On January 11-12, SureFire’s Andy Stanford partnered with Tactical Response to host YeagerFest 2025. Back in 2022, Andy and Tactical Response teamed to host the Surgical Speed Shooting Summit, which brought a dozen trainers together to discuss and teach pistol technique.
Andy put together this event specifically to share new ideas with other trainers. While the event was open enrollment (and several people who were not instructors attended), the majority of attendees were instructors trained by Tactical Response, Rangemaster, or other programs who were actively teaching. In addition to Andy, the other presenters were Karl Rehn (KR Training), John Holschen (West Coast Armory North), John Hearne (Rangemaster/Two Pillars), Joey Glover (Tactical Response) and Dustin Solomon (Building Shooters). A winter storm dumping inches of snow on the roads and the range affected turnout, but 16 instructors plus the invited presenters enjoyed a chilly weekend of training. The instructors and range officers that worked this event are shown in the picture below.
The event was discussed in detail on a recent That Weems Guy podcast episode.
My memories and takeaways from the event:
Andy has been a student and a trainer of pistolcraft since the late 1970’s, when he started with the Southwest Pistol League. In the past few years he shared my interest in documenting the history of firearms training, recording some video interviews with many Gunsite-era instructors. He shared some of those videos in his 2024 Rangemaster Tactical Conference presentation. His primary message to attendees was that the most important innovations in training were not related to equipment or technique, but to application of modern sports science (as developed for professional athletes) and new technology for defensive handgun training. This topic includes John Hearne’s work on the importance of automaticity, frequency and recency as a predictor of gunfight performance, Karl’s use of the SIRT pistol, Ace simulator,Coolfire Trainer, Mantis and other virtual/simulator tech as well as live action force on force scenarios, and the work Dustin Solomon and John Holschen are doing with visual stimulus training using Solomon’s Nuro devices.
The Nuro integrates a shot timer with red and green lasers that can be turned on and off to run user-defined programs. This allows human reaction time to visual stimulus (when to start and stop shooting) to be measured. With multiple interconnected devices, multiple targets can be turned from shoot to no-shoot during a course fire, requiring the student to continue assessing threats and adapting behavior after the first shot is fired.
KR Training hosted this course in 2024 and will be hosting it again in September 2025. Registration is not open but if you subscribe to the KR Training email newsletter you will get the announcement before the general public.
Day 1
Each day started at the Tennessee Freshwater Pearl Museum, a meeting hall near the range.
Andy gave his overview and shared a summation of his thoughts on training which included these gems:
Only lifelong enthusiasts excel at anything. There are no shortcuts to excellent. Take as many classes as possibly initially to gain traction, then a minimum of one per year. Strive sincerely to understand. 10 years to journeyman, 20 years minimum to mastery. Saturation, incubation, illumination. Were you wrong then, or are you wrong now? Keep an open mind.
Joey Glover presented on the Tactical Response philosophy of training:
We want good people to leave with the Mindset, Tactics and Skill to protect themselves and the people around them. We don’t try to make better shooters out of students, but better people. Our attitude about what we teach is: does this offer a benefit? Does it work in the dark? Is it repeatable? Does it survive being tested under stress, including in force on force scenarios?
John Hearne presented on the root assumptions and 10 principles of the Rangemaster program.
You are on your own.
Pro-social violence exists and is a good thing
Performance is possible with preparation
In the past I’ve written about the 10 principles of Rangemaster’s program, and how KR Training has implemented them.
Holschen presented some material to prepare students for the Nuro training, discussing Integrating Visual Processing In Firearms Training.
John has been collecting data on student performance (more than 100 students taught in his 2 day course, plus members of his monthly study group at his West Coast Armory North range near Seattle, WA. With single and multiple target arrays, he has measured student draw to first shot times from visual stimulus, instead of the familiar “standby…shooter ready…beep/whistle” audible signals used in most programs. Even air powered turning target systems produce an easily recognizable “whoosh” as the air cylinders engage before the targets turn. What John found is that even high skilled shooters with concealment draws under 1.5 seconds often add 0.5-1.0 seconds to their first shot time (8″ circle at 7 yards) when the start signal is purely visual, particularly when it could appear on any of 3 potential threats facing the shooter.
John’s performance standard is 90% hits on an 8″ circle at 7 yards, with first shot in less than 2.0 seconds from visual stimulus, and ability to stop shooting within 0.5 seconds of the visual stimulus disappearing. According to his data less than 30% of the shooters he trained were able to meet that requirement after 2 days of training using the Nuro units. As a shooter with decades of habituation to shooting timer starts, reorienting myself to a purely visual start signal required more concentration and attention. Similarly, shifting my focus to look for changes in the visual signal (laser changing color, turning off, or moving from one target to another) required a different mental process than simply “running the automatic program” associated with standard live fire drills. Holschen’s data indicated that when the requirement to continue paying attention to visual information was added to the shooting task, split times slowed from the 0.2’s to the 0.5s or slower. Even the best of his study group participants were only achieving 0.4’s when the burden of shifting focus from shooting to decision making between each shot was added.
Holschen noted in his presentation that performing well on his drills was much more difficult for those running iron sights than a pistol mounted optic (PMO). This is because the PMO can be shot with a pure target focus and more open vision, compared to the narrow front sight focus required for iron sights.
After John’s presentation concluded, we headed to the range. Students were split into two groups, alternating between live fire taught by me, Andy and John Hearne and running Nuro drills with Holschen.
John Hearne gave his detailed range safety presentation, and John Holschen also covered his views on the language of the “Four Safety Rules” (and need for improvement). My own thoughts on that topic didn’t get presented at this event, but you can read them here. There was discussion during the event, (and in the That Weems Guy podcast episode) about the difference between doctrine and dogma, specifically as it relates to reverence some trainers have for Cooper’s original wording and sequence.
My range block focused on teaching others how I use the take up laser on the SIRT pistol to teach the basics of trigger press. Most inaccurate shots (aka unacceptable hits aka misses) happen because of gun movement that occurs as the trigger is pressed. Traditional one shot at a time dry fire, if the shooter focuses on the sights (or dot) for visual feedback about gun movement, can improve skill, but often when live fire is reintroduced, shooting errors that aren’t occurring in dry fire will return — and they are missed because the shooter is blinking as the gun is firing. Often the problem is that the trigger is not being manipulated the same way in dry fire as it is in live fire.
I have students ignore the sights, and simply focus on how much the takeup laser dot moves as they press the trigger. I have them vary the speed of trigger press from slowest possible to fastest possible to observe what effect trigger movement speed has on gun movement. Similarly, I have them make changes in their grip (firing hand and support hand) to observe the effect grip pressure has on dot movement. Finally, I introduce the Rangemaster concept of 3 shooting speeds: quickly, carefully and precisely, and use the SIRT pistol to train the differences in trigger manipulation required for those 3 modes. All of this is done with 100% target focus, with no attempt to align the sights (or dot) on the SIRT pistol with the eye. Reintegration of aiming happens in live fire after the student consistently presses the trigger and grips the gun correctly in the SIRT exercises. I have been using this approach in all our basic and intermediate classes, and I’ve observed much better results from students than traditional dry fire/live fire approaches. Most importantly the students seem to understand the cause and effect of what causes them to miss better with this approach, enabling them to self-correct more quickly.
Andy’s material focused on the drills from his Surefire Master Coach course, similar to what is shown in these videos from a session of that course we hosted at KR Training.
We started day 2 in the classroom, with more lecture from Holschen on movement and considerations for incorporating more movement and 3D thinking into live fire drills. One of the most interesting take-home points for me was the concept of combining the “how far can someone move in the time it takes me to draw” and applying it to my own movement vs. a threats. More simply, if my average draw is 1.4 seconds, would it be tactically better to move as far off line as I can, maybe adding 10% to the draw time, to minimize my chances of being shot? Historically square range training does not incorporate aggressive offline movement (at best a step or two) for safety and logistics and class size reasons. The cramped stalls of an indoor range, as well as range rules at commercial ranges generally, make it hard to practice this potentially life-saving skill. However, it’s still possible to practice that in backyard dry fire or outdoor range individual practice, or when doing close quarter force on force work, when the opportunity presents itself. As with most shooters’ undeveloped skill to react quickly to visual stimulus, the skill to get off line quickly is underdeveloped for many, including those that have attended a lot of training and shoot at a high level from a static position.
The centerpiece of Day 2 was Dustin Solomon’s presentation on human learning and his experience having to teach a large group of shooters with very limited range time and very limited ammo, often in very short sessions – a structure totally different from traditional 2 day classes favored by traveling trainers. Those that haven’t read his Training Shooters book should get a copy and read it. Andy provided copies of the book to attendees.
We ended day 2 back on the range, with John Hearne and Andy running shooters through the Rangemaster Baseline Assessment Drill and more of Andy’s SureFire Master Coach drills, alternating with more Nuro work using more complex target configurations adding 3D problems and movement.
Final Thoughts
Anytime Andy calls and invites me to an event, I go, even if details about what is going to happen, or what he wants me to teach are vague or completely undefined. For this trip he brought his understudy, CJ Cowan, who will be transitioning into Andy’s training role with SureFire in the upcoming years as Andy inches closer to retirement. Andy and James Yeager, Tactical Response founder, were very close friends, and Saturday night’s activities included a meeting at the TR “Team Room” where James was remembered by his students and friends. John Hearne observed that “Tactical Response classes are chaotic but not in a bad way.” John Holschen commented that “Tactical Response alumni are some of the best students I’ve taught. They listen well and keep an open mind.”. That was my experience as well during this event and the Surgical Speed Shooting Summit. I think this event was a great tribute to James, moving the art and craft of training forward and I was honored to have been a part of it.
Pingback: Book Review: Fireworks (Cooper, 1980) - Notes from KR
Pingback: Weekend Knowledge Dump- January 31, 2025 | Active Response Training
Pingback: Weekend Knowledge Dump- January 31, 2025 | tacticalusa.net
Pingback: Weekend Knowledge Dump- January 31, 2025 | Tactical Defense USA