Hello,
Thought I'd tell you about my experience at AGGUNS with the LTC class I took.
First, the instuctor: Bill was great. The material could be pretty boring I imagine, but he kept things moving and interesting. Occasionally he'd get dragged of on a tangent by someone in the room trying to show off what they know, but he'd bring it quickly back to the teaching topic. He was very thorough and precise in his instruction.
Class Size: Way too big. Over 25 people with guns in a room too small. You HAD to point your gun at someone else. It was very uncomfortable in that sense. I'm very concious of where the barrel is pointing and I found myself wanting to point down at the floor instead of "down range" during class room instruction so that I wasn't pointing at the guy across the room. (All guns were of course unloaded and there was no ammo in the room).
Material: Not having taken the course before, its difficult for me to judge whether sufficient or not, but here's the high points what we covered (and didn't):
1) Basic rules of gun safety.
2) Basic anatomy of semi-auto and revolver pistol
3) Rules of handling at the range and basic range commands
4) Sight alignment and grip.
5) Actual practice of the loading/unloading/dry firing of semi-auto. Include's strong emphasis on body position for various movements so that the muzzle is always pointed down range.
6) Drills on a thier "11 steps" to unloading/clearing a gun after malfunction or "Cease Fire" command.
7) Quasi-live fire exercise on a simulator (see below). Well, this thing came as a surprise. They don't tell you ahead of time that you won't shoot real ammo. So I was rather disapointed by this. I'd wanted to be able to try several calibers, etc. and they didn't offer that. Biggest drawback of the class. But then I didn't have to worry about my class mates (many of whom were less concerned about muzzle direction than I!) shooting me!
8) Safe storage and transport
9) Mass Gun Law and Castle law
I'm sure I've missed something in the list, but this was basicly it. Interspersed throughout were comments on appropriate use of force, simple things to consider BEFORE an intruder enters your home, etc. This kept things moving and interesting while going through some less interesting parts of the course.
Simulator: Well, it may not be real ammo, but this thing is WAY COOL. It uses real guns: (1) full size S&W and (2) full size Glocks. These are retrofitted with electronics and a pnumatic gizmo to drive the slide. Speakers provided the "bang".
Using this to target shoot you could analyze shot by shot what you were actually doing and why you were missing the target. After shooting the virtual target a trace would come up showing your gun placement prior to trigger pull, during trigger pull, and after firing. This allowed you to see if your trigger pull was making you go way to one side or the other, etc.
All things said, I'd rather have the experience of shooting a variety of calibers, but I would go back after shooting for a little while for the bullseye course on this tool. It was immediately obvious that it would be valuable for this kind of training.
The also offer a "judgemental shooting" course on the simulator where you interact with characters on the screen and have to choose to shoot or not under stressed situations. I think I may do that course also once I can consistently hit a reasonable target in rapid fire.
Cost: $130... pretty high, but it was the only course I could find offerred on Saturday... (it's 9 continuous hours).
Overall: Well, I wouldn't try to dissuade someone from taking this course here. If the class size were smaller and there was live fire with multiple guns, it would have been a great class.
They should tell you up front there is no live fire. or maybe it's my fault for assuming. but that seems a fair assumption to me...
The instructor was great and I'd like to take some of the other courses he offers with live fire. If someone else had taught the class who was less enthusiastic, engauging, or knowlagable, I'd be ticked off I spent that much $$ on the class.
I do feel prepared to go to a range an shoot safely now and have a reasonable idea how to proceed in developing my skills. I just hope I can remember by the time my liscense gets put through (as much as 90 days in MA!!).
Anyway, I hope this is helpfull to some of you out there. Otherwise, just ignore.
EDIT: Forgot to mention: You get to buy one gun from AG Guns at cost after taking this class.
Thought I'd tell you about my experience at AGGUNS with the LTC class I took.
First, the instuctor: Bill was great. The material could be pretty boring I imagine, but he kept things moving and interesting. Occasionally he'd get dragged of on a tangent by someone in the room trying to show off what they know, but he'd bring it quickly back to the teaching topic. He was very thorough and precise in his instruction.
Class Size: Way too big. Over 25 people with guns in a room too small. You HAD to point your gun at someone else. It was very uncomfortable in that sense. I'm very concious of where the barrel is pointing and I found myself wanting to point down at the floor instead of "down range" during class room instruction so that I wasn't pointing at the guy across the room. (All guns were of course unloaded and there was no ammo in the room).
Material: Not having taken the course before, its difficult for me to judge whether sufficient or not, but here's the high points what we covered (and didn't):
1) Basic rules of gun safety.
2) Basic anatomy of semi-auto and revolver pistol
3) Rules of handling at the range and basic range commands
4) Sight alignment and grip.
5) Actual practice of the loading/unloading/dry firing of semi-auto. Include's strong emphasis on body position for various movements so that the muzzle is always pointed down range.
6) Drills on a thier "11 steps" to unloading/clearing a gun after malfunction or "Cease Fire" command.
7) Quasi-live fire exercise on a simulator (see below). Well, this thing came as a surprise. They don't tell you ahead of time that you won't shoot real ammo. So I was rather disapointed by this. I'd wanted to be able to try several calibers, etc. and they didn't offer that. Biggest drawback of the class. But then I didn't have to worry about my class mates (many of whom were less concerned about muzzle direction than I!) shooting me!
8) Safe storage and transport
9) Mass Gun Law and Castle law
I'm sure I've missed something in the list, but this was basicly it. Interspersed throughout were comments on appropriate use of force, simple things to consider BEFORE an intruder enters your home, etc. This kept things moving and interesting while going through some less interesting parts of the course.
Simulator: Well, it may not be real ammo, but this thing is WAY COOL. It uses real guns: (1) full size S&W and (2) full size Glocks. These are retrofitted with electronics and a pnumatic gizmo to drive the slide. Speakers provided the "bang".
Using this to target shoot you could analyze shot by shot what you were actually doing and why you were missing the target. After shooting the virtual target a trace would come up showing your gun placement prior to trigger pull, during trigger pull, and after firing. This allowed you to see if your trigger pull was making you go way to one side or the other, etc.
All things said, I'd rather have the experience of shooting a variety of calibers, but I would go back after shooting for a little while for the bullseye course on this tool. It was immediately obvious that it would be valuable for this kind of training.
The also offer a "judgemental shooting" course on the simulator where you interact with characters on the screen and have to choose to shoot or not under stressed situations. I think I may do that course also once I can consistently hit a reasonable target in rapid fire.
Cost: $130... pretty high, but it was the only course I could find offerred on Saturday... (it's 9 continuous hours).
Overall: Well, I wouldn't try to dissuade someone from taking this course here. If the class size were smaller and there was live fire with multiple guns, it would have been a great class.
They should tell you up front there is no live fire. or maybe it's my fault for assuming. but that seems a fair assumption to me...
The instructor was great and I'd like to take some of the other courses he offers with live fire. If someone else had taught the class who was less enthusiastic, engauging, or knowlagable, I'd be ticked off I spent that much $$ on the class.
I do feel prepared to go to a range an shoot safely now and have a reasonable idea how to proceed in developing my skills. I just hope I can remember by the time my liscense gets put through (as much as 90 days in MA!!).
Anyway, I hope this is helpfull to some of you out there. Otherwise, just ignore.
EDIT: Forgot to mention: You get to buy one gun from AG Guns at cost after taking this class.
). The class Matt took may well be a good class, but, it's not sanctified by the NRA.