Organization:
Tac Pro Shooting Center
35100 North State Highway 108
Mingus, Texas 76463-6405
Tel: 254.968.3112
Fax 254.968.5857
URL:
https://www.tacproshootingcenter.com/classes.html#pistol
Course titles : • Tac-Pro Primary Defensive Pistol
• Tac- Pro Advanced Defensive Pistol
• Tac-Pro Force on Force.
Trainer : Bill Davison
In the late 1980s, Davison served in the Counter Terrorist Wing of the Special Boat Service as a helicopter sniper and close quarter battle instructor. In the early '90s, he taught advanced firearms techniques and VIP protection to the civilian police in Britain. While still in the Royal Marines, he visited the US to teach anti-terrorist tactics to the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Police SWAT team.
He left the Royal Marines in 1992 to work for Vanguard International Protection where he operated as a bodyguard to the children of a Middle Eastern sheik. Davison continued close protection work with his own company. He was employed in the US, Europe, Africa and the Middle East to protect the son of a wealthy Egyptian family.
One of the main factors in the Davisons' decision to move to the US is the acceptance of privately owned firearms and their use in self-defense. While this is under attack here, the situation is much worse in the UK.
The only guns that law-abiding Britons can now own are bolt action rifles or double-barrel shotguns. And to own either type of gun, they must belong to a shooting club.
"The paperwork involved nowadays, to own either of those is unbelievable," said Alice Davison.
It appears that in Britain nowadays it is illegal to defend yourself with a gun. Davison said he left England because he refuses to live under the kind of state tyranny where he is unable to protect himself and his wife.
"It really did hurt," he said. "I mean I worked for the government and I protected the people's right to live freely and then overnight you didn't have any rights to live freely. We had to do what the government said, when they said it or we go to jail and that's not the way people should live," he said.
••••
I went to a Gunsite course years ago (1987) and there were quite a few changes in techniques from back then.
Plus I was a bit rusty at the time when I started training again and I was used to shooting at a regular range with booths. While my marksmanship was pretty good, my ability to move and shoot lagged behind a bit. In Arizona shooters can just go out to the desert and shoot. Even in California we had the San Gabriel Mountains above Los Angeles and the desert to shoot in. I was also involved in IPSC when I grew up in California.
In Texas (at least in a huge radius around the DFW metroplex) it's all private land. People shoot at ranges or on deer leases. I still shot after moving to Texas, but it was mostly at ranges where you were married to a booth or bench. After these courses finding a range to actually train at became a priority. If you don't practice what you learn after the course it's wasted.
About the courses (2014 and two in 2015) :
Bill Davison has an established program where regardless of how much experience a shooter has they'll get something out of the course. Whether that's establishing a base for beginning shooters to start from to giving instruction to established shooters on minor tweaks to fine tune how you already shoot. I already knew how to shoot fairly well, what I needed was some upgrading, tweaks and to get moving again.
Primary Defensive Pistol :
Primary Defensive Pistol starts with a safety briefing, a little bit about his background, his theory on defensive pistol use, a brief history of combat arms and how that might relate to the student, stance, grip, sights, holsters, and then proceeds rapidly to actually shooting.
It's hard to cram how much information is actually packed into the courses in written format, but I'll try.
Bill puts a lot of emphasis on accuracy. Therefore he puts a lot of emphasis on grip, sights, knowing your particular pistol, where it hits, consistent trigger press and so on. The first drill we shot was at 3-5 yards where we were shooting flies.
No we weren't doing Speznaz flips with sharpened shovels over fire pits, we were focusing on accuracy. Then eventually doing that at speed.
My first target from this course.
View attachment 824842
Many flies I nailed right off the bat, some I did not. It's similar to 'Dot Torture'.
Then we proceeded to drawing, firing with two hands, barricade shooting, shooting from off your back so you don't shoot yourself in the knee or feet, shooting while moving forward, shooting while moving backwards, shooting while moving horizontally, one handed shooting (dominant), one handed shooting (weak hand), shooting one handed while moving (dominant), shooting while moving (weak handed), minor CQB tactics, lots of malfunction drills (we all got snap caps for free), more malfunction drills, weapon retention, moving through doorways and so on.
I think class size was 6 including me. Davison was the only instructor.
View attachment 824864 View attachment 824865
Advanced Defensive Pistol :
Advanced Defensive Pistol is about building from the foundation that you've already put down (Primary Defensive Pistol is a requirement, I believe that this will be waived if you've attended an equivalent school) and more minor tweaks to how you shoot (every instructor is different, you take what works for you, forget what doesn't and maybe come back to it at a later time).
Advanced isn't really 'advanced' in the way many people think, it's about mastering the basics (sorry, still no Speznaz shovel flips). It is faster paced though. With this class they aren't going to wait for you.
You're expected to be up to speed and to have done some practice on the skills you learned in Primary Defensive on your own. In this class he'll be showing you minor differences in techniques in how to accomplish the goal rather than through much lecture or classroom repetition.
Lots of shooting while moving and taking cover (barrels, barricade and improvised doorways) and malfunction drills.
5-6 students comprised the whole class. There was also an older expatriate Brit with a beard teaching some portions of the class.
Force on Force :
Force on Force is about scenarios while using sims. First day was a safety brief and then half lecture and half drawing, weapons retention, learning what constitutes cover, moving to cover, tasks to perform if a lull occurs during the encounter (calling 911, asking another person to call 911, getting in your vehicle and leaving, first aid on yourself or a friend/loved one, reloading, communicating with a friend or loved one, giving commands to assailants, how to deal with law enforcement etc).
Second day was about scenarios and using sims (paint rds). Most of those involved being in and around vehicles, makes sense since that's how people get places. Each of us ran through a few scenarios (muggers, armed robbers, bank withdrawals gone wrong, being a bystander to domestic violence and so on) and we were expected to solve the problem of applying it all. I'm in EMS and I'm used to doing scenarios (often in lame training circumstances where it feels nothing like what happens in real life), these were definitely better and there as actually a bit of stress involved (competitive environment).
1. You didn't want to screw up in front of everyone.
2. You're paying for this, so you want to squeeze everything you can out of it and learn even if you decide not to adopt that particular idea or technique for yourself.
The instructors and bad actors did a good job of trying to '
talk their way in' (get close to you) in some of the scenarios although the safety gear screwed up being able to see, speak and hear. Had to constantly move my head around.
This class was larger 10-11 people including some women.
At any rate that's roughly it.
•••••••••••••••••••
More information about the courses at Tac Pro :
Spike TV had a series about his school several years ago where a variety of students with different backgrounds (some were shooters previously, some were not) where he took them through Primary Defensive Pistol, Intermediate Defensive Pistol (since folded into Primary and Advanced to streamline the training), a Force of Force course and his Fight At Night course.
Fight At Night
https://www.tacproshootingcenter.com/classes.html#night
Older reviews of Tac-Pro on THR
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/pistol-training-in-dfw.267765/
