
Finding a Range for Realistic Practice
Rob PincusDescription
Here comes another important tip from the Personal Defense Network. I'm here at the Ancient City Shooting Range in St. Augustine, Florida, with the owner, Chuck Usina. Now I get to be on about 30 or 40 different ranges a year. And every once in a while, it's worth talking to the owners and even bringing them on the Personal Defense Network because the ranges are so outstanding and Ancient City certainly fits that bill.
Well, we try, we try to build a facility you can train on. Absolutely. And not just train, but also practice. You've got a huge membership base. And every time I come back here even when we're in the back on some of these ranges and aren't used as much, upfront, things are always busy.
How do you recommend people that don't have access to your range that aren't here in the Northern Florida area? How do they go about finding a place where they can practice? This is a common complaint from students of mine or even people who watch PDN is, "All right, I understand that drill. I understand that concept. but I can't practice that at my range." Well, you have to find a range that will allow you to do things further in your shooting career.
So once you get from your accuracy standpoint where you're hitting your paper, fist size group you want to be able to move back it up, do a bit of draw from holsters. You need to find a range that would allow you to do that. And the only way to do it is you got to get with your shooting community out there, go to some of the ranges, maybe hold classes or competitions. Those are usually generally the ones that are more free to training. And once you find one, abide by the rules they have certain rules that you need to abide by and they may seem silly but they're there for safety reasons.
And if you do that, you'll be able to train and practice on. Now, what if you got to a range and maybe you're a member of a range and you want to go about convincing the owner or the person, the manager you want to go about convincing them to change those rules to be able to allow, let's say presentation from the holster. A lot of ranges are going to say, "Well, no presenting from the holster for safety, right, for the lowest common denominator." How would you go about convincing them that maybe some students or all students, or even just one individual should be allowed to practice their skills? Well, for me, if somebody wants to do it here and if I didn't do it, I would listen to somebody. If they would come up to me and say, "Look, people need to do this today." People are into shooting guns now for protection just as much as enjoyment anymore.
It's greater than it ever has been. You need to tell them, you need to have a qualification process. Maybe one of his, all roads they can go out there and you get signed off dedicate one bay to it and talk to him. And don't try to tell him what it be good for. Try to sit down and talk with him.
And then explained to him that a lot of people want to do this. It could probably further his membership of his range or increase his revenue, tell him he could charge a fee to do it. People will pay to do it, but have a qualification process so that somebody can come in and do that. If they're qualified, there's other local ranges around that are long range that do the same thing. Not everybody can shoot 800 yards.
They make you qualify first. So it's the same principle but you could do it withdrawn from holsters. So not just a blanket membership then is what you would suggest. And maybe this advice is even good. If you happen to be a manager at a range or your own range, and you've said, "Well, we need to keep everybody on the same playing field." What you're saying is it may be a graduated type of membership where you can get to the point where you can do some of the more realistic dynamic practice.
Yes, everybody who joined here knows that I have different rules for different people. If they have a skill level, they can use certain ranges. If they've never transitioned, I want to watch them or have ROC team do it before I let them do it. We don't want an accident but we don't want to inhibit people's training either because training is very important and they can't just come out and shoot a competition. It's training.
It's not real training. It's good practice. And it's good for marksmanship but it's not for true training. Great. Well, I think that's some great advice.
If you're having trouble finding a range, maybe one of the things you could also do is take a look at the Ancient City Shooting Range's website, learn some things about what they're doing here. Maybe link to that website and let the people that are running your local range know, that there are plenty of professionals out there who are safely letting people practice their defensive skills as realistically as possible on ranges all over the world. And especially here in St. Augustine. Chuck, I appreciate it.
Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Be sure to check out the Personal Defense Network for more important tips, just like that one.
"Qualified shooters "? What is this qualifications the range owner is talking about? What qualification does a person who wants train need?
What they're not telling you is that there is a waiting list. If you want to train @ Ancient City, you have to wait years for an opening
I'm blessed.i can shoot in my back yard
I live in the largest concentration of military on the east coast.Many civilian and X military that would love to shoot in a facility other than a small room upstairs of a gun shop that is hot in the summer and even hot in the winter with very little circulation. I think one shop started this sub-par type of range and all the others said to themselves,"we are all full and making $$ so why do anything more"Very little if any Pro-Instruction due to area and indoors small shooting lanes.There is one outdoor excellent range about 40 miles away from most of the population.But you would have to be very wealthy to take a lesson or shoot there.I won't mention the range name but the hint would be (Very Dark Liquid).Out of the question for most amiture shooters.
Great job Rob on an important topic!
We LOST our shooting range several years ago. I still don't know the reason why? All we have left is an old borrow pit to shoot in. Better than nothing!