Very few books have been written about the history of fast draw competition, and the few that have been written are out of print. As part of my research for the Historical Handgun book, I’ve been trying to track down copies. As I wrote in a previous entry about this topic, Bob Arganbright’s book has been impossible to find outside of the one copy the Library of Congress has (which I was able to access and read a few years ago). Last year I was able to purchase a copy of the other major work on this topic: Fast Draw…Yesterday Today, which is a 600+ page compilation of magazine articles put together by Tom Blasgen.
Disclaimer: The book is thick and I did not want to destroy it by flattening it to scan pages, so I took pics with my phone, and you will see some warping and other distortions as I used Photoshop to remove shadows and crop images. But because copies are rare and very hard to find (I lucked into a copy by being on a Fast Draw group on Facebook), I’m including the pics here along with the key points I think anyone interested in the history of pistol technique should know.
Prior to the 1950’s, wax bullets had been used by early 1900’s dueling trainers, whose force on force sport of simulated dueling was the precursor to modern paintball and marking rounds used in combatives training. Simulated dueling even made a one time appearance in the Olympics.
This page gives the highest level summary of the sport: started in 1954 at Knott’s Berry Farm by the stunt show gunfighters and a tech who developed the first shooting timer.
In the following years, it became a national fad, with Western TV/movie stars, the Rat Pack (particularly Sammy Davis Jr.) and other celebrities taking up the sport. As the article claims, over 250,000 people participated in fast draw matches. That was out of 150M people. The population of the US has doubled since then, but even if you add up the memberships of USPSA, IDPA, SASS, Steel Challenge, and count those that shoot NRA bullseye matches, pretending that there’s no overlap…those numbers are less than 250,000, nevermind a population adjusted 500,000. So the Fast Draw era was a point in time where pistol competition got more (positive) mainstream media attention and general population participation than at any other time in US history.
Jeff Cooper wrote about the sport of Fast Draw in Guns and Ammo magazine back in 1958 (the magazine’s first year of publication).
E.B. Mann was a writer of Western pulp stories and paperback books, who also wrote for gun magazines, and was the champion of Fast Draw at GUNS magazine. In addition to collecting books on guns, I enjoy reading and collecting Western fiction books and pulp magazines. E.B.Mann is one of my favorite authors and over the past few decades I’ve found hardback, paperback, and pulp magazine copies of most of his works.
GUNS covered Fast Draw more than any other print publication and many of the articles in Blasgen’s book can be found in the GUNS magazine digital online archive.
Many early articles focused on the draw speed, similar to the current obsession with the “1 second concealment draw”. Quarter second draw times were the goal of that era.
More data from elsewhere in the book:
At the peak, Fast Draw championships, sponsored by Colt, were held in Las Vegas in the early 1960’s. Interest in fast draw led to many innovations in holsters and timers, and technique. Shooters using the “twist draw” technique, where the gun was fired at a 90 degree angle, began beating the traditional fast draw competitors, and shooters began transitioning to stronger-built Ruger sixguns. As with most other shooting sports, gamers, gamer gear, and gamer techniques pushed the limits of performance but also drove many in the general population away from the game.
KPIX-TV news footage from November 1960 featuring silent views of people preparing for and taking part in a fast draw competition, including Dee Woolem (‘The Daisy Kid’). Also shows movie stars like Ernest Borgnine, Gene Barry and others (possibly Clu Gulager?) watching the event in an indoor arena. Opening graphic designed by Carrie Hawks. (WordPress would not let me embed the video so click the link to see it).
Andy Anderson was another influential holster maker of the Fast Draw era.
This article mentions Ernie Hill, who started out making fast draw holsters and shooting fast draw matches, who became the dominant holster maker for IPSC in its early days, making the same kind of steel reinforced leather holsters the fast draw shooters used, only for 1911 pistols.
By the mid 1960’s, fast draw had waned in popularity, and the dominance of Westerns on TV and on the big screen began to fade as well, as spy and space shows surged in popularity. Most importantly, Jeff Cooper began running fast draw matches using modern firearms and holsters at Big Bear Lake, which led to two handed aimed fire, comstock timed shooting matches (instead of par time), and to basically everything we know as standard practice in defensive firearms training.
Arganbright ties the history together with modern technique in this 1988 article.
Since the early 2000’s I have been attending and teaching at the annual Rangemaster Tactical Conferences. They were originally held at “the mothership” (Tom’s indoor range in Memphis), later moving to the Memphis Police Academy and other outdoor ranges in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas before finding a new home at the Dallas Pistol Club.
This year 5 of us from the KR Training team taught or worked the event: Karl and John Daub taught sessions, Tracy Thronburg and Dave Reichek worked as range staff, and Dave and Ed Vinyard were roleplayers in Craig Douglas’ force on force sessions.
As of April 14, 2022, registration for the 2023 Rangemaster Tactical Conference has been open for a few days, and the event is already 80% sold out. It will be March 24-26, 2023 at the Dallas Pistol Club. You can register here if it hasn’t sold out already.
FRIDAY
I taught one of the first sessions of the conference, starting at 8 a.m. on the first day. My “Becoming a Better Drawstroke Coach” session was mainly for instructors, discussing all the different problems I’ve observed in 30 years of teaching the skill of drawing to a wide variety of students.
demonstrating proper initial grip on the pistol
I started with gear: does the holster attach to the belt properly (belt thickness, belt width, belt loop width)?, and is it riding at an acceptable height and angle? The importance of getting a good firing grip on the pistol while it’s still in the holster was discussed at length. I see a lot of appendix-carry holsters set to ride too low, preventing the users from getting all their fingers on the gun without doing some sort of pinching/palming movement to partially raise it. In addition to being slow and awkward, it can lead to the trigger guard being exposed as the fingers are curling around the grip, which could result in negligent discharge and serious injury. I also see strong side holsters designed for behind the hip use (angled forward) worn too far forward of the hip, causing the users to curl their wrists to grip the pistol and “bowl” the gun out of the holster rather than lifting straight up.
We continued to work through the steps of the draw, ending with what I call “hand chasing”. This occurs when the support hand doesn’t join the firing hand until the gun is at full extension. This usually begins with the support hand not moving at the same time as the firing hand, with the hands failing to join close to the body. This occurs most often to people that do not use the support hand to clear their cover garment.
hand chasing during the draw stroke
The morning was cold so I had on multiple layers, which were shed as the day went on.
After finishing up my session I listened to training legend John Farnam discuss his thoughts on instructor development. His talk focused on the language trainers use during classes: “Us” vs “you”, “we” vs. “I”, and perhaps most importantly, “when” vs. “if”. John is a great trainer with more years experience as an instructor than anyone else still teaching. John Daub and Ed Vinyard took his instructor certification course recently, and I trained with John a few years ago.
My next session on Friday was the excellent “Concealment Tune Up” presented by Jon and Sarah Hauptman of PHLster.
Jon and Sarah from PHLster
After developing the innovative Enigma chassis, which allows carry without a belt or pants with belt loops, they turned their attention to the broader topic of concealment. The notes and slides from their talk can be found here, and I recommend them to everyone reading this post. Whether you carry strong side or appendix position, the principles and concepts in their talk are applicable. Talking with Jon after his session about the uses of wings and claws to assist the holster in following the body’s contours better, he suggested that I try adding some washers to my belt clip on my strong side holster, to turn the grip of the gun farther inward, closer to my body. When I got home from TacCon I implemented that change, which helped reduce how much the grip of the gun poked out.
I finished up Friday by teaching a two hour “Low Round Count Training” session, structured around our Three Seconds Or Less test. I showed students how to build a 100 round practice session from a 20 round test, using dry fire, live/empty drills, dummy rounds, and other variations on each string of the test, to work on specific skills firing less than 10 rounds per topic.
SATURDAY
After an early Friday that ran late (the KR Training crew went to a Brazilian steakhouse and filled up protein.), I started Saturday by skipping the 8 am sessions in favor of being well rested before I shot the pistol match Saturday at 10.
The pistol match at TacCon has become very competitive, with a few points or fractions of seconds separating each place in the overall standings. Over the past 20 years the level of shooting required to win the TacCon match has advanced, with Grand Master level scores required to get into the top 10.
This year’s match was no different. As with previous years, there was a timed fire standards course with turning targets. 49 of the 175 shooters shot perfect scores on the standards. The tie breaker was a 5 yard, 4″ circle comstock drill. Draw and shoot 5 shots. Points divided by time.
I debated this year whether to shoot the match from appendix carry or strong side, knowing that at some point draw time would be a factor. My draw time from appendix carry is faster and less likely to be fouled from garment clearing, but despite everyone in the world insisting that AIWB is “perfectly comfortable”, my experience, after buying 5 different holsters and an Enigma, and spending dozens of hours experimenting with wedges and claws and foam pads, that AIWB remains uncomfortable if I’m sitting down for more than few hours. So I opted to shoot the match from strong side carry, using a lightweight open front cover garment. As I explained to students in the draw stroke coaching class, using one hand to clear a lightweight open front cover garment is fast when it works, and a mess when it doesn’t and you end up with a handful of shirt when you grab the gun.
So I knew better.
On the one string tiebreaker test, when drawtime mattered most, I pushed my draw and flubbed it, losing a full second, was aware of that and fired my first shot outside the 4″ circle, then hit the brakes to make sure the other 4 were inside…ending up 38th/49 out of the group that cleaned the standards.
On the plus side, my score was 95.8% of the 1st place score. But it took a score of 97.3% of the 1st place score to make the top 16 shootoff. KR Training instructor Dave Reichek made the cut for the shootoff.
After lunch, I attended a Progressive Folding Knife session taught by Chris Fry of Shivworks. It was an excellent review of material I had learned from John Holschen from InSights, Allen Elishewitz, and Craig Douglas in their knife and close quarter classes. Because I had to teach another drawstroke class for the final session of the day, I didn’t get to stay for the whole knife session.
Chris FryLarry Lindeman of Shivworks assisting
I got one of these cool “Slowpoke Rodriguez” patches from Tony from JM Custom Kydex, who attended my Saturday session. After the sessions ended, I attended the annual trainer’s dinner.
If you are unfamiliar with this classic Warner Bros. cartoon character, here’s a short clip.
SUNDAY
I started Sunday by attending Darryl Bolke’s excellent “Police Guns of the Bonnie and Clyde Ambush” presentation. He dug deep into the history of all of the shooters, and guns they were known to have carried, and the history of how some of the guns others claimed were used in the Bonnie and Clyde Ambush may not have been.
After Darryl’s talk I went to Erick Gelhaus’ talk about ready positions and “mistake of fact” shootings.
He reviewed many recent studies about the use of different ready positions affecting shooter ability to make correct use of force decisions. The high ready (gun near face, muzzle pointed up) is perhaps 0.1 sec faster to get gun to target than lower ready positions, but in well designed experiments, shooters using the high ready position made 30% more errors in shooting decisions. On the street this translates to “they shot people that should not have been shot”. Erick made the argument that lower ready positions sacrifice very little speed to provide significant reduction in unjustified use of force.
Sunday after lunch I taught one more session of my Low Round Count Training block, before slipping out early, to get downtown to attend a concert from Little Feat, one of my favorite bands whose tour schedule put them in Dallas that night.
MORE ARTICLES
The NRA’s Kevin Creighton and Tamara Keel were at Tac Con taking pictures and gathering content for articles. One of Kevin’s TacCon articles, about the Managing Unknown Contacts training provided by several different Shivworks trainers during the conference, is here. It features a nice pic of KR Training assistant instructor Wiley Swift about to pepper spray someone.
TAC CON 2023
The Rangemaster Tactical Conference is a great opportunity to train with dozens of different instructors teaching topics spanning the full spectrum of self defense concepts. Trainers that were there, that I didn’t train with this year included Tom Givens, Massad Ayoob, Wayne Dobbs, Gabe White, Scott Jedlinski, Tim Herron, Ed Monk, Craig Douglas, Eve Kulcsar, Chuck Haggard, Jeff Gonzales, Tatiana Whitlock, Tim Chandler, Ashton Ray, Andrew Branca, Tiffany Johnson, Greg Ellifritz, Cecil Burch, Tim Kelly, John Murphy, Hany Mahmoud, John Hearne, Sherman House, Tim Reedy, John Holschen, Lee Weems, Larry Lindeman, Steve Moses and Scott Oates.
I’m already looking forward to 2023, as this is always a great time to reconnect with many of my favorite trainers and longtime friends.
This year’s Experiential Learning Lab scenario features an armed robbery, perpetrated by a single actor, of a convenience store populated with multiple additional customers. The participant’s instructions are to enter the store, purchase a bottle of water, and leave. The robber enters as the student is picking up a bottle of water at a table, which is intentionally placed such that the participant’s back is turned when the robber enters and the participant will be caught off guard. The robber enters, fires a shot into the ground, and orders everyone to get on the ground, but does not point the gun at the customers. If not stopped or otherwise derailed, the robber will get into a verbal and physical altercation with a disabled woman over her purse near the cash register, murder her, then run out of the store with the purse and the money from the register. I role-played the armed robber.
Key decision points in scenario timeline
There are a series of intentionally crafted decision points for the participant:
Initial gunshot and declaration of robbery
Escalation of tension between robber and verbally combative disabled woman, culminating in direct threats of violence
Murder of disabled woman
Robber fleeing scene
If the participant initiates a drawstroke (including a flinch reaction), “picks” at their concealment garment, does not immediately comply with demand to get on the ground, or otherwise draws attention of robber, the robber challenges their actions but does not point the gun at them or shoot them unless the participant’s gun becomes visible, even though partially initiating a drawstroke is highly likely to be recognized in the real world by the “bad people” as evidence that the person is armed.
Range of Participant Reactions/Scenario Results
Actions taken by the participants varied widely, as expected:
Immediately turn and draw pistol when robbery is announced (always resulted in a losing gunfight)
Flinch or initiate draw (gun does not become visible) but stops when challenged and complies with robber’s demands to get on the ground
Initial partial compliance with fidgeting and obvious indecision (kneeling or partially proning, or repeated attempts to get into a more favorable position on the ground)
Initial total compliance
Engage with robber once violence or threat of violence escalates with disabled customer
Wait for robber to be distracted with robbing the clerk, then drawing and challenging
Fired shots at robber (now murderer) as his back is turned and he is fleeing the store
After gunfight and robber flees, several continued to point gun at clerk and other customers (at least one participant displayed no awareness that they were doing it)
Flee once robber is distracted with clerk and not facing participants
Debrief/After Action Discussion Notes
I found some of the participant remarks or reactions during the short debrief following each scenario particularly worthy of note:
Some students expressed disappointment during debrief that their situational awareness “failed”. In reality, “complete situational awareness at all times” is a unicorn. It doesn’t exist. To paraphrase Craig, anyone who claims it does lacks real-world experience.
Some students, when being debriefed after having gotten into a losing gunfight after drawing immediately when robber entered and verbalized, did not grasp that initial compliance was actually an option.
At least one student falsely recalled the robber initially pointing a gun at them as justification for immediately drawing.
Considerations and Lessons Learned
I really like Craig’s hotwash/debriefing approach with participants immediately after the scenario has been terminated, asking the participants to recount their view of what just happened, what they thought they did well, and what they thought they could have done better. I can tell you from personal experience that there is a lot to absorb, and just like an actual incident, the participant’s full recollection of the event may not be complete (or as complete as it is going to get) for 24-48 hours. The participants are probably going to be “their own worst critic” assuming they have requisite knowledge to critically evaluate their own performance. However, it is necessary for the sake of discussion in this blog post to examine the reactions and actions of some of the participants more critically in order to property convey a few key points. It is not my intent to disparage the participants personally; participants were selected for the scenario based in part on their relative inexperience with force-on-force scenarios.
Prior to diving into what some of the participants could have done better, one positive point merits highlighting. Although getting into a gunfight with the robber and getting shot is obviously a negative outcome, all participants who got into a gunfight continued to fight back until the robber fled. This is critically important and speaks to the committed mindset of the participants – you are not out of the fight until you are out of the fight!
Tactical considerations
Feigning compliance and “waiting your turn”
Whether you have decided to act and are waiting for a tactically advantageous opportunity, or are observing and initially intend to comply (I say initially because reasons may develop which cause you to change your mind about complying, such as escalations in threats, escalations in violence, or people are being searched), one point needs to be made very clear. Compliance means 100% compliance. As the “robber” I observed a lot of participants exhibiting only partial compliance to the point that they attracted my attention. You do not want to attract attention to yourself. Immediately exhibit a submissive posture. If they tell you to get on the ground, get on the ground. Become a ghost! All of the fidgeting around, squirming, partially kneeling, etc. that I witnessed and challenged the participants about will get you threatened at best, probably searched, and possibly shot. You aren’t fooling anyone when you do that.
Is it ok to shoot someone in the back?
In my opinion, as well as in my experience in force-on-force scenarios, not only is shooting someone in the back or side acceptable, it is preferable. When you are acting in defense of others, I have never seen any deadly force statutes that stipulate that deadly force is only justified if the bad guy is facing you or looking at you. Wait until their back is turned or they are otherwise not looking at you (preferably you aren’t in their field of vision at all) to draw and shoot. You may have to take incremental steps to get your gun out and then wait for the right moment. Once you start shooting, keep shooting until you are sure they are out of the fight – and for God’s sake, remember to look for the “+1”. At least one of the participants waited until I turned to face him before he decided to pull the trigger, and got themselves shot. Don’t forget that action beats reaction. If I have a gun in hand, I can bring that gun up and shoot at you before you will be able to recognize my actions and shoot me in response.
Participant has already drawn, and his gun is hidden by the person laying in front of himI am reacting to having already been shot in the side. OW OW OW. Good tactics!
Should you “challenge”, or just shoot?
Action beating reaction is also applicable in this situation. If my memory serves me, Force Science Institute studies have demonstrated that they physical act of turning and firing can be achieved in as little as a quarter of a second. If you challenge someone at gunpoint, even if they aren’t facing you, it is possible for them to turn and shoot you before you will be able to react to their movement and open fire. I have personally proved this true multiple times while role-playing bad guys in force-on-force scenarios. As a real world example, an armed citizen verbally challenged an active shooter at the Tacoma Mall in 2005 and was shot and paralyzed.
“The right thing to do tactically in that situation, legally in that situation, and morally in that situation,” he says, “is end the shooter’s ability to keep shooting. And that means apply lethal force now.” – John Holschen
When it is time to shoot, shoot, don’t talk. The only scenario where I could envision myself challenging a gunman would be if I was behind good cover (cover being something that stops bullets, as opposed to concealment).
Does my draw speed matter?
At 5 yards, the average knucklehead is probably capable of 3-4 shots a second that are probably going to hit you. If you decide to try to out-draw someone that is looking at you with gun already in hand (and perhaps you don’t have any choice, if they are about to shoot you), you should recognize that the odds are pretty high that you are going to get shot at least once. The good news is handguns are actually not very good at killing people…the bad news is you’re going to have to use one yourself to make them stop trying to kill you. Still wearing my “bad guy” hat, it is pretty reasonable that even with a reaction lag, I can shoot you one or two times by the 1 second mark. Your blazing fast 1 second draw is still going to result in you getting shot before you can shoot at me. That 1 second draw is far superior to a 1.5 second draw though, which would probably result in me sending at least 3 bullets your way before you are able to return the favor; a 2 second draw means I get a 5 bullet head start on you. We saw this play out in the evolutions when participants elected to turn and draw on me right after I came in, or waited to shoot until I was facing them.
Legal and financial costs and risks of acting on behalf of others
There are financial and legal risks involved when we use force, and especially deadly force, on behalf of others, beyond the more obvious risk of injury or death. You are going to have to legally defend your actions, even if they were 100% justified and you made no questionable decisions. This will be expensive and could possibly financially ruin you and your family. One figure I have heard thrown as a baseline/minimum legal cost is $50,000. John Holschen poses a terrific thought exercise which Greg Ellifritz blogged about here, which I highly encourage everyone to read. Even if you do everything right, you may still get prosecuted! You are no doubt aware that malicious prosecutions are becoming more commonplace.
What if you do make a questionable or bad decision, despite having the best of intentions? Your legal costs just went way up, and if you haven’t sought out quality force-on-force experiences, the chances that you are going to make a serious mistake are much higher than you think (the Dunning-Kruger effect is a thing). We haven’t even addressed the possibility that a bad decision leads to lengthy incarceration on top of voluminous legal fees.
What kind of questionable decisions might lead to such a financial, and possibly legal, negative outcome? At least three participants shot me as I was fleeing the store and no longer posing a direct threat. This is a morally questionable decision, but more importantly, legally it is very questionable. Attorney Andrew Branca, author of The Law of Self Defense Principles, and the website lawofselfdefense.com, outlines 5 fundamental principles of self-defense, one of which is Imminence:
Imminence
The law allows you to defend yourself from an attack that’s either happening or about to happen very soon, meaning within seconds. It’s not intended to justify vengeance for some past act of violence, nor to “stop” a speculative future attack that you have time to avoid by other means.
You can think of the element of imminence as a window that opens and closes. Before the window of imminence is open—before the threat is actually occurring or imminently about to occur—you can’t use defensive force. After the window of imminence has closed —after the threat is over—you again cannot use defensive force.
It’s only while that window of imminence is open that you can lawfully use defensive force.
https://lawofselfdefense.com/beginjourney/
Shooting someone in the back as they are fleeing the scene of a crime is highly likely to be deemed in violation of the principle of imminence; if you prefer to think about legality in terms of the Ability-Opportunity-Intent triad, is someone running away from you fleeing the scene of a crime manifesting intent to do you serious body injury? Not likely. Some states/jurisdictions may deem this action explicitly legal under “fleeing felon” statutes, but there are some that do not. At best, in my opinion, you are taking a huge gamble with both your financial and legal freedom if you choose to shoot a fleeing felon, all moral questions aside.
More than one participant muzzled (pointed their gun) at others in the store after the robber fled, which in many jurisdictions can be deemed aggravated assault or a similar serious felony. At least one participant did not seem to be aware that they were doing so as it happened. Had the other customers in the store done anything to justify pointing a gun at them? The answer to this obviously rhetorical question is “no”. You could get prosecuted for it.
You owe it to yourself, your family, and your loved ones to seek out education and training on the legal aspects of deadly force. Masaad Ayoob’s “MAG20 / Classroom – Armed Citizen’s Rules of Engagement” course is outstanding and can’t be recommended highly enough. Andrew Branca’s classes (available online) are also very good (Gun Culture 2.0/David Yamane’s review and summary of a 2014 seminar here).
What is worth dying for?
What are you willing to die for, or to a lesser extent, sustain potentially life-long crippling injuries? Are your loved ones and dependents (parents/spouse/children) going to understand or agree with the decision you made? Are they going to understand the risk you took to defend someone else’s money, someone else’s business, or even someone else’s life if they are a stranger? To extend John Holschen’s Gas Station Clerk analogy, would you be willing to be euthanized if she needed a heart transplant and you were the only matching donor left in the world? Would those you leave behind understand and agree with that decision? As Tiffany Johnson beautifully expressed, “There is no shame in surviving.” There is no shame in escaping. There is no shame in keeping your head down and being a good witness.
It is my firm, passionate conviction that far too many people visualize a fantasy of how they think the action will unfold which ends with them prevailing heroically and triumphantly, without considering any other possible outcomes (the Hero Fantasy). We need to carefully consider the worst case scenario before acting – again, what is worth DYING for? What is worth ruining yourself (and your family) financially for? What is worth being incarcerated for the rest of your life? Consider all possible outcomes.
These decisions are extremely difficult to decide in the heat of the moment. If you carry a gun and are willing to act on behalf of others, it is imperative that you devote time to determining what your “red lines” and moral boundaries are in advance.
Know thyself and train accordingly
If you are a high responder–if you are somebody who’s just going to run into the fray–you had better know that now so that you can build the knowledge, skills and attributes and have with you the tools that you’re going to need when you get into the kind of trouble that your temperament is going to get you into.
I can’t tell you where your own moral red lines should be drawn, and neither can anyone else. Those are for you to decide. I implore you, beg you, beseech you, however, to determine where those lines are ahead of time, and make those choices with a solid understanding of the possible physical, legal, and financial ramifications that those choices for you and your loved ones. Don’t fall prey to the Hero Fantasy. Think about the worst possible outcome should you decide to act – especially if you fall into the “high responder” category. To be explicitly clear, there are definitely situations where I am personally willing to risk everything to defend others – children are a big moral red line for me – but these situations have been carefully thought through, and my wife and children understand my pre-made choices.
Get training!
Unfortunately, in my experience it is not at all atypical for people who are relatively or completely new to complex force-on-force scenarios to make poor or even catastrophically bad decisions. In fact, I would assert that it happens more often than not – I previously blogged about my experience and observations as a participant in one of these Experiential Learning Lab evolutions in 2014. The fact that poor outcomes are so prevalent in these evolutions serves to highlight the importance of seeking out quality force-on-force scenario training for any serious practitioner.
Thank you spending your valuable time reading this post, and stay safe!
We are going to order another batch of the KR Training Defensive Pistol Skills Program 20 oz tumblers. Final price will depend on total order size. Estimated price will be $25 – the price includes your name engraved below the logo. Email me to order one. I will take payments after the order is placed and a final price is determined. Price does NOT include shipping to you. Shipping will be available for additional cost, or tumblers can be picked up at the A-Zone during any event.
KR TRAINING STAFF NEWS
Karl Rehn and John Daub will be teaching at the 2022 Rangemaster Tactical Conference at the end of March. Dave Reichek and Tracy Thronburg will be working as range staff for this event, and most of the KR Training instructor team (and many of our students) will be attending.
Most of the KR Training staff will be attending, working or presenting at the 2022 Rangemaster Tactical Conference in Dallas in late March.
STUDENT INVOLVED INCIDENTS
An after action report from a student about his recent pepper spray incident in downtown Austin was the subject of a recent blog post.
Another student-involved incident from last summer occurred when a homeless person living in the (Austin) Barton Creek greenbelt began pounding on a student’s front door demanding to be let in to cool off. In this case, the student’s exterior camera was used to assess the situation, and the student returned to his house after calling 911. When he arrived, the student did draw his pistol but kept it at a retention position (muzzle averted, not pointed at the individual), and the student and his wife gave the homeless person a Gatorade and some beef jerky while they waited for APD and EMS to arrive, since he refused to leave their property. Upon his arrival, the APD officer asked the student to holster, which he did. (I believe that the student’s exhibition of “trained” gunhandling and calm demeanor was a big factor in this low-drama police/armed citizen interaction). Due to Austin PD’s current policy of non-response/inaction to “suspicious person” incidents, the homeless person was not taken into custody, was not charged with trespassing, and he also refused medical treatment from EMS. The resolution of the incident was that the homeless person went back into the Greenbelt.
From 2009-2015 I played in the band Leannasaurus Rex based in Bryan. We did a mix of rock and blues covers, often reworking the songs in our own style, with long instrumental jams. In 2010 we released the Hot Summer Jams CD (all tracks remastered 2020, available for download here). Here’s a video linked to one of the longer tracks from that album, our version of “Old Habits are Hard to Break” by John Hiatt.
I recently received an email from a student that was involved in a defensive incident. He gave his permission for me to share it with others with some minor edits to protect his privacy.
His account
This afternoon I went to the UPS Store west of the Capitol in Austin to drop off some packages. It’s on a one-way street and parallel parking is the only option. I parallel park, put my truck in park, and lean over my console to the front passenger floorboard to get my packages.
When I shifted my truck into Park, the doors automatically unlock. This has never been an issue…until this afternoon. As I’m leaned over getting the packages, I hear my back passenger door open.
I look behind me and it’s a homeless vagrant. He is already completely in my vehicle. I tell him to get out now. He refuses. I tell him again, and he kind of does this half lunge toward me and tries to hit me. I keep pepper spray in my cup-holder/console area so it’s immediately accessible. I’m able to grab it, and I sprayed him. He starts yelling in pain and anger and falls back out of the still open door on to the pavement. I drive off and shut my door at the traffic light. I then circle back around to see that he’s stumbling around on the sidewalk.
It was very unnerving. I am thankful I did not have to use my sidearm. I carry pepper spray in my vehicle at all times. I witnessed a road rage incident a few years ago between two parties about twenty feet in front of my vehicle while stopped dead in traffic. A driver got out of his vehicle and put his gun in another driver’s face. That is what made me finally realize the importance of concealed carry and appropriate use and training on firearms. Road rage incidents and carjackings are more common than they used to be.
I am very fortunate. Very, very fortunate. He caught me by complete surprise. If he had had a knife, or had been more addled out of his mind, this story might have a very different ending. I might well be dead. So might he.
I am going to have my truck reprogrammed so it doesn’t automatically unlock when I shift to Park. It’s a safety hazard, especially with a newborn infant (who thankfully wasn’t with me today). I also should have been more aware of my surroundings.
A lot of people scoff at the idea that they need to train or have both OC and a gun available for quick access. What happened to me today is a reminder why it is important. The police, especially in Austin, would have been of no help. Had I shot this guy, our district attorney likely would have tried to indict me.
Being prepared, protecting your family and yourself, and the steps that get you there can be hard, time-consuming, not cheap, and sometimes boring. Today was an important reminder of why we prioritize it.
Karl notes
This incident is a great example of the importance of having pepper spray with you, particularly in urban areas. The threat of deadly force used as force (drawing the gun) might have deterred the attacker, but that would have been a purely psychological stop, where the pepper spray caused immediate physical reaction. (He used Sabre Red, which is one of the two brands we recommend, along with POM). The student was also carrying on-body (not in a car holster or a glove box or console), which gave him options. If the attacker had a gun, it would have been safer for the student to exit the vehicle, draw and (maybe) engage than to try to stay in the vehicle attempting to access a gun that wasn’t worn on-body. And had the attacker entered via the front passenger door, a car holster or glove box carry method would have put the gun as (or more) accessible to the intruder than to the student. The same would have been true for the cup holder carried pepper spray. As the student wrote, he was fortunate that the intruder used the back seat doors instead.
The only way the student would have seen the intruder sooner would have been to be looking at the passenger side rear view mirror at the right time, and that’s just not something people do unless the vehicle is in motion (or about to be). It’s very likely that the intruder chose the back passenger side door because of its location in the driver’s blind spot, an indicator that this person has committed this type of attack in the past. As the student observed, the best preventative measure would be to change the programming to keep the doors locked until the driver manually unlocks them. This is inconvenient (most security measures are), but would have prevented the intruder from getting in.
As of Sept 2021, Austin PD no longer responds to “attempted theft of property”, “burglary of vehicle”, or “suspicious person”. The full list of crimes reclassified as “non emergency” is here. Even if he had called 911, even a 3 minute response time would have been an eternity compared to his immediate response. In another recent student involved incident, where a homeless person came out of the Barton Creek Greenbelt and pounded on the student’s front door, demanding to be let in, when Austin PD was called, the trespasser was not taken into custody or even cited for the offense, even though the homeowner told the police he wanted to press charges. In that incident, the student drew his gun (on his own property) but kept it in a muzzle averted position until police arrived, holstering when the arriving officer directed him to. (The ability to holster quickly when directed to by responding officers is one of many reasons why we prefer solid kydex holsters over hybrids with leather backers that tend to flop over, covering the holster opening.)
The student in this most recent incident chose not to contact the police afterward, out of a (likely correct) assessment that at best, it would accomplish nothing, and at worst it would lead to more trouble for him than the car intruder.
Please share this story with your friends and family that don’t currently carry pepper spray, either because they think “I won’t need it” or because “I have a gun”. In this case having the right tool at the right time (and the willingness to use it) was the key to success.
February has been busy, with many sold out classes and some warmer than expected weather. Many March classes are already sold out or close to it. We have added more sessions of popular classes and filled out our schedule through end of May. Upcoming classes with space available:
If you are working to complete your Defensive Pistol Skills Program challenge coin requirements, you should get registered for these upcoming March and April courses:
These two classes are best taken together as a one day block. PTS teaches you what you *should* do in a variety of self-defense situations and improves your ability to quickly make decisions and take action. The AT-2 course is the course we are most known for nationally: “force on force” scenarios where Airsoft and Simunition guns allow students to experience full context scenarios working against live opponents. In my opinion this is the most important class in our program and will prepare you for actual incidents far better than the live fire courses we offer. We only offer the AT-2 class twice a year (spring and fall). DPS-1 is recommended as a pre-req but those with carry permits can also attend.
Red Dot Pistol Essentials will teach you the most important skills you need to shoot and draw a red dot sighted handgun. Loaner guns are available for those that don’t have a dot-equipped gun yet. The afternoon class, DPS-1, is being offered so that more students will be eligible to attend DPS-2 on March 12.
JOHN MURPHY STREET ENCOUNTER SKILLS AND TACTICS
We are hosting John Murphy of FPF Training again this year on March 19-20. John’s signature course, called Street Encounter Skills and Tactics, is a truly integrated class teaching human behavior, managing unknown contacts, recognition primed decision making, and essential hands on skills (pistol, pepper spray, verbal and medical). This course has earned many accolades from other national trainers including Tom Givens.
The class is a 16 hour in person course supported by 5 hours of lecture material available on youTube (John encourages students to watch the videos prior to class.) It’s a tremendous value suitable for anyone that has taken our DPS-1 (drawing from concealment) course or higher level training.
KR TRAINING STAFF NEWS
Dave Reichek and Doug Greig attended and passed the Sage Dynamics Red Dot Pistol Instructor course, and they will be offering a red dot pistol class on March 6. We have loaner gear for those wanting to learn about red dot pistols. Karl was a guest on two episodes of the Texas State Rifle Association’s “2A Ricochet” podcast.
Most of the KR Training staff will be attending, working or presenting at the 2022 Rangemaster Tactical Conference in Dallas in late March.
SONG OF THE MONTH
Many years ago a friend of a friend introduced me to the music of John Goodwin, a clever Nashville songwriter. Here’s my cover of his “Monday I’m Starting My Diet” (soon to be featured as music on an upcoming Michael Bane podcast!)
January started off busy, with warm weather increasing requests for weekday private sessions and filling up weekend classes. Many classes in February have already sold out. We have added more sessions of popular classes and filled out our schedule through end of May. Upcoming classes with space available:
If you are working to complete your Defensive Pistol Skills Program challenge coin requirements, you should get registered for these upcoming March and April courses:
These two classes are best taken together as a one day block. PTS teaches you what you *should* do in a variety of self-defense situations and improves your ability to quickly make decisions and take action. The AT-2 course is the course we are most known for nationally: “force on force” scenarios where Airsoft and Simunition guns allow students to experience full context scenarios working against live opponents. In my opinion this is the most important class in our program and will prepare you for actual incidents far better than the live fire courses we offer. We only offer the AT-2 class twice a year (spring and fall). DPS-1 is recommended as a pre-req but those with carry permits can also attend.
Red Dot Pistol Essentials will teach you the most important skills you need to shoot and draw a red dot sighted handgun. Loaner guns are available for those that don’t have a dot-equipped gun yet. The afternoon class, DPS-1, is being offered so that more students will be eligible to attend DPS-2 on March 12.
DPS-2 picks up where DPS-1 ends. It focuses on shooting from cover, armed movement in structures (including a run in our live fire shoot house), malfunctions, reloads and other important skills. Low Light Shooting teaches handgun use and manipulation in low light. We only offer Low Light Shooting twice a year (spring and fall) do don’t miss out on this required challenge coin course!
We only offer DPS-3 twice a year, and passing DPS_2 is required to attend. Passing DPS-3 is required to earn the challenge coin.
FEATURED CLASSES: JOHN MURPHY STREET ENCOUNTER SKILLS AND TACTICS
We are hosting John Murphy of FPF Training again this year on March 19-20. John’s signature course, called Street Encounter Skills and Tactics, is a truly integrated class teaching human behavior, managing unknown contacts, recognition primed decision making, and essential hands on skills (pistol, pepper spray, verbal and medical). This course has earned many accolades from other national trainers including Tom Givens.
The class is a 16 hour in person course supported by 5 hours of lecture material available on youTube (John encourages students to watch the videos prior to class.) It’s a tremendous value suitable for anyone that has taken our DPS-1 (drawing from concealment) course or higher level training.
KR TRAINING 2021 YEAR IN REVIEW
Despite the challenges of COVID, 2021 was another great year for KR Training, with significant growth in the number of weekday private lessons. Thank you all for supporting our business! 12 more students earned their Defensive Pistol Skills Program challenge coins in 2021, completing more than 40 hours of training with us. Not counting students taught on the road or at conferences, we had over 800 student class registrations in 2021. Karl and John taught sessions at the 2021 Rangemaster Tactical Conference (and both are returning to teach at the 2022 event). Karl attended more than 140 hours of training, attending classes we hosted and online instruction from the Texas Bar Association and others. Many on the staff were certified by the Complete Combatant (Brian & Shelley Hill) in their Image Based Decisional Drills program as instructors, and we’ve incorporated that material into an updated Personal Tactics Skills course. Karl competed in the Area 4 Steel Challenge championship, winning Top Senior and placing in the top 3 in Open and Single Stack divisions. Karl and John Daub were guests on several podcasts in 2021.
SONG OF THE MONTH
In January 2020 I had the opportunity to perform with national touring drummer Tom Brechtlein who has backed up many top tier players (Robben Ford, Al Di Meola, Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter). Over the past year I’ve posted videos from the best songs from that show to my youtube music channel. This one is my piano trio version of Pink Floyd’s “Shine On Your Crazy Diamond”, supplemented by some cool digital psychedelic video used under a Creative Commons license. Audio was recorded multi track from the soundboard and professionally mixed.
Performing music 6 days a week (Mondays off) for most of November and December has kept me from writing new blog posts, but warmer than usual weather, steady interest in weekday private lessons, Monday lunch Coin Holder Clinics, and non-shooting classes on weekends have kept the A-Zone busy. We also added more road base to the front gate area, and in early January we will replace the front gate with something fancier (and automated).
Here are the classes we have coming up in Texas with space available. Don’t see the class you want here? Let us know. Many classes can be taught as weekday private lessons, or we can add it to the schedule if there’s enough interest.
Courses marked with *** are classes that count toward the Defensive Pistol Skills Program challenge coin. Any pistol course taught by in-house staff can count toward your elective hours.
John Hearne is a longtime Rangemaster Instructor known for his deep thinking and insightful lectures. He’s been a frequent guest on some of the best firearms related podcasts and an annual presenter at the Rangemaster Tactical Conference. These courses are material he’s presented at TacCon multiple times. Because TacCon sells out so quickly, he’s bringing these one day courses to KR Training in January:
Who Wins, Who Loses and Whyis a broad survey of the most current research into human performance during interpersonal conflict. A strong emphasis is placed on understanding how the human mind works in order to optimize performance and increase one’s chance of dominating a violent encounter. A preview is here in this Ballistic Radio episode
John Hearne Ballistic Radio episode 1
Great American Gunfights (Newhall and Miami) – This course examines two of the most significant law enforcement gunfights of the twentieth century – the Newhall Massacre and the FBI-Miami Firefight. Featuring a Powerpoint presentation with original crime scene photos, lengthy Powerpoint animations, video clips, forensic psychological analysis, and an extensive tactical analysis, the students will develop a comprehensive understanding of these events. The training implication of these lessons will also be addressed.
Newhall episode – John Hearne on Ballistic RadioMiami episode – John Hearne on Ballistic Radio
These lecture courses are rarely offered, and are great material full of useful information. The Ballistic Radio episodes are just a preview of the course material.
FEATURED CLASSES: TEAM TACTICS IN FEBRUARY
Unless you spend all your time completely alone, understanding team tactics is a useful skill. Whether the people you are with are unarmed or armed, trained or untrained, they will be involved in any self-defense situation you might encounter. Our team tactics class focuses on two person team tactics, teaching skills for armed pairs, armed/unarmed trained pairs, and the most likely combination: one armed/trained, and others unarmed/untrained.
You don’t need to sign up with a specific partner. Individual students can attend and we will pair people up on class day. Even if you show up with a family member or friend with the intention of training together, we will be changing partners for some drills and exercises.
PODCASTS TO EXPLORE
I listen to a lot of podcasts when I drive, as they often have better and more useful content than talk radio. Here are the gun-related ones I listen to, in no particular order:
Each year the Texas T-Birds band dons a holiday costume as “Doc Tictock and the Mistletoe Medicine Show”, performing every week at the 130 acre Santa’s Wonderland holiday theme park south of College Station. Last year Santa’s had more than 325,000 visitors. This year’s attendance has been just as good, so we will end up playing for 100,000 people or more during our 7 week run of Tuesday-Thursday shows. Here’s a video of us playing Feliz Navidad.
Sold out classes and a busy schedule kept us from putting out September and October newsletters. We have added a lot of classes and special events to the late winter and early 2022 schedule, as listed below.
Here are the classes we have coming up in Texas with space available. Don’t see the class you want here? Let us know. Many classes can be taught as weekday private lessons, or we can add it to the schedule if there’s enough interest.
Courses marked with *** are classes that count toward the Defensive Pistol Skills Program challenge coin. Any pistol course taught by in-house staff can count toward your elective hours.
John Hearne is a longtime Rangemaster Instructor known for his deep thinking and insightful lectures. He’s been a frequent guest on some of the best firearms related podcasts and an annual presenter at the Rangemaster Tactical Conference. These courses are material he’s presented at TacCon multiple times. Because TacCon sells out so quickly, he’s bringing these one day courses to KR Training in January:
Who Wins, Who Loses and Whyis a broad survey of the most current research into human performance during interpersonal conflict. A strong emphasis is placed on understanding how the human mind works in order to optimize performance and increase one’s chance of dominating a violent encounter. A preview is here in this Ballistic Radio episode
John Hearne Ballistic Radio episode 1
Great American Gunfights (Newhall and Miami) – This course examines two of the most significant law enforcement gunfights of the twentieth century – the Newhall Massacre and the FBI-Miami Firefight. Featuring a Powerpoint presentation with original crime scene photos, lengthy Powerpoint animations, video clips, forensic psychological analysis, and an extensive tactical analysis, the students will develop a comprehensive understanding of these events. The training implication of these lessons will also be addressed.
Newhall episode – John Hearne on Ballistic RadioMiami episode – John Hearne on Ballistic Radio
These lecture courses are rarely offered, and are great material full of useful information. The Ballistic Radio episodes are just a preview of the course material.
BLOG-O-RAMA
links to interesting articles you would have seen if you followed our Facebook feed…
Here’s a video of me singing Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey” with the Black Cat Choir band, from our afternoon set at the Fayette County Fair back in September.
NEW BOOK FROM MIKE OX – PRE-RELEASE DISCOUNT
Trainer Mike Ox has a new book out: Real World Gunfight Training. He sent me a review copy and I gave him a quote to use on the book cover. It’s a very science-heavy book explaining the difference between institutional & group class training and the focused individual training top tier performers do. Classes are great for learning how to practice property, but real progress happens during that time spent after class reinforcing and improving on what you learned during the course.
The digital version of the book is available for 99c on pre-order from Amazon through Cyber Monday.
Biggs AT, Hamilton JA, Jensen AE, Huffman GH, Suss J, Dunn TL, Sherwood S, Hirsch DA, Rhoton J, Kelly KR, Markwald RR. Sci. Rep. 2021; 11(1): 13313.
Here’s the abstract:
Stress can impact perception, especially during use-of-force. Research efforts can thus advance both theory and practice by examining how perception during use-of-force might drive behavior. The current study explored the relationship between perceptual judgments and performance during novel close-combat training. Analyses included perceptual judgments from close-combat assessments conducted pre-training and post-training that required realistic use-of-force decisions in addition to an artificially construed stress-inoculation event used as a training exercise. Participants demonstrated significant reductions in situational awareness while under direct fire, which correlated to increased physiological stress. The initial likelihood of firing upon an unarmed person predicted the perceptual shortcomings of later stress-inoculation training. Subsequently, likelihood of firing upon an unarmed person was reduced following the stress-inoculation training. These preliminary findings have several implications for low or zero-cost solutions that might help trainers identify individuals who are under-prepared for field responsibilities.
Thoughts on the paper
The paper is a short read (14 pages), describing a well designed study looking into what the firearms training community calls ‘stress inoculation’. The concept is simple: prior experience performing under stress helps to reduce stress in future situations. NYPD’s Jim Cirillo, in his book Guns, Bullets and Gunfights, identified characteristics that he and others on the Stakeout Squad believed were indicators that a person would perform well under fire:
Are you a competitive shooter?
Have you competed in major matches, placed and won awards?
Can you perform well under pressure or fear?
Are you a hunter? Have you shot big game?
Do you like outdoor physical sports?
Do you collect firearms? Do you reload ammo?
If you are over 28, are you married? Do you have children?
Do you like people? Do you attend civic affairs?
Four of the 8 ask related questions: does the person have a serious interest in firearms, have they sought out situations where their ability with a firearm is tested, and did they perform well?
The other 4 are more general measures of character. Does the person like being in situations where physical exertion and contact with others, with potential for injury, are likely to occur? Does the person have empathy for others? Close relationships with other people outside of work?
This study evaluated similar characteristics, by considering marksmanship skill and behavior when confronting 3 different individuals; one armed and hostile, one unarmed and moderately hostile, and one unarmed and compliant.
As video of police use of force incidents has become more common, more attention has been paid to questionable use of deadly force decisions, and interest in methods to improve that decision making has grown. As a result, this study’s specific focus was on the value of force on force training to decrease the likelihood of unjustified shootings. To accomplish that, they used three different roleplayers, presenting different levels of aggression toward the test subject. Physical and psychological stress were measured and correlated with performance. Marksmanship skill was also evaluated, with a live fire pre-test. They also collected data on how long the participant thought the event lasted, how many shots they fired, and how many times they were hit.
At this point you should click the link and go read the actual article.
From the paper: Marksmanship abilities did significantly predict the stress level of the training event with marksmanship as the sole predictor. The force-on-force stress-inoculation training event was less stressful overall for more proficient marksmen.
Cirillo’s list included both competition shooting and hunting as predictors of gunfight performance. My own observations from 25+ years running force on force scenarios has been that those with well developed gun skills were often able to wait longer (to confirm an actual need to use deadly force) before acting, which made them less likely to make a bad decision. Having those skills learned to the automatic level freed up attention and brain cells to focus on the situation itself rather than the mechanics of getting the gun out from concealment and into the fight.
Also from the paper: those tested in use of force decision making after participation in the training were less likely to make a bad decision to fire. I’ve seen student performance improve after a 4 hour block of scenarios where they participated in some and observed others.
The paper’s authors make this recommendation: These results could suggest a low-cost solution to identifying individuals who may not be ready for field operations by identifying people likely to fire on unarmed citizens before those trainees are certified ready for duty. Specifically, trainers could track quantifiable elements of training scenarios and see how well the trainee can maintain situational awareness.
Scenario based training and testing has been part of most police academies for decades, going back to use of primer-driven wax bullets and blanks in the 1970’s (and earlier, and video based training systems before non-lethal training projectile systems came into common use. “Low cost” is a relative term, since a rough estimate of minimum gear necessary to equip a test subject and a single roleplayer with a training gun, marking rounds and appropriate safety gear (conversion kit, head gear, chest/neck/throat protector) could require $2K or more, not counting the cost of a facility where marking rounds can be used. However, compared to the costs associated with a bad use of force decision, the cost for the equipment required is small.
KR Training Force on Force class AARs and mentions
There aren’t a lot of traveling trainers offering force on force courses. A lot more equipment has to be shipped or hauled to class. Demand for this type of training is far less than for high round count square range training, and it’s far easier for traveling trainers to run the square range courses. They can also be conducted at almost any range, while FOF often requires temporary shoot houses to be built, either out of props used for matches at the host range, or built on site, as we had to do for the FOF class I ran at the FPF facility earlier this year.
Lee Weems of First Person Safety and the “That Weems Guy” podcast said some nice things about my FOF classes in this recent Evolution Security podcast episode.
In the current era, everyone wants to share everything, particularly when marketing is involved. I don’t record videos of the scenarios that I run, and don’t allow students to record and share them either. The reason is this: should a student get involved in an defensive incident, those publicly shared (or privately saved) videos could be used as evidence. I do have this short clip from a 2005 episode of Shooting Gallery showing a scenario I ran at one of the early Polite Society (Rangemaster Tactical) Conferences.
Retired police trainer Bob Givan shares my interest in the history of target development. He recently sent me some pictures from the Stoeger catalog from the 1930’s-1950’s. During that era, Stoeger’s catalog was the Sears Roebuck wish book for shooters. I purchased a few of these catalogs myself to add to my collection.
In the late 1930’s, Stoeger began selling their “bandit” target.
The target was the same size as Fitzgerald’s “Colt Silhouette Target”.
Another variant had ID numbers, which could be used to track hit locations.
The Stoeger target showed an attacker with gun raised to the eye target line, later in the attack process than the Colt Silhouette, which showed someone reaching in their pocket. The 5 point zone in the head and other scoring areas on the Stoeger target are more anatomically correct, with lower scores for the legs and lower torso.
Scoring on the target changed between 1941 and 1942. The bullseye style scoring on the target was the 1941 variant, which influenced the International Rapid Fire and later, the Prehle and B-27 targets.
Stoeger also advertised an armored vest in their 1939 catalog.
Like Richard Davis did with his Second Chance vests many decades later, the company demonstrated their vests with live fire tests while visiting police departments.
Stoeger also included some ‘Ten Ring Tips’ in a 1945 catalog.
Austin-area competition shooter and gunsmith Ronnie Jones passed away June 27, 2021, from fast-growing cancer. In the early to mid 1990’s, Ronnie and I shot matches every weekend, trained together multiple days a week, and traveled all over the US shooting major matches.
The picture above was taken by Rob Leatham’s dad Nyle Leatham, with a remote camera at one of the Ernie Hill sponsored major matches in Phoenix in the mid 1990’s. Nyle had a set up with the Ernie Hill banner at a spot that every shooter in the match had to fire from, and he sold prints of the pics at the match.
Ronnie loved machines and going fast, and came to pistol and 3-gun competition from the world of stock car racing. He lived near the Hill Country Rifle Range where (at that time) all the USPSA, Steel Challenge and 3 gun matches were held, and dived into the sport quickly after discovering the matches. A highly motivated, competitive person, Ronnie sought out the best instruction, got pro-grade gear and began working hard to win local events, which he was doing within a year of entering the sport.
In 1993-1994 we shot over 50,000 rounds apiece, putting in long practice sessions, setting up stages and racing to see who could get to USPSA “Master” class first (Ronnie did, I got there about 6 months later). He sought out sponsorships and was picked up by the Nowlin barrel company, representing them at major events for several years. His aptitude for mechanical things led him to working on his own guns, then working on my guns, then to jobs with Nowlin, STI, and SVI at various times in the 1990’s and 2000’s.
Ronnie loved Open division and going as fast as he could go, once saying (after USPSA introduced the Limited division for iron-sighted guns) “I’ve never thought of myself as ‘limited'”. As the 90’s progressed he got into 3-gun matches. As cross training for 3 gun we shot skeet every week for about 4 months, using our 3-gun shotguns instead of traditional skeet guns (to the concern of some of the old time skeet shooters at the range in Marble Falls where we trained.)
I ended up buying Ronnie’s USPSA racegun to have as a backup gun for major matches. The gun had a custom serial number of “Franker 1” (in tribute to Frank Zappa & Ronnie’s habit of asking people to “let me be Frank”). He put at least 100K rounds through it and built himself a pair of new guns after retiring this one.
We had many adventures on the road, including a famous incident in Midland, Texas, where Ronnie (a connoisseur of fine cocktails) ordered a margarita on the rocks with specific ingredients, made a certain way, and sent it back (twice) when it wasn’t made correctly. He gave up and ordered the individual ingredients and mixed his own drink at the table. The manager came over to see what the problem was. Ronnie adjusted the manager’s tie, and then handed the manager the drink his bar had made, and said “taste that”, then gave the manager the one he made, had him taste it and asked the manager which one was better. The manager liked Ronnie’s more. In Ronnie’s own words:
If you are talking margarita, it would contain Herradura Anejo and Grand Marnier. Currently that has been updated to Gran Gala instead of Grand Marnier but either will work.
About two shots of each and then fresh squeezed limes to taste. Mixes are sort of hard to judge and I really don’t have one that I like. I would suggest that you stay away from anything but fresh limes. When you squeeze them some of the oil from the skin gets mixed in and it makes a difference. If you don’t want to do that, then you could try something like Minute Maid concentrate but I don’t think you would like it as much.
Some people add a splash of orange juice and that’s ok if you like that. If you think it’s too tart you could add a little sugar. That is going to depend on how tart the limes are. When the oils are really high they will make you pucker, well unless you just add more alcohol. 🙂 Or water 🙁
Starting with a pint glass full of ice, pour it in, shake it, pour it into your glass with the salted rim and add ice to fill if necessary. Don’t chill the liquor. It melts the ice and soothes it out.
On another trip, Ronnie decided to teach/demonstrate “Rockford Files J turns” for me using our rental car in a mostly-empty shopping mall parking lot one night. The next morning we had to go back to the lot to find one of the rental car hubcaps, which had flown off at some point.
Ronnie’s drive to be a national level competition shooter pushed me to a level of skill I would not have achieved on my own, and those experiences beyond the club match level gave me confidence (and credentials) to do more with KR Training. He was absolutely an important part of the early days.
When Penny and I started dating, we spent many weekends on the road as I introduced her to matches around the state and country, much as Ronnie and I had done. She thought it was a little strange, at first, that I had an interesting “Ronnie story” every place we went, until she met Ronnie for the first time at Hill Country Rifle Range. He greeted her with his characteristic bear hug, and they soon became fast friends. He helped diagnose a intermittent problem that turned out to be an issue with Winchester powder, and soon discovered that they shared an interest in the meticulous detail necessary for making a race gun run flawlessly, and made a pact to never let me near any of their firearms with a file. He also gave me a really hard time for letting her start out competing in limited class with a well worn 2011 chambered in .45ACP, but was always available to help fix all the broken parts. Eventually by the end of the 1990’s, demand for classes overtook shooting local matches and training for major matches, and Ronnie’s work in the gun industry took away from his time to train and compete as well.
Between the growth of KR Training, the development of the A-Zone and later, a move to Bryan away from Austin, we didn’t get to see each other as often, but we stayed in contact online, and at concerts. Ronnie and his wife Karin loved to go to concerts, and we would come to Austin for special events.
Ronnie loved animals more than people, and their house was always home to multiple dogs and cats. Their cat “Tubby” was a long haired fuzzball that I was terribly allergic to, but when Ronnie asked me to play Pink Floyd songs on their piano, Tubby would always jump into my lap and purr. (Tubby had good taste in music.)
Ronnie was a huge Frank Zappa fan, and on our many road trips to matches, we listened to a lot of Zappa songs. When Dweezil Zappa formed the “Zappa Plays Zappa” band after Frank’s death, Ronnie didn’t miss a single Texas show, traveling to Houston and Dallas and Austin. The last time I saw him (outside of a hospital) was the “Hot Rats live” show Dweezil did at the Paramount Theater in Austin in 2019.
Ronnie and his wife Karin at the show that night.
“Watermelon in Easter Hay” was Ronnie’s favorite Frank Zappa song.
After Ronnie passed, John Daub and I made a special range trip to shoot some guns in honor of Ronnie. A few years prior to his death, Ronnie had sold off a lot of his guns, including his suppressed Mac-10 and the STI “Legend” .40 that he built to use in Limited division but never ended up competing with. I actually used the Legend to earn my Grand Master ratings in USPSA Limited and Limited 10 divisions back before USPSA raised the GM standards.
On September 18, 2021, KR Training graduate, friend, course host and supporter Mary Ann Sanborn passed away after a long bout with cancer. She is survived by her husband, Dave Rosenfield and other relatives listed in her official obituary. While Mary Ann was certainly well-known around the area because of her Sanborn Travel business, I first met Mary Ann and Dave in March 1995, when they attended an NRA Pistol Instructor class that I taught that year. Interest in becoming a certified pistol instructor surged when it became clear that the state legislature was going to pass a concealed carry permit bill, and there would be demand for pistol classes as soon as DPS began certifying instructors. Dave and Mary Ann also connected us with their many shooting friends and helped me fill several instructor courses that year as a result of their referrals. Penny met them soon after!
Mary Ann and Dave – firearms dealers specializing in sales of suppressors and machine guns – had a small outdoor range at their Sanborn Shooters facility in Smithville, Texas. They graciously offered their facility as a location where we could teach courses, and converted a garage into a classroom. We used their facility and several others from 1996-2002 as our course offerings expanded from Texas License to Carry (LTC) courses to more advanced pistol classes, competition training, and force on force scenarios. The video below shows student scenarios from a 1998 class run at Sanborn Shooters.
When Penny and I got married in May 1998, we held a fun shoot at Sanborn Shooters for our friends and family, as part of the event. As always, Mary Ann and Dave were wonderful hosts. Here’s a pic of Dave demonstrating a full auto Sten Gun at that event. Incidentally, long-time KR Training colleagues, Kelli and John Kochan first met at a KR Training course held at Sanborn Shooters as well.
From 1997-2006 while Penny worked at M.D. Anderson’s Science Park Research Division in Smithville, she made many lunchtime visits to Sanborn Shooters, to visit and get in short mid-day practice sessions – the original KR Training 100-round drill! On weekends in 2001 when we were not teaching, Penny and I used the Sanborn Shooters facility to train for the Steel Challenge World Championship match, where I made the top 32 shootoff and Penny was 2nd woman (rimfire) and 5th woman (centerfire). Pictures from that match are on the archive site. Our success that year would not have been possible without the support of Mary Ann and Dave. Dinners at Rob’s and lunches at Charlie’s and Pockets were also memorable. Charlie’s BBQ will be forever part of KR Training Scenario lore, thanks to the guidance of Mary Ann and Dave.
As the 21st century began, Dave and Mary Ann encouraged us to build our own permanent training facility, giving us advice on land selection and facility construction. After more than a year of looking at various properties, we purchased the original A-Zone property, spent the fall and winter doing construction, and fired the first official rounds on the range into a ribbon of exploding targets from Sanborn Shooters on 02-02-02, at 2:02 pm.
Photos from the Grand Opening are on the KR Training archive site. Mary Ann and Dave’s support was critical for KR Training branching out into its own location. They even provided a cabin for Penny’s parents for a time after they decided to relocate from Indiana to build a home near the A-Zone.
After we moved KR Training operations to the A-Zone, we stayed in contact with Dave and Mary Ann, attending New Year’s Eve and birthday events held at Sanborn Shooters featuring fireworks manufactured by Dave, Mary Ann and their pyrotechnician friends, and kept up with their exploits as assistants working major fireworks shows around Central Texas. Especially notable events were incredible fireworks displays for Mary Ann’s 65th birthday, and of course a big event to usher in the turn of the century on 12/31/1999.
Mary Ann’s last visit to the A-Zone was October 11, 2020. A lover of dogs and cats, she liked visiting her “grand-dogs” Scudder and Rye. We brought them over to Sanborn Shooters several times during her final year.
A special remembrance celebration is planned for May 2022 at Sanborn Shooters. Mary Ann was an important member of the KR Training family, and she will forever be in our hearts. Penny, Karl, Ribo, Grand Dogs Scudder & Rye, and KR Training are incredibly grateful for Mary Ann’s kindness, generosity, sense of humor, and beautiful smile. She will be greatly missed.
On August 19, 2021, KR Training instructor Sean Hoffman passed away from a still undetermined medical cause. When we met Sean, he had relocated to Austin after retiring from a 20+ year in law enforcement in Southern California, serving as patrol officer, SWAT team member, and K9 handler. He attended many classes with us in 2018 and 2019, earning his Defensive Pistol Skills Program Challenge Coin.
During that time Sean also got certified as an NRA instructor, Texas law enforcement and private security firearms trainer, and Texas License to Carry (LTC) instructor, and began offering courses under his “Carry the Day” business name. Sean also began assisting with KR Training classes. and was quickly promoted to teaching classes for us a lead instructor.
The first course that he taught for us was a long gun class in August 2019.
Sean became interested in red dot sights, and took multiple classes from Modern Samurai Project, Sage Dynamics, Centrifuge and the SIG Academy – their student courses and instructor certification courses as well. Sean and I traveled to Gunsite for the SIG Academy red dot instructor class in June 2020.
As a passionate student of training, Sean shared my goal of seeking out 100 or more hours of training each year. He attended the classes we hosted with traveling trainers, and joined other KR Training staff on the road taking classes at other facilities. He also served as a mentor to some of our assistant instructors, guiding them to improve as instructors and as shooters.
As a Marine Corps veteran, Sean was laid to rest, with military honors at the Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery, in Killeen Texas, on September 21, 2021. Most of the KR Training instructor team attended the service.
Sean’s time as a part of the KR Training family was too short, but his contributions were large. We will miss him, and we will keep his memory alive by continuing the programs he created for us, and adding him to our honor wall at the A-Zone Range.
Sociologist Dr. David Yamane‘s most recent book, Concealed Carry Revolution, tells the history of concealed carry laws, particularly their expansion over the past 30+ years. The book is a standalone volume that will eventually be part of a larger book on “Gun Culture 2.0“, which differs from traditional gun culture in that it emphasizes concealed carry and personal protection much more than hunting as the core focus of an individual’s right to keep and bear arms.
Many Gun Culture 2.0 types are reasonably familiar with the changes that have occurred since Florida passed “shall issue” carry legislation in the late 1980’s. The book provides a great summary of the wave of shall issue laws and court cases since then, but in my opinion the book’s biggest strength is its discussion of open and concealed carry in the preceding 100 years.
Yamane opens the book with a discussion of gun laws in Tombstone, AZ from 1881, and then steps back even earlier, to British and colonial laws from the 1600’s and 1700’s. Gun control laws passed in Kentucky (1813), Louisiana (1813), Indiana (1820), Georgia (1837), Arkansas (1837-8), Tennessee (1838), Virginia (1838) and Alabama (1839). According to historian Clayton Cramer, these laws were intended to limit carry of concealed weapons to combat the “honor culture” violence that was occurring in rural areas of those Southern states. Yamane includes a great quote from trainer Tom Givens:
Reflecting on his time as a police officer in Tennessee in the 1970’s, Tom Givens says it was common for people to carry guns in their cars that when he pulled someone over he did not ask “Do you have a gun in your car?”, but instead asked “Where is the gun in your car?”.
Concealed Carry Revolution pg 21.
During my childhood in Texas, guns in cars, including rifles carried openly in gun racks, were common. Our state laws allowed open carry of long guns, but limited carry of handguns to situations in which someone was ‘traveling’ (a poorly defined term that gave law enforcement officers great discretion in choosing when or if to enforce laws regarding handgun carry.)
Other books on handgun training history and gun laws indicate that pocket guns were commonly carried by both urban dwellers and rural travelers.
Relevant to current events, Yamane discusses the history of New York City’s “may issue” licensing system, which is being challenged in a Supreme Court case that will start hearings in October. The SCOTUS ruling on this case, if the NYC program is struck down, could lead to the final states that give police and bureaucrats the discretion to deny permits for any reason being forced to implement “shall issue” systems like more than 40 other states. One amicus brief from defense attorneys points out that the NYC system is inherently racist. This should come as no surprise to gun law scholars, who have written at length about the many gun restrictions that were passed to disarm non-whites after the Civil War into the modern era. In 2021, Texas just passed permitless carry, eliminating the requirement for training and paying state fees to get permission to carry a concealed handgun. One of the strongest arguments in favor of permitless carry was economic: the hurdles imposed by state fees and mandatory training affected low income Texans most, and those citizens were often the most likely to be victims of violent crime. As was the case in NYC, lower income individuals with no other criminal record were far more likely to prosecuted for carrying without a license.
Yamane’s book provides plenty of details of abuses of the ‘may issue’ system, in Democrat run states and megacities, both in the form of denials to the poorly connected and the granting of permits to political cronies, celebrities and others, including many of questionable character. In 2017, the officers trusted with running the NYC gun permit program were caught taking bribes and engaging in other corrupt acts.
The book includes a helpful chart showing the spread of shall issue laws, starting with Washington State in 1961, Indiana in 1980, and then the wave starting in 1985 with Maine, North and South Dakota, continuing through the present day with 41 states now having similar shall issue systems in place.
Chapter Four of the book dives into the variances in different state’s training requirements – an issue John Daub and I explore in our own book, Strategies and Standards for Defensive Handgun Training. State training and proficiency requirements answer the question “what is the lowest possible requirement we can have to guarantee someone is safe and responsible enough to carry in public?” They do not answer the question “what level of skill and proficiency is desirable for someone seeking to be well prepared to use a handgun in self-defense?’ As we note in our book, this has created a widespread mindset among gun owners (and the general public) that state carry permit training is of some actual value, and is a meaningful credential. The Texas License to Carry shooting test is so easy that a skilled shooter can pass it blindfolded, as John Johnston does in this Lucky Gunner video.
What occurred in Texas during the early days of our state’s carry permit program was duplicated in many other shall issue states. In order to ensure that the mandatory state training was inexpensive and widely available, states set their requirements for instructor certification to the lowest possible standard: NRA Basic Pistol instructor (a program that teaches instructors nothing about defensive shooting skills, nor carry methods, nor how to safely draw from a holster). This created an ‘industry’ where poorly qualified trainers meeting state minimums were able to profit from teaching overly large, low quality classes to customers only interested in the cheapest, shortest, most convenient course. While this approach did make the training inexpensive and easy to complete for permit applicants, it often resulted in very low quality courses full of questionable advice on defensive shooting, gun selection, and even deadly force law.
When permitless carry was proposed in Texas, some instructors protested, complaining that their businesses could not survive the loss of the state forcing people to attend their courses. Gun owners, gun rights advocates and trainers with the ability and expertise to teach more than the state minimum training class were unsympathetic.
Texas, as it was for shall issue carry, was relatively late in the wave of states passing permitless carry. Even as Yamane was finishing up the current version of this book, more states were passing “constitutional” or permitless carry programs, making the final section of the book out of date before the ink had dried on its printing.
UPDATE: Yamane has issued an updated edition of the book, now available as an ebook, addressing permitless carry and the upcoming New York carry permit Supreme Court case.
Despite that minor flaw, the book is excellent primer on the history of carry permit laws, particularly recommended to new gun owners and new carry permit holders in any state.
Firearms trainer Mike Conti has written a three-book fictionalized history of the life of famous FBI agent and gunfighter Jelly Bryce. “The Legend Begins” was book 1 of that series (reviewed previously), which continues in FBI Odyssey (book 2) and The Man In the Mirror (book 3)
Bryce was an influential figure in the history of shooting training. His techniques became the core of FBI firearms training, which were taught to law enforcement officers for more than 40 years. I wrote about the 1940’s FBI firearms qualification course of fire in this Historical Handgun class after action report.
Bryce had exceptional vision and dry fired constantly, giving him the ability to hip shoot and point shoot with accuracy and speed far better than an average-sighted person less motivated to practice and dry fire as much as Bryce did.
Book 2 (FBI Odyssey) focuses on Bryce’s time in the FBI. Book 3 (The Man in the Mirror) follows FBI Special Agent Delf “Jelly” Bryce through the tumultuous war years from 1941 until his death in 1974.
Like book 1, books 2 and 3 tell the story of Bryce’s life as a fictionalized story, written like a novel. J. Edgar Hoover and many other famous FBI figures, as well as Hoover’s rival “Wild Bill” Donovan have their own stories and life histories woven into the plot.
Author Conti, a law enforcement officer and firearms trainer, gets the details right, painting a vivid picture of the sights, sounds and smells of Bryce’s era. The gun fights and physical violence are described realistically, putting the reader in the middle of the action. The books are a great mix of history and character and action and drama, much like the historical action novels written by “gun guy” Stephen Hunter.
Highly recommended for students of firearms training history, FBI history, US history of the 40’s and 50’s, and anybody that likes a well written tale.
Earlier this year Tom Givens sent me a signed copy of a book published by the Snub Gun Study Group – a group of trainers and shooters interested in the history and modern use of the short barreled revolver.
Who wrote the book? Article authors include: Mike Boyle, Andy Stanford, William Bell, Stephen P. Wenger, David Elderton, Tom Givens, Denver Burris, Peter A. Anderson, C.E. Harris, Mitchell Burke, John Russell, Grant Cunningham, Jim Finnerty, Daniel Congiolosi, William G. Hanley, Steve Collins, Mike Pipes and Frank Groth.
Article topics include:
The Super Snub
The Colt Pocket Positive
Snub Practice and Self-Assessment (The Snubby Standards)
The .38/32 Terrier: S&W’s First Hand-Ejector Snub Revolver
Ankle Holsters
.38 Shot Loads
Aussie Snubs
All Boot Grips are Not Created Equal
Kimber K6S Speedloader Review
The Colt Detective Special
How Many Times Can You Reload a .38 Special Case?
The S&W 940, a 9mm Parabellum/.38 S&W pocket revolver
Taurus Teardown
Shooting the S&W Model 12 .38 Special
Tactical Reloads
The Bryce Drill
If you like revolvers, particularly snub revolvers, get a copy of this book. It’s full of interesting articles and essays from people smart about all things snub in the 21st century. The book has a nice mix of articles discussing guns, accessories and skills. I learned that you can reload a .38 special case, firing standard pressure loads, about 30 times before it splits. There’s an interesting article comparing several different brands of speed strips in reload tests, drop tests and other practical use tests. Two skills tests were included in the book, so I went out and shot them to make some videos to spruce up this book review.
Snubby Standards
Here’s the “snubby standards” from the book, shot with this Colt snub out of a Bobby Mac holster.
Objective: This drill is designed to measure practical marksmanship potential with a snubnose revolver.
Target: Any humanoid target with a realistic size high value scoring area may be used (IPSC, IDPA etc.) Paper plates may be affixed to any target to create a realistic size, high value scoring area. Steel reactive targets may be used with frangible ammunition. Only hits in high value area count!
Distance: 5 yards except where noted. Phase One Condition Check: Is it loaded? If not, make it so and holster.
Phase Two Ready Position: On signal, fire 1 shot, starting from the ready position. Par time = 0.75 second, Superior = 0.55 seconds.
Phase Three Quick Draw: On signal, draw & fire 2 shots in 2.25 seconds. Superior performance = 2 seconds. (all draws from concealment).
Phase Four Two Threats: On signal, draw & fire 1 shot each on two different targets (spaced 3 feet apart). Par time = 2.5 seconds. Superior performance = 2.25 seconds.
Phase Five Reload: Starting in the ready position, fire 1 shot on the signal, RELOAD and fire 2 shots. Par time = 10 seconds. Superior performance= 8 seconds.
Phase Six Long Distance (10 yards): On signal, draw & fire 2 shots standing, drop down to kneeling and fire 2 additional shots. Par time = 7 seconds. Superior performance = 6 seconds or less.
This course of fire was based on one of Jelly Bryce’s most famous gunfights (or technically, it was a ‘shooting’ because the threat was shot so quickly that he never had a chance to return fire.)
Course of Fire: Shooter will start on one side or the other of the simulated doorway, shooter’s choice. Stand facing 45 degrees away from target.
When safe to do so, load to capacity and safely holster. On command, or start signal, step forward into the doorway and turn to face target. When threat is perceived, draw and fire five shots to target head using strong hand only. Do not draw until facing the target. Unload, show clear, safely reholster. Score target, record time.
When we recorded this video, we didn’t realize the phone was not recording sound. My time for the drill was 3.22 seconds.
The videos are the first take. I made the par times and got acceptable hits on most of the strings. When I did the 2 round reload using my speed strip, I closed the cylinder one position off from where it should have been, so you can see me do bang-click-click-click bang after the load. I did make the 10 sec par time on that one, probably would have made the 8 second time without the extra 3 dryfire shots.
Many of the classes coming up this fall are already full or close to full. If you are interested in any of the fall classes I suggest registering soon!
Here are the classes we have coming up in Texas with space available. Don’t see the class you want here? Let us know. Many classes can be taught as weekday private lessons, or we can add it to the schedule if there’s enough interest.
Courses marked with *** are core classes that count toward the Defensive Pistol Skills Program challenge coin. Any pistol course taught by in-house staff can count toward your elective hours.
PAUL MARTIN PREPAREDNESS SUMMER SCHOOL GOES ONLINE
Due to high demand and COVID risk we have opened up both days of the upcoming Paul Martin Preparedness Summer School events for Zoom livestreaming. Price to attend online is the same as in-person cost. Register here.
SEAN HOFFMAN, R.I.P.
KR Training assistant instructor Sean Hoffman passed away in his sleep Thursday, August 19 from an apparent heart attack. Prior to working with us, Sean had been a Marine and a law enforcement officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. Sean’s role with KR Training had expanded over the past few years, as he had been lead instructor for our red dot pistol and rifle courses. His family is still working on final arrangements for him, so there will be a full blog post with more memories of Sean and information about services and memories when that information is available. Sean was a good friend to all of us, and we mourn his loss.
MASSAD AYOOB GROUP MAG-20
Massad Ayoob will be returning to KR Training to teach his MAG-20 twenty hour classroom course on October 2-3. This class is an essential class anyone serious about armed self-defense should take. We have plenty of slots open in this upcoming course.
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER EVENTS
Each year we take a break from live fire classes during November and December. If there are non-shooting courses (scenarios, medical, legal, unarmed, pepper spray, or knife) that you are interested in, let us know and we will consider adding it to our late fall schedule.
Another video from my January 2021 trio show at the Third Floor Cantina. This track was written by Navasota, TX bluesman Geater Davis in the 1970’s, and was a minor national hit for him.
This book was recently gifted to me from Gary G – a shooter who has been around the competition and training world since the mid 1970’s. This book, written and published in South Africa by trainer and IPSC competitor Gerry Gore, is a great time capsule of the state of the Gunsite/Jeff Cooper training circa 1981. Cooper wrote the foreword for the book.
This particular book was written as a general purpose guide to the new gun owner and defensive pistol student living in South Africa.
This particular copy has multiple autographs: from the author, 1981 IPSC World Champion Ross Seyfriend, and the captain of the Republic of South Africa’s IPSC team (his signature is as bad as mine).
CONTENTS
Much of the book is the content you’d expect from any defensive pistol manual: definitions of firearms terms, how to choose a defensive handgun (.38/357 revolver or 1911 .45 are recommended), gun care, basic shooting skills, stopping power (.45 ACP of course), psychology of defense (Cooper’s Color Codes), parts and operation, and other familiar topics.
South African Law
One chapter focuses on South African self defence law. At that time, these were the requirements for use of deadly force:
The attack on you must be illegal.
At the time, you must reasonably believe that the attack will otherwise result in death, serious bodily harm or grave loss of property, either to yourself or to anyone whom you chose to place under your protection.
There must be no reasonable way of avoiding the threat.
Your response to the threat must be immediate.
You must use no more force or counter-violence than is necessary to stop the threat.
These elements are in line with deadly force laws in many US states, with the biggest difference being the clause allowing use of deadly force to protect against ‘grave loss’ of property.
The other situation in which South Africans of that era were allowed to use their guns was if they were making an arrest (as a citizen). One section of the book teaches how to hold someone at gunpoint. This was allowed for a wide range of offenses:
Treason
Sedition
Murder
Culpable Homicide
Rape.
Indecent Assault.
Sodomy.
Bestiality
Robbery
Assault in which a dangerous wound is inflicted
Arson
Breaking and entering with criminal intent
Receiving stolen goods, knowing them to be stolen.
Fraud
Knowingly forging and uttering.
Offences related to the coinage.
Conspiring to commit any of the above offences.
Escaping from custody, whilst being held for committing a Schedule One offence.
From the book:
There is no statutory law which requires you to fire a warning shot, but legal precedence requires that you must give oral warning and then fire a warning shot…before you may even think of firing directly at a fleeing miscreant, and requires you specifically to shoot to disable not to kill. Just bear in mind that the onus will be on you to prove that there was no other way that you could effect the arrest, that you were physically unable to catch the felon and that opening fire was your last resort.
Handguns for Self Defence, Gerry Gore, pg 27
Gun Manners
One chapter of the book deals with “Gun Manners”. Surprisingly this chapter does not repeat Cooper’s 4 rules in their standard form. Each rule gets several paragraphs of description, explaining how far bullets can travel, and providing anecdotes about negative outcomes associated with inattention to muzzle direction. Guns and children gets its own subheading. The chapter ends with this short statement
(The shooter) must know: How it works. Whether it’s loaded. Where it’s pointing. Where his target is. What is target is. Where the bullet will go. Where the bullet will stop. You have a full-time job.
Gun Handling
The section on gun handling includes this vintage advice on press checking a 1911, including a picture of this questionable technique in which the thumb is placed in the trigger guard (usually of a loaded gun), and the index finger placed just under the muzzle, so that a pinching movement can be used to open the slide enough to see if there is a round chambered. This technique only works if your 1911 has the short guide rod (does not work for full length guide rod). In my opinion it also violates two gun safety rules regarding the trigger and the muzzle.
This section also includes instructions on how to manually lower the hammer to carry a 1911 in Condition Two. Gerry explains: “..the whole process is fraught with danger and is not recommended under any conditions”.
At the time, the author was Senior Instructor number 001 in the South African Institute of Range Officers. By 1981 standards, it was (apparently) OK to reload with the trigger finger in the trigger guard.
He also teaches “drag the knife edge of the hand across the top of the slide” technique for clearing a stovepipe…with finger in the trigger guard. The .45 ACP case is taller than a 9mm case, and in my experience, that technique does not work well when 9mm cases are involved. There’s not enough case sticking up to grab with the hand edge, so what happens is not only does the case stay in the gun, but the mouth of the case can rip a “slot” along the hand’s edge, leaving the user with a stovepipe and a hand injury.
SHOOTING FUNDAMENTALS
As expected, the section on stance is all Weaver, all the time.
More interesting (to me) is the author’s recommendation of the grip technique where the index finger of the support hand wraps around the trigger guard. The brief popularity of this technique led to a squared, checkered trigger guard being incorporated into many 1980 gun designs, most notably the Glock and STI frames.
He also recommends riding the thumb underneath the thumb safety, which isn’t shown in the pic.
HOLSTERS
In the section on holsters, the shoulder holster, cross draw holster, and clip holster are all discussed briefly, with the strong side leather hip holster being his primary recommendation.
On the topic of low light shooting, this picture of the Harries technique, with its beautifully phrased caption, is included.
1 shot lying (prone) in 5.5 seconds from 50 m (6x)
2 shots, starting strongside (turning draw) , in 3 secs from 10m (3x)
2 shots, starting weakside (turning draw), in 3 secs from 10m (3x)
El Presidente once
Cirillo’s Hostage Shoot once
Most “modern” shooters that have focused on 3-10 m shooting would likely fail the 25, 35 and 50m parts of this test, as those skills have faded from popularity in most defensive pistol programs…and likely with good reason, as shots past 10 m are extremely rare. Similarly, emphasis on kneeling and prone shooting has all but disappeared from modern handgun curriculum, because analysis of actual incidents keeps showing that those skills aren’t used.
The book also includes some written descriptions of early IPSC courses of fire, mostly shot at 10 m, variations on El Presidente, using a steel target as the stop plate.
Disabling the Browning High Power’s magazine disconnect safety
In the back of the book, there’s a detailed section, with photos, showing how to remove parts from the Browning High Power to eliminate its magazine disconnect safety. The mag safety makes dry firing much more difficult, as an empty mag in the gun causes it to lock back each time the slide is cycled, and dummy rounds in the magazine have to be manually ejected for each dry fire shot. The mag safety protects against negligent discharge this way: if someone ejects the magazine, thinking the gun is “unloaded” and then does something stupid and unsafe with it, it prevents the gun from firing. In a weapon retention situation, if the gun’s defender is able to eject the magazine during the struggle, if the attacker gets the gun, he is unable to shoot the defender with it.
Most professional gunsmiths in the US, at least the ones I dealt with in the 1980s and 1990s, would not disable the mag safety on the High Power out of liability / lawsuit concerns. However, the author provides instructions for those that choose to do this, and observes that removing the parts improves the trigger feel of the gun considerably. For liability reasons I am not including those pictures here.
SUMMARY
For someone living in South Africa in the early 1980’s, this book would have been a very useful resource, showing the best practices of the day. Reading it from my perspective, it’s an interesting time capsule of that place and time, giving more perspective on where training the 1980’s began, as part of a broader understanding of how much it changed in that decade.
KR Training was a sponsor of the 2021 Area 4 Steel Challenge Championship, held July 23-25 at the CCC Shooting Complex south of College Station, Texas. Karl Rehn and Roy Stedman represented KR Training, competing in multiple divisions in the match. Karl finished 2nd in the Single Stack division (1911 9mm) and was Top Senior out of all centerfire pistol shooters. Roy was 2nd in both Open and Limited divisions, third overall out of all centerfire pistol divisions.
What is Steel Challenge competition? Here’s the official USPSA promo video. Even if you are an experienced competitor, it’s worth watching for the cool camera angles and great runs.
On Friday, Karl taught a junior shooter clinic.
working dry fire with some junior shootersKarl shooting his Open gun (Briley Platemaster)Karl shooting his single stack 1911 9mmRoy at the prize table.Top Geezer award
Steel Challenge has 13 different divisions. For centerfire pistol (9mm) you can shoot in the standard USPSA divisions of Open, Limited (LTD), Single Stack (SS), Production, and Carry Optics (CO). Centerfire pistol caliber carbines have both iron sight and optic divisions (PCCI, PCCO). Rimfire pistols have iron and optic divisions (RFPI, RFPO). Revolvers have iron and optic divisions (ISR, OSR). Rimfire rifles have iron and optic divisions (RFRI, RFRO).
Open, PCCO, RFPO, RFRI, RFRO Grant “Super Human” Kunkel – Grant is the current World Champion in Steel Challenge, and won five of the 13 divisions in the Area 4 match. Learn more about Grant in this Shooting Sports USA article. CO – Cameron Templin SS – Anthony Veith PCCI – Bridget Cunningham RFPI – Trinity Lambiase Production – Jason Tielke LTD – Jason Tielke ISR – Mike Dines OSR – Mike Dines
Title Sponsor: CCI Ammunition Youth Aggregate Team Award – Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation RO Prize Table and CO-Match Director – Axl Adv / Matt Hawes Youth Clinic Instructors – Travis Gibson and KR Training / Karl Rehn
Stage Sponsors: Showdown – SureFire, LLC Outer Limits – Hunters HD Gold Pendulum – JP Enterprises Accelerator – Ben Stoeger Pro Shop Smoke and Hope – MGM Targets Speed Option – Hodgdon Powder Roundabout – Tandemkross 5 to Go – CZ-USA
Division Sponsors Carry Optics – Vortex Optics RFPO – Vortex Optics ISR – Ruger OSR – Ruger RFPI – Ruger RFRI – Ruger PCCI – JP Enterprises PCCO – JP Enterprises Open – The Blue Bullets RFRO – Volquartsen Custom Production – Hoppe’s Limited – Hoppes Single Stack – EGW Inc. Match Sponsors: Steel Target Paint, Starline Brass, Steelshootbanners.com
Full match results can be viewed on Practiscore here
HISTORY
The Steel Challenge format was created in 1981 by Mike Fichman and Mike Dalton. The match was intended to push shooters’ speed with centerfire pistols to the limits of human performance, in a format that could attract more mainstream sponsors and TV coverage, since it used round and square steel targets instead of humanoid paper targets. The clanging of the steel had more spectator appeal, and the big match ended with a top 32 shootoff on falling steel. The match had one of the biggest prize tables and cash payouts of any pistol event.
I got started shooting pistols in competition in 1988 – the same year local top shooter Chip McCormick won the Steel Challenge World Championships for the second time. (Chip was the first to win the match more than once.) Chip had a full set of regulation targets at the range where our USPSA club ran its matches, and by 1991 I was running local steel matches and training with Chip for the 1991 World Championship match. During the 1990’s the popularity of the Steel Challenge format grew, with many local Texas clubs running steel matches.
In 2004, the last (for awhile) Area 4 Steel Challenge championship was held. Team KR Training (Roy, Karl, Penny and a few others) were there. Roy won the match. Karl finished top Open, and Penny was top B class.
Roy’s Top overall plaque from 2004
In 2004, a bunch of shooters from Texas made the trip to Piru to shoot the World Championship match. Some pics and video from that trip are still online in the KR Training Archive.
The Brazosland Pistoleros is one of the oldest USPSA clubs in Texas, going back to the late 1970s and the earliest days of IPSC as an organized pistol sport. The club has grown considerably in the past decade, expanding from one USPSA match per month to running Steel Challenge and .22 matches, and hosting special events like the regional Scholastic Action Shooting Program matches. The Texas A&M Corps of Cadets supported the creation of an action pistol team (Texas A&M Corps of Cadets Marksmanship Unit) that has won multiple SASP national titles and continues to be one of the nation’s top collegiate teams.
There hadn’t been an Area 4 Steel Challenge Championship since 2004. Since then, Steel Challenge was purchased by USPSA and the sport expanded to include more than centerfire pistols. As a result, the 2021 match looked a lot different than the 2004 match, with only 67 centerfire pistol entries out of a total of 286 total guns in the match. Over 160 of the entries shot rimfire guns (pistols and rifles).
The rimfire guns and PCC’s can be shot faster. The first centerfire gun (an Open pistol shot by the current World Champion) shows up in 67th place, behind 66 rimfire and pistol caliber carbines. Grant shot a total time of 53.83 with a rimfire rifle with optic, but shot a time of 89.81 with an open-class centerfire pistol.
After that, the next centerfire pistol shows up at 103rd place (single stack winner Anthony Veith at 98.79) and then Roy Stedman at 117th overall with another open gun with 103.01.
The game has changed a lot in 17 years. More juniors, more different guns, much faster shooting times. Change is good. With simple scoring (time only) and many divisions and categories (pre-teen and junior, senior, super senior, military and law), it’s a match format that’s accessible to a very wide range of shooters that’s fast and fun.
KR Training will be back supporting the 2022 Area 4 Steel Challenge, already scheduled for the first weekend of April. If you’ve never shot a steel match, there are matches every month all over the Central Texas corridor (for my local readers) and all over the US.
