Urban Pistol 3 at GFH on Sunday, 4/29

[Old Glock guy 1,127]

Anyone from NJGF plan to be there? If so, I'll see you there.

[RecessedFilter 222]

How come it seems like a lot of the classes talked about on NJGF are never on their website? Unless I'm missing something..

[Old Glock guy 1,127]

I know what you mean. I didn't start finding the good classes until I started looking at their calendar, rather than their class listing.

[TheWombat 67]

Naturally I will be there with the PPQ :-)

(I'll probably also bring my PPS although no holster for it yet)

 

Urban Pistol 3 is listed on the GFH Calendar and on the emails they've been sending out.

It will be the first time I've been to their Area 51 outdoor range so looking forward to it.

 

TheWombat

[TheWombat 67]

Rather than start a new thread I'll include the review here. OldGlockGuy feel free to add anything I missed :-)

 

So today I attended the GFH Urban Pistol 3 class. This was held at their Area 51 outdoor range which they have just started to use. The class description states:

 

The Gun For Hire Level 3 Tactical Pistol Course is for shooters wishing to push their shooting and weapon manipulation skills to the next level.

Equipment needed:

Handgun. 500 Rounds factory ammo. 3 Magazines, magazine holders. , eye and ear protection. Handgun, 3 magazines, magazine holders. Knee pads, water bottle or some type of hydration system. Clothing for that time of season, baseball hat and rain jacket (we shoot rain or shine).

 

I decided to try my Walther PPS (note that I wasn't using the PPQ for once!) since this is likely to be the firearm I carry when out of NJ during the Spring/Summer. I had a Theis IWB holster, Wilderness Instructor belt, 5 x 8 rnd magazines and 2 double magazine carriers. The Walther PPS ran like a champ with no failures and was surprisingly accurate even at the end when we were shooting IDPA size targets at 50 and 60 yards. My equipment worked well and I've become a convert to the Wilderness Instructor belt.

 

There were 9 students, predominantly with Glocks. There was a CZ, Kimber 3" 1911, Springfield XD, my PPS in addition to the Glocks. The majority of students were shooting .45 ACP. There was one .40, and two of us I believe shooting 9mm. All firearms other than the Kimber 1911 were reliable. The Kimber was having a lot of issues, some of which may have been due to a bad batch of Speer Lawman ammunition although I can't confirm.

 

The Walther PPS had a disadvantage compared to most of the other semi-autos (other than the Kimber) due to the 8 round magazines compared to everyone else's 10-15 round magazines. I carried 2 dual magazine carriers and had plenty of opportunity to practice my reloading. The PPS felt like it was constantly needing to be fed new magazines :-) In total I shot 616 rounds although I am sure a few students shot more.

 

The first few minutes started with a few dot drills as warm up. It didn't take long before we were moving into a lot of moving while shooting, running then stopping and shooting, shooting two handed strong and weak side, one handed strong and weak side, shooting prone, on your back, on your side, shooting through many obstacles. For those of you who have shot in GFH classes with the barricades, we were using ALL of the slots on the barricades including those at 45 degree angles and down at the bottom.

 

Many of the exercises were timed or undertaken alongside other students which increased the stress/speed and quickly showed where the fundamentals were not being followed. There was a lot of exercises that included moving in and around other people, to ensure you became comfortable with this. The exercises at all times were well supervised and kept safe. We also had the opportunity to practice live fire scenarios in and around vehicles which helps with training for the event of being a victim of a carjacking.

 

My main take away from the class is the need to keep practicing the core fundamentals as they are just as important at the more advanced classes.

 

The training was a BIG step up from Urban Pistol 2 and was a real opportunity to practice the fundamentals in completely different scenarios. The day was 8 hours of almost constant moving and shooting and switching from two handed to one handed and strong side to weak side.

 

Joe had a chance to demonstrate his battlefield medical skills with a couple of us being bitten by our slides. My injury occurred when transitioning from 2 handed strong side to 2 handed weak side. The slide was nice enough to bite me due to not having my thumbs correctly settled into position when I was taking the shot.

 

 

Almost all the exercises are ones that couldn't be practiced at a normal range, some were similar to what you'd encounter in an IDPA match. The day ended with a chance to shoot at 50 and 60 yards where the PPS, even with such a short sight radius was able to hit steel 40%-50% of the time.

 

The instructors were Joe, Chuck, Max and Pilar and a big thank you to them for a fun and enjoyable day. Gun For Hire only runs the Urban Pistol lvl 3 a couple of times a year and I can highly recommend it.

 

TheWombat

[Old Glock guy 1,127]

Wombat, nice review, as always. It was fun training with you again yesterday. I did not ask anyone else if they are participants on this forum. If anyone else spends time here, please weigh in.

 

Area 51 is a nice place to shoot, and we were blessed with beautiful weather for this full day class. As you noted, Joe, Chuck, and John/Mac continue to impress as instructors. Joe gave me some particularly helpful counseling on the importance of trigger reset and follow through. They constantly find new ways to take us outside our comfort zones. I struggled especially with weak handed, two handed shooting. I felt like I was fumbling to get my hand position right, and on a break, I wandered off to one of the berms (with the OK of the instructors) to try to get a feel for it.

 

They saved the most fun for the end of the day, with the carjacking prevention training (luckily no one hit the GFH truck!); and the 50-65 yard shooting at steel targets, ala Hickok 45. On the rare instances when I've attempted HG shots from that length on paper, I've found that the lack of immediate feedback made it very tough to get on target.

Between the sound of the steel on hits, and the puff of dust from the sand berm on misses, most of us were able to hit the steel a decent amount of the time. I was hoping Joe would let us go back to 100 yards, just to see what it would be like, but he was concerned that being beyone the berms would present potential safety hazards.

 

All in all, it was a great day, with tremendous instructors and a good group of students. Lots to practice, and then I think I'm going to look at a multi-day school somewhere.