PDN 2012 National Training Tour Update: Week 8

All right, we're here for the weekly PDN update, now, this is a little bit late from when we normally do it, but, I wanted to wait until we were actually up here. I'm in the Pacific Northwest, so I left the PDN tour truck in Minneapolis, I'm to be back in St. Paul teaching next week, but I'm out here at Mike Hughes's place and we are in a luxuriously green, relatively dry Pacific Northwest for a very special event with one of our contributors, Chris Collins. Chris, tell us a little bit about this event that you've brought everybody out here together for. Okay, so, Jeremy Wilson contacted us from Wilson Tactical Training. We got together, pulled in some of the instructors from across the country, which includes Hilton, here. We got guys out on the range training, and we got Mike Hughes of course. This is his facility. We also got Omari Broussard, of course, Rob Pincus. I don't think I'm missing anybody. No, Jeremy's out on the range Jeremy's out on the range. And Tim Lau running camera for us. Yeah, Tim, right back there, running camera for us. So, the idea is to get the different ideas that instructors have, convey those to the student in a way that they can train at home, or a way that they can understand these concepts and get them actively engaged and understanding just because this person says to do it this way, let's find out what's viable, what's a viable option to use for defense. I think it's great, you know, like personal defense, we try to bring in a lot of different contributors, we have 75 different DVDs, we have 12 or 13 different contributors there, plus we have everybody that writes the articles, including Chris, who's recently joined the team. Actually out of this whole group, it's probably myself and Omari Broussard from the combat focus shooting side and Tim Lau and Hilton Yam from the 10-8 side that are probably the most extreme, right? And we've got some of the other guys more in the middle like Mike Hughes, a real specialist when it comes to the mechanics of, you know, really dissecting that last 10% of potential, but as it stands, I think Hilton and I have probably have known each other the longest also, and, you know, what are your thoughts on the way it weight's played out so far? Well, we're finding, as we talked about, over the last couple of days, that a lot of the things and our end goals have a lot of overlap and that, what we're trying to get the students to do is not that diametrically opposed. We have some different approaches, that end up putting the students in the same place. And one of the things that I think a lot of people you know, really didn't realize, is if Chris moves out of the way for a second, like it's not actually matter-antimatter, like it's okay. You know, we can be on the range the same time. Hilton, as everybody knows, I'm not a fan of the 1911s. Hilton is one of the great artists, when it comes to tuning and making 1911s work, putting a lot of time, effort and energy into it, and of course he's known as one of the best gunsmiths in the country when it comes to actually working high in 1911s. But, we found out that there was absolutely no argument, we both agree on one important point. Well, the 1911 is not for every user, all right? The 1911 is going to require an absolutely dedicated end-user, and we're doing a introductory, CCW Defensive Pistol Class here and that is not the time to be learning a very high-end, expensive gun that's gonna require a very intensive maintenance cycle In fact, I am teaching the class-- An empty holster. That's awesome! Wow, how embarrassing for an M&P. Yeah, so actually both seeing you and Tim out here with practical guns was a relief, right? 'Cause we were thinking, wow, "How are we gonna handle that?" But, your practical approach, which is to be expected given that, you know, I know your heads are all around this and thinking about how do you make people safer for more information-- You visit www.10-8performance.com. And of course over here-- A.T.A.P.Training. You find me on Facebook quick. Also I'm a Director of Training with Mike for the next level of training, So that sustained a portion of our inert, direct-fire training tools is something we also incorporate into the class for a variety of skillsets. Actually why the holster is empty because we were waiting for SIRT pistols earlier, and another thing about the SIRT pistols, of course, Mike Hughes is also a contributor to Personal Defense Network, as is Omari Broussard so, we've got a lot of the team out here. Mike Hughes has actually talked about laser training methodology. We've been using a lot of that out here. So, here for this week, the main point of the update, you know, yeah, we've been doing our training, we've been running around and a lot of people are busy, but here, this is a collaborative effort brought together by Chris Collins and Jeremy Wilson, so that a bunch of different minds can wrap around the problem of fundamental defensive shooting and concealed-carry skill development, and the good news is, they're going to make a DVD of it that'll be available later this year. I got Britt and Mike from Next Level Training, you guys know them, probably. This was the first time they had a chance to shoot the Caracal. Now I'm nearing the end of the test that we wanted to put the two guns through, and I know that we've had great success with it. I've been impressed with it, and we're considering the question at hand is, "Do we add this to the list of modern striker-fired firearms that we recommend for personal defense?" Guys, thoughts? Britt you got to shoot it first. Thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought that the recoil management was phenomenal, The ergonomics of the pistol fits the hand beautifully, the trigger itself was very crisp, very smooth, a surprise break, I was very surprised in a positive way. Mike. I liked it. I flat-out liked it. I just grabbed it and shot it. It was just very brisk to see how it feels, see how it pointed, see how the trigger broke, just did a rapid shot drill right off the grip and I was impressed. I think that the most impressive thing was that felt recoil. There's something, maybe where the spring is placed, or what have you, but at the end of the day, it's really, "How's it feel?" "How's it track?" "How consistent does it come back down?" The front side to the backside, for that realignment at the muzzle and it does it very naturally. The trigger is a little bit unique, in that it just breaks, it doesn't have a prep and then a break. It's something you have to get used to, but I think it's something that actually might be more desirable. So, I think anyone, really should give this a full, full, full, full-- That's a lot of fulls. Full something. What's going on in here, again, obviously, this gun's clear what's going on inside of this thing, as we know, is that there's not a plunger that has to be pushed up for the inertial safety. So, that stacking that we normally feel, that resistance as the trigger transfer racks upwards on a ramp to push that plunger up, this one has more of a leaf spring set up, it pushes out to the side. I think that's a big part of the innovation here. It really is a representative of a potential evolution of modern striker-fired designs, definitely something unique. We've had great success with it, Appreciate you guys chiming in.