K Williams
Member
Short summary: I've known Bill for several years having been a student along side him in classes and also having taught a couple courses for his folks. He has always impressed me as being a solid student of the craft and a consummate professional. I had not been a student of his till now, and I'm kicking myself for not getting into his course(s) earlier. This will not be the last time I train with him.
Class began on time (actually a few minutes early) at Bill's host location which in an indoor 25 yard range in King County WA.
The student base was all LEO's with the exception of myself (I'm a firefighter serving as a medic on a local swat team, prior military, and I have been teaching for LMS Defense for several years). Class size was 10 which worked very well. We partnered up and ran 2 relays for most of the training.
After the intro's, safety briefing, and some discussions on Bill's philosophy on things, we jumped right into a slightly modified version of the common DOT Torture drill. This served as a diagnostic tool for assessing the students on the line as well as a good warmup. Bill passed out clipboards and a performance tracking sheet he developed for recording our score and also to track various data we would collect over the next 2 days. Examples of info would be our times to draw and fire 1 shot at 5 yards with a hit in a 6" circle or box. Repeat 10 times and find the average. We did this for draws, raw reloads, 1 reload 1 drills, split times on multiple round engagements, split times during reloads or malfunctions using different methods of manipulating the slide forward. Purpose of the data sheet was to establish baselines for future training and also to give the student a starting point for developing this into their dry fire training regimen. Most every live fire block of instruction had a corresponding dry fire component that Bill covered as well.
After the dot drill, Bill covered the finer aspects of establishing a good crushing firing grip and we shot rapid strings on a target consisting of an aiming point and multiple horizontal lines that allowed us to gauge how high our front sight was lifting off the target during the bursts. This allowed us the fine tune our grip to minimize muzzle flip as best we could. We then shot several skill building drills covering the various components of the Dot Torture drill.
We finished day 1 with a walk back drill from 5 to 25 yards and some changing gears type drills.
Day 2 started with the Asskicker, a 400 point aggregate drill conducted at 25 yards. 2 handed, strong hand only, and support hand only strings of fire. We covered malfunctions clearances with the pistol with both hands and well as one handed clears (and reloads). A low light familiarization block followed where students worked shooting, reloads, and malfunctions using a hand held light.
The second half of the day had us running Bill drills, Jill drills (One of Bill's concoctions), various El Presidente versions, a Dice drill, and others on the timer and in competition with others. I really enjoyed the Jill Drill ( 10 rounds, 1 dummy, 2 mags - partner loads your mags and weapon. On the beep, draw and fire 10 rounds into a 6" box from 7 yards doing an unplanned reload and malfunction clear. Par time is around 10 seconds).
We finished the course with a block of instruction on shooting on the move. We did strings advancing forward, forward at a faster rate, diagonal, and gathered some data on shooting on the move at a manageable speed versus sprinting to cover then engaging stationary. The last drill I recall was a head to head shoot off with 2 shooters engaging a VTAC head at 5 yards with 5 rounds, followed by 5 in the chest box at 5 yards, 5 in the chest of a 15 yard target, and 5 in the chest of a 25 yard VTAC Target (the skeletal version). 20 rounds/2 magazines, you could set up your own magazines, but not so a reload would fall at an interval of 5 rounds.
This is my best recollection of the course flow based on my memory and notes, it may not have occurred exactly as written and I may have forgotten a few points but the purpose was the give you a general overview of the days activities and not the actual course itself. Listening to Blowers pontificate about tomahawks and other cool shit is worth the admission price by itself. I asked for clarification and comparisons several times on various teaching points and techniques and he was always open for discussion/debate and nothing side tracked him.
Other takeaways for me:
1. Day one I was consistently grouping slightly to the right (I'm a right handed shooter) and I initially blamed myself. I realized I had a fairly new set of sights on my pistol (Warren F/O's) and saw that my rear was a smidge too far right. Quick work with a rear sight presser and I was back on. I'm going to explore some of the Dawson Adjustable rear sights very so I can make tool less adjustments in the future.
2. Dropping the slide by grabbing/contacting the slide just rear of the front sight in the front cocking serration area duringimmediate action for clearing malfunctions. Get's your support hand back on the gun quicker. Never really tried it either before since my Glocks do not have serrations. Bill advocated some data comparison and I am .10-.15 faster using that method than the method I train with all the time. Bill made mention that if something new is tactically sound and gives him a .20 second speed advantage he seriously considers changing. I lost some skin in the web of my hand working this technique, but added some grip to the right hand side of my slide and it greatly helped. I'll be experimenting with this in the future for myself. Also a streamlined remedial action clearance for failure to extract/doublefeeds.
3. I much prefer my Streamlight TLR1-HL to my SF X300U for single handed activation using the rocker (I don't like the DG switches).
4. Something about ignoring a prophet in his own land. I got several small nuggets throughout Bill's course and also some instructor development knowledge from him. I try to take 1-2 classes each year from solid instructors (TMACS, Bennie Cooley, Chappy, etc.) and I put Bill right up in the upper levels with those guys. If you are West Coast, you definitely should look at attending one of Tap-Rack Tactical's course offerings.
Class began on time (actually a few minutes early) at Bill's host location which in an indoor 25 yard range in King County WA.
The student base was all LEO's with the exception of myself (I'm a firefighter serving as a medic on a local swat team, prior military, and I have been teaching for LMS Defense for several years). Class size was 10 which worked very well. We partnered up and ran 2 relays for most of the training.
After the intro's, safety briefing, and some discussions on Bill's philosophy on things, we jumped right into a slightly modified version of the common DOT Torture drill. This served as a diagnostic tool for assessing the students on the line as well as a good warmup. Bill passed out clipboards and a performance tracking sheet he developed for recording our score and also to track various data we would collect over the next 2 days. Examples of info would be our times to draw and fire 1 shot at 5 yards with a hit in a 6" circle or box. Repeat 10 times and find the average. We did this for draws, raw reloads, 1 reload 1 drills, split times on multiple round engagements, split times during reloads or malfunctions using different methods of manipulating the slide forward. Purpose of the data sheet was to establish baselines for future training and also to give the student a starting point for developing this into their dry fire training regimen. Most every live fire block of instruction had a corresponding dry fire component that Bill covered as well.
After the dot drill, Bill covered the finer aspects of establishing a good crushing firing grip and we shot rapid strings on a target consisting of an aiming point and multiple horizontal lines that allowed us to gauge how high our front sight was lifting off the target during the bursts. This allowed us the fine tune our grip to minimize muzzle flip as best we could. We then shot several skill building drills covering the various components of the Dot Torture drill.
We finished day 1 with a walk back drill from 5 to 25 yards and some changing gears type drills.
Day 2 started with the Asskicker, a 400 point aggregate drill conducted at 25 yards. 2 handed, strong hand only, and support hand only strings of fire. We covered malfunctions clearances with the pistol with both hands and well as one handed clears (and reloads). A low light familiarization block followed where students worked shooting, reloads, and malfunctions using a hand held light.
The second half of the day had us running Bill drills, Jill drills (One of Bill's concoctions), various El Presidente versions, a Dice drill, and others on the timer and in competition with others. I really enjoyed the Jill Drill ( 10 rounds, 1 dummy, 2 mags - partner loads your mags and weapon. On the beep, draw and fire 10 rounds into a 6" box from 7 yards doing an unplanned reload and malfunction clear. Par time is around 10 seconds).
We finished the course with a block of instruction on shooting on the move. We did strings advancing forward, forward at a faster rate, diagonal, and gathered some data on shooting on the move at a manageable speed versus sprinting to cover then engaging stationary. The last drill I recall was a head to head shoot off with 2 shooters engaging a VTAC head at 5 yards with 5 rounds, followed by 5 in the chest box at 5 yards, 5 in the chest of a 15 yard target, and 5 in the chest of a 25 yard VTAC Target (the skeletal version). 20 rounds/2 magazines, you could set up your own magazines, but not so a reload would fall at an interval of 5 rounds.
This is my best recollection of the course flow based on my memory and notes, it may not have occurred exactly as written and I may have forgotten a few points but the purpose was the give you a general overview of the days activities and not the actual course itself. Listening to Blowers pontificate about tomahawks and other cool shit is worth the admission price by itself. I asked for clarification and comparisons several times on various teaching points and techniques and he was always open for discussion/debate and nothing side tracked him.
Other takeaways for me:
1. Day one I was consistently grouping slightly to the right (I'm a right handed shooter) and I initially blamed myself. I realized I had a fairly new set of sights on my pistol (Warren F/O's) and saw that my rear was a smidge too far right. Quick work with a rear sight presser and I was back on. I'm going to explore some of the Dawson Adjustable rear sights very so I can make tool less adjustments in the future.
2. Dropping the slide by grabbing/contacting the slide just rear of the front sight in the front cocking serration area duringimmediate action for clearing malfunctions. Get's your support hand back on the gun quicker. Never really tried it either before since my Glocks do not have serrations. Bill advocated some data comparison and I am .10-.15 faster using that method than the method I train with all the time. Bill made mention that if something new is tactically sound and gives him a .20 second speed advantage he seriously considers changing. I lost some skin in the web of my hand working this technique, but added some grip to the right hand side of my slide and it greatly helped. I'll be experimenting with this in the future for myself. Also a streamlined remedial action clearance for failure to extract/doublefeeds.
3. I much prefer my Streamlight TLR1-HL to my SF X300U for single handed activation using the rocker (I don't like the DG switches).
4. Something about ignoring a prophet in his own land. I got several small nuggets throughout Bill's course and also some instructor development knowledge from him. I try to take 1-2 classes each year from solid instructors (TMACS, Bennie Cooley, Chappy, etc.) and I put Bill right up in the upper levels with those guys. If you are West Coast, you definitely should look at attending one of Tap-Rack Tactical's course offerings.
