sauer Academy Handgun 103 and 104
Date: March 14-15th 2015
Location: Epping NH ( Main Academy location )
People: Myself and my dad, he is my training partner and gun bearer, since I am not yet 21.
Instructors: Sig Academy has multiple full time instructors and even more part time, for both these classes we had a full time member, Dylan.
Weather: Indoor both days, travel weather was slightly snowy and slushy but perfectly manageable.
Travel: Flew from Des Moines IA to Portland Maine, TSA had no issues with 4 handguns in locked pelican case. Drove from Portland to Exeter which is 11 miles from the academy.
Facilities: The Sig Academy is awesome, 23 (I think) active ranges, 2 shoot houses ( open to civilians is my understanding), multiple structures for force on force, and one indoor range. The indoor range is 30yards long with 10 shooting lanes. Targets consisted of automated resetting plates with head poppers, cardboard stands that can face and edge to you, and a traversing stand (Left to right). There also appeared to be a front to back mover, but we didn’t use it so i’m not one hundred percent on that. Due to range air filtration and the proximity to steel only Frangible ammo can be used indoors.
Handgun 103: This class would be best described as STARTING to look at a handgun as more than a shooting hobby and as a defensive tool. Focus of the class was on working the handgun in a way that is efficient and practical in real life, not the square range.
Class opened with a ten shot aggregate drill. 10 rounds, 10 yards, no time limit scored on a standard bullseye target, shots touching the line count to higher score. This drill brought somethings to light that I will cover later in the review.
We briefly talked about safely presenting from a holster, then worked through stages of the draw and presentation. This was followed by probably a good hour of drawing and shooting targets at random intervals, the facing targets were nice for this.
The next thing we worked on was magazine top offs. How to draw, swap mags and retain the old mag. Next was speed reloads. Standard stuff.
Next we worked on reloading while moving positions, we did not shoot on the move, just practiced manipulating the gun and mags while getting away from where you just were.
Tidbits from this class: Check your work through your sights, If you are doubting that you are focusing on front sight, check and see of you are seeing muzzle flash, and status checks ( Press Checks) are benefit added if you do them correctly.
Takeaways - Pros: Class really worked on the fundamentals, with only 9 students, individual attention was high which i appreciated. I learned alot of little tid bits to improve my overall shooting.
Cons: Class was held up by the level of shooters present, most had never drawn from holsters. Maybe my expectations were to high, but as a third level class I was expecting more. I don’t mean to sound pompous, just letting you know that the class isn’t exactly as billed depending on students, seems to be a vetting thing.
Handgun 104: Intro to using your handgun to defend yourself, overall this class did exactly that
Only one other repeat student from the day before, we started off with a couple drills from the day before.
Next we jumped into shooting on the move, crawl walk run, we started by moving to a line drawing and shooting, next was draw shoot move shoot, then finally shooting while in motion, take aways - walk normal, it works 99.99% of the time, why change?
Acceptable sight picture, big deal for this class, some waited to the point of stopping to fire a second round, just because they couldn’t get a perfect setup. At 7 yards, pretty good shots, is better than one awesome shot on one of 3 targets.
The other big focus of this class was one handed manipulations, Dylan really taught the ideas of Mike Pannone, as far as support hand draw, reloads, and malfunction clearance. I found this really innovative and a different way to look at the topic. However, we did not do any one handed stuff as live fire, for this class, I was ok with that.
Lastly we covered multiple shooting positions and how it can affect your hits, takeaways - with hands stacked in a golf grip while prone I can get very accurate, traditional kneeling sucks for me, “Political kneeling”, Pat Rogers calls it Monica, was much more effective and faster to get into, and out of.
Overall takeaways - Pros: Drinking from a fire hose, we learned a alot in one day, stuff that you don’t think about and stuff that you need to rethink. I would take this class again.
Cons: Class had two shooters who should not have been there, if you haven’t ever drawn from a holster and aren’t sure what a decock lever is, you probably don’t belong in this class. Just a thought.
Gear and Guns: I ran a Sig 229, it had an Inforce APL, till the mount shattered during 103, which was mildly funny and pretty embarrassing, the gun had no issues but the holster requires a light so I switched to my Sig 320, which ran perfect as well, two mags mounted in the SigTac mag pouches, they work, also ran a mini AWP tool pouch that served as a mini dump pouch, I hate fishing for mags in cargo pockets. Peltor ear pro and Oakley eyes. All ammo was bought on site and appears to be Sig manufactured ammo, I shot 650 rounds for the two days.
Last thoughts, I would take 104 again, different instructors have different views so you can get different versions, 103 is a good class but I wouldn’t feel it necessary to take again over 104.
Another thought, Because of the cheaper classes, and a physical location, the academy gets a lot of people who see shooting as a past time, not a martial art so to speak, nothing wrong with that, just beware in the lower level classes, having people who aren't there because they believe in it, its just something to do, is a real possibility.
Any questions or criticism let me know.
Andrew
Date: March 14-15th 2015
Location: Epping NH ( Main Academy location )
People: Myself and my dad, he is my training partner and gun bearer, since I am not yet 21.
Instructors: Sig Academy has multiple full time instructors and even more part time, for both these classes we had a full time member, Dylan.
Weather: Indoor both days, travel weather was slightly snowy and slushy but perfectly manageable.
Travel: Flew from Des Moines IA to Portland Maine, TSA had no issues with 4 handguns in locked pelican case. Drove from Portland to Exeter which is 11 miles from the academy.
Facilities: The Sig Academy is awesome, 23 (I think) active ranges, 2 shoot houses ( open to civilians is my understanding), multiple structures for force on force, and one indoor range. The indoor range is 30yards long with 10 shooting lanes. Targets consisted of automated resetting plates with head poppers, cardboard stands that can face and edge to you, and a traversing stand (Left to right). There also appeared to be a front to back mover, but we didn’t use it so i’m not one hundred percent on that. Due to range air filtration and the proximity to steel only Frangible ammo can be used indoors.
Handgun 103: This class would be best described as STARTING to look at a handgun as more than a shooting hobby and as a defensive tool. Focus of the class was on working the handgun in a way that is efficient and practical in real life, not the square range.
Class opened with a ten shot aggregate drill. 10 rounds, 10 yards, no time limit scored on a standard bullseye target, shots touching the line count to higher score. This drill brought somethings to light that I will cover later in the review.
We briefly talked about safely presenting from a holster, then worked through stages of the draw and presentation. This was followed by probably a good hour of drawing and shooting targets at random intervals, the facing targets were nice for this.
The next thing we worked on was magazine top offs. How to draw, swap mags and retain the old mag. Next was speed reloads. Standard stuff.
Next we worked on reloading while moving positions, we did not shoot on the move, just practiced manipulating the gun and mags while getting away from where you just were.
Tidbits from this class: Check your work through your sights, If you are doubting that you are focusing on front sight, check and see of you are seeing muzzle flash, and status checks ( Press Checks) are benefit added if you do them correctly.
Takeaways - Pros: Class really worked on the fundamentals, with only 9 students, individual attention was high which i appreciated. I learned alot of little tid bits to improve my overall shooting.
Cons: Class was held up by the level of shooters present, most had never drawn from holsters. Maybe my expectations were to high, but as a third level class I was expecting more. I don’t mean to sound pompous, just letting you know that the class isn’t exactly as billed depending on students, seems to be a vetting thing.
Handgun 104: Intro to using your handgun to defend yourself, overall this class did exactly that
Only one other repeat student from the day before, we started off with a couple drills from the day before.
Next we jumped into shooting on the move, crawl walk run, we started by moving to a line drawing and shooting, next was draw shoot move shoot, then finally shooting while in motion, take aways - walk normal, it works 99.99% of the time, why change?
Acceptable sight picture, big deal for this class, some waited to the point of stopping to fire a second round, just because they couldn’t get a perfect setup. At 7 yards, pretty good shots, is better than one awesome shot on one of 3 targets.
The other big focus of this class was one handed manipulations, Dylan really taught the ideas of Mike Pannone, as far as support hand draw, reloads, and malfunction clearance. I found this really innovative and a different way to look at the topic. However, we did not do any one handed stuff as live fire, for this class, I was ok with that.
Lastly we covered multiple shooting positions and how it can affect your hits, takeaways - with hands stacked in a golf grip while prone I can get very accurate, traditional kneeling sucks for me, “Political kneeling”, Pat Rogers calls it Monica, was much more effective and faster to get into, and out of.
Overall takeaways - Pros: Drinking from a fire hose, we learned a alot in one day, stuff that you don’t think about and stuff that you need to rethink. I would take this class again.
Cons: Class had two shooters who should not have been there, if you haven’t ever drawn from a holster and aren’t sure what a decock lever is, you probably don’t belong in this class. Just a thought.
Gear and Guns: I ran a Sig 229, it had an Inforce APL, till the mount shattered during 103, which was mildly funny and pretty embarrassing, the gun had no issues but the holster requires a light so I switched to my Sig 320, which ran perfect as well, two mags mounted in the SigTac mag pouches, they work, also ran a mini AWP tool pouch that served as a mini dump pouch, I hate fishing for mags in cargo pockets. Peltor ear pro and Oakley eyes. All ammo was bought on site and appears to be Sig manufactured ammo, I shot 650 rounds for the two days.
Last thoughts, I would take 104 again, different instructors have different views so you can get different versions, 103 is a good class but I wouldn’t feel it necessary to take again over 104.
Another thought, Because of the cheaper classes, and a physical location, the academy gets a lot of people who see shooting as a past time, not a martial art so to speak, nothing wrong with that, just beware in the lower level classes, having people who aren't there because they believe in it, its just something to do, is a real possibility.
Any questions or criticism let me know.
Andrew