This was my second time through Combat Focus Carbine; I had taken the class with Rob Pincus the develpoer of Combat Focus Shooting program back in April at the same range. I had taken it with my AK, and like all classes there are points that you miss or don't quite get right. So when my Friend Kelly told me he was coming over from IL to take CFC from James Ashby and First Action Self Defense, I thought I would take the class again; my son decided to take it again too. This would be my 2[SUP]rd[/SUP] class from James and FASD having taken Combat Focus Shooting from him in 2009. I got to know him a little better when he came through the Appleseed program a few times and shot Rifleman at one of my shoots. The shoot was held at mine, as well as First Action Selfe Defense's, home range Red Brush Range near Newburg, IN.
For this class I was going to run my Colt 6920 with an Eotech, an MBUS rear sight and an SOE single point sling. I ran Silver Bear 62grn ammo and 30 round Pmags. Glock 19 in a Custom Kydex Solutions holster and a Henry Holster single AR mag pouch. No I did not wear my chest rig or any other tactical type gear. The CFC is more of a shooting class and we were directed several times that this class is for the civilian or officer who is anticipating contact. For instance, the home owner who hears rowdies in the front yard throwing bottles and such at the house and bullets start passing through the house. Or the officer who is in a search of an armed fugitive he is trying to apprehend. There are lots more examples and better described than I can repeat, but it is geared more for the home owner or regular guy than the team member who is backed up by others and has more gear on. This is one of the things that drew me to the CFS program, the science behind the movments that we do.
We started off at 0900 with the talk about responsibilities and safety, how the program was designed, and what the goals of the day were going to be. We then got into rifle handeling, the contact points of the rifle and rifle set ups. We then went to zero our rifles,w hich everyone had shown up with a zeroed rifle. One thing that was different about this class and the one Rob had taught is that Rob had us to change our optics/sightsso that at about 40' our POA and POI were the same. Whereas James let us maintain our original zeros and we talked about sight offset. I do prefer the second method because my rifle at home may not just be used as a defensive rifle and with my usual 25m zero I am comfortable picking off 4 legged critters around the farm at distance and is where I usually keep my rifles zeroed at. While everyones preference could and probably will be different, I much prefer this scenario. We then started working on basic marksmanship skills working our way from 15' out to around 100' all the time taking note of out off set and POI difference. We shot from different fighting positions, seated, kneeling, squatting and the traditional standing. We were shown different common fighting stances and grip variations we were not told we had to use any one but to try some different ones and use what we prefered. The other 2 in the class had longer forearms on their rifles and opted for the over hand front grip while I actually ran with a front grip and basically used it as a hand stop rather than a forward grip. I believe one of those AFG would be a good compromise for myself now. We then went into a flow drill, which is one of my favorites, you move between all positions seated, kneeling, squatting and standing and when “up” is called you engage the target from which ever position you are closest to. This drill while tiresome is a good one that I sometimes practice myself. We then shot at more distance out to about 80 yards or so to again see out off set. We were always incorporating movement into our initial contact as we reloaded. We were only loading our magazines to 10 rounds so we got more mag changes in while keeping the round count reasonable.
We then had lunch on the range and conversed about the origins of the Combat Focus Shooting program and the steps to becoming an instructor as well as the different classes offered and of course Rob.
After lunch we started working on shooting from behind cover and the use of cover. We were taught how to transition to our off side and shoot from behind cover and to transition back. We enagaged mulitiple targets and on our own as well as on command. Sometimes the commands get to be stressful because you are intentionally put into different and odd shooting situations, which was much different than what we set up and practice when we go to the range. This is a good thing; it sort of gets us out of our comfort zone and makes us perform better in the end. We then did the wind sprint drill. While some think this drill is to only get your hear rate up, the main purpose if for you as the shooter to understand the balance between speed and precision. While it is a physical drill, it is again one of my favorites and one most shooters do not do enough of.
We then talked about handgun transitions and when we would transition to our handgun in favor of getting our rifle back up and running. When I took the class from Rob, we did no handgun work at all and no transitions. I was glad to hear from James when he said to bring our pistols and 200 rounds of ammo. We practiced this and incorporated it into our drills. We did the figure 8 drill which is another favorite of mine. This was the last drill of the day, and it was now nearly 1630.
The round count for the day was 580 rounds through the rifle with no feeding issues or failures. Though the bolt sometimes did not lock back to the rear on the last round, pretty common sometimes with the lower powered ammo. One of the other students jammed a Pmag into his rifle past the mag stop and it became jammed. One other student had his Aimpoint go down, a rare event I'm sure but goes to show that it can and will happen.
I thought the class was very worthwhile even for the second time - probably even more so the second time. While I did not go into the class to compare James to Rob, James is doing an outstanding job of teaching Rob's curriculum. They each have their points that I enjoy and learn from. James and First Action Self Defense is an outstanding resource in the area, and I highly recommend training with him if you get a chance. Without a doubt, the Combat Focus Shooting program is a great program and for me it strikes me as more “regular guy, real world fighting instruction.” It is constantly evolving and changing as new things and techniques are developed and refined.
First Action Self-Defense | Firearms Instruction Safety & Defensive Shooting | Evansville, Newburgh, Indiana
Combat Focus >> The Pinnacle of Defensive Handgun Instruction
For this class I was going to run my Colt 6920 with an Eotech, an MBUS rear sight and an SOE single point sling. I ran Silver Bear 62grn ammo and 30 round Pmags. Glock 19 in a Custom Kydex Solutions holster and a Henry Holster single AR mag pouch. No I did not wear my chest rig or any other tactical type gear. The CFC is more of a shooting class and we were directed several times that this class is for the civilian or officer who is anticipating contact. For instance, the home owner who hears rowdies in the front yard throwing bottles and such at the house and bullets start passing through the house. Or the officer who is in a search of an armed fugitive he is trying to apprehend. There are lots more examples and better described than I can repeat, but it is geared more for the home owner or regular guy than the team member who is backed up by others and has more gear on. This is one of the things that drew me to the CFS program, the science behind the movments that we do.
We started off at 0900 with the talk about responsibilities and safety, how the program was designed, and what the goals of the day were going to be. We then got into rifle handeling, the contact points of the rifle and rifle set ups. We then went to zero our rifles,w hich everyone had shown up with a zeroed rifle. One thing that was different about this class and the one Rob had taught is that Rob had us to change our optics/sightsso that at about 40' our POA and POI were the same. Whereas James let us maintain our original zeros and we talked about sight offset. I do prefer the second method because my rifle at home may not just be used as a defensive rifle and with my usual 25m zero I am comfortable picking off 4 legged critters around the farm at distance and is where I usually keep my rifles zeroed at. While everyones preference could and probably will be different, I much prefer this scenario. We then started working on basic marksmanship skills working our way from 15' out to around 100' all the time taking note of out off set and POI difference. We shot from different fighting positions, seated, kneeling, squatting and the traditional standing. We were shown different common fighting stances and grip variations we were not told we had to use any one but to try some different ones and use what we prefered. The other 2 in the class had longer forearms on their rifles and opted for the over hand front grip while I actually ran with a front grip and basically used it as a hand stop rather than a forward grip. I believe one of those AFG would be a good compromise for myself now. We then went into a flow drill, which is one of my favorites, you move between all positions seated, kneeling, squatting and standing and when “up” is called you engage the target from which ever position you are closest to. This drill while tiresome is a good one that I sometimes practice myself. We then shot at more distance out to about 80 yards or so to again see out off set. We were always incorporating movement into our initial contact as we reloaded. We were only loading our magazines to 10 rounds so we got more mag changes in while keeping the round count reasonable.
We then had lunch on the range and conversed about the origins of the Combat Focus Shooting program and the steps to becoming an instructor as well as the different classes offered and of course Rob.
After lunch we started working on shooting from behind cover and the use of cover. We were taught how to transition to our off side and shoot from behind cover and to transition back. We enagaged mulitiple targets and on our own as well as on command. Sometimes the commands get to be stressful because you are intentionally put into different and odd shooting situations, which was much different than what we set up and practice when we go to the range. This is a good thing; it sort of gets us out of our comfort zone and makes us perform better in the end. We then did the wind sprint drill. While some think this drill is to only get your hear rate up, the main purpose if for you as the shooter to understand the balance between speed and precision. While it is a physical drill, it is again one of my favorites and one most shooters do not do enough of.
We then talked about handgun transitions and when we would transition to our handgun in favor of getting our rifle back up and running. When I took the class from Rob, we did no handgun work at all and no transitions. I was glad to hear from James when he said to bring our pistols and 200 rounds of ammo. We practiced this and incorporated it into our drills. We did the figure 8 drill which is another favorite of mine. This was the last drill of the day, and it was now nearly 1630.
The round count for the day was 580 rounds through the rifle with no feeding issues or failures. Though the bolt sometimes did not lock back to the rear on the last round, pretty common sometimes with the lower powered ammo. One of the other students jammed a Pmag into his rifle past the mag stop and it became jammed. One other student had his Aimpoint go down, a rare event I'm sure but goes to show that it can and will happen.
I thought the class was very worthwhile even for the second time - probably even more so the second time. While I did not go into the class to compare James to Rob, James is doing an outstanding job of teaching Rob's curriculum. They each have their points that I enjoy and learn from. James and First Action Self Defense is an outstanding resource in the area, and I highly recommend training with him if you get a chance. Without a doubt, the Combat Focus Shooting program is a great program and for me it strikes me as more “regular guy, real world fighting instruction.” It is constantly evolving and changing as new things and techniques are developed and refined.
First Action Self-Defense | Firearms Instruction Safety & Defensive Shooting | Evansville, Newburgh, Indiana
Combat Focus >> The Pinnacle of Defensive Handgun Instruction
