My first attempt at organized firearms training

 My first attempt at organized firearms training by Bobby Thurman

You may have read my article about the training I received at Thunder Ranch back in March. After the training concluded, the instructors requested that we take what we learned and share it with others, by training others we get better ourselves and help cement the education we received into our long-term memory.

So, I made an offer to some friends and four people stepped up to get some training.

Two men and two women volunteered, of the two men only one had spent a lot of time shooting and carrying firearms, the other man had shot before, but not a lot and was using a gun that was new to him. 

The two women had shot their guns before but never had received any kind of formal training.

Before the training I built some target stands from 2x3 and 2x2 lumber.

I also cleared out a spot out in the desert a few miles from my home, set up the targets and marked out 25, 50, 75 and 100 foot shooting lines.

I went over my notes from the training and knew that there was no way to fit two days of training into a few hours, so I pared it down to the important stuff:

• Safety
• Holster selection
• Stance
• Grip
• Draw
• Sight picture
• Reloads
• Clearing jams

First I set the range rules, and set up tables for people to reload

I queried the shooters about the 4 rules of gun safety, between them they knew 3 of the 4.

Discussing grip, trigger control and drawing 

Stance was the hardest thing to drill into people heads, everyone understood the instructions, but kept going back to incorrect posture.

Live fire practice, draw and shoot

Here we are discussing reloads and clearing jams.

tactical reloading practice

More live fire practice, this round was more about getting comfortable with your holster, your draw and finding the sight picture.

Some of the shooters did pretty good on getting holes on target, others need more practice.

This four-hour training was more about the basics of using a pistol for defense, obviously to be proficient a lot more shooting needs to be done. We plan a follow up course where we will go back over the original training and add in things like cover vs concealment, moving while shooting, choice of ammunition and legal issues.

About the author:

Bobby Thurman grew up in the wilds of Southern Oregon and has been around guns all his life, a Navy veteran and SEALs applicant, he has participated in IDPA and other shooting competitions. He has hit a milk jug sized target at 1000 yards with his Savage rifle in .338 Lapua and plans to hit one at a mile.