Class Review: Haley Strategic D5 Handgun at Sig Academy

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I spent this past Monday through Wednesday at the Sig Academy as they were hosting Haley Strategic Partners for their D5 Handgun (Aug 29-31) and Carbine (Sept 1-3) courses. I signed up for the D5 handgun course last winter when they were posted. I would have loved to do the carbine course but due to time and financial restrictions I stuck to pistol.

My background: USMC infantry reserves 2008-2014 when I got out as a Sergeant, OEF in 2011. I spent part of my time in Afghanistan in an embedded training team teaching infantry tactics and machinegunnery to the Jordanian Armed Forces. I never received pistol training in the USMC, though I imagine I shot more than 100K rounds, primarily from beltfed machineguns and rifles. I started shooting pistols with friends at 18 and got my LTC at 21, which is up for renewal soon. I shoot a fair bit, probably a few K pistol rounds a year. As everyone does, Id like to shoot more.

Makeup of the class: I would say about half to three quarters of the class of 25 was prior service or prior or current law enforcement. I think we had 5 or so active members of law enforcement including my close friend I went with. Also 4 instructors from Sig were in the class. I had no prior experience with Sig academy but these guys were good shit, all with many years in the military and law enforcement. They were also phenominal shooters. I would also say the class was only a little more than half white (as opposed to the stereotype leftists like to push), though there was only one female shooter and she was definitely in the top of the class. People traveled from as far as CA to attend, though it wad mostly out to NY, PA, and NJ. Most of the non-military or LE shooters had technical backgrounds, including engineers, an orthopedic surgeon, and an air traffic controllers. There was also a small group from a gun club in NY that seemed to be big Haley fans, dare I say gun nerds, and they were excellent shooters and good guys.

What skill level was the class for: I didnt really know what to expect going in to the class but to attend this course I think you primarily need to be very comfortable with a gun and be absolutely positively 100% safety focused. Once it was clear we all were, big-boy rules were in effect. Once getting to the range we went hot and had a hot firearm on us until we breaked for lunch or the day. We were respinsible for clearing our gun out with the person next to us. We were ALWAYS under close supervision, though during breaks if people wanted to they weee allowed to practice some stuff on their own at the firing line, ask for additional critique, etc. I saw nothing of safety concern during the range. Im confident the instructors would modify the rules in different circumstances.

On to the instructors: Travis Haley is the namesake for HSP, he was formerly across from Chris Costa at Magpul Dynamics, and prior to that he had his other own company SDI. His background includes Marine Corps force recon with extensive combat experience in Iraq and Africa, as well as extensive combat experience with Blackwater. BCM did a great 10 minute bio of him on youtube. His assistant was HSP COO Nathan Lacompte, a career LE guy and active member of the National Guard who served in Iraq.

Both Travis and Nathan were phenominal instructors. This wasn't some scream at you chest thumping stuff. These guys were incredibly nice and approachable, whos teaching style was less "military" than it was grade school. They were open minded, not dismissive of students preferences for carry but willing to work around them (though gave advice for trying different things). These guys came out to dinner with us one night of the class, and to speak to their character they ran into a student when out another night and invited him to eat with them. Nice dudes who genuinely love what they do, and while I have no doubt they know they are hot shit, they don't act like it.

The class: The first 2 days consisted of classroom time from 8-12 and 9-12 respectively, followed by a brief catered lunch. The third day was about an hour of class and the rest of the day on the range, minus about an hour long afrer action. We got out at 6:30 the first day and 6 the next 2. So all in all about 30 hours.

Why so much classroom time? The course is primarily a fundamentals course, moreso than I realized. HSP approaches shooting as other high performance sports are approached. They have taken their experience, applied kinesiology (excercise physiology) to it, and come up with what they believe to be the best fundamentals based off what they currently know. They have emploted experts in the athletic fields to come up with this stuff. It was a very science driven class. Before the BS flags go up, I have a biology degree and took a few Kin classes in undergrad, my wife was an excercise physiologist (she starts PA school this week), and Travis Haley's wife is a doctor. We also had an orthopedic surgeon in the class. The classroom time was spent explaining why we were about to learn what we were about to learn. Anatomical diagrams, charts, etc were used. All seemed to make sense to me, as well as the engineers and orthopedic surgeon in the class. The classroom time was spent among other things going over the hows and whys of stance, grip, sighting, trigger pull, transitioning, drawing, etc. Mindset was also covered. The instructors also required daily individual feedback from every student in front of the class, as well as intros, etc.

If you are thinking you know all the fundamentals already, this challenged that. They propose these to be a more honed take on how things have classically be done. I know that even after 8 years of shooting pistols I saw noticeable improvement in everything. Even the best shooters in the class saw improvement. Even as an excellent shooter, this is about doing things in the most efficient manner, and moving on from there.

On the range we practiced many different drills that ranged from dot drills to point shooting vs front sight shooting to going through draws to various team challenges, malfunction drills, 22422 drills etc. A lot of this was focused on self diagnosing techniques, and interestingly, cadence. We did a lot of drills to work on timing and cadence, and learned how to apply that to speeding up draws, transitioning to different targets, etc. By the end of just one coaching session I was able to reliable draw from concealment and get a combat effective shot on target in 1.3 seconds. Interestingly, I was the only one training from concealment, much of the class with non retention OWB holsters were at or slightly under 1 second. Likewise I was able to get my draw to 22422 drill time undet 4.5 seconds. These are not phenominal times, but good considering it was just a couple days and it was a vast improvement on my previous times in front of my eyes.

As far as tactical training, we didn't do much. We covered draw, malfunction drills, tactical and speed reloads, drawing while moving then taking a shot, reloading on the move, and transitioning between targets. On day 1 it was made clear this was not a tactics class.

Parting thoughts: I learned a lot. More than anything I wish I had learned to shoot this way initially. Had I walked into this 8 years ago I would be way ahead of the game. Instead I now need to work to un**** bad habits. Its not that I was a terrible shooter, but I was limited by imperfect fundamentals. Just through this class I saw improvement, so I'm sold that I need to train using what I learned in the class. We were cautioned they are always researching so things may be modified in the future. I also plan on using more paper and less steel.

My thoughts on the instructors is they were great. I didn't pay to get yelled at and called an idiot, amd thats not what I got. These guys gave it their all, were always on us, were willing to work 1 on 1 with struggling students, had excellent personalities, and genuinely made it as individual an experience as possible given the number of students and instructors. I do plan on giving them my business again for the D3 course which is more tactics focused (carbine, vehicle, darkness). They also run a class exclusively in Scottsdale AZ that is force on force and live fire shoothouse.

Im sure I missed stuff so feel free to ask any questions. Also, excuse any typos as this is on my phone.

Mike

Sent from my cell phone with a tiny keyboard and large thumbs...
 
Nice review. They have great facilities and instructors at Sig.

And props for using a concealment rig. What were you using for equipment? Any equipment takeaways from what others/instructors were using?
 
I was running my usual carry. Gen4 G19 and Comptac minotaur. I was using preban square notch G17 mags as backups, though I borrowed a few new G19 mags as well from my friend I went with who is LE. I have some U-notch mags, still need some square notch drop frees. He was using his duty belt, and identified a huge problem with his (new) duty gun and mags, that hadn't showed itself under lighter range use. Bottom line is he got all new mags which fixed most of the problems, and is swapping his P227 for another one at the armory ASAP as he was still having failures to go into battery.

I was using a cheap amazon special double mag carrier with adjustable retention. My big takeaway there is a better rig would probably have the mags spaced further apart (I bumped out the second mag a couple times during mag changes). Also a slight cant to the mags would be nice.

Now if you are planning on taking a class like this, my recommendation would be to get a bunch of standard or high cap mags so the class isn't delayed while you reload. Plenty of people had 8 or so 10 rounders depending on what they were carrying. Less than 10 rounds will get you a lot of reloading practice. There were also a couple friendly competitions where 50% off a class ($400) or $100 for products was awarded. Everyone who won opted for half off a class.

Instructors recommendation was also stay simple on sites. Tritium .125 fronts and .125 rears. We did a lot of target focused rather than front sight focused shooting, highvis front sights can distract. I noticed that as well. I am going to try to train out of that because I love my trijicon HDs, but I saw it happening.


Mike
 
Thanks for sharing, good review.
One of the funnest places I've ever been is Sig Academy.
and that Pro Shop...
 
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