Firearms Training Near Me – Part 1
Google searches for “Firearms Training Near Me” have spiked over recent years, and this is a good thing. It is my hope that every responsible person in the world has a firearm and uses it appropriately.
I am a shooting instructor, and our firm specializes in a niche sector of the shooting instruction market, Luxury Entertainment Shooting Instruction and Experiences. Actually, our firm invented that sector, but that is another story for another post. We provide serious shooting instruction with rifles, pistols, shotguns & archery as well. There are many shooting instructors within 100 miles, their teaching ability ranging from horrible to excellent. Most are somewhere in-between.
When a person that is not familiar with guns searches for “firearms training near me” they are likely faced with a huge number of page returns, and it is not easy to select the best trainer. I hope to help you in your search for the best shooting instructor.
First, it is important to decide what level of training you need. Many novice shooters want to train with a famous shooting instructor that is also a great shooter, someone like James Yeager, Clint Smith, Kyle Lamb, Jerry Miculek, Gabe Suarez, John Farnham or Chris Costa. These guys ARE in the Top 25 in the country and they are great. Do you NEED them? Probably not.
There are fewer than 25,000 shooters in the US that NEED those guys. One way to evaluate yourself is the El Presidente Drill.
- Three silhouette targets are placed 1 meter apart in a line 10 meters from the shooter.
- The shooter starts with six rounds in a holstered handgun, and a spare magazine with another six rounds.
- The shooter begins facing directly away from the targets, often with hands clasped in front or over the head.
- Upon the starting signal, the shooter turns and draws, fires two shots at each target, reloads, then fires two more shots at each target.
- (Do NOT draw until you are facing the target!!!!!)
- All shots must hit center mass A zone on a USPSA target. (6”x11” or 66 sq. in.)
- Par times, measured from the start signal to the last shot fired.D Class 15 seconds*
C Class 11.25 seconds
B Class 7.5 seconds
A Class 6.0 seconds
Master Class 5.3 seconds
Grandmaster 4.75 seconds
How long did it take you? I suggest that if you can do this drill 5 times in a row with a score under 7 seconds, perhaps a celebrity top 25 instructor will be of value to you. If you can not shoot at that level, it is probably not worth it. Many on the Top 25 list earned their honor by way of competitive shooting, and some by their real-world experience coupled with good teaching skills and some, like me, made the list based solely on instructional method excellence and or contributing to industry advancements.
What matters most is the ability of the instructor to help you shoot better, not their ability to demonstrate to you how well they can shoot. If you want to watch someone brag and demonstrate, you might make a very different choice that if you want to learn to improve your own skills.
I spend most of my time teaching, and very little shooting. I have very little natural ability and I am undisciplined in my training regimen. (Shame on me) Because of this, it is often a very achievable goal for me to help a student become better than me within 1 day of private training.
A shooting instructor’s shooting skill level and skill at communicating will be weighed differently by different people and are only a couple aspects to be considered in screening your firearms trainer. Stay tuned for the next parts of this article series, “Firearms Training Near Me.”
