Recorded live at Target Sports MN Indoor Gun Range in Rogers, Minnesota, PDN Executive Director Rob Pincus leads six students through a full day live-fire defensive shooting class. PDN cameras were there to record it all, giving you an unvarnished look at what it’s like to experience this foundational skill-building shooting curriculum. Along the way, by observing actual students performing shooting drills and practicing new techniques, you have an opportunity to assess your own needs for defensive shooting skill development and practice. In addition, you’ll get special tips and guidance to help break bad shooting habits, develop an effective training plan and create reality-based practice sessions of your own specifically designed for counter-ambush shooting skill development.
Class Sessions
Introduction
8:29
Rob Pincus is on the range with two experienced shooters ready to start training. Rob stresses that this course is applicable to any long gun, whether it’s an AR-type firearm, a hunting rifle, shotgun, an AR pistol with a brace, a short-barreled rifle, or any firearm that has four points of contact with the body when in the primary shooting position: both hands, the upper chest, and the cheek weld. What are the most likely situations when you would need to defend yourself with a long gun? Rob identifies these as engaging a threat in your home (inside a room, down a hallway, or up or down a stairwell), around your home, or around your vehicle. This course trains for these situations.
Basic Long Gun Set Up
7:54
Before you start session 2, review the safety procedures for the range you are using, make sure your medical kit is staged, and ensure you understand the fundamental operations of your long gun. (Rob and his students have done that off camera.) It’s important to understand different long-gun configurations, so Rob and his students explain how their long guns are set up, including the accessories they have or have not added. Topics of discussion include single-point versus two-point slings, and why Rob believes a laser is a better addition than a white light. Or should you add both? Options is a key concept with regard to long-gun set up.
Raise, Touch, Press Drill
42:45
This drill uses Rob’s Balance of Speed & Precision target, which has multiple high center chest and head targets. The default response to a threat at close quarters when we are armed with a long gun is multiple rounds into the high center chest. After Rob discusses the target, he goes into detail about the ready position for the drill and for actual use, which is a three-points-of-contact ready position. Rob also discusses positions of both hands, the thumb and fingers, and the sling. With the Raise, Touch, Press Drill, the shooter must establish good kinesthetic alignment with the gun. Rob and students spend time working on this in conjunction with the drill, then move on to the Up Drill.
Defensive Rifle Reload
19:27
Rob adds the concept of lateral movement to the drills. During a home invasion, you can’t afford to stand still and make yourself an easy target. Likewise, the bad guy(s) will be moving too. Rob starts by having the students move rapidly one body width offline from the line of attack as they bring their long gun into shooting position. Next, Rob covers reload procedures, including where to keep the spare magazine, how to insert the spare magazine without looking at it, why it’s best to use a universal reloading technique, and why Rob doesn’t teach the tactical reload for home-defense purposes.
Practical Scenario
21:00
Rob has established the fundamentals of intuitive defensive shooting with a long gun and the fundamental gun-handling elements of reloading the gun and fighting through a malfunction. The next step layers on the training methodology in the form of drills that require complex information processing. Rob gives commands that may not explicitly be recognizable on the target. These are known as cognitive drills. After the shooting session, Rob brings the discussion back to where the course started – context of use. When using a long gun for defense, we most likely do not need to take advantage of the gun’s full capability. We do not need to make a 100-yard shot, and we do not need to get one-inch groups. We need to make the shots that will incapacitate a home invader.
BONUS: Q&A
40:33
Join Rob Pincus as he discusses the Defensive Rifle Course and answers questions from viewers in this previously recorded live event.
BONUS: Dry-Fire Training with the SIRT STIC
2:48
Finally there is a solution to dry-fire training with long guns: introducing the SIRT STIC from Next Level Training. In an environment where you can’t do live-fire training and you want to practice your defensive long-gun skills based on an AR-platform rifle, the SIRT STIC is the answer. It is a training stock.
BONUS: Attaching a Sling to an AR
4:00
Viewers have been asking, “How do I actually connect a sling to my rifle?” PDN Contributor Deryck Poole demonstrates some options for attaching single- and two-point slings to ARs.
BONUS: Practical Rifle Accessories
3:34
What rifle accessories do you need when setting up an AR-15-type rifle for general everyday use and defensive use? PDN Contributor Don Edwards of Greenline Tactical gives his recommendations.
Your Instructor
Rob Pincus
As Executive Director of Personal Defense Network (PDN), Rob Pincus is the embodiment of PDN’s commitment to providing affordable, accessible, practical personal defense information and effective training for the masses. Rob has produced over 100 Training DVDs, published 9 books and written countless articles on topics related to all aspects of personal defense. His I.C.E. Training Company has developed many training programs and certified hundreds of instructors to help others be prepared to defend themselves and those they care about. Rob currently serves as a Reserve Deputy with the San Juan County (Colorado) Sheriff’s Office.
Bonus Material
Class PDF: Fundamentals of Defensive Rifle
Bonus Materials available for download after purchase.
FAQs
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Every Class has a free Preview video you can watch, to give you a flavor of the Instructor and the skills that will be covered. In addition, the Overview tab includes a thorough written description of the Class. And finally, each Class Session has a brief written summary of the content in that Session, including the length of each Session video. You will get a good feel for the Class content by reviewing these resources.
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