While practicing and learning 3 gun stuff with Janna Reeves and James Casanova (two members of the Noveske Shooting Team) I learned a little bit about how to train. Since running through stages isn’t always feasible and isn’t necessarily the most effective way, we began with some small drills. The first was designed to speed up target acquisition and the second pushed accuracy as well as physical stamina.
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We are forever telling our fans and readers to “go get training, go get training.” Many shooters want to get training, but don’t know where to get it from. In the training world, there are two options: go to an individual trainer, or go to a training school. A training school has some advantages, larger staff means they can accommodate more students, a fixed location usually means better facilities, and a business oriented mindset can help eliminate a lot of the silly issues you sometimes run into when dealing with individual instructors. To make the list, a school had to be an actual school – a fixed location with multiple instructors. There is a huge selection available of individual instruction out there, and a lot of “schools” that are just one “name” instructor and a cadre of yes-men. They don’t make the list. Want to get good training? Go to one of these places.
1. Gunsite Academy
The OG of training schools. Gunsite is the fountain from whence all other training schools have come. Here’s the deal about Gunsite – they won’t teach the latest and greatest techniques. But the Modern Technique, the Weaver that they teach will still work, and if your goal is to “defend your family and your life” than taking a 250 course at Gunsite is a great place to begin that journey. The other excellent thing about Gunsite is that they spend a considerable amount of time talking about mindset.
2. Rogers Shooting School
The only school on this list that I’ve not personally attended, Rogers makes it on the recommendation of basically everyone who’s been there. It is hard, and it not a school for the beginning pistol shooter. But it’s tough, and all the intermediate or better shooters who’ve gone to Rogers will tell you that they learned quite a bit about their shooting from attending Rogers. The RSS uses a disappearing plate rack system that challenges shooters to hit plates under a very specific par time.
3. InSights Training Center
Located in the Pacific Northwest, InSights Training Center boasts a training cadre of multiple instructors, and teaches classes that range from Defensive Folding Knife all the way to advanced pistol/rifle/shotgun classes. Their instructors are competent, professional, and most importantly skilled at teaching. In fact, InSights as a school excels at making their subject matter interesting and accessible, regardless of the course. They could make a two hour class about tying your shoes interesting.
4. Academi
Formerly known as Blackwater, to the general public the name meant “mercenaries” they also have always maintained a robust training school. Their facility in North Carolina is absolutely top notch, and Academi also has facilities in Connecticut and California that offer instruction as well.
5. Universal Shooting Academy
Universal Shooting Academy is located in central Florida, and in fact will be the host site for the 2014 IPSC World Shoot. This is the home range of multiple USPSA Grandmasters, and they all teach classes. If you’re looking to up your pistol gaming skills to the next level, head down to USA in Frostproof and take one of their pistol classes. Just don’t do it during the rainy season…
The final word on training comes from famous actor and mustache Tom Selleck. He went to Gunsite. You don’t think you’re better than Tom Selleck, do you?
Px4 Storm Subcompact and Beretta Nano, both in 9mm. Both in need of a stippling job.
Everyone is familiar with the Beretta 92 series of handguns, thanks to their former glory in 80s action movies and the fact that the M9 is still the standard issue handgun to most of the US military. For years Beretta has been producing another line of guns though, guns that some people love and some people just love to hate. This is the Beretta Px4 Storm.
It might come as a surprise to our readers that the Px4 Storm is turning 10 years old in 2014. Introduced in 2004, it replaced the 8000 Series pistols in Beretta’s lineup as the choice for shooters who wanted a Beretta, but didn’t want a 92 series. At the beginning, it was available from Beretta in a number of different action types, starting with the familiar Decock/Safety F-type, the popular decock only G-type, as well as a DAO model (the D) and a strange “constant action” called the “C” model. It used the same rotating barrel lock-up mechanism as the 8000-Series, but came with new polymer construction, interchangeable grip backstraps and magazine releases.
Our test gun is a Px4 Storm Inox in 9mm. I prefer the Inox guns not because they’re more resistant to corrosion, but because they look cooler. It’s about as simple as that. I took the Storm out of the box, put on the large backstrap (to give myself the largest surface area possible) and took it to the range. It came with two 17 round magazines, and additional magazines are readily available online from Beretta USA directly or from major retailers such as Brownells.
What we like
I like DA/SA guns, and the Px4 Storm is a DA/SA gun. Out of the box, the DA trigger was heavy but clean, pull weight measured ~14 pounds with a bit of stacking near the end. The SA trigger was phenomenal, measuring at 3.7 pounds with a bit of take-up then a clean break. Beretta does some of the best DA/SA triggers out of the box, and like it’s big brother the 92 you can take the “D” hammer spring and fit it to an F-series Storm for an even better DA pull.
The gun also has a very mild recoil impulse:
Running a full 17 round magazine (for no reason other than it’s fun) is a piece of cake, and other drills like Bill Drills (etc) were easy as well. The soft recoil impulse is likely a combination of the unique operating system the gun uses and the size of the grip, which does an excellent job of distributing force through the hand. In fact, that’s one of the best features of the Storm: it’s large, and gives shooters a lot of gun to hang on to.
What we don’t like
The grip texture on the gun is not textured enough. I personally would go so far as to call the gun slippery, and would definitely equip any models used for serious competition or self defense with either comprehensive stippling or grip tape to give the gun a bit more traction. The factory sights, like many factory sights leave a bit to be desired, but luckily there is sufficient aftermarket support that you can replace them with designs more suitable for carry and competition.
The Verdict
Our test gun experienced no issues when firing the standard evaluation course of 500 rounds (300 FMJ, 200 JHP). Everything fed and ejected in a normal pattern. Prior to firing, the gun was field stripped and lubricated according to the manual. No other preventative maintenance was used for the test.
The Px4 Storm occupies a strange place in Beretta’s range. In a world of polymer striker fired guns vs. metal hammer fired guns, it’s a bit of an oddity as a hammer fired, polymer framed gun. It costs roughly the same as a Glock, and it terms of appearance it is one of the best looking pistols on the market. In many ways, it’s a lot like the new cars coming out from Alfa Romeo. They cost the same as souped up BMWs, and if you break it down logically you should probably purchase the BMW anyway. But there’s something special about the Berettas, something about the Storm that makes it interesting. Not every gun you own has to be for serious self-defense while HALO jumping with a knife in your teeth – some guns are just nice to own, and nice to shoot. The Storm in 9mm in my opinion would make a fine carry gun, and a serviceable competition gun…but it’s also nice to just look at it. So let’s end this post by doing just that:
The alternate title to this post could be “don’t carry generic JHP ammo” – a perfect example are the JHP rounds from American Eagle or WWB that you can get from Walmart. Lots of people will buy these things thinking that “a hollowpoint is a hollowpoint” and load them up and think they’re good to go. The truth is far from that, because not all JHP ammo is created equal.
The biggest reason to not buy the generic JHP ammo is simple: quality control. Actual ammo that’s manufactured explicitly for self-defense use such as the excellent Winchester PDX or Federal HST is generally subjected to tighter quality control than ammo that’s sold under the more generic branding. Part of the reason you pay for more defensive ammo is that it’s more time consuming to produce.
The second reason is terminal performance. The JHP bullets loaded into those bulkpack boxes are not the latest bullet technology, which means they won’t perform as well as modern bullet designs such as PDX or HST. Again, LE agencies carry the rounds that they carry for a reason, and you’d be hard pressed to find an agency in the country that wasn’t carrying either Gold Dots, Ranger/PDX or HST. In fact, the performance of the bulkpack JHP is so inferior when compared to the “good stuff” that you might as well save yourself a couple of bucks and just carry FMJ instead.
If you’re savvy, you can even save yourself a few bucks on the good stuff. When big companies package their good bullets for the consumer market, they’ll usually put them in flashier boxes that hold 20 or 25 rounds. But when they sell those same rounds to agencies, they’re in simple cardboard boxes of 50. This is where gunbroker actually comes in handy, because you can get overruns of ammo that was produced for LE agencies at a price savings if you shop smart (shop s-mart). Yes, on gunbroker you have to watch out for people overcharging, but at the same time there are some pretty good deals. Just this morning I found a box of Ranger T-Series 9mm in 147 grain for just $299 for a half-case (500 rounds) which means your per round cost is under $0.60. Not bad for defensive ammo.
Don’t bet your life on bargain hollowpoints. If they’re “all you can afford” than just buy some FMJ ammo anyway and get more practice in. Save up a couple of bucks and get the good stuff, and be cagey about how you shop for it to find deals.
The heart and soul of a S&W 625 revolver.
Yesterday, when the news of California State Senator Leland Yee’s arrest for corruption broke, many in the pro-gun community to include myself experienced quite a bit of schadenfreude at the news. An anti-gun, anti-video game, and generally anti-freedom advocate arrested for corruption? Awesome. But the real story is so insane it’s like the news ripped a page out of Unintended Consequences. Because soon to be former Senator Yee wasn’t just hooked up, he was hooked up for being part of an international gun-smuggling ring. It’s glorious. The SF Gate has the affidavit uploaded, and it’s pretty incredible.
Of course, the memes have already springing up around this, and so far the best is this one:
I just cannot express how hilarious this all is. I mean, think about it. An anti-gun politician tries to ban guns, and then gets caught smuggling guns to Islamic terrorists and Asian gangs. I couldn’t make stuff like this up and make it believable. It’s fantastic. And of course, the MSM has completely backpaged the story, although to their credit the LA Times actually ran a pretty good piece on it.
In closing, this is basically a pro-gun Christmas. It couldn’t get any better if we were writing it from a script.
In any discussion of self defense you will encounter people who have mistaken a platitude for a plan. Just as any discussion of safety will bring out some goober who reflexively types some spiel about “booger hooks” in all caps (because that’s how people know you’re super, super serial you guys) anytime there’s a discussion of some potential complexities of self defense there will be somebody who squawks “I’ll just shoot him!” like a parrot…and with all the critical thinking skills behind it that you would expect from a bird.
Human beings like to deal in absolutes. (Obi Wan Kenobi: Only Sith deal in absolutes! Tim watching the movie: That was an absolute. Who wrote this crap?) We prefer things that are concrete and binary, something that either is or isn’t. While we find this comforting it’s just not how the universe we live in actually functions, especially when it comes to interpersonal interaction, particularly the violent kind. Our ideas about a self defense scenario matter because that’s setting the “script” in our head. Thinking about the problem is similar to programming a computer. A robust program considers many possibilities and appropriate responses, and is able to produce the proper action in the moment when it’s required. A bad program sets a very limited number of conditions and if it encounters something else…
Simplistic platitudinal statements about what one will do in an unfamiliar, highly stressful situation is the mental equivalent to writing sloppy, buggy code for a critical system. False assumptions (typically made out of thin air) about the nature of the problem one is likely to face, the options available in the middle of the problem, and the consequences of actions seem to dominate conversations related to self defense…and that’s setting people up for failure. It’s the self defense equivalent to the business plan of South Park’s underpants gnomes:
The ol’ “I’ll just shoot him!” chestnut is one of the worst offenders in this regard. How many times have you heard someone say “If there’s an intruder in my house I’ll just shoot him!” in discussions? If I had a dollar for every time I’ve read that on a forum I’d be driving a brand new Porsche 911 Turbo S. The best takedown of the folly of that idea I’ve ever heard comes from Craig “SouthNarc” Douglas. I took Armed Movement In Structures with him a couple of years ago and he presented a scenario where students faced a cooperative home intruder. Nobody shot him. To paraphrase Craig, you find this guy in your house and you issue a verbal challenge. Caught by surprise, he turns and is staring down the barrel of your Glock. He immediately drops the screwdriver in his hand and is standing there with his hands up, about to piss himself from fear apologizing and begging you not to shoot. How many people when presented with that scenario are really going to say “Castle doctrine!” and then BANG.
If you’ve only ever conceived of BANG as the solution to that problem, you’ll be left in the moment trying to think through how to manage this situation as it’s happening, and that sucks. The fact that the guy dropped the screwdriver and is obviously scared doesn’t mean he’s harmless. He could be concealing another weapon you don’t see…he could be partnered up with someone else in the house you haven’t encountered yet. You don’t know this stuff, and in the moment where you’re actually looking over the sights at this dude you’ll be keenly aware that you don’t know and trying to figure out what in devil’s name to do next. It would be better if you had considered this possibility ahead of time and worked out a few small steps to increase your safety and keep him from getting the idea that your brain is in vapor lock trying to figure out the next step.
When our mental computer hits something that isn’t in the script, it creates gaps in our ability to perceive things and react to them…especially when adrenaline is involved. This gap is often perceptible to the other party we’re dealing with. All of us have seen somebody go into mental vapor lock at some point in our lives, right? In that state we are weak and vulnerable even if we happen to have a gun in our hands.
Make the effort to educate yourself. Attend training where your assumptions are tested under stress. Think about useful reactions to sudden stressful problems informed by your ongoing efforts in education and training. If you do these things the odds are pretty good that you’ll be able to handle most anything you’re likely to encounter.
California State Senator Leland Yee (D), the representative of California’s 8th District which includes San Francisco, was arrested today by the FBI on charges of bribery and corruption. Sen. Lee’s arrested was part of multiple arrests conducted by the FBI as part of a large scale investigation.
Sen. Yee’s arrest has been linked to the arrest of Chinatown gangster Raymond Chow, who was recently arrested on racketeering charges. Sen. Yee is currently running for the office of Secretary of State in California in addition to his duties as a state Senator.
