VX Marksmanship - Decatur, TX

Steve Burris

Newbie
Quantified Performance
I have found in the last 10 years as an instructor for my agency that teaching concepts is far better than teaching rote memorized responses. If we understand the concept of the protections provided under the 4th amendment we safeguard those protections and are less likely to violate them. This keeps from losing cases based on bad searches and prevents us from using excessive force during seizures. When we understand concepts like creating space in an entangled or ground fight, we can better control the distance and get the distance to get to a better weapon. In addition, I have seen students retain concepts far better than techniques.

I recently spent several days at VX Marksmanship. VX Marksmanship is a private range and training facility outside of the Dallas Fort-Worth Metroplex. The name is not associated with any organo-phosphates as I thought at first. Rather, owner Dan Sanderford combined the center rings of long-range pistol and rifle targets (V and X) to demonstrate a commitment to accuracy in all weapons. Dan has a background in Marine Special Operations as well as competitive shooting teams. He also spent time teaching at SOTG among other places. When he got out of the Marine Corps, Dan went to work for the Ogara Group. VX has been an ongoing business for him for the last few years.

Dan is the kind of instructor that teaches concepts. He constantly talked about understanding the why behind the what. Why does he prefer a more crouched shooting stance? How fast can you move off-line if you flatfooted and upright versus in a crouched stance? If he is teaching a certain tactic, technique, or procedure he has thought about why and how to do it.

Dan’s approach is to layer training along five core concepts and to group them in a logical order that allows him to build students along the way. We worked quite a bit of pistol shooting and none of the training was conducted on a square range. Dan has bays set up with berms on three sides giving quite a large impact zone and the ability to engage targets at many different angles. While the rifle range is somewhat more traditional and goes out to 1000 yards, many of the same principals applied to the pistol carry over to long range and precise engagements as well.

Why so much emphasis on the pistol? As many notable instructors from similar backgrounds have pointed out, the pistol is the least forgiving weapon system and the most difficult to master. With that in mind we spent a good amount of time on the VX version of fundamentals. AS I mentioned previously Dan prefers a more crouched “athletic” stance that allows for shooters to move in any direction as well as putting more mass behind the gun to control recoil for quick follow up shots. We spent some time talking about smoothing out our draw and presentation to be more efficient and shave tenths and hundredths off our times in making hits. As we became smoother we incorporated turns and pivots. Then we worked on malfunction clearance.

Stage two is doing all the previous things while moving. Shooting, moving, post engagement sequences, shooting while moving, changes angles while shooting and moving. Then doing all of that while in a team environment and maintaining awareness of where our partners are. And when accuracy fell off, we went back to some fundamental work. When we tripped over our own feet, spent some time smoothing out our movement.

Dan’s third stage if fighting while wounded. Back to fundamentals we go, strong hand only, weak hand only. Pivot weak hand only,etc. Malfunction clearances one handed and then moving one handed. There was a lot of frustration for me at this point, not quite as much as trying to move in anything other than a straight line, but just with dealing with multiple new concepts at the same time.

The next stage is what Dan terms as ground fighting. Not wrestling or BJJ, but utilizing the weapon when in contact with the ground. How to move around cover. How to efficiently go from one position to another in a 360 degree environment without flagging yourself and your partner(s).

Stage five is instinctual shooting. Dan believes that when someone has caught you by surprise in a close environment, you need to try fight your way out of it. You’re already behind the game, but maybe you can take them with you. This isn’t old school point shooting, but more of sight alignment by feel. When you are efficient in your movements and it all comes together, you can hit a steel silhouette at 7 yards really quickly. Even when pivoting and turning.

Dan takes things through another 5 stages via more and more complex scenarios and tighter time frames. While this model was used in teaching pistol for the group I was in, VX Marksmanship maintains the same idea throughout carbine and rifle training as well.

I would highly recommend checking out the VX website. While the business model is a little bit different from what other training companies do, I think that anyone would benefit from Dan’s approach. Dan said almost the same thing about efficiency and accuracy that I have heard from all of the good law enforcement and military instructors I have trained with. When multiple people make the same points from a multitude of backgrounds, maybe we should listen to what they are saying.
 
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