The Firing Line Forums

Go Back   The Firing Line Forums > Hogan's Alley > Tactics and Training

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old August 15, 2013, 10:08 PM   #1
fragtagninja
Senior Member
 
Join Date: February 20, 2013
Posts: 194
Does Anyone Know Anything About This?

A guy was telling me about this site. Suffice to say what he was telling me sounded really expensive, and just out of curiosity I thought I would inquire whether this is legit, or a scam.

http://www.frontsight.com/

Lots of nice folks out there on the good old interwebz looking to ease the burden know as your wallet.

Benefit of the doubt and all. Anyone had training at this place? Any good?
fragtagninja is offline  
Old August 15, 2013, 10:19 PM   #2
Bezoar
Junior member
 
Join Date: October 19, 2004
Location: michigan
Posts: 578
never gone there, never known anyone who has but i can say this bit..

if you sign up for their email.... youll get inundated with promotional emails. i havent figured a way to get them to stop coming.

on the whole basis of their premise....

its better then nothing, although the material they teach is about run and gun, duck and roll under the table while straffing a room full of multiple attackers.
kinda make it sound like the end of beverly hills cop or lethal weapon.


as for their website claim that youll get better training then the military does. Well some of their trainers were special forces so it can be comparable in some areas, but you arent going to be equal or better then special forces. not even the marine force MP swat team.
Bezoar is offline  
Old August 15, 2013, 10:30 PM   #3
Psychedelic Bang
Senior Member
 
Join Date: July 3, 2009
Location: FL USA
Posts: 332
Their website reads like a medicine man sales pitch....
__________________
"Was always kinda partial to Roy Rogers actually. I really like those sequined shirts..."
Psychedelic Bang is offline  
Old August 15, 2013, 10:53 PM   #4
fragtagninja
Senior Member
 
Join Date: February 20, 2013
Posts: 194
Well I would not expect to from one class. Not when those guys spend years doing it. I'm more just interested in knowing if it is a legit school, and if it is worth the redonkulous price tag.

There is a place here that has ex military folks teaching counter sniping. A whole lot more affordable too. Be a fun class to take, but entirely useless.
fragtagninja is offline  
Old August 15, 2013, 11:05 PM   #5
Tom Servo
Staff
 
Join Date: September 27, 2008
Location: Foothills of the Appalachians
Posts: 13,057
There's been some controversy about their leadership, but there's no need to rehash it here.

I know a few folks who've taken training there, and they've been very impressed.
__________________
Sometimes it’s nice not to destroy the world for a change.
--Randall Munroe
Tom Servo is offline  
Old August 15, 2013, 11:13 PM   #6
sigcurious
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 25, 2011
Posts: 1,755
Keep an eye out for deals, they frequently run promotions that make the courses very very affordable. Frontsight is local to me and while I haven't made it out there yet, no one around here complains about the training itself. There are a couple of shops in Pahrump to stock up on ammo at too.
sigcurious is offline  
Old August 15, 2013, 11:33 PM   #7
FoghornLeghorn
Senior Member
 
Join Date: September 2, 2011
Posts: 960
Google "Front sight complaints."

It was a pretty strange place at one time.
FoghornLeghorn is offline  
Old August 16, 2013, 06:57 AM   #8
daddyo
Senior Member
 
Join Date: August 5, 2013
Posts: 112
A friend went to Front Site and was extremely happy. He has taken the basic pistol course either 2 or 3 times and a shotgun course. Seems you have to pass the basic course at a high enough level to move on to the next level. Maybe that's the catch? He purchased the life membership for I think 100 bucks. They were professional and the training was on par with other training facilities basic training.

They are hound dogs with advertising and have some shade in their past but it doesn't seem to have hampered my friends experience. He plans on going again soon.
daddyo is offline  
Old August 16, 2013, 10:35 AM   #9
Frank Ettin
Staff
 
Join Date: November 23, 2005
Location: California - San Francisco
Posts: 9,471
I've never been to Front Sight, but some of the instructors in my group have; and tell me that they've received excellent training there. I respect their judgement, and they've also trained at Gunsite -- where I've had training as well.
__________________
"It is long been a principle of ours that one is no more armed because he has possession of a firearm than he is a musician because he owns a piano. There is no point in having a gun if you are not capable of using it skillfully." -- Jeff Cooper
Frank Ettin is offline  
Old August 16, 2013, 11:24 AM   #10
Spats McGee
Staff
 
Join Date: July 28, 2010
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 8,819
I've never been out there, but I've always heard good things about their training, even though (as noted) they WILL bombard you with emails.
__________________
I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. If you need some honest-to-goodness legal advice, go buy some.
Spats McGee is offline  
Old August 16, 2013, 12:19 PM   #11
pax
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 16, 2000
Location: In a state of flux
Posts: 7,520
I have friends who have been there, although I have never attended the school myself. The school trains more people per weekend then any other school in the country. This means there is a certain assembly-line feel to their classes, and it may be difficult to get any personalized attention directly from an instructor. However, the people I know who have attended there have uniformly appreciated the training. They each believe that they received good quality instruction.

You can read several post-incident safety reports from the school here: http://www.frontsight.com/SafetyRepo...howSingle&ID=5

Many of those reports claim a one-to-one ratio of coaches to students. Since the school uses other students as coaches, this number may not accurately reflect the number of trained eyes actually watching for safety violations prior to each incident.

pax
__________________
Kathy Jackson
My personal website: Cornered Cat
pax is offline  
Old August 16, 2013, 01:09 PM   #12
Hansam
Senior Member
 
Join Date: February 21, 2012
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 763
I have never take courses there myself but have friends who have taken courses there. Its too expensive for me but all the friends I have who have taken courses there agree that its definitely worth the expenditure for the experience and training they provide.

I too made the mistake of requesting information and am now being bombarded by email. My spam software on my email has however figured it out and I don't see anything from them anymore because it all ends up in the Spam folder now.
__________________
This is who we are, what we do.
Hansam is offline  
Old August 16, 2013, 02:12 PM   #13
overkill0084
Senior Member
 
Join Date: August 7, 2010
Location: Northern, UT
Posts: 1,162
My boss has been there a couple times. He seems generally positive about it.
The web site does sort of have a "Late Night Infomercial" vibe about it. It just needs the "As seen on TV" logo to finish it off. Their products are legit AFAIK.
__________________
Cheers,
Greg
“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child – miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.” — P.J. O’Rourke
overkill0084 is offline  
Old August 16, 2013, 05:34 PM   #14
TailGator
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 8, 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 3,786
In addition to the email issues, they were robo-calling me multiple times a day until I called three times to get them to stop. The first two times they hung up on me when I said I wanted off their phone list. I opened the conversation by offering to put them in touch with my attorney the third time, and they were still rude, but the calls stopped.
TailGator is offline  
Old August 16, 2013, 10:00 PM   #15
fragtagninja
Senior Member
 
Join Date: February 20, 2013
Posts: 194
Thanks for the info folks. I think I will pass. I'm sure it is first rate, but I really don't want robo calls, or more junk mail.
fragtagninja is offline  
Old August 16, 2013, 10:27 PM   #16
Frank Ettin
Staff
 
Join Date: November 23, 2005
Location: California - San Francisco
Posts: 9,471
Quote:
Originally Posted by fragtagninja
Thanks for the info folks. I think I will pass. I'm sure it is first rate, but I really don't want robo calls, or more junk mail.
If the choice for you is to go to Front Sight or to get no training, I suggest that you go to Front Sight. The training they offer is, IMHO, important enough for someone who might carry a gun or keep one of self defense to make the nuisances worth it, at least if the other option is to forgo training entirely.

But if you can swing other training, like Gunsite, Firearms Academy of Seattle, Tom Given, Louis Awerbuck or Massad Ayoob, by all means pursue those alternatives.
__________________
"It is long been a principle of ours that one is no more armed because he has possession of a firearm than he is a musician because he owns a piano. There is no point in having a gun if you are not capable of using it skillfully." -- Jeff Cooper
Frank Ettin is offline  
Old August 17, 2013, 03:56 AM   #17
thump_rrr
Senior Member
 
Join Date: October 12, 2010
Posts: 403
Montreal is a long way from Nevada but I get out there once a year for a convention in the fall.

I may try to go there for a course if the scheduling works out.
By then I should have my ATF form 6-NIA approved allowing me to bring my firearms into the USA.

There is also a long range precision shooting course given in Arizona that is another option which I am considering.
thump_rrr is offline  
Old August 17, 2013, 11:38 AM   #18
fragtagninja
Senior Member
 
Join Date: February 20, 2013
Posts: 194
Quote:
If the choice for you is to go to Front Sight or to get no training, I suggest that you go to Front Sight.
A guy I know was saying he could get me a huge discount on some classes out there, but it still sounded really expensive. I thought I would look into it since he was saying it is the number one training facility for civilians in the U.S. but given the multiple complaints people have about it, the stuff I found on the internet, and the still astronomical cost of it I'm gonna pass. I know people who can teach me stuff here. They may not be big deal trainers, or have a fancy tactical course to train on, but they know their stuff and are good marksmen, and that is good enough for me. I just thought it sounded like it might be fun to check it out.
fragtagninja is offline  
Old August 17, 2013, 02:26 PM   #19
Frank Ettin
Staff
 
Join Date: November 23, 2005
Location: California - San Francisco
Posts: 9,471
Quote:
Originally Posted by fragtagninja
...I know people who can teach me stuff here. They may not be big deal trainers, or have a fancy tactical course to train on, but they know their stuff and are good marksmen, and that is good enough for me....
Consider that this sort of training is not really about marksmanship. To get the idea, you might be interested in this article I wrote about my last class at Gunsite (Intermediate Handgun), or this article about Massad Ayoob's MAG-40 class.
__________________
"It is long been a principle of ours that one is no more armed because he has possession of a firearm than he is a musician because he owns a piano. There is no point in having a gun if you are not capable of using it skillfully." -- Jeff Cooper
Frank Ettin is offline  
Old August 17, 2013, 03:04 PM   #20
johnwilliamson062
Junior member
 
Join Date: May 16, 2008
Posts: 9,995
I think I also made the mistake of signing up for their newsletter a few years ago. I believe they ran a deal where you received a decent handgun if you took a certain class that cost $1000. I think it was about a $600 gun, so I was considering it.
I WAS absolutely inundated with e-mail, but as far as I can remember it wasn't that much trouble to stop it. It did turn me off from the school though.
johnwilliamson062 is offline  
Old August 17, 2013, 07:20 PM   #21
Tucker 1371
Senior Member
 
Join Date: December 29, 2008
Location: East TN
Posts: 2,649
I'd be more interested in one of Magpul's "Art of the ____" classes. Then again I know nearly nothing of Frontsight, but I've also heard nothing bad of Magpul's classes. That's just my reasoning, YMMV.
__________________
Sgt. of Marines, 5th Award Expert Rifle, 237/250
Expert Pistol, 382/400. D Co, 4th CEB, Engineers UP!!
If you start a thread, be active in it. Don't leave us hanging.
OEF 2011 Sangin, Afg. Molon Labe
Tucker 1371 is offline  
Old August 19, 2013, 08:31 PM   #22
kinoons
Senior Member
 
Join Date: August 22, 2008
Location: las vegas, NV
Posts: 409
I posted this post in another threat, but I believe it would fit well here too.

I have had training here in Las Vegas from a former front sight instructor who has branched off on his own. He is an excellent instructor, runs a place called invictius training. He offers one day classes, which fit my schedule well.

If he is a reflection of what you'd get at front sight, then it should go very well.
kinoons is offline  
Old August 20, 2013, 06:30 AM   #23
daddyo
Senior Member
 
Join Date: August 5, 2013
Posts: 112
Personally, having given my own defensive firearm classes, I would be fearful of any class that didn't have one instructor for each two students. And that is if the students were pre screened for safe gun handling skills prior to attending.

My experience has been that there are just to many issues that put my life in danger much less my students.

One student un holstered behind the line. Another I caught painting fellow students with his muzzle (not purposely). I'm sure other problems have happened that went undetected.

These days its private training with pre screened clients only.

Pay the extra money if needed to attend the school with the most INSTRUCTORS per student and who's safety record is the best. It would suck to be shot trying to learn how to survive a shootout without getting shot.
daddyo is offline  
Old August 20, 2013, 08:25 PM   #24
Vermonter
Senior Member
 
Join Date: October 17, 2010
Posts: 962
No expire cue with front sight

Where are you from? I am sure you can find good training close to home. For me that is the Sig Academy.
Vermonter is offline  
Old August 20, 2013, 09:55 PM   #25
Nnobby45
Senior Member
 
Join Date: November 20, 2004
Posts: 3,150
Quote:
There's been some controversy about their leadership, but there's no need to rehash it here.

I know a few folks who've taken training there, and they've been very impressed.
I agree. If you just go take the training and leave the controversy to the board commandos, you'll do just fine.
Nnobby45 is offline  
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 04:02 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
This site and contents, including all posts, Copyright © 1998-2021 S.W.A.T. Magazine
Copyright Complaints: Please direct DMCA Takedown Notices to the registered agent: thefiringline.com
Page generated in 0.11126 seconds with 8 queries