Okay, just got back from the Monday 11/16/09 class. Nice crisp morning
and it was neat seeing the deer at the feeder there by the pavilion at the range. Dews did a great job at the range (funny guy) and all the R.O.s were great. I DID shoot the classifier as I wanted to, and had no issues or call outs. One of the older gentlemen R.O.s ( I can't recall his name) came up to me after the first 1 shot exercise at the 3 yd line and told me I could use both hands if I wanted too
I just said "I'm practicing my weak hand shooting" and after seeing my target he pretty much just observed
3 Yds - all weak hand
7 Yds - all strong hand
15 Yds - all 2 hand
I shot the revolver course with my S&W 581 and scored 244. Shot the SA course with my Wilson Combat 9mm Professional and scored 250. He did come up and admire my Wilson during the SA qualification. Dews did comment it was the first class that all shot and passed the quals the first time ( Maybe he says that to all the classes
)
As for the classroom. Hitt railed against long barreled revolvers and "STI Race guns" for qualifications. I don't disagree with that, but I didn't see that at the range. I think one guy had a 6" revolver and he said that's all he had. Couple of things I didn't like about Hitt, his presentation had typos and the fonts chosen were too big and overflowed the screen. And he criticized the "Weaver Stance" as being "Too fine of a motor skill to rely on in a gun fight". Hmm, we can start a different thread to argue this, but I think some instructors at Front Sight, Gunsite and Thunder Ranch might disagree (as I do).
Sgt. Bamsch was good and had some good updated material. O'Shaw must have been reading comments because she did have updated materials which included the castle doctrine and the 46.02 sections about carrying in your vehicle. She did get a little irritated when I pointed out that new Education Code Sec. 37.125 which appeared to me to criminalize even defending yourself on a private or public school property. I asked her why they didn't include a defense to prosecution for CHL holders like they do in other sections and she got quite rankled.
Met an old friend in the class I hadn't seen in a while. SO all in all, an okay experience, of course once the shooting is done, it's a long remainder of the day, but I survived another one. The good news is that it looks like we can renew ONLINE the next time, and shoot a LOCAL qualification (Details still being worked) and only have to go down to Austin in 4 years for re-qualification.
Regards,
James
