TDI Snubby Class
Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2014 11:27 pm
Took the snubby revolver class at Tactical Defense Institute last Thursday and Friday. Some observations:
There are no prerequisites for this class so there was a wide variety of experience level in our class. We had several folks who were retired, a geologist, an airline pilot, two EMTs, an engineer, and others. There were two ladies in our class, one a widow and the other there with her husband. She was clearly apprehensive about being there at first and was not comfortable. The staff worked very patiently and professionally with her to get comfortable sending rounds down range and before long she was running drills with everyone else.
There was one 22 Mag revolver in the class with every other student running some variety of 38 or 357. We were encouraged to try different guns and gear and techniques that we were shown. Several folks finished the class with different guns than they started with when they discovered they just worked better for them. Mr. Benner personally loaned out his mother's revolver.
I used S&W BG38 and it worked fine with one glitch. I'd gotten a blister on my trigger finger and wrapped it in Moleskin. On one of the subsequent drills I got a bang, then nothing nothing nothing. The moleskin was fluffy enough that it loosened up and got wedged above the top part of the trigger and prevented it from fully resetting. I replaced the moleskin with tape and had no more problems. Not the gun's fault, but something I was glad to find out in a training environment.
I used a pocket holster, pants pocket the first day and coat pocket second day (rained much of Friday). Most folks used some sort of belt holster, but for me anyway I'd use a semi auto if I can conceal a belt holster and the pocket is likely where I'll summer carry. Couple takeaways I got from doing that: it's slower draw than from belt holster if you start with hands outside of pocket but faster if you can have hand on the gun. Of course firing from inside a coat pocket is the fastest of all. We did fire from inside garments to see what it felt like; nothing caught on fire.
The volume of fire is intentionally slower than it could be as TDI has found the little guns get really hot, to the point of burns, if run hard.
Everyone enjoyed the live fire scenarios and force and force and getting to watch how others handled the scenario was really useful.
The sidebar discussions throughout both days were some of the best reasons for attending.
My first full up class at TDI, definitely glad I attended.
There are no prerequisites for this class so there was a wide variety of experience level in our class. We had several folks who were retired, a geologist, an airline pilot, two EMTs, an engineer, and others. There were two ladies in our class, one a widow and the other there with her husband. She was clearly apprehensive about being there at first and was not comfortable. The staff worked very patiently and professionally with her to get comfortable sending rounds down range and before long she was running drills with everyone else.
There was one 22 Mag revolver in the class with every other student running some variety of 38 or 357. We were encouraged to try different guns and gear and techniques that we were shown. Several folks finished the class with different guns than they started with when they discovered they just worked better for them. Mr. Benner personally loaned out his mother's revolver.
I used S&W BG38 and it worked fine with one glitch. I'd gotten a blister on my trigger finger and wrapped it in Moleskin. On one of the subsequent drills I got a bang, then nothing nothing nothing. The moleskin was fluffy enough that it loosened up and got wedged above the top part of the trigger and prevented it from fully resetting. I replaced the moleskin with tape and had no more problems. Not the gun's fault, but something I was glad to find out in a training environment.
I used a pocket holster, pants pocket the first day and coat pocket second day (rained much of Friday). Most folks used some sort of belt holster, but for me anyway I'd use a semi auto if I can conceal a belt holster and the pocket is likely where I'll summer carry. Couple takeaways I got from doing that: it's slower draw than from belt holster if you start with hands outside of pocket but faster if you can have hand on the gun. Of course firing from inside a coat pocket is the fastest of all. We did fire from inside garments to see what it felt like; nothing caught on fire.
The volume of fire is intentionally slower than it could be as TDI has found the little guns get really hot, to the point of burns, if run hard.
Everyone enjoyed the live fire scenarios and force and force and getting to watch how others handled the scenario was really useful.
The sidebar discussions throughout both days were some of the best reasons for attending.
My first full up class at TDI, definitely glad I attended.
.