Upcoming CIS Advanced Concealed Carry

[Guest agr815]

I know it's taken me long enough but I finally got some free time between work and school to write up an AAR for the Advanced Concealed Carry Course, so here it is.

Weather: The weather was cold, damp and windy. Pretty much sucked the entire time we were sitting on the bleachers. Cold, wet aluminum a comfortable seat does not make. By the time we were on the line though it warmed up a bit and wasn't so bad.

Gun/Gear: I used my HK USP .45 Compact with Heinie Straigh Eight night sights for the entire course. I really like the two dot Heinie's but after seeing Todd's G19 with a Heinie rear and Ameriglo front I am probably going to switch to that combo. On a positive note, HK mags will work when partially filled with sticky red clay mud. When reloading mags I would clean out as much mud as possible but couldn't get it all, nevertheless I had zero mag related malfunctions all day. The one malfunction I did have was near the end of the day when the slide did not fully go into battery. I was shooting Blazer at the time IIRC.

I carried the gun in a Raven Concealment OWB kydex holster. I love the Raven products and will buy from them again. For a mag holder I used a double kydex mag pouch that a friend and I made the day before. It worked flawlessly which I was proud of. I hung both of these holsters off of a Jones Tactical 1.5" Every Day Belt with a cobra buckle. This is a very sturdy and well made belt. My one complaint with it is how stiff it is. It can get uncomfortable over long periods of time, especially when seated.

Instruction: Todd and Dustin did a wonderful job managing the class and keeping everybody safe. Truly a pair of professionals who take their jobs seriously. Todd started the day with a lecture on several topics to include legal use of deadly force, different methods of carry, different types of ammunition, deploying the handgun from concealment, different sight pictures and even recommended some lawyers to contact if you are ever involved in a self defense shooting. After the lecture portion of the class Todd broke us up into pairs and demonstrated some useful techniques including the "tactical bitch slap" in the video above. We then walked through attacking/defending yourself/ your partner with air soft guns. I learned that this is something that I need to work on. Todd partnered up with me initially and told me to respond to his attack. As he moved forward my initial response was to move back. He quickly pointed out that this was the worst thing you could do. Instead you should move toward or around your attacker. To paraphrase Todd, "You are already having to re-act instead of act, you already have ground to make up, take the fight to them." This makes sense but will take some more training to sink in because at the end of that exercise Todd once again rushed me and I yet again flailed backwards . At least I learned that in a course and not in a life or death situation. This is exactly why you need to take classes from qualified instructors if you are going to carry a handgun!

Course of fire: After our mock self defense work we moved to the range. Let me first point out that both Todd and Dustin strongly emphasized the four gun safety rules and quickly got on to someone if they broke one. The way they ran the class with Todd giving most of the instruction and Dustin keeping an eye on everybody worked well and kept everything safe. We covered many different shooting drills including drawing from concealment, strong side only, weak side only, shooting with retention, contact distance shooting, side stepping while drawing and performing a 360 degree visual check after dealing with the immediate threat. Todd introduced new concepts and drills in a layered manner which kept the information from getting cluttered. We started with simply drawing from concealment and ended with drawing with a sidestep, engaging the target, 360 scan and re-holstering. If there were one thing I would have liked Todd to cover more it would have been reloads although I can understand why he didn't because of all the other information he was throwing at us.

Final Impressions: Overall I enjoyed the heck out of the course. I will definitely be training with CIS again. I learned a lot and it was nice to have someone more qualified than you critique what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong. Some things I need to personally work on: having a more aggressive mind set when dealing with an attacker, upon drawing, punch the gun straight out instead of scooping under, side stepping on the draw, 360 scan after engaging threat and cleaning up my reloads.

Sorry for the novel , but as you can tell I really enjoyed the class and had a lot to say. Todd and Dustin, thanks again for a wonderful class taught by two true professionals. To everyone else, if you have not taken a CIS class DO IT! If you have, take another one! I know I am.

p.s. There is a picture of me on page 4 of this thread. I'm wearing the blue shirt and camo hat.

[Guest Todd@CIS]

I know it's taken me long enough but I finally got some free time between work and school to write up an AAR for the Advanced Concealed Carry Course, so here it is.

Weather: The weather was cold, damp and windy. Pretty much sucked the entire time we were sitting on the bleachers. Cold, wet aluminum a comfortable seat does not make. By the time we were on the line though it warmed up a bit and wasn't so bad.

Gun/Gear: I used my HK USP .45 Compact with Heinie Straigh Eight night sights for the entire course. I really like the two dot Heinie's but after seeing Todd's G19 with a Heinie rear and Ameriglo front I am probably going to switch to that combo. On a positive note, HK mags will work when partially filled with sticky red clay mud. When reloading mags I would clean out as much mud as possible but couldn't get it all, nevertheless I had zero mag related malfunctions all day. The one malfunction I did have was near the end of the day when the slide did not fully go into battery. I was shooting Blazer at the time IIRC.

I carried the gun in a Raven Concealment OWB kydex holster. I love the Raven products and will buy from them again. For a mag holder I used a double kydex mag pouch that a friend and I made the day before. It worked flawlessly which I was proud of. I hung both of these holsters off of a Jones Tactical 1.5" Every Day Belt with a cobra buckle. This is a very sturdy and well made belt. My one complaint with it is how stiff it is. It can get uncomfortable over long periods of time, especially when seated.

Instruction: Todd and Dustin did a wonderful job managing the class and keeping everybody safe. Truly a pair of professionals who take their jobs seriously. Todd started the day with a lecture on several topics to include legal use of deadly force, different methods of carry, different types of ammunition, deploying the handgun from concealment, different sight pictures and even recommended some lawyers to contact if you are ever involved in a self defense shooting. After the lecture portion of the class Todd broke us up into pairs and demonstrated some useful techniques including the "tactical bitch slap" in the video above. We then walked through attacking/defending yourself/ your partner with air soft guns. I learned that this is something that I need to work on. Todd partnered up with me initially and told me to respond to his attack. As he moved forward my initial response was to move back. He quickly pointed out that this was the worst thing you could do. Instead you should move toward or around your attacker. To paraphrase Todd, "You are already having to re-act instead of act, you already have ground to make up, take the fight to them." This makes sense but will take some more training to sink in because at the end of that exercise Todd once again rushed me and I yet again flailed backwards . At least I learned that in a course and not in a life or death situation. This is exactly why you need to take classes from qualified instructors if you are going to carry a handgun!

Course of fire: After our mock self defense work we moved to the range. Let me first point out that both Todd and Dustin strongly emphasized the four gun safety rules and quickly got on to someone if they broke one. The way they ran the class with Todd giving most of the instruction and Dustin keeping an eye on everybody worked well and kept everything safe. We covered many different shooting drills including drawing from concealment, strong side only, weak side only, shooting with retention, contact distance shooting, side stepping while drawing and performing a 360 degree visual check after dealing with the immediate threat. Todd introduced new concepts and drills in a layered manner which kept the information from getting cluttered. We started with simply drawing from concealment and ended with drawing with a sidestep, engaging the target, 360 scan and re-holstering. If there were one thing I would have liked Todd to cover more it would have been reloads although I can understand why he didn't because of all the other information he was throwing at us.

Final Impressions: Overall I enjoyed the heck out of the course. I will definitely be training with CIS again. I learned a lot and it was nice to have someone more qualified than you critique what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong. Some things I need to personally work on: having a more aggressive mind set when dealing with an attacker, upon drawing, punch the gun straight out instead of scooping under, side stepping on the draw, 360 scan after engaging threat and cleaning up my reloads.

Sorry for the novel , but as you can tell I really enjoyed the class and had a lot to say. Todd and Dustin, thanks again for a wonderful class taught by two true professionals. To everyone else, if you have not taken a CIS class DO IT! If you have, take another one! I know I am.

p.s. There is a picture of me on page 4 of this thread. I'm wearing the blue shirt and camo hat.

Holy crap, I don't think I wrote that much in college!

Seriously, thank you for that.

[Guest agr815]

I had to stop myself from writing more. I am just happy to know that there is a local training venue that is affordable and well worth the time and money. I will be recommending you guys to all of my friends (so I can get all that referral money, you know). Wish I had the resources available to attend your 2 day pistol course but I think that'll have to wait.