This Tuesday and Wednesday, Cougar Mountain Solutions was at the Route 66 Shooting Sports Park to present our L/E Low Light Instructor class. Sentinel Defense was our host and did a great job advertising the class.
This was a two-evening class that focuses on how to teach low-light skills to others who are doing police work. It is done through EDIP as well as discussing the how/why the material is presented this way. EDIP = Explain, Demonstrate, ( <-- Instructor & Student --> ) Imitate, Practice.
I started the class with about two hours of safety, science, human factors, and case law. Four lighting conditions? Light color & temp? Legal standards for vision, blindness? What training has been mandated by the courts? It’s in there. My safety brief has been modified with both adult learning considerations and research from Enoka.
On the range, we started with Dyal’s 5-yard round-up and discussed the “why” behind it as a warm-up, evaluation drill – especially for a class with a lot of one-hand shooting.
Throughout the two evenings, the material was often presented as shooter/coach work.
Various handheld & WML techniques were discussed, shown, worked dry, & then shot live. Included in this were different ways to manipulate, and retain the handheld light.
The class shot at different distances as well as using different (smaller) aiming points.
Terminal & wounding effects along with shot placement were discussed while pointing those areas out.
For the students’ benefit, I ran a scored, standard Gunsite course that stretched from 3 yards to 35 yards in low light.
One of the teaching points was to try & keep the number of rounds fired between evaluating/taping sessions around 10-12. The idea is to keep the class accountable and not just blazing away.
We ran them through a judgmental shooting drill with the Reactive Gap gunfire simulator, a commercially available design (more on it later).
After having the class dump everything – guns, mags, knives, etc. – other than their snivel gear and handheld lights, I split them up for practical application exercises. Half the class worked solo officer vehicle approaches while the rest did a two-officer open area search. Hopefully, my S/I will chime in with his thoughts on role player management.
Day #2 started with dry runs, using their handheld lights &/or a stripped pistol frame with the WML, on a classroom and bar-like area. How the officers choose to search was less important than using their lights to see into the dark holes AND how (as the bad guy/coach) to give students feedback on what they did.
On the range, we went over various WML set-ups on the carbines and how other gear choices could impact that.
The first evolutions involved handheld lights in conjunction with the carbine. Options included modified Harries and Cigar/Syringe methods.
Various ready positions and their pros/cons followed. High Ready, Low Ready, and Indoor Ready.
Carbine to pistol transitions were done with an emphasis on getting white light into the fight. This was with a pistol light, a WML on the carbine, or going to a handheld.
While I’m not a fan of transitioning sides with pistols, I’m not opposed to it (and I do it) with long guns. The transitions & support side shooting led to a drill on VTac barricades that exposed issues with various WML placements.
Some pistol work was added here to re-visit the importance of trigger work as good pistol skills transfer to carbines, but not the other way around.
John Ray, former LAPD Metro D Plt (& author of the best hashtag on the Grams last year), is the West Coast L/E rep for both ModLite and Staccato pistols. He was gracious enough to come out and give a presentation on ModLites and the nerd science for low light – his mirrored mine, whew!
One of the student’s brought a marked patrol SUV. Without damaging it, we exposed the students to the effects of emergency vehicle lighting on shooting in low-light environs.
Using the excellent Tier1Targets.com photo/poster targets, we finished off the class with a judgmental shooting drill. It used the carbine, optics, and WML by starting at the range’s limit, 35 yards.
The 18 students came from PDs, SOs, DA’s offices, community colleges & state universities, as well as CDC-R Parole and DOJ. Previous employment in the group included LAPD SIS, NSW, Ranger Regt, and Counter-Drug support to NATO SOF in AFG.
The handguns they used included:
Glock 22 / X300U; Sig P320/Romeo 1 Pro/ Streamlight TLR1; Glock 22/RMR/X300U; Glock 17/SRO/TLR7; Glock 19/RMR/X300U; Glock 19/Holosun/TLR7; Glock 17C/Holosun/TLR7; Staccato/Holosun/Modlite; Glock 17/SRO/X300U; Staccato/Holosun 507CS/Modlite; Glock 22/X300U; Glock 45/RMR/X300U; Glock 17/RMR/TLR1; Glock 17/RMR/TLR1; Glock 17/Holosun/TLR1; Glock 45/Holosun/X300U; Staccato/Holosun/X300; Zev OZ9/RMR/X300U; and I used my M&P 2.0/Acro P2/X300U.
No hand-held lights failed. At least two of the Streamlight handhelds / WMLs with that 10 Tap programming feature/bug went full strobe unexpectedly for their users.
And I’m very thankful for my A/I Pat A (aka Blackdog). Recently retired L/E sergeant with extensive K9 and SWAT experience, former tactical sales rep for a handheld/weapon-mounted light company, and graduate of more than a few classes. Pat kept me on track while making sure we hit everything we needed to do.
Based on student feedback, I’ll work on expanding this class to a 3-evening offering. The current two-night version is CT POST approved for two areas and it will still be offered.
Photos to follow.
This was a two-evening class that focuses on how to teach low-light skills to others who are doing police work. It is done through EDIP as well as discussing the how/why the material is presented this way. EDIP = Explain, Demonstrate, ( <-- Instructor & Student --> ) Imitate, Practice.
I started the class with about two hours of safety, science, human factors, and case law. Four lighting conditions? Light color & temp? Legal standards for vision, blindness? What training has been mandated by the courts? It’s in there. My safety brief has been modified with both adult learning considerations and research from Enoka.
On the range, we started with Dyal’s 5-yard round-up and discussed the “why” behind it as a warm-up, evaluation drill – especially for a class with a lot of one-hand shooting.
Throughout the two evenings, the material was often presented as shooter/coach work.
Various handheld & WML techniques were discussed, shown, worked dry, & then shot live. Included in this were different ways to manipulate, and retain the handheld light.
The class shot at different distances as well as using different (smaller) aiming points.
Terminal & wounding effects along with shot placement were discussed while pointing those areas out.
For the students’ benefit, I ran a scored, standard Gunsite course that stretched from 3 yards to 35 yards in low light.
One of the teaching points was to try & keep the number of rounds fired between evaluating/taping sessions around 10-12. The idea is to keep the class accountable and not just blazing away.
We ran them through a judgmental shooting drill with the Reactive Gap gunfire simulator, a commercially available design (more on it later).
After having the class dump everything – guns, mags, knives, etc. – other than their snivel gear and handheld lights, I split them up for practical application exercises. Half the class worked solo officer vehicle approaches while the rest did a two-officer open area search. Hopefully, my S/I will chime in with his thoughts on role player management.
Day #2 started with dry runs, using their handheld lights &/or a stripped pistol frame with the WML, on a classroom and bar-like area. How the officers choose to search was less important than using their lights to see into the dark holes AND how (as the bad guy/coach) to give students feedback on what they did.
On the range, we went over various WML set-ups on the carbines and how other gear choices could impact that.
The first evolutions involved handheld lights in conjunction with the carbine. Options included modified Harries and Cigar/Syringe methods.
Various ready positions and their pros/cons followed. High Ready, Low Ready, and Indoor Ready.
Carbine to pistol transitions were done with an emphasis on getting white light into the fight. This was with a pistol light, a WML on the carbine, or going to a handheld.
While I’m not a fan of transitioning sides with pistols, I’m not opposed to it (and I do it) with long guns. The transitions & support side shooting led to a drill on VTac barricades that exposed issues with various WML placements.
Some pistol work was added here to re-visit the importance of trigger work as good pistol skills transfer to carbines, but not the other way around.
John Ray, former LAPD Metro D Plt (& author of the best hashtag on the Grams last year), is the West Coast L/E rep for both ModLite and Staccato pistols. He was gracious enough to come out and give a presentation on ModLites and the nerd science for low light – his mirrored mine, whew!
- One takeaway from JR’s talk … if you are having trouble with lights working, even after changing batteries, use di-electric grease on the threads. I’d heard about using that on the Acro threads before but not on lights.
One of the student’s brought a marked patrol SUV. Without damaging it, we exposed the students to the effects of emergency vehicle lighting on shooting in low-light environs.
Using the excellent Tier1Targets.com photo/poster targets, we finished off the class with a judgmental shooting drill. It used the carbine, optics, and WML by starting at the range’s limit, 35 yards.
The 18 students came from PDs, SOs, DA’s offices, community colleges & state universities, as well as CDC-R Parole and DOJ. Previous employment in the group included LAPD SIS, NSW, Ranger Regt, and Counter-Drug support to NATO SOF in AFG.
The handguns they used included:
Glock 22 / X300U; Sig P320/Romeo 1 Pro/ Streamlight TLR1; Glock 22/RMR/X300U; Glock 17/SRO/TLR7; Glock 19/RMR/X300U; Glock 19/Holosun/TLR7; Glock 17C/Holosun/TLR7; Staccato/Holosun/Modlite; Glock 17/SRO/X300U; Staccato/Holosun 507CS/Modlite; Glock 22/X300U; Glock 45/RMR/X300U; Glock 17/RMR/TLR1; Glock 17/RMR/TLR1; Glock 17/Holosun/TLR1; Glock 45/Holosun/X300U; Staccato/Holosun/X300; Zev OZ9/RMR/X300U; and I used my M&P 2.0/Acro P2/X300U.
No hand-held lights failed. At least two of the Streamlight handhelds / WMLs with that 10 Tap programming feature/bug went full strobe unexpectedly for their users.
- An AR from an Orange County agency had a rail failure when it came unattached from the upper; OC PD AR went down
- A Streamlight TLR1 being used as a carbine light failed when the switch/plug housing failed and broke off from the body.
And I’m very thankful for my A/I Pat A (aka Blackdog). Recently retired L/E sergeant with extensive K9 and SWAT experience, former tactical sales rep for a handheld/weapon-mounted light company, and graduate of more than a few classes. Pat kept me on track while making sure we hit everything we needed to do.
Based on student feedback, I’ll work on expanding this class to a 3-evening offering. The current two-night version is CT POST approved for two areas and it will still be offered.
Photos to follow.