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Maybe my search skills stink, but I tried! :) Do any of you have recommendations (good or bad!) for where to take my CHL renewal class? I live in Magnolia, north houston. Thanks!

We took our initial at Thunder Gun Range in Conroe with Steve and Donna Vandermolen - recommend them highly!!

I live not that far away, near Tomball. For me, it was worth driving to Friendswood to hear what Charles Cotton had to say in his class. If I wanted to really get a good discussion on use of force, I'd recommend listening to him.

Just wanted to close the loop on this...I ended up taking my renewal at Thunder Gun Range. They were very nice, on the phone and throughout. That said, I was pretty disappointed in the class itself. All of the classroom section was composed of listening to a recorded voice reading the powerpoint slides the computer was running on the screen. No interaction whatsoever. The instructor wasnt even in the room, including breaks. The computer presentation would tell you it was break time then automatically start again ten minutes later. At the end of this the instructor came in and asked if anyone had any questions. I mentioned his presentation was out of date regarding the parking lot law and we went back and forth for a minute before it dawned on me that he just didnt know the law had changed last September. Then we were required to sit through about a half hour worth of a sales presentation about the [Pre-paid legal service]. Now, this might in fact be the best thing since sliced bread, but I didnt come here for this and I didnt appreciate having to sit through it. We moved onto the shooting bit which was pretty standard though perhaps slow since the guy running the show also had responsibilities behind the counter of the gun range/store.

Anyway, my thoughts; very nice people but very uninspired and boring class with outdated information and sometimes downright annoying due to either having to sit through sales pitches of having to wait while the instructor is tending the shop.

Charger wrote:Just wanted to close the loop on this...I ended up taking my renewal at Thunder Gun Range. They were very nice, on the phone and throughout. That said, I was pretty disappointed in the class itself. All of the classroom section was composed of listening to a recorded voice reading the powerpoint slides the computer was running on the screen. No interaction whatsoever. The instructor wasnt even in the room, including breaks. The computer presentation would tell you it was break time then automatically start again ten minutes later. At the end of this the instructor came in and asked if anyone had any questions. I mentioned his presentation was out of date regarding the parking lot law and we went back and forth for a minute before it dawned on me that he just didnt know the law had changed last September. Then we were required to sit through about a half hour worth of a sales presentation about the [Pre-paid legal service]. Now, this might in fact be the best thing since sliced bread, but I didnt come here for this and I didnt appreciate having to sit through it. We moved onto the shooting bit which was pretty standard though perhaps slow since the guy running the show also had responsibilities behind the counter of the gun range/store.

Anyway, my thoughts; very nice people but very uninspired and boring class with outdated information and sometimes downright annoying due to either having to sit through sales pitches of having to wait while the instructor is tending the shop.

What you just described does not begin to meet DPS requirements for instructors and classes. All classes must be live, except that at one time DPS would allow the use of approved videos for up to 20% of the class. I believe this is still okay, but I know DPS was reevaluating all videos.

You may want to call DPS to see if you have a problem signing and turning in a government document (CHL-100) from a class like you described.

Chas.

Charger wrote:Just wanted to close the loop on this...I ended up taking my renewal at Thunder Gun Range. They were very nice, on the phone and throughout. That said, I was pretty disappointed in the class itself.

Hate to be an "I told you so", but you wouldn't have been disappointed with Mr. Cotton's class.

Jumping Frog wrote:

Charger wrote:Hate to be an "I told you so", but you wouldn't have been disappointed with Mr. Cotton's class.

lol yeah yeah :) I did look at his schedule. This was just good timing and right around the corner.

Have to jump in and say there are different instructors that work out of Thunder. Unfortunately OP did not get the ones I had recommended.

Having done my class at Thunder with Steve and Donna, I can tell you it was not done with them. I would very highly suggest them to anyone. However they only teach once a month and there are other instructers there for the rest of the classes. Sorry to hear you had this experiance.