Today's Top Tactical Instructors

[PatD]

Pat rogers, EAG tactical

Larry Vickers, Vickers tactical

Jeff Gonzales, Trident concepts

I have taken classes with all 3 and can tell you it was a great experience. Each brings their own unique experiences to the class. Very enjoyable.

[Cactustactical]

My personal # 1 was a now retired Vietnam era Green Beret named James R Jarrett. His school was named the American Shooting Academy and operated out of Phoenix and later a private facility in western New Mexico. I learned a lot while first taking the full gamet of JRJ's courses and then ultimately worked for him as a what was then known as a bolt gun ( now manually operated rifle) instructor. Our bolt gun course was 26 seesions, 4 hours a session. People nowadays don't have the time for that sort of course, but we did turn out great riflemen.

[j1b]

Pat rogers, EAG tactical

Larry Vickers, Vickers tactical

Jeff Gonzales, Trident concepts

I have taken classes with all 3 and can tell you it was a great experience. Each brings their own unique experiences to the class. Very enjoyable.

I was going to say Vickers as well.

Good dude. And he's been where the action's at - still breathing to not talk about it (that whole classified deal)

J

[Graham Smith]

find out who their clients are, avoid the ones with the special program for the drop holster camo'd 16 year olds who want to join the army to be a SEAL and fly fighters

That's what drew me to Pat Goodale in the first place. And my first time there was a real eye opener. A couple local police were taking a class as part of their annual training and there were two FBI agents there brushing up on some skills before going someplace (didn't say where).

A quick story here, one of the FBI agents was a woman (around 27-28). About 5'5", average build, average appearance, and didn't look like she had a gun. I was next to her on the line when we first started and she pulled a little SIG 380 from a IWB holster and nailed the target. That was the story for the rest of the class - out shot everyone there. The class even picked up a couple tips when the instructor used her to demonstrate one of the shoot-on-the-move drills - her torso just seemed to rotate freely on an axis while her feet took her in the direction she needed to go. Sssmmmoootttthhhh....

[Chris Conley]

My opinion is that you are better off asking this question to the mall ninja crowd on either the LightFighter forum or the Get Off the X forum.

Mall ninja crowd? You simply are beside yourself huh. I know a lot of those guys personally (on LightFighter), and might I suggest you never call them such derogatory names to their face. That website usually stays on top of removing the trolls and fakes. A lot of real world operators and a wealth of knowledge there. I certainly wouldn't want to piss in their corn flakes.

+1000 to that. Good folks on LightFighter and for the most part they give it to you pretty straight. Yes a wealth of knowledge there and the whole Cohort bunch are some pretty cool dudes. I gotta make it down for Florida....

Chris C.

ETA: I know I am going to get in trouble for this but you could tell them in person. ATS/Lightfighter is located on 41A just north of the main gate at Fort Campbell.

Edited March 27, 2009 by Chris Conley

[SA Friday]

Hmmm, suprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, a BE Forums Dealer even. I think I've even heard of him, Ron Avery.

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showforum=162

[G-ManBart]

Hmmm, suprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, a BE Forums Dealer even. I think I've even heard of him, Ron Avery.

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showforum=162

Stop thinkin' outside the box!

[00bullitt]

I've taken over 30 firearms training classes from various instructors around the country since 2003. Some multiple times.

Ken Hackathorn-5 pistol classes and 1 rifle

Larry Vickers(Vickers Tactical)-2 pistol and 2 rifle

Super Dave Harrington(Martial Gun)-1 pistol and 1 rifle and 1 rifle/pistol

Gabe Suarez-1 pistol

Andy Stanford(OPS Inc)-1 pistol,1 rifle and tactical dynamics

Tiger KcKee(Shootrite Academy)-1 rifle and 1 pistol

Thunder Ranch in Texas-1 rifle

Tom Givens(Rangemaster)-2 pistol

Southnarc(Craig Douglas)ECQC 1,2,3,4

Paul Gomez-AK47 rifle class

Paul Howe-1 rifle class

Pat Rogers(EAG)-1rifle class

Steve Tarani-1 knife class

Tactical Response(James Yeager)- 1 pistol

Magpul Dynamics with Chris Costa and Travis Haley-1 rifle

Erik Lund prior to USSA when he was Solar Shooting Solutions-1 rifle class

And some other small 2-4 hour blocks at various conferences.

Of the above Ken Hackathorn stands out as one of my favorite instructors for pistol and rifle to a civilian. I will attend his class every time he is in town for as long as he continues to teach civilians. His class never gets old and only gets better with age. Ken is definitely not stuck in his dogma.

Erik Lund(Bear1142 on here) is my favorite rifle instructor and is also one of the most articulate instructors I have been to. His teaching style is very calm and extremely informative and yet totally easy to learn from. I attended his Performance rifle class in 2006 prior to him going to work for USSA as their senior instructor. Since then him and I have become very good friends and train together regularly. I've learned a huge amount from him and he has been a great mentor to me in the 3 gun sport. He is the reason I got addicted to 3 gun.

Super Dave is very intense and sometimes the information he teaches is like being fed from a firehose on full blast. Good stuff but you need to be in tune with your gun handling to absorb it all or you will fall behind the curve in his classes. He gets a little wound up sometimes. But he is one of those hardcore been there done that type.

I really liked Andy Stanford's Surgical Speed shooting class. I really came to grasp the importance of trigger control by the end of that one and find it to be one of the most beneficial classes that helped me in the competition world as well as self defense.

Vickers class is pretty good. Its very accuracy based and you definitely get the most up to date insider buzz from the firearms industry. Larry has been there and done that as well.

James Yeager at Tactical Response is also very good. I picked up a few techniques that I took away from his class. Now you just might get one of his adjuncts and not him. I was lucky enough to actually train with him.And it was prior to his time in Iraq or the start of the team room.

Tiger McKee at Shootrite and Clint Smith at Thunder Ranch really did not do anything for me but get me some trigger time and teach me dogmatic technique.Kind of Blah I thought.

Paul Howe and Pat Rogers were pretty good for rifle. I took a few things away from their classes. There was some stuff I did not care for from Paul but none the less....I went with an open mind. Having an open mind in any class is extremely important.

SouthNarcs classes were excellent. Lots of Simunition evolutions. Very eyeopening and learned a ton of 0-5 feet technique which is very important. I highly recommned him for ECQC and structure clearing as well.

Steve Tarani was OK.....but I liked SouthNarc better. Craig's knife fighting technique worked better for me.

Tom Givens was kind of dogmatic at the time but I think he has changed some since then. But the repititious trigger time helped refine my technique sort of early on. His class had a lot about gunfight history and broke down several things learned from modern day gunfights and shootouts.

My very first class ever was from Gabe Suarez. He was a different kind of instructor. Good guy to get a fighting mindset from.

Magpul Dynamics runs a good operation. I thoroughly enjoyed Chris and Travis. I didn't learn anything new. But their class fit my technique and helped me reform some weak areas. Especially off hand. It was an ammo waster of a class though. I shot almost 1600 rounds in two days.

Paul Gomez is awesome for AK technique. I met him through Andy Stanford. He was an adjunct for Andy at the time and is now on his own.

If there are any other specifics you would like to know about my experiences.....please shoot me a PM and I can go into further detail.

My recommendation for pistol is Ken Hackathorn and for rifle it is Erik Lund at USSA and Ken Hackathorn. Based on my experiences.....you will get the best bang for your buck from them. Oh and I also happen to know that Eriks shotgun skills are second to none and coupled with his teachinfg style.....you can't go wrong.

There you go.....striaght from a mall ninjas mouth. Hope it helped some. I feel like I've had a little experience. And yes......I did learn a great deal from all of them as a whole. I consider myself a continuous student of weaponcraft and refine it constantly through competition. I believe heavily in using the avenues of competition as a fun way to keep the axe as asharp as possible.

Edited March 31, 2009 by 00bullitt

[mike cyrwus]

Gotta go with Mr. weakhand on the shotgun training;

Took a class at TDSA-Tulsa where Kurt Miller was adjuncting and he has helped me ralize the potential of these incredible firarms.

Great Class.

[shooter757]

TDSA Len Baxley

he is my gun sensei

AWESOME!

Edited April 5, 2009 by shooter757

[rehn]

I've been down both training paths (tactical and competition). Some observations:

Some 'tactical' classes are pure gunhandling and shooting classes, some put more emphasis on teaching you what to do in a real situation. Most competitive shooters don't need a "level 1 handgun course" where you are standing around watching the instructor teach untrained people how to draw and how to shoot. The "weaver vs. isoceles" era is pretty much over and just about every school teaches students fundamentals that came from the IPSC GMs.

Being a competition shooter usually means that you are better able to handle mental pressure than those coming into "tactical" training with no prior training or experience. It also means that you probably have training goals and measure your performance when you practice. Those are useful traits to have when you get serious about tactical training.

Shooting IPSC courses of fire is like playing scales or etudes from sheet music. You know what you have to do before you do it, and you can mentally prepare to perform that skill even if you only get one chance to do it "for real". Even when swingers and bobbers are involved, there are very few totally random events that will occur to disrupt you from executing your carefully designed plan of attack.

Interacting with live opponents in a real situation is a totally different mental skill: like stepping onstage to jam with the Dead in front of 50,000 people, when you have no idea what song they want you to play, or where the song is going to go once it starts. All you bring to the stage is a familiar instrument, your fundamentals, and whatever ability you have to quickly react and adapt to what is happening. If you have more diverse skills and can execute them at a high level, that frees up valuable brain cells from thinking about "how to do it" to work on the problem of "what to do right now".

That mental skill cannot be learned from any type of shooting competition, except for maybe the Polite Society annual event, where half the match consists of total surprise stages where shooters are given the absolute minimum information moments before shooting the courses of fire. Any sports or arts activity (sparring, paintball, basketball, improv music, role playing games or theater) that requires you adapt to the moment, in the moment, will develop that skill better than shooting competition will.

Assuming that competition shooting is all that's required to prepare someone for a self defense situation is like assuming that learning static martial arts "forms" and punching a heavy bag prepares you for getting jumped by two attackers in a dark alley. Live fire training by itself provides no experience facing a live opponent who thinks and moves and talks and shoots and hits you back. I have run plenty of competition shooters through "force on force" scenarios. They rarely do any better at the "figuring out what to do right now" part than the untrained -- because they have no more training in that skill than those that are equally untrained in the mechanics of shooting. The key difference is that once competition shooters begin to understand how to function in an unknown, dynamic situation, when gun skills are needed, they have them 'on tap' and can use them.

The bottom line in my opinion is this: if you are taking a class to learn how to shoot better, study with whoever is accessible to you that has achieved the highest level of documented skill with that firearm type. That's usually someone that shoots competitively. If you are taking a class to learn all the other skills that matter in a real situation (reading people and situations, making decisions about use of force, integrating unarmed/knife/pepper spray/handgun/long gun, post-shooting response including emergency trauma care, etc.), find someone accessible to you that teaches those skills that can't be learned at a match. It's insulting to assume that those that study the entire spectrum of self-defense topics with a focus on teaching people life-saving skills are "mall ninjas" simply because they have not made shooting high scores in a particular style of shooting competition their primary life priority. Some tactical instructors know a lot about shooting and are good shooters, some are less skilled but have expertise in other areas just as important. The solution to every situation is not "shoot two on paper, steel must fall to score" and even if is, knowing what to do (and say or not say) after the shooting stops may be as important as knowing how to shoot. Learning those skills takes more than reading gun magazine articles. It's one thing to read about how to give a statement after a shooting incident; another entirely to try to do it immediately after being in a "force on force" gunfight in training when your adrenaline is pumping and you are trying to sort out what happened in an intense few seconds. "Tactical" training classes will give you opportunities to practice skills that aren't tested on match day, so that when you need that skill for real, it won't be the first time you've used it.

If you are armed for personal defense and don't believe that you need training in anything other than putting rounds into inanimate targets on match day, good luck to you with that.

Karl

[gotm4]

The best classes I've taken were with Larry Vickers and Magpul Dynamics.

[badassmcgraff]

Halo 3 on xbox 360

[ima45dv8]

Great insights, Karl.

Thanks for chiming in.