SapperLeader
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Tactical Shotgun One, taught by Louis Awerbuck (Labor Day Weekend at Quantico Shooting Club)
This was a 10 person class, and a three day course. The 10 students signed up for this course included individuals from all walks of life and styles of shooting and used a variety of equipment. The shotguns used included 1 Beneli super 90, Remington 1100 20ga, 2 Mossberg 590, 6 Remington 870s(1 vang comped, 1 police, 1 wingmaster, 1 hybrid police all hobbled together, 2 express synthetics.) The pistols used were 3 1911, 1 browning hi-power, 1 SIG, 1 Beretta, 4 Glock’s.
Personal Gear used - Remington Express HD model. 18.5 barrel, +2 extension, sidesaddle, cqb solutions(now specter gear) single point sling mounted on gg&g mount, bead sight painted fluorescent orange, with a stock synthetic stock with a limbsaver R3 pad. I also had a belt pouch made by Blackhawk that officially holds 25 shells, but I could put 40+ shells into it with ease. My hi-power is a stock practical model with ambidextrous safety(more on these later)
Day One - The course started out at 8:30 Sunday morning with a short safety lecture and introduction of Louis Awerbuck from the Quantico Range Safety Officer(RSO). Louis introduced himself, and stressed his top two safety rules, and hardly needed to mention them after this. As long as we keep our muzzles in a safe direction, and fingers off the trigger, we would stay safe and keep everybody happy. We then sat down for 3 ½ hour lecture/discussion of the weapons involved, pros and cons with each system, personal idiosyncrasies that may sway ones weapon choice. The class started off with the order of importance with shotgun modifications. Louis explained, that stock fit is the #1 importance with a shotgun, followed by a sling and a white light mounted on the weapon. These are his three items of vital importance. Nowhere did he mention a set of optics or new sights as being needed. When asked, he informed us that most shooters seem to ignore the three important ones, and rush out to get the fanciest sights they can find. Our class was lucky in that no one had fancy optics on their shotguns, so Louis didn’t need to explain why this wasn’t necessary. We also asked about sidesaddles and other ammo carriers, and Louis said they were a good idea, as there is no such thing as enough ammo, as long as one realizes that the odds of reloading in a typical HD scenario isn’t very likely.
The second half of the lecture discussed the barrel, and how each barrel is a law of its own. We discussed patterning of buck and bird, and a little bit about slugs. Louis was asked his opinion of the Vang Comp system, and said he thought the Vang part of the process was good if you were interested in super tight patterns, but thought the comp portion was gimmick and useless, as shotguns do not have muzzle rise from gases, and the tiny ports are something else to clean. When asked what Louis personally used, he informed us that he doesn’t use buckshot as he owns too many shotguns, and uses slugs only. We then ended the lecture and moved to the range area for loading and unloading drills. Louis informed us during this drill that the shooting portion of this course wasn’t that hard, its the loading of the gun that will get us every time.
After that, we patterned buckshot, and everyone learned what their particular load patterned as. Most of us had patterned our load of choice before this and were gratified to learn our loads would suffice. The two tightest loads were the vang comp gun with federal tactical 00 and the wingmaster with Winchester ranger 00. My particular load was the Remington 00 RR 8 pellet, and patterned nicely out 14 yards, but starts spreading rapidly after 15. After lunch, we started shooting at the plates, either individually, or in relays. Shooting at the plates was easy, but the process was more complicated than it seems, as the drill varied from shoot one load one, to shoot two load one, to shoot three, though you only had one or none rounds in the gun. It really drove home the lesson that you cant always keep the gun fully topped off, and its better to shoot the target and have a empty or almost empty gun, versus load that magazine tube and die while never getting a shot off. At this stage Louis was fond of saying , its a bad choice, but do you want a full gun and be dead, or be alive with a empty gun. We finished up with rolling thunders, which is a progressive exercise of 5 people, each shooting at different targets, in a different order, with a varied amount of rounds being fired. It got tricky really fast, but overall everyone did pretty well with the drill. A lot of the drills over the day, involved forward and backward movement, and lateral movement to get into the practice of shooting at targets while moving, rather than standing still in the way of incoming fire.
This was a 10 person class, and a three day course. The 10 students signed up for this course included individuals from all walks of life and styles of shooting and used a variety of equipment. The shotguns used included 1 Beneli super 90, Remington 1100 20ga, 2 Mossberg 590, 6 Remington 870s(1 vang comped, 1 police, 1 wingmaster, 1 hybrid police all hobbled together, 2 express synthetics.) The pistols used were 3 1911, 1 browning hi-power, 1 SIG, 1 Beretta, 4 Glock’s.
Personal Gear used - Remington Express HD model. 18.5 barrel, +2 extension, sidesaddle, cqb solutions(now specter gear) single point sling mounted on gg&g mount, bead sight painted fluorescent orange, with a stock synthetic stock with a limbsaver R3 pad. I also had a belt pouch made by Blackhawk that officially holds 25 shells, but I could put 40+ shells into it with ease. My hi-power is a stock practical model with ambidextrous safety(more on these later)
Day One - The course started out at 8:30 Sunday morning with a short safety lecture and introduction of Louis Awerbuck from the Quantico Range Safety Officer(RSO). Louis introduced himself, and stressed his top two safety rules, and hardly needed to mention them after this. As long as we keep our muzzles in a safe direction, and fingers off the trigger, we would stay safe and keep everybody happy. We then sat down for 3 ½ hour lecture/discussion of the weapons involved, pros and cons with each system, personal idiosyncrasies that may sway ones weapon choice. The class started off with the order of importance with shotgun modifications. Louis explained, that stock fit is the #1 importance with a shotgun, followed by a sling and a white light mounted on the weapon. These are his three items of vital importance. Nowhere did he mention a set of optics or new sights as being needed. When asked, he informed us that most shooters seem to ignore the three important ones, and rush out to get the fanciest sights they can find. Our class was lucky in that no one had fancy optics on their shotguns, so Louis didn’t need to explain why this wasn’t necessary. We also asked about sidesaddles and other ammo carriers, and Louis said they were a good idea, as there is no such thing as enough ammo, as long as one realizes that the odds of reloading in a typical HD scenario isn’t very likely.
The second half of the lecture discussed the barrel, and how each barrel is a law of its own. We discussed patterning of buck and bird, and a little bit about slugs. Louis was asked his opinion of the Vang Comp system, and said he thought the Vang part of the process was good if you were interested in super tight patterns, but thought the comp portion was gimmick and useless, as shotguns do not have muzzle rise from gases, and the tiny ports are something else to clean. When asked what Louis personally used, he informed us that he doesn’t use buckshot as he owns too many shotguns, and uses slugs only. We then ended the lecture and moved to the range area for loading and unloading drills. Louis informed us during this drill that the shooting portion of this course wasn’t that hard, its the loading of the gun that will get us every time.
After that, we patterned buckshot, and everyone learned what their particular load patterned as. Most of us had patterned our load of choice before this and were gratified to learn our loads would suffice. The two tightest loads were the vang comp gun with federal tactical 00 and the wingmaster with Winchester ranger 00. My particular load was the Remington 00 RR 8 pellet, and patterned nicely out 14 yards, but starts spreading rapidly after 15. After lunch, we started shooting at the plates, either individually, or in relays. Shooting at the plates was easy, but the process was more complicated than it seems, as the drill varied from shoot one load one, to shoot two load one, to shoot three, though you only had one or none rounds in the gun. It really drove home the lesson that you cant always keep the gun fully topped off, and its better to shoot the target and have a empty or almost empty gun, versus load that magazine tube and die while never getting a shot off. At this stage Louis was fond of saying , its a bad choice, but do you want a full gun and be dead, or be alive with a empty gun. We finished up with rolling thunders, which is a progressive exercise of 5 people, each shooting at different targets, in a different order, with a varied amount of rounds being fired. It got tricky really fast, but overall everyone did pretty well with the drill. A lot of the drills over the day, involved forward and backward movement, and lateral movement to get into the practice of shooting at targets while moving, rather than standing still in the way of incoming fire.
An excellent review worth reading by all.
