Fred Fuller
Moderator Emeritus
Date- 20-21-22 May 2006
Place- Durham Pistol and Rifle Club, Durham, NC ( http://www.dprc.org/ )
Course description- http://yfainc.com/courses.htm#shotgun1
I have been looking forward to taking this class for more than a decade, and until this year was delayed by the demands of work or prevented due to a protracted illness which precluded me from driving, handling firearms etc. Finally retired and recovered enough to drive again, I took advantage of my first opportunity to at last achieve this long- term goal. It was well worth the time, expense and trouble- I just wish I could have done it years ago rather than having to wait all this time.
Louis Awerbuck is arguably the best instructor in the United States today when it comes to teaching the use of the shotgun as a defensive firearm. His impressive vita can be seen on his web page at http://yfainc.com/ , there's no need for me to repeat it here. Suffice it to say that Louis has been traveling and teaching full time now for 18 years, with a total of more than three decades of experience in teaching the use of firearms. He is at the top of his game, and training with him is an experience not to be missed.
For more than twenty years I worked as a Department of the Army civilian, and for thirteen years of that period I worked at the US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, where soldiers of the US Army Special Forces receive training. Special Forces soldiers are first and foremost teachers and trainers themselves, and the schoolhouse at USAJFKSWCS turns out some of the Army's finest trainers and teachers. I know an outstanding trainer when I see one, and I found it a great pleasure to watch and experience Louis at work for three days. The man is simply one of the best I have ever seen.
A good instructor first and foremost has to have a full knowledge of his subject, and Louis is a past master of the scattergun. He knows the weapon inside and out, its strengths and weaknesses, advantages and shortcomings, the details of what makes various makes and models work, and how to get the most out of them. He knows his drills both lefthanded and right, and has no trouble demonstrating a particular sequence on either side. He is particularly strong at diagnosing whatever problems a given shooter is having, and finding a quick and workable solution for those problems. He is one of the most perceptive evaluators I have ever seen- almost nothing on his firing line escapes his notice and immediate attention when required. He is a stickler about safety- it is his only real demand, in fact, and he is unfailing in his requirement that students maintain safe firearms handling practices throughout the class.
Instruction in the shotgun class on day one opened with several hours of classroom discussion of the shotgun as a weapon, its strengths and weaknesses, and desireable attributes for a defensive shotgun. Louis believes in the KISS principle, and suggests that a defensive shotgun needs a stock short enough to be easily manageable, a stout sling and a white light source on board. He suggests sights if the student needs them to shoot well, but believes sights should be simple, sturdy and most of all solidly attached to the shotgun with silver solder and/or strong screws. After further discussions of various aspects of defensive shotgunning, including ammunition, modifications, manipulation and an overview of the afternoon's schedule, we broke for lunch.
[Addendum re. lights: Louis believes that whatever light is mounted on a shotgun should be able as much as possible to stand up to shotgun recoil. Shotguns are notoriously hard on lights, particularly incandescent lightbulbs, and LED lights seem to be a useful solution at this point. He recommended that students remove their lights during range practice so as not to overly abuse them in live fire.
Louis also thinks whatever light is mounted ought to be able to be switched on and left on, not merely controlled by a pressure switch requiring the use of the shooter's support hand. He thinks the shooter should be prepared to let go of the gun with the support side hand but still be able to maintain use of the light and even fire the gun if necessary with one hand.
His standard argument re. lights and slings: what if you confront someone in the dark in your home, and they comply with all your demands at gunpoint? Do you want to take the light off them to be able to pick up the phone? Do you want to prop the gun in the corner so as to be able to dial 911? How will you keep the bad guy 1)at gunpoint and 2)illuminated, and still be able to dial a phone etc. all at the same time? You can't just shoot a compliant housebreaker because you don't want to let your weaponlight turn off when you move your hand off the tape switch, or because you have no way to retain the gun and still call for help. Thus his contention that you need a good simple sling on the shotgun, and a light mounted on the gun which has a constant-on capability.]
Exactly one hour later the 21 shooters in the class reassembled on the range to begin the hands-on, noisy portion of the day's training. We started with loading and unloading the shotgun. Louis is open to students doing whatever works for them as long as it is safe, but prefers to teach simple proven repeatable methods that can be retained and can be used without requiring attention when pressure is on. He prefers to teach loading exclusively through the loading port of bottom-fed shotguns by feel alone, but is willing to go over alternative methods for those who are already familiar with emergency loading through the ejection port. It is his contention that it is better by far to have one method of emergency loading down pat in a gunfight than to be confused about two ways of emergency loading and not get either of them right reliably in a pinch.
[Addendum on running the gun: Louis thinks it best to ALWAYS run the bolt on a pumpgun when the trigger is tripped. It should be instinctive, automatic and done no matter whether the gun had gone BOOM or CLICK. If the action has been run, then the gun is ready to load through the loading port- the action will be closed, locked and cocked and nothing will impede loading. Louis has no objection to unlocking the action by tripping the trigger instead of reaching for the action release button once a round or rounds are loaded into the magazine of a previously empty gun, but insists that sights should _always_ be on target when the trigger is pulled, even if you expect it to go CLICK. He says that someday you will get a BOOM and not a CLICK and you'd better have sights on target when that happens.
It was his recommendation that loading always be done through the bottom loading port, even in an empty gun when one shell at the time needed to be loaded and fired. Since that was my established habit already, I had little trouble completing the drill where that activity was called for under pressure. It can be accomplished faster than it takes to tell it- fire the shot, follow through on the shot to get the hit, run the bolt to eject the hull and lock the action, load a shell into the magazine without looking at the gun, unlock the action and run the bolt to chamber the shell, fire the shot... .]
Louis also suggests a press check of the magazine tube then a press check of the chamber with the gun at low ready when circumstances permit, to determine the status of the gun without having to take eyes off the threat downrange. It is his contention- which he then sets out to demonstrate among the students on the firing line- that no one can reliably count rounds under significant pressure and therefore should learn a foolproof methodology of assessing the state of readiness of the shotgun without having to look at it, and of keeping the shotgun fed under pressure without having to look at it.
Unloading is an administrative function not an emergency and is best performed by not running rounds through the chamber when possible. Some designs, particularly some semiautos, are less amenable to downloading through the loading port and therefore lend themselves more easily to downloading by running rounds out by manually reciprocating the bolt.
[Addendum re. downloading: Louis suggests unloading the chamber first on 870s, then the mag tube, and unloading the mag tube first on Winchester/FN pumps and Mossberg pumps, then the chamber. Unloading the chamber is best accomplished by unlocking the action, easing the forearm back slowly until the nose of the round protrudes a bit from the chamber, and picking it out from under the extractor with the support hand at that point.
With an 870, the lifter can be pushed up at this point and the action opened the rest of the way with the support hand pinching the forearm between thumb and forefinger. That way the palm of the support hand will fall under the loading port to catch the shell that will be coming out of the magazine tube when the shell stops are tripped as the action opens the rest of the way. The rest of the rounds can be removed from the magazine tube by tripping the right side shell stop. All this can safely and easily be accomplished with the gun at low ready.]
A discussion of patterning and patterns was a major portion of the first afternoon's activities. A great demonstration of the ability of given guns to have their patterns adjusted merely by switching brands of buckshot was conducted and discussed at length. The conventional wisdom- that every shotgun barrel is essentially a law unto itself, and that the only way to know what any given barrel will do with any given load is to pattern it at different ranges- was not challenged in any way but was supported by live-fire examples from guns on the firing line.
I'm going to break this here, but will take it back up later in additional posts on this thread until I complete a basic overview of the class. Please stand by...
lpl/nc
Place- Durham Pistol and Rifle Club, Durham, NC ( http://www.dprc.org/ )
Course description- http://yfainc.com/courses.htm#shotgun1
I have been looking forward to taking this class for more than a decade, and until this year was delayed by the demands of work or prevented due to a protracted illness which precluded me from driving, handling firearms etc. Finally retired and recovered enough to drive again, I took advantage of my first opportunity to at last achieve this long- term goal. It was well worth the time, expense and trouble- I just wish I could have done it years ago rather than having to wait all this time.
Louis Awerbuck is arguably the best instructor in the United States today when it comes to teaching the use of the shotgun as a defensive firearm. His impressive vita can be seen on his web page at http://yfainc.com/ , there's no need for me to repeat it here. Suffice it to say that Louis has been traveling and teaching full time now for 18 years, with a total of more than three decades of experience in teaching the use of firearms. He is at the top of his game, and training with him is an experience not to be missed.
For more than twenty years I worked as a Department of the Army civilian, and for thirteen years of that period I worked at the US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, where soldiers of the US Army Special Forces receive training. Special Forces soldiers are first and foremost teachers and trainers themselves, and the schoolhouse at USAJFKSWCS turns out some of the Army's finest trainers and teachers. I know an outstanding trainer when I see one, and I found it a great pleasure to watch and experience Louis at work for three days. The man is simply one of the best I have ever seen.
A good instructor first and foremost has to have a full knowledge of his subject, and Louis is a past master of the scattergun. He knows the weapon inside and out, its strengths and weaknesses, advantages and shortcomings, the details of what makes various makes and models work, and how to get the most out of them. He knows his drills both lefthanded and right, and has no trouble demonstrating a particular sequence on either side. He is particularly strong at diagnosing whatever problems a given shooter is having, and finding a quick and workable solution for those problems. He is one of the most perceptive evaluators I have ever seen- almost nothing on his firing line escapes his notice and immediate attention when required. He is a stickler about safety- it is his only real demand, in fact, and he is unfailing in his requirement that students maintain safe firearms handling practices throughout the class.
Instruction in the shotgun class on day one opened with several hours of classroom discussion of the shotgun as a weapon, its strengths and weaknesses, and desireable attributes for a defensive shotgun. Louis believes in the KISS principle, and suggests that a defensive shotgun needs a stock short enough to be easily manageable, a stout sling and a white light source on board. He suggests sights if the student needs them to shoot well, but believes sights should be simple, sturdy and most of all solidly attached to the shotgun with silver solder and/or strong screws. After further discussions of various aspects of defensive shotgunning, including ammunition, modifications, manipulation and an overview of the afternoon's schedule, we broke for lunch.
[Addendum re. lights: Louis believes that whatever light is mounted on a shotgun should be able as much as possible to stand up to shotgun recoil. Shotguns are notoriously hard on lights, particularly incandescent lightbulbs, and LED lights seem to be a useful solution at this point. He recommended that students remove their lights during range practice so as not to overly abuse them in live fire.
Louis also thinks whatever light is mounted ought to be able to be switched on and left on, not merely controlled by a pressure switch requiring the use of the shooter's support hand. He thinks the shooter should be prepared to let go of the gun with the support side hand but still be able to maintain use of the light and even fire the gun if necessary with one hand.
His standard argument re. lights and slings: what if you confront someone in the dark in your home, and they comply with all your demands at gunpoint? Do you want to take the light off them to be able to pick up the phone? Do you want to prop the gun in the corner so as to be able to dial 911? How will you keep the bad guy 1)at gunpoint and 2)illuminated, and still be able to dial a phone etc. all at the same time? You can't just shoot a compliant housebreaker because you don't want to let your weaponlight turn off when you move your hand off the tape switch, or because you have no way to retain the gun and still call for help. Thus his contention that you need a good simple sling on the shotgun, and a light mounted on the gun which has a constant-on capability.]
Exactly one hour later the 21 shooters in the class reassembled on the range to begin the hands-on, noisy portion of the day's training. We started with loading and unloading the shotgun. Louis is open to students doing whatever works for them as long as it is safe, but prefers to teach simple proven repeatable methods that can be retained and can be used without requiring attention when pressure is on. He prefers to teach loading exclusively through the loading port of bottom-fed shotguns by feel alone, but is willing to go over alternative methods for those who are already familiar with emergency loading through the ejection port. It is his contention that it is better by far to have one method of emergency loading down pat in a gunfight than to be confused about two ways of emergency loading and not get either of them right reliably in a pinch.
[Addendum on running the gun: Louis thinks it best to ALWAYS run the bolt on a pumpgun when the trigger is tripped. It should be instinctive, automatic and done no matter whether the gun had gone BOOM or CLICK. If the action has been run, then the gun is ready to load through the loading port- the action will be closed, locked and cocked and nothing will impede loading. Louis has no objection to unlocking the action by tripping the trigger instead of reaching for the action release button once a round or rounds are loaded into the magazine of a previously empty gun, but insists that sights should _always_ be on target when the trigger is pulled, even if you expect it to go CLICK. He says that someday you will get a BOOM and not a CLICK and you'd better have sights on target when that happens.
It was his recommendation that loading always be done through the bottom loading port, even in an empty gun when one shell at the time needed to be loaded and fired. Since that was my established habit already, I had little trouble completing the drill where that activity was called for under pressure. It can be accomplished faster than it takes to tell it- fire the shot, follow through on the shot to get the hit, run the bolt to eject the hull and lock the action, load a shell into the magazine without looking at the gun, unlock the action and run the bolt to chamber the shell, fire the shot... .]
Louis also suggests a press check of the magazine tube then a press check of the chamber with the gun at low ready when circumstances permit, to determine the status of the gun without having to take eyes off the threat downrange. It is his contention- which he then sets out to demonstrate among the students on the firing line- that no one can reliably count rounds under significant pressure and therefore should learn a foolproof methodology of assessing the state of readiness of the shotgun without having to look at it, and of keeping the shotgun fed under pressure without having to look at it.
Unloading is an administrative function not an emergency and is best performed by not running rounds through the chamber when possible. Some designs, particularly some semiautos, are less amenable to downloading through the loading port and therefore lend themselves more easily to downloading by running rounds out by manually reciprocating the bolt.
[Addendum re. downloading: Louis suggests unloading the chamber first on 870s, then the mag tube, and unloading the mag tube first on Winchester/FN pumps and Mossberg pumps, then the chamber. Unloading the chamber is best accomplished by unlocking the action, easing the forearm back slowly until the nose of the round protrudes a bit from the chamber, and picking it out from under the extractor with the support hand at that point.
With an 870, the lifter can be pushed up at this point and the action opened the rest of the way with the support hand pinching the forearm between thumb and forefinger. That way the palm of the support hand will fall under the loading port to catch the shell that will be coming out of the magazine tube when the shell stops are tripped as the action opens the rest of the way. The rest of the rounds can be removed from the magazine tube by tripping the right side shell stop. All this can safely and easily be accomplished with the gun at low ready.]
A discussion of patterning and patterns was a major portion of the first afternoon's activities. A great demonstration of the ability of given guns to have their patterns adjusted merely by switching brands of buckshot was conducted and discussed at length. The conventional wisdom- that every shotgun barrel is essentially a law unto itself, and that the only way to know what any given barrel will do with any given load is to pattern it at different ranges- was not challenged in any way but was supported by live-fire examples from guns on the firing line.
I'm going to break this here, but will take it back up later in additional posts on this thread until I complete a basic overview of the class. Please stand by...
lpl/nc
Last edited:
) run? How was it configured? I've done 9 classes with Louis,4 of which have been with shotguns. He and Scott Reitz, when they do a class together under ITTS sanction , have a synergy that is off the scale! I did a shotgun class in the early 90s , I think, with John Satterswaite which was real impressive but was not gunfighting oriented as Louis's classes are (exclusively).
