OT: A very enjoyable training session

The one-on-one training/coaching session I had at the range yesterday was even more fun than I thought it might be. It was an absolute blast, pun not intentional but certainly appropos. The name of the course/session was CQB, aka Close Quarters Battle. I certainly have no intention of engaging in armed CQB as a senior gentleman, but after reading about it I thought it could be a lot of fun. It certainly was! The coach is an excellent instructor and a very easy guy to be around. Not much younger than I, not a molecule of bravado machismo bullshit about him. He does not present at all like ex-military, ex-cop or gun nut, though he is one of the few instructors in MN that has been in some real firefights. Good sense of humor. We got on famously from the git-go. Having a guide or instructor that is fun is high on my shortlist, because that's precisely why I'm there: to have fun while learning a thing or three. The idea is to learn to shoot effectively by pointing rather than by aiming with sights. Tackdriving accuracy is not necessary at close range, rapid delivery can be. Rex Applegate (OSS) school of thought. Col Jeff Cooper advocated using front sight only. I reckon both are good techniques, the choice between them being one of range, urgency and state of adrenaline. I can't use a sight I can't see due to adrenaline-induced tunnel vision. As he was finishing up with a previous class on another subject, I was sweeping the area we'd be using clean of spent brass. He asked me, "Don, were you a Marine?" "No, why do you ask?" "You're very tidy!" I laughed. "Differing opinion on that is available! I'm frugal: I intend to collect as much of my spent brass as is easy to do without being a twit about it." Big grin. We started with the XD .40, slow and easy. I decided to do most of this with the XD because it is my HD primary due to ammo capacity in a respectable caliber. I understand (and expect) that a good instructor assumes nothing about the student and safety is always job

1. He immediately corrected an aspect of my stance he didn't like, OK for target shooting, not for CQB. He found no fault with my grip. Load and fire one round. BANG. Ah, he hit the paper, didn't shoot out any lights. (The paper was 15 feet away, duh!) OK, fire two rounds. BANG.....BANG. Both went about where the first one had. Not using sights, just pointing. I was a bit surprised. He grinned. "OK, fire the remaining rounds in your magazine." I did. Another grin. So much for get-accquainted preliminaries. We obviously were hitting it off because it went very quickly from instructor/businessman with customer to something more like a coach working with a protoge. "Dammit, Don, you keep drifting into an isoceles Weaver stance. Would it help your retention if I stomped on your toe?" I had to set the piece down for a second I was laughing so hard. "John, please don't stomp on my toe when I'm the one with the loaded pistol." He laughed. "Sounds like a plan!" The rest of the session was spent with ever-increasing pressure. He was really good at that. He told me to assume a ready position, with my feet on a goddamned straight line and my gun near my chest and pointed AT THE GODDAMNED TARGET YOU FULLY INTEND TO SHOOT... and then on his command (a tap on the shoulder) extend my arms to locked-elbow while loudly shouting STOP! ... and then fire until empty. I recognized the shout as psychological, surprising how well that works to enance the illusion of pressure. I don't habitually lock elbows for target shooting because I find I'm steadier if I don't, but in this type of shooting recoil control is considerably more important than sight picture. There ain't no sight picture. .40 is a bit snappy with recoil, but it's managable even for me. I prefer the power of .40 over 9mmp and the capacity of a doublestack .40 (12+1) over .45ACP for HD. There are certainly plenty of differing opinions. I make no claim to being "right", it's just my choice. After each magazine he said, "do it again, faster this time" and the taps got more vigorous. Not enough to hurt, but definitely not likely to escape notice and enough to slightly screw up my orientation re target. Ever- escalating pressure. Then he moved the target out to 25 feet while I was reloading mags -- more pressure ... and we did that for a while. I would not have thought I could even hit a silhouettte at 25 feet just by pointing, but the holes kept appearing right where they should. (He used lots of targets so we could see how things were going) He seened pleased with my progress, kept grinning. "How much ammo did you bring, Don?" 600 rounds. He laughed. "That should do!" He'd said the session would entail about 150 rounds but I'd brought more than one pistol. I did the prescribed 150 rounds all with the XD. The last three or four magazines were really interesting. He ran the target out to 21 feet and said, "no command this time, start firing when the target starts moving." Moving? Suddenly the target started racing toward me. Holy shit! BAMBAMBAM and so on. I got off 8 rounds before the target arrived. That trip can't take two seconds, and there's my

65-year-old's reaction time from when I first sense movement. "Do it again." On the third mag I got all rounds off (and thru COM) before the target was 2/3 of the way to me. The holes were elliptical because the target and backing cardboard moves on the electric trolley fast enough that air resistance makes it tilt back a ways. The pistol was firing about as fast as it can be fired -- and, to my amazement, the shots were all going right where they should. It's not unusual to hear folks firing rapidly like that, but when I look at their targets I wonder if they're just burning ammo because it's fun -- their shots are all over the place even at 15'. By this time I was completely unaware of the sights, and mostly unaware of the object in my hand that was bucking away. I didn't even notice the reports. I was totally focussed on that target. It was like the pistol was an extension of my being, making holes where I willed it to while firing at a rate of somewhat more than 5 rounds per second. They don't even do that on the teevee, probably because nobody would believe anyone could hit anything shooting like that. Wrong-o! My COM hit rate on a smallish silhouette target (my assailant is a midget) was never less than 80% , 100% with some magazines. The silhouettes used were the FBI/DEA Q-T, considerably smaller than the TBT-II's used for the MN CCW qual test and by some cop shops for qual firing. I noted that I'd fired 150 rounds at that point and said so. He said he was in no hurry if I'd like to shoot some more. Well, I was getting tired (and I have the achey-breaky flu) so I said that'd be enough with XD but I'd like to try two other pistols. Awright! I was surprised to discover that I can shoot the PPK as accurately this way as I can with sights -- which I guess shouldn't be surprising since I can barely see the small sights on that one. That's fine! PPK is a lil' popper, definitely a short-range pistol anyway. .380 isn't much of a gun but it's a whole lot more than no gun. Then I got out my 1911 Colt Officers' model. John seemed very interested in it. I'm sure he's seen a lot of 1911's, but the Colt Officer's model is a bit uncommon. He didn't care to fire it, but he tried the trigger dryfire a couple of times and said he'd not handled a 1911 with a better trigger. That would be in tactical context: Looie has a heavy trigger as 1911's go, but it is very crisp with no perceptible creep and it is very consistent. OK, so I tried a few mags with that. He was relentless. "Do it again!" Then we did a couple of mags with the moving target. He looked at me kinda funny and said "Jee-zus, Don, you sure can shoot that .45!" Did that make my day or what? WOW! We had Cokes and chatted for a bit out in the store area where ear protection isn't required and we could sit for a spell. He had some very, very nice guns in his kit that he uses for other classes. He showed me a Sig Sauer .45 that he carries. Unloaded it, cleared it, fieldstripped it right there on the table. He remembered that I'd mentioned being a machinist during our first telephone conversation. My golly, that is one exquisite piece of work! I don't think I could bring myself to spend that much on one pistol, but I can certainly admire. He also had an XD .40 just like mine. Inexpensive and ugly as a mud fence, but sufficient for its purpose, safe, simple and utterly reliable. He invited me to come shoot again with him sometime in nice weather when we can shoot outdoors. "There's some fun stuff we can do outdoors that we can't do indoors." I'm certainly up for that! John creaked even worse than I did when getting up after sitting for 25 minutes. He'd been on his feet since 9 that morning. Long day for him! As we parted in the parking lot, his parting comment was, "you are good with that .45!" with an expressive roll of his eyeballs. I can't describe how good that felt, coming from someone like him.