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Front Sight Trip Part Two: Day One
Evil ATF
Member Posts: 1,195 ✭✭✭✭✭
Front Sight Trip Part IIDay OneI woke up at about 0530 on February 22 for my first day at Front Sight. After double checking all my gear, I saw that Mrs. Evil had neglected to pack my cleaning kit. Note to self: Never let another man or woman pack your parachute!So, after I loaded up my range bag with all the essentials, I went down to the casino restaurant and had some breakfast. Man alive! If there was only one good thing in a place like Nevada, it's that every dang casino in the state has a free breakfast buffet for the hotel guests! It was actually edible, too!After my belly was full of scrambled eggs, French toast, bacon and hash browns, I hopped in the car and zipped down the road out of town and towards Front Sight. After 15 miles, I pulled up to the front gates of the facility and the long, four-mile dirt road leading into the compound itself. It was nice to see armed guards and civilians everywhere you went on the property. "An armed society is a polite society."After parking and grabbing my range bag, I walked up to the main tent where all students put nametags on the back of their hat and the front of their shirt. Afterwards, we all filed over to the weapons inspection table, where some more instructors examined our various weapons and gave them a quick once over to make sure that they appeared to be in safe, functioning condition. Once the inspection was completed, we all filed into a 40 by 80-foot tent, grabbed some coffee and sat down at the tables. The next hour involved a lecture explaining Front Sight's various courses and a little background on the instructors. In the Four Day Defensive Handgun course that I took, our instructors consisted of full-time police officers, EMT's, medical doctors, and one ex-Special Forces. The rest of the instructors were just that: full-time instructors without a military or police background. However, you would swear that they were all Richard Marcinkos if you had seen them shoot!After the morning briefing, we were sent to our respective ranges for the day. Upon reaching Range Seven, it was obvious that our class size would not work in the range, as there were simply too many people. So, the instructors had everyone line up and sent half of the class to the next range over, Range Eight. Once the logistics were settled, training began. The first thing we were taught were the three most important rules for surviving a gunfight, also known as the Three Secrets. What? They wouldn't be secrets if I told you! Take the damn class! The first day was spent covering the basics. Everything from sight alignment to grip to reloading to trigger control. Now, let me digress for a moment. I've been shooting handguns every weekend for twelve years now. That may seem small to some of you old timers, but keep in mind that I'm only twenty-four. My point is that I have spent a good portion of my life either dry practicing or firing in the hills around my home. If you asked me before Front Sight what I thought of my handgun skills, I'd have said that I was a seven out of ten. I figured that I would come into the class, learn a new technique or two and be on my way to the next class where I might actually learn something. Boy, was I wrong! I don't care what your current skill level is. If you go to one of Front Sight's courses, you will see that you don't know a damn thing! It's staggering how much you actually don't know! I now see that my pre-Front Sight skill level was easily a one or two out of ten. I'm confidant that if I were to be robbed at gunpoint by four clones of my pre-Front Sight self; I could easily win the gunfight while I chomped on a burger and a shake. You get that good. We broke for lunch around noon thirty. At 1330, Dr. Piazza, the founder of Front Sight and one of the thirteen certified Four Gun Combat Masters in the world, gave the first of his mandatory lectures for new students. I'm typing this at work and don't have my trip notes in front of me, but I'm pretty sure the first day's lecture was on Stopping Power. I'll edit this post after I get home if that's not the case. There's not much to say on the lectures, with the exception of the final lecture on Day Four: Solving Problems Two and Three. Problem One being the gunfight itself and Problems Two and Three being criminal and civil liability, respectively. That lecture was an eye opener, as Dr. Piazza gave explicit instructions on how to virtually foolproof yourself from a costly civil lawsuit. But, I'm getting ahead of myself: We're still on Day One!After the lecture was over and we returned to Range Seven, I started looking for people who I "knew" from GunBroker and Hard Core Talk who were supposed to be in the class with me. Knowing only their first names, it made it a little tough to find them, as we didn't think to make any arrangements beforehand. It was just a "See ya' there!" thing. Anyhow, I found UnclePat from GunBroker shortly after lunch. Seeing that he was the only male Pat in the group, I figured my chances we pretty good. I walked up and asked, "Excuse me, but are you the UnclePat from GunBroker?" After staring at me for a moment he slowly said "Yeeeeesssssss...."After introducing myself, we were chatting away like old friends. I've just got to say that in a world where nine people out of ten that you meet over the Internet turn out to be borderline psychotics, UnclePat was a breath of fresh air. I also had the pleasure of meeting a Marine turned Air Force Reservist by the name of Bernard Diaz. A very friendly fellow in all respects. After everyone had returned from the lecture, social hour was over and there was work to do. The rest of the day was spent in the pleasant 75 degree Nevada sunshine while we worked and worked and worked some more on our weapon presentation and trigger control until we could draw our weapons relatively fast and take the slack out of the trigger as we were presenting towards the target without discharging a round. Once the instructors were more or less satisfied with everyone's basic skill at arms, we were told to go back to the bench and load up some magazines: It was finally time to shoot!We began at 3 meters, roughly arms reach from the target for a fella with monkey arms like me. Since most gunfights take place at conversational distances, this was as good a way to start as any. We slowly drew from the holster, turned the muzzle of the weapon up, thrust out part way, and presented to the target as we drew the slack out of the trigger. Once we were so focused on the front sight that we could see the small serration's and markings on the front sight post, we were allowed to unleash two shots to the center of the thoracic cavity, which is a much smaller version of the traditional "Center Of Mass" point of aim that everyone is familiar with. Dr. Piazza, having had obvious medical training, developed the Front Sight targets to reflect both the thoracic cavity and the cranio-ocular cavity, which is located in the head. If you were to draw a rectangle on the front of someone's face using the eyes as the top and corners and the bridge of the nose as the bottom, you have the cranio-ocular cavity, which is a much more lethal target than the fabled "T-Zone", which is the "T" junction where the bridge of the nose and the eyes meet. Needless to say, Day One was filled with plenty of classroom lecture and dry practice on the range. We probably only fired 25 rounds the first day. However, you have to walk before you can run. The time spent practicing and not firing on the range was invaluable as you got plenty of one on one instruction from the 5 range instructors who constantly moved through the throng and corrected even the most minor of deviations from the curriculum. The chief instructor, Instructor Fisher, was fond of saying "We're not here to make you good: We're here to make you perfect."We were shortly thereafter dismissed from the range to go home and get some much-needed shut-eye. That evening I enjoyed having dinner with UnclePat and Bernard from the range. Talk about a couple of stand up guys! I couldn't help but notice that PROPHIT from Hard Core Talk never arrived for the class, which struck me as strange since I knew she was pre-paid and everything. PROHPIT, if you're reading this, drop me a line to let me know that your plane didn't crash or something.To Be Continued....
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Them ducks is wary.