Front Sight Training Institute, NV

[Lee6113]

So back when I was in my mid to late teens I bought a handful of 4-Day defensive handgun training class certificates from Front Sight. I think it's been 6 years and I'm finally gonna plan my trip to Vegas (or a little away from it I think) to go to Front Sight with my wife, maybe this September.

I was just curious if anyone's been to one, what they thought, if they'd recommend, any advice on what to bring, etc.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Warning, danger, Will Robinson.

Only discuss the quality of the training. The personality of the owners, sales techniques, etc. are for the OP to find with searches elsewhere.

We are only concerned with the technical training. Blab about other things at your risk of our wrath!

[Sharkbite]

As one of the ORIGIONAL FS instructors (started in Bakersfield Ca and opened the Nevada location). I know the quality of training has gone down over the past 7-10 yrs.

All the origional guys have left for varied reasons. The curricilum has been SIGNIFICANTLY watered down to accommodate the larger student populations.

The origional policy of 1 instructor for every 5 students is gone. Replaced with the 2nd relay of students acting as line coaches for the 1st relay. Blind leading the blind in my opinion.

All that said...if you are a BEGINNING defensive shooter it might provide you a base to work from. Understand it is a Weaver stance ONLY school, controlled pair shooting school. None of the innovation in defensive shooting over the past decade is going to be taught.

Im still good friends with some of the lead instructors and am current on what the issues there are.

You have the certs...go to Vegas. Take a class. Enjoy yourself, but understand it is not the end all, be all training that it could be.

Im happy to discuss it more if you want to PM me

[dyl]

There are places that can give you more personal attention with smaller class sizes. That being said, what's better than a shooting vacation? I seldom say no to more trigger time.

I have a close friend who went with his wife.

From what our discussion was (he had a lot to say)- Yes they have a set way they train the class. I believe it was Weaver, thumbs high grip. Large class sizes. They have your partner watch you for specific exercises focusing on 1 aspect at a time like your grip etc and being nit-picky about it while you shoot, then you switch. How else to train such a wide group of folks where some know very little? Plenty of repetition. That was the most trigger time they had ever had in a given day. He was relatively new and improvement was pretty rapid. While I don't agree with "thumbs up" grip, it never hurts to learn several ways of doing things.

His wife started getting some skin irritation from either loading the mags or shooting double action. I'd bring a bandaid, a couple simple mag loaders. He shot a conversion barrel from 40 to 9mm so ammo would be cheaper. I think he may have broke even, but now he has a conversion barrel and mags to show for it.

Only scary story I heard from him was an older gentleman who would just *not follow safe gun handling rules* repeatedly, or range commands. He had to be asked to step back from the line and may have been dismissed.

[45Gunner]

I have been to Front Sight two times and will be attending for the third time this October. The first outing I invited members of my gun club to attend and was able to muster up 6 more shooters. Last year we went with 13 shooters. This year we will be a total of 19. There are many courses offered by Front Sight but for the sake of this discussion, I will keep to the 4 Day Defensive Handgun Course.

Most of us know that shooting is a diminishing skill. As the Club Instructor for my 55+ Active Adult Community Gun Club, I constantly harp on the members that coming out to pop off 50 rounds every other month is not going to retain skills. At Front Sight, the shooters get lots of dry practice drills which ultimately leads to better shooting skills when using live ammo. Safety has been hammered in from the very beginning and within the first two days, everyone is safe or gone. The real fun begins when there is a class competition involving metal knock down targets. And then there is the scenario on clearing a house. Nope...not going to make you a super sleuth taking down a house of bad guys but it sure gives you a feel for what to do if you have a home evasion and can't wait for the police to arrive.

For me, the purpose of this course with my buddies is to: 1. enhance and improve everyone's skills, 2. hammer in gun safety especially when shooting in groups, and 3., camaraderie with fellow shooters during the day continuing on to dinner in the evening.

[Al Thompson]

Couple of buddies of mine have been and report decent training. One thing I find that helps me gain the most from classes is taking notes and recording my participation in a training AAR.

I'd also advise going to other training when you can, so you get different perspectives. In your area, two great trainers come to mind, Kathy Jackson of Corneredcat.com fame and Firearms Academy of Seattle -- located halfway between Seattle & Portland, owned by Marty & Gila Hayes.

[745SW]

Attended probably the early years in Nevada using the UZI. All dirt road and a single huge tent. Got my share of trigger time but the heat was too much for me. Couldn't hold the UZI for long at a time at full auto. I believe it was summer.

[745SW]

Personally I know of a single gun show vendor that may have a lifetime membership but he's almost local, Nevada. During the last several years FS promoted/sold, as a vendor, at the various shows but I haven't seen them for a while.

[RoGrrr]

Class size is typically 40-ish.
If you like to shoot a LOT, by all means take their 4 Day Defensive handgun course.
Much of what they teach is based on safety and proper sight picture. You cannot hit anything if you're not on the front sight. They make this out to be habit ! Almost every shooting relay they remind the students - "HARD FOCUS ON THE FRONT SIGHT"
As dyl said - Plenty of repetition.
Much of the training is draw from holster so you will start to get comfortable with this drill.
They also teach malfunction drills. Trust me, you WILL have malfs and their training gives you a basis on how to handle them. I shoot bowling pins competitively and now when I have a malf, it is simply instinctive to TAP, RACK, SHOOT again. In fact, several in the club have commented on how well/quickly I handle any malf. And you will be tested on malfs. Practice them either at home or in the hotel room after class.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - SEMI-AUTO. My sister took her wheel gun the first time and afterwards said that she should have taken her Semi. If you have a 9 and a 45, it's your choice as to which one to shoot. I don't mind getting beat by 600-800 rounds of 230 grain 45s but it does wear on you after several days. The 40, from what little I've shot them, will also wear on you. The 9 will drop or turn their steel targets, which you will be shooting on day 4. They have a neat man-on-man challenge competition to put at least a little pressure on you while you're trying NOT to kill the hostage. I won't say any more about that.

MANDATORY - AT LEAST one extra magazine. And you must have a mag pouch for your support-side hip.
I suggest you wear pants that have pockets loose enough for easy access to your spare boolits. And you will be placing your spent mags in one of your support-side pockets so be prepared for that procedure in their reload drills. Flaps covering pockets look neat but are a pain when you're trying to get into the pocket for boolits or putting mags away, expecially when you're in a hurry !

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - some spare parts, like firing pin, extractor, cleaning rags/solvent/OIL/cleaning brush.... Just saying. Some rudimentary tools to facilitate fixing/cleaning your guns. And take these with you to the range.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - sun block, wide brim hat (if you have "in-ear" hearing protection (don't forget sunblock on your ears). The sun WILL burn you so you should protect your neck and hands and legs if you wear shorts.
Water bottles - buy at WalMart, which is about a mile beyond Saddle West Hotel/Casino. FS is about 20 miles from Saddle.
Some sort of good/decent range bag. Comfortable shoes/boots - standing ALL day.
Lunch cooler/bag (go to the local WalMart each evening and from their deli, prep your next day lunch (the lunches offered thru FS are just ok. You'll see).

The sand/dolomite dust is terrible so be prepared to shower every evening. Rinse out your nasal passages, too.

You will be dog tired at the end of each day so you won't want to go partying/gambling. Use the evenings to dry practice, clean your guns and review your notes.

Al Thompson says - go to other training when you can, so you get different perspectives. I agree with that. FS gives you plenty of entry-level (and repetitive) training while personal training by other professionals will start to polish what you have gotten as your basics.

You're paired up with a partner and once my partner got taken to another range since she wasn't able to handle the turning targets we were shooting. Since I didn't have a partner I asked if I could shoot both sides of the relay and was told that if I had enough ammo. I ended up shooting about 1000 rounds while the others shot their 600. As the week goes on, your skills improve markedly, no matter what your skill level is.
FYI, they have all the ammo you will need there on site and their prices are as good if not better than you can find anywhere else. And you won't have to carry it while you travel there.

I've been there 5 times and plan to go back plenty more times. If you're interested, I have several life memberships I can offer at a great price.
I also take my smart fone with me and after each relay, we go out to check and tape the target, so I TAKE A PIC OF IT TO TRACK MY PROGRESS. (hint, hint)

[GarrettJ]

Here's what I posted at AR15.com following a 2-day handgun class I took last summer. Some of the responses I got were that the 2-day class covers the first 1.5 days of the 4-day class, and that the amount of shooting really picks up after that point. I was given a life membership from a friend since then, so I'm planning to go back this winter for the 2-day skill builder and a shotgun class.

I bought a certificate for any 2-day Front Sight class a while back. Maybe 6 or 7 years ago. It didn't expire, and I seem to keep moving farther away from Nevada. But I recently had the opportunity to go to Las Vegas and figured it might be another 6 years before I was out that way again.

I've heard some negative comments about Front Sight, but nothing I recall specifically. Seems like any school that isn't the "flavor of the week" is said to be teaching outdated techniques, etc. I don't get too caught up in all of that.

My background is that I have been shooting handguns competitively in one form or another since the mid-'90s. I started with Bowling Pin matches, went to USPSA a year or two before IDPA was started, shot a little 3-gun, and I hit the occasional subgun match. I'm a USPSA A-Class shooter in Limited and Open. I don't make it to a match every month, as much as I'd like to. Work and family and life happen as well. I haven't ever taken a defensive shooting class before, other than the free 1-day subgun class that Front Sight was offering in 1999 (and I lived the next state over from NV).

I took the 2-day handgun class. This is supposed to be the shortened version of their 4-day handgun class. Some of my impressions of the experience were:

* This class is appropriate for a novice shooter. They start out very basic with shooting stance, grip, sight alignment, trigger control, etc. Later they move to drawing from a holster and malfunction clearing drills.
* There were enough instructors that they could work with each shooter 1-on-1. This way they could help a novice who is struggling, or help a more experienced shooter fine tune some part of their shooting.
* They teach the Weaver stance, but they do not have the "our way is the only way" attitude. If you spend any time in the action shooting sports, you probably shoot from some version of an Isosceles stance. They don't have any issues working with a student to tune in that method as well.
* I thought 200 rounds was a little light for a 2-day course. They made decent use of the 200 rounds, mixing in live fire with dry fire drills. I just would have liked some more shooting.
* Target engagements were from 3 to 15 yards.
* I do not do all that well teaching other people how to shoot, as my wife can attest. I thought the instructors did a good job working with some of the people who were struggling.
* In addition to the instructors, the students were paired off in a student / coach setup. As one was shooting, the other was coaching, watching for safety violations, etc. It's probably a pretty common approach, and I thought it worked pretty well.
* They had some vendor presentations, but they were done at lunch or at the end of the day so you could attend or skip them as you wanted.
* Some of the lectures were interesting. I didn't agree with everything they said, but they were interesting nonetheless.
* During a question / answer session, someone asked about what type of ammo to carry. They went through the pros & cons of the various bullet styles from FMJ, to TC to JHP. They advised a TC was what they preferred, as the flat nose does more damage than a round-nosed FMJ, and a JHP may not open up. The argument against the JHP was that they usually had to go lighter to get the velocity up in order to expand. And if the point clogs up it still may not expand. They liked a "full weight" TC better. I would think the counter argument is that you can still get "full weight" JHP ammo. If it does not expand, it acts the same as the TC. But if it does expand, you're even better off. Also, I find some guns don't feed TC ammo all that well.

Overall, I thought it was a decent experience. Prices on the website are pretty high, but if you shop around or get in on one of their sales, you can get in at a pretty decent price. (I think the website says a 2-day class is $1000. I paid $100.) For me, the expense of travel and lodging was several times the cost of the class. From just a cost perspective, I could pay a lot more for a "local" class and come out money ahead, but that's just because I live most of the way across the country from them.

As noted, I haven't taken any other defensive classes to compare this to. To be honest, I don't think it was all that advanced enough to get to the point where you start arguing the merits of where one training / technique is more appropriate than another. It was a beginning class, and it was good for what it did. I thought they could have gone more in-depth with a lot of it, but we were limited by time. That's probably where the 4-day classes come in.