Defensive Shooting Club: Tactical Medical Class

This week we were taught some of the great information a combat medic knows and applies in the field.

The medical info we were shown specifically relates to firearms type injuries but other great info was bestowed upon us.

Nick Ramsay Army Medic and RN

Nick Answering Questions

Nick Ramsay Demonstrating A  Combat Application Tourniquet (CAT)

Topics covered include:

What to carry in your own first aid kit.
How to apply a tournique
When to apply a tourniquet.
How to use a pressure bandage.
What kind of blood clotting thing to use.
How to improvise a tourniquet.
When to know how much pressure to apply to a pressure bandage.

How to move an injured person.
When to elevate.

How much blood is in you legs.

And on and on.

A great class!

I had to leave a bit early due to other commitments so I missed out on some cool info.

Here's a video outtake of Nick teaching:

Defensive Shooting Club: Scenario Day Fun.

Getting the run down of what to expect

Safety overview

Today was a great day training with the Defensive Shooting Club. Jeff Patane picked up a dueling tree and two hostage target heads swingers types.

There was a nice showing of 28 dedicated citizens practicing their 2nd Amendment Rights and pitching in to make it a great day of shooting.

He incorporated these targets plus a home built IPSC type swinging target into a scenario.

The scenario was a little tricky to catch on to as we are not as smart as we should be.

Basically, Jeff employed the  swinging IPSC target to indicate to the shooter what color target will be the threat in the scenario. The problem was a lot was open to peoples vast imagination. Needless to say, hilarity ensued.

The main point of the scenario, Situational Awareness, was kind of thrown under the bus.

During the scenario we were taken as a hostage during a bank heist or whatever. We were supposed to overtake the "bag guy guard" and use his weapon to neutralize the situation.

Oh, we were also all handcuffed for this one! So we had to manipulate the handgun while being bound up.

The problem was most people missed the bad guy que and kind of fired at what they considered bad guys based on other que's that made sense from an internally logical perspective.

Here are some over taking the bad guy pictures during the scenario:

After the scenario was completed we all gathered for a debriefing where Jeff pointed out the good, the bad and the ugly.

After which we went into some great drill that incorporated the new targets, barrels and barricades.

He really built up the stress level by creating a competition between the group and it was a lot of fun shooting till the wheels rolled off into the distance.

All in all it was a great day and as usual learned a heck of a lot. Everybody was awesome chipping in and providing great background noise. LOL!


Some video of the new club targets and putting them to good use:

Thinking outside the box

We did a great drill whereby each participant had to solve the problem of shooting a target with his handgun but not having a functioning magazine to feed it.

No one got to see what was coming ahead of time.

A lot of people put their spin on solving the problem in creative ways.

Over all it was a great drill to get the participants to think outside of their realm of normal experience.


Here's a video of the antics:

Pistol Training Using Support Side Techniques

Just did some training with the Defensive Shooting Club with focus on support side only manipulation of a pistol. That means you can't use the primary side.

Topics covered include immediate action drills from the support side, reloading from the support side and drawing from the support side. Also covered were optimal shooting position when shooting from the support side only.

It was raining quite a bit so these guys and gal are dedicated to the art of the pistol!

Other topics were covered and the day was wrapped up with some fun barricade, barrel, multiple position shooting as you will see if you watch the video.






It was a lot of fun and is over way to fast.

Defensive Shooting Club Anual Fun Shoot and Raffle!

Well it's that time of year again for the Defensive Shooting Club Fun shoot. Last year we had a three gun competition but this year it was reduced to two guns.

There were four stages the competitors had to complete in to see who would win this year.

After the event we all filled up on pizza and beer and got some raffle prizes if we were lucky.

Here is some video of the event!



Someone bought 400 raffle tickets so they got all the prizes donated by the Bay Area Gun Vault. Luckily, Jeff Patane, the DSC instructor started off by quizzing us on our defensive handgun history knowledge, I managed to get an answer right and won some 9mm snap caps.

The question was: Who is considered the father of modern pistol craft?

It was a super fun day and everybody had a lot of fun I'm sure. Especially at the end. View the video if you want to know why.

Defensive Shooting Club: Carbine Month!

Here at the Defensive Shooting Club we normally dedicate our time to honing our skills with a handgun since that's the most likely defensive gun that would be deployed. But this month we practiced with the carbine to freshen up our skills and refresh our muscle memory regarding the manual of arms for the long gun.

We sure are lucky to have in my area a club that is dedicated to defensive firearm use. The club has been around for over 15 years! We get to train twice a month, five hours a session for a total of ten hours per month of intense firearms training that includes not only a wide variety of drills including to train unconventional use and positions but also scenarios where we have to think on our feet to maximize a positive outcome. The instructor, Jeff Patane, also drills us in the basics and drives them home so they become automatic actions.

Jeff mixes up the training to make sure we can use any hand to shoot from, load from any hand and use whatever we have around our environment to survive if we find ourselves in a hostile situation. When is it best to reveal that we are armed, how time plays a factor in a successful outcome. And some much more. He always stresses, gun fighting is a thinking mans game.

I haven't seen or heard of another club like this in existence anywhere. Most of the time you have to take a course. Courses can only go so far and once you are done it's up to the student to keep up and practice somehow until the next course where there will be the necessary re-evaluation of all the students skill levels. Signing up for courses also has it's own barriers such as going into the unknown, the uncertainty etc.

The benefit of the Defensive Shooting Club is the continuity of training and familiarization with most of the students present. Everyone is pulling for everyone else, sharing ideas and having a friendly competitive atmosphere which drives people to try to improve in areas that could be brought up to a higher level of proficiency. Jeff knows what to try out next based on the previous classes and can add twists and turns based on current affairs such as setting up a scenario that deals with protecting oneself in a restaurant. He can see that, as a group, it's time to do X or Y. I've taken a lot of courses from other instructors where they teach you various techniques, drills and procedures but at the DSC we get to put it all together and try it out. The DSC is a great proving ground for equipment too. If it fails during our training then it's time to find something better.

Another great thing about the club is anyone can join by simply paying a modest $20.00 fee and diving right in. The value is incredible. It might not be for everyone though in that the core philosophy is defense which includes the notion of situational awareness. If you are not aware you could have a rude awakening!

Anyway, I'm just happy that I get to live nearby and be a participant in the Defensive Shooting Club! Thanks Jeff for being an unending well of enthusiasm, inspiration, and information!

Here is a short compilation of what we did last Sunday!

AR15 in Slow Motion

I was out training today and took some video of an AR-15 cycling some rounds in slow motion.

It's pretty mesmerizing if you ask me!

Fun At the Defensive Shooting Club!

This month is dedicated to Carbines!

We had some fun shooting paper and doing some fun barricade shoots.

This is getting us ready for our annual fun shoot which will be a two gun competition next month! I wish it was three gun though then I could kick ass with my new Saiga 12!

Here is a short video. My battery went dead so this is all I got!

Defensive Shooting Club: Attack Inoculation

Today we did a lot of interesting stuff.

The most interesting was: Attack Inoculation.

We started off the morning with a "blind shoot" scenario where no one knew what the situation was when we were walking into it.

Next up for the day was Attack Inoculation. That is when the instructor beats us with a training bag to disorient and condition us to fight to get to our weapons. Once we were bashed to the right amount we were to deploy our handguns to neutralize any threats. It was actually pretty fun.

Here's a video of the crazy training antics.

Oh, inevitably our eyes and ears would fall off due to the sparing. The 'uke' could have put them back on but most opted to keep the training real and shoot without them. What was interesting was the phenomena of "aural exclusion" actually took place and I for one didn't hear the pistol at all!

Defensive Shooting Club - Drills Day

The beginning to the day started out with fundamentals. Making sure me maintained proper trigger control, sight picture, follow through. Increasing the distances we discovered that the fundamentals played a crucial part in being able to hit the target.

We also practiced target discrimination and driving the gun between targets to simulate multiple attackers, because you know that's the way it's going.

Setting up the targets

Getting Ready for Intense Training

Setting up a Defensive Learning Environment

On interesting drill we did was to use some plastic barrels as cover just to illustrate how difficult it really is to make sure you are actually behind cover and cannot be seen by the attackers. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they can't see some part of you to take out.

This simple looking drill covers a lot of basic material. Proper use of cover is more difficult especially when the cover might be on the smaller side. It's good to get a sense of how much is exposed. Also, we run a 360 degree "Hot" range. Therefore, position "SUL" is alway used to prevent breaking rule number 2! Also, in more advance training classes it is the natural thing to do so focus on the training principles is easier if the basic safely concepts are squared away. This drill also hammer home the use of both hands. When using support side cover use support side grip. In the long run you become a more versatile defensive shooter.

Nice write up on position "SUL"




This drill was to teach the use of muzzle and trigger discipline during the transitioning from one unconventional position to another. Also, realizing that the DSC trains in a 360 degree hot range, using position "SUL" to become an automatic position when moving around when not engaging any threats but still in a super heightened level of awareness.

Defensive Shooting Club: Scenario Day, "Target Discrimination"

Today we had a large group of people! Everyone was great too. We even had a couple of families including their sons ages ranging from 12 - 16.

Today was a "blind" shoot. Everybody was corralled at the far end of the range while Jeff set up the scenario. No one sees what is going on ahead of time. This allows everyone to experience the situation fresh without rehearsal or even knowing what to expect. It's the ultimate simulation of what could really happen. Believe me your adrenaline starts up and emotions come into play even though it's a contrived, controlled environment!

Jeff Patane focused on "Target Discrimination"

The four steps of Target Discrimination are:

1. Take in the big picture looking for out-of-the-ordinary behavior or actions.
2. Scan for suspicious aggressive or otherwise deliberate motion.
3. Check waist band and hands for signs of a weapon
4. Determine optimum area to engage a determined threat.

Of course these steps happen quite fast and it's easy to skip a step and start experience tunnel vision by focusing on only one threat or group of threats that are clustered together.

Also, when we determined a threat we tried to conceal the fact that we are armed till the last possible moment to engage the threat. This will optimize the advantage of surprise and if there are multiple threats this will allow for some kind of strategy to maximize survival.

We we shown various ways to distract possible threats by raising our support side hand blading our body in such a way to conceal our weapon while simultaneously reaching for our weapon to draw.

There is also a verbal component that plays into confrontations as you would ultimately like to talk down or slow down the threat to allow for time to get into position or distract or provide witnesses with verbal clues that you tried to stop whatever events are unfolding.

Once the threat has been eliminated, one way or another, it's still very important to maintain situational awareness and continue to take in the big picture.

In general it's a very fluid situation and practice doing scenarios like this gives us the chance to participate, critique, learn how we would react and improve in a controlled environment.

One thing that is clear to me it is easy to "intellectualize" the situation, and believe that you could do this and that, well once you participate in a scenario like this you'll see it's an eye opening experience , everything you "thought" you would do goes out the window. Also, when thrown into such a situation the first reaction is to stand there and think "Is this really happening?" but converting that to action where you immediately recognize the situation for what is is and react accordingly in a defensive way that could save your life, that's where training comes in. The constant inculcation that you need to do something now because the bad guy is not going to wait for you is one of the move valuable lessons to learn!

That's where this training clearly separates the "martial arts" use of firearms vs the gaming use of firearms in it's various forms.


Here is some video of the great day:

DSC: Scenario Day Teamwork

Today, Jeff Patane, set up a couple of blind shoots. That is scenarios that none of the participants see in advance so we are walking into a situation where we have to react to what we encounter.

The first blind shoot involved walking with a friend in a mall and seeing a crowd gathered we were curious to what it was about to we decided to go check it out.

As we are approaching shots are fired. Being legally armed and concerned citizens and trusting in our skills and our best friends skills we advance using cover to to assess the situation and hopefully help stop the carnage without drawing attention to ourselves as potential threats.

Some ideas that were employed were communication, only reveal your weapon when a actual threat is spotted and make sure you take in the situation and scan everyone/thing up and down looking for what is out of the ordinary.

This is easier said than done my friend.

All I can say is it was an eye opener.

The next blind shoot is you are in a situation where you have to react very quickly to a hostage situation.

This was a situation using airsoft. All real firearms were decked and out of sight to avoid any possible mix ups!

Setting up the crowd for scenario one.

Explaining the purpose and intent of the scenario.

What we saw when we came around the corner. Not a pretty sight!

The afternoon was taken up by some good old fashion running and gunning various poppers and paper to train us to shoot on the move and handle our firearms in unconventional positions while maintaining proper trigger discipline etc.

A very challenging day in the end where we all learned a lot of new things about ourselves. Of course it was also super fun! I managed to draw and fire ten rounds into the A zone of an ISPC target in 3.36 secs. Draw time was 1.48. That was fun!

We also did a modified Tri-Lambda drill with hostage targets. The Tri-Lambda drill is one of Kyle Lamb's VTAC drills.

Active Shooter Scenerio DSC Day

Active shooter scenario blind shoot today at the DSC (Defensive Shooting Club).

A blind shoot means everyone is corralled off to the side and cannot see the scenario ahead of time. It's just like you happened to come upon this situation in real life and then you have to react to it.

In this case we are picking up our kids from school that some people decided to attack. We come across a security guard that has been injured and take his gun and proceed to enter into the situation with hopes of rescuing our kids. Pretty tricky indeed since we were out gunned and out numbered but this is training and the situation dictated that we had no choice really. We had to rely on the combat triad to get through this!

Essentially, the take home from this particular scenario is situational awareness. It's very, very difficult to maintain situational awareness during a stressful event. There is the unknown, the time to figure out what is going on is very limited because you need to maintain the element of surprise, keeping your whits about you while you assess the situation and try to determine the best course of action. A lot is going on. All I know is that I hope I don't have to do something like this in real life because it's not easy to keep cool while all hell breaks loose!

In my case I saw 2 of the 3 bad guys, unfortunately the guy I didn't see had a bomb vest and as soon as I started to take out the other armed guys the bomb guy did his thing! Ouch!

These bad guys had weeks to plan their attack but a someone coming on the scene has only seconds to formulate a defensive plan. That's a big disadvantage! I guess that's why the police like to stand off for a long time to try and get the lay-of-the-land and have time to play catch up with-respect-to forming a plan, unfortunately, at the cost of some bystanders. Containment seems to be the way to go, knowing that the collateral damage will be limited to the specific region that was quarantined for the attack.

In short, this was a very tough blind shoot and reality check that training for this type of situation is very tricky if you want to succeed.


Here's a little bit of video from the day's events:

Defensive Shooting Club last day of year.

Today we reviewed the concepts of the Jeff Cooper's "Combat Triad" and John Boyd's "OODA Loop".

We then moved into doing shooting while moving drills with the above reviewed concepts in mind.

We also had a first time new shooter in the mix and Jeff was taking him through the paces.

M&P Submerged In Water Test

It was raining today and the previous night so there were some nice big puddles of water lingering around the range.

I decided to see if the M&P9c would be up for a little test of being submerged in water then fired.

Worked like a charm.





Here's a little video of the event:

Defensive Shooting Club Adventures Continue

Last Sunday we had our usual scenario day where we were put through the ringer trying to react to thugs mugging us in a door way to our apt. or some such place.

One thing for sure there is a lot to thing about and no time to react to it!

The scenario really puts this into perspective. If you hear a threat or you are in immediate danger try to stall by talking and accessing the situation just to buy a little time.

One of the other interesting things we did was to see what would happen if you put your hand on the slide of a gun while it was being shot. We did this as a follow up to a previous training class where we learned how to take-away a gun from a bad guy. We know this is last ditch self defense but it's good to have gone through it to know what it feels like.

Here is some video of the recent fun we had:

Recent Fun At A Vehicle Tactics Course

I got to spend some time at a vehicle tactics course last weekend where I learned some more cool stuff. Thanks to Alpha Dog Tactical!

Here's a short video highlight depicting some ballistics experiments and a little team tactics.

Training in the Rain, DSC Style

Last week at the DSC we focused on the importance of being able to operate your handgun proficiently with only one hand.

The previous class we did force on force and noticed that when being shot at, with airsoft, a lot of peoples hands got shot. That was probably because when presenting the firearm it is conveniently positioned center-of-mass.

This prompted our instructor to emphasize weapon manipulations and accurate shots on targets with whatever hand is available.

Things we covered were malfunction clearances, reloading, drawing, engaging threats from various positions and recovery of a weapon in case it was dropped.

Recovery if dropped because your hand was shot and you had to stay in the fight.

So, this post is to make people aware that this type of training might come in handy and also makes you better and more confident when handling your firearm in normal situations.

BTW it was raining like hell most of the day!

M&P9 is a tough pistol!


Intense discussion between drills.

Learning the finer points of transitioning a pistol between strong side and support side.

Today we mainly practiced one handed shooting with various stresses thrown in for good measure. Some of the stresses include running a lap around the range then run and set up popper targets and then reassemble your field stripped handgun before you engage the poppers from behind a barricade!

Everyone had fun!

DSC Fun Shoot 2010

I participated in this years DSC Fun Shoot!

This year was a three gun theme where I used my S&W M&P9, a Robinson Arms XCR chambered in 7.62x39 and my Remington 870 Police Magnum 12 gauge shot gun Vang Comp.

I only had one issue and that was with my 870! It had a double feed but I managed to clear it and power on.

The variety of tools used for the event.

Checking out the other participants shot gun style.

It was raining most of the day and came down pretty hard for a portion of it.

The range turned into a big mud pit and running around with an extra 10lbs of mud stuck to your shoes made it all the more fun!



There were about 20 participants this year which is a healthy turn out.



It was a three gun fun shoot. We had a pistol only stage, a carbine only stage and then a three gun stage where a pistol, carbine and shotgun were used.



The three gun portion we were to draw an empty pistol from our holster and load it with a magazine that was resting on the blue barrel in front of the shooter.


Then engage 6 steel poppers.

After that run over to the carbine stage.

The rifle, bolt closed, was laying on top of a blue barrel along with a magazine.

You're supposed to pick up the rifle, load it and start shooting the 10 IPSC targets laid out in front out to a range of 25 yards. Three hits in the A zone for each target. When finished we unload the rifle and ensure the bolt is locked back.


Next we were to run up to the shotgun stage:


This is the final shot from the shotgun stage.

We had six targets laid out in a U shaped pattern.

Each target had two balloons attached to it. about 2 inches away from each other.

The instructor would yell "Left" or "Right" to indicate which balloon to hit on each target.

The shotgun was sitting on a blue barrel unloaded. We had to load the tube with six rounds (or combat load every round or get it loaded as the shooter saw fit)

Engage the six targets making sure not to hit the "hostage" balloon.

When done we were to load a slug and hit the steel about 25 yards away.




Yesterday, I went to the gun store, Bay Area Gun Vault, where the first prize was awaiting me and started to fill out the paperwork for it.

The owner of the store, Gary, also competed in the DSC fun shoot and he donated a lot of the great prizes to the club for the winners of the event and for the raffle afterward to help raise money for the club.

First prize: Complete Noveske Lower.
Second prize: Quality binoculars.
Third prize: Stripped Noveske lower.

Here is a pic of my first place prize at the gun store:

DSC - Basic Gun Take Away Techinques

Defensive Shooting Club Drills Day Adventures

Today we had a friend of Jeff Patane drop by who is an ex police officer and a high ranking master in various martial arts including Aikido, Jiu Jitsu and others.

He was demonstrating various gun take-away techniques that can be used as a last resort knowing that the assailant will most likely use the weapon against you if you don't do something right now.

Below are a few pictures of one of the techniques demonstrated.

Basically, ask questions to distract the assailant, keep your hands in the most defensively beneficial position and then carry out the defensive maneuver to disarm and do what is necessary to ensure your safety.

The most important thing that was stress during all the demonstrations is make sure you get your body out of the way of the muzzle as quickly as possible. If the assailant get a shot off you don't want to be on the receiving end.













After the great demonstrations and explanations we all paired off and practiced for ourselves for awhile trying to get the hang of the various techniques. More practice is necessary but it's good to know a basic technique to have in your back pocket for a just-in-case-situation.




After the martial arts practice we switched to some drills where we practice fast target acquisition. At 3, 5, 7, and 10 yards we were to engage a numbered target from the low ready. We had 2 seconds for 2 rounds then 2 seconds for four rounds. This demonstrated our ability to keep the rounds in the colored shapes within the allotted time limit.

We were flying through round and it was very challenging and fun.










After that we moved to some shooting on the move and then some steel shooting!




All-in-all a fun and informative day had by all!