Here is my review of the USSA Tactical Shotgun #220 course, conducted in December, 2010. I started out with about 850 rounds of #7 bird shot, 150 rounds of 9 pellet 00 Buck and 50 slugs. I should have brought more slugs as I wound up borrowing about 10 from one of the other students. When I was done, I had about 200 rounds of #7 birdshot and 50 rounds of 00 Buck and no slugs.
First let me get this out of the way; Those of you who know me, know that I am currently a fat, out-of-shape, somewhat crippled up, older man. This put me at a disadvantage against the performance of the other students. I was also using a inexpensive (read cheap) Chinese knock-off of a Remington 870 Express pump shotgun. One other student was using a pump (it was a Mossberg 590A1 that had been customized). All of the others, including the instructor, were using semi-automatic action shotguns of one type or another.
It was easy to see the difference in rate of fire and overall action between the pumps and the semi-auto guns. The semi-autos were out shooting the pumps at a rate of 3 to 2 or 4 to 2. Target reacquisition was also much faster on the semi-autos. So with all of this, I could not quite match the round count of the other students. I burned a tremendous amount of energy, just operating my weapon over the course of the training that greatly reduced my performance.
However, having said that, I consider the training to have been excellent. The instructor (Mike Seeklander) is a recognized champion in the Three Gun competition community and has a long career in law Enforcement and as a tactical trainer of Law Enforcement Officers. During the entire class he went out of his way to make sure that we understood the reasoning behind what he was teaching. He consistently stresses the importance of the “stay in the fight” mentality and how to cultivate it during training to help avoid the development of ‘range’ habits. A strong emphasis was placed on deliberate action during training to build the correct habits which are what we will fall back on under stress.
The classroom portion of the class was very short (2 hours out of about 24) and covered the basic admin and safety issues required for any firearms class. After which we retired to the range and began with zeroing our shotguns with slugs at 50 meters. The entire remaining portion of the class was practical hands-on shooting. This was done at a variety of ranges on differing types of targets.
One of the most challenging portions of the class was the final activity on the second day. We were taken to the Rogers Range, which has computerized pop-up reactive targets at close to medium range (I believe it runs from about 10 to about 30 meters) that can be computer programmed to pop-up in a random pattern, with between one (1) and six (6) targets popping up (this can been a real challenge when you have a 5 shot tube).
I do not recall the amount of time that the targets were up, but we had 10 seconds to reload between rounds.
At the beginning of the class, Mike told us that shotgun combat was a matter of “shoot and reload, shoot and reload”. The Roger’s Range exercise drove this home as nothing else in training could. During that exercise every deficiency that you or your equipment have will be clearly manifested. It was an extremely useful exercise. I fully intend to try and get the management to let me do that one on my own at the Rogers Range in the future after I improve my equipment. Another of the useful things in this class was the use of buckshot at different ranges against both paper and pepper-popper targets to help us get an idea of the spread and relative power of a load of buckshot at short and long ranges. Every one in the class decided after those exercises to include slugs in their basic load out.
The practical exercises included training on the differences between cover and concealment, effective use of the cover available in the battlespace you find yourself in, the value of preplanning the cover available in your usual areas and how to use a vehicle for effective cover.
Once again, very useful training. And for me specifically, knowing that even with the deficiencies that I currently have, I can perform these tasks.
On the final day of the class, we ran the ‘shoot house’, which was one of my personal ambitions. We were taught to use deliberate rather than dynamic movement techniques and to make maximum use of ‘cover, time and distance’. One interesting point about the shoot house exercise is that it will give you a new appreciation of the effects of stress on your mind and body during a gun fight. For me personally and for many people I know, that kind of a more realistic type of training environment seems to convince my body that we are doing the real thing and my limbic system behaves accordingly, with the adrenaline dump, the distortion of perceptions and the whole nine yards. This was the first time that I had personally experienced auditory exclusion. While everyone else’s shots were loud to the point of deafening, even with my electronic ear muffs, I could barely hear my own.
I did learn that [equipment] quality has a huge impact on usage. The majority of my problems during that class were related to the weapon operation problems that I experienced.
One last word on equipment; one of the students was using an optic (I believe it was a Trijicon RMR Dual Sight 9.0 MOA Amber Dot. He graciously allowed us each to try it and it was a tremendous aid in rapid target acquisition and getting a good shot off quickly. It is definitely something to think about. In summary, I found the class to be a valuable learning experience and a smashing good time. I look forward to taking it again some time in the future.