Dynamics of the shotgun in SC

[egalloway]

Props to Alex for another great SI class, you and Chris put on another successful class. I had a great training day that helped me shed some bad habits I had developed in my shotgun handling. To my fellow class mates good training with you and meeting you all. Wish I could have stayed for dinner afterwards and the rifle class Chris was teaching Sat/Sun.
This is a must do for anyone who runs a shotty as HD or car gun. Gets you in tune with range of use and feeding the beast. At close quarters a shotgun rules the roost but it does have it's limitions. This class will help you see and feel them. The afterclass senerio was great and hammers home the options and power of a shotgun but also reminds us of it's limitions. If you take this class with Alex stay for it. It's a great extra he offers that makes you think within the operational limits of the shotgun.
JD good to meet you looking forward to training AK with you next month.
Thanks for having me again guys see you again soon hopefully. Stay safe all.
Eric

[JD Lester]

Eric hit the nail on the head. Excellent class with lots of take away info, highly recommended for begginers or old hands with the shotgun.
Great to train with all that attended and wish I could have stayed for the rifle class.
I was gun in hand in the NC woodland saturday, no joy on the deer but i found a great spot for harvesting squirrels.

Eric, looking forward to putting in some AK work with you Brother.

Alex & Chris great to train with you guys again.

v/r

JD

[Alex Nieuwland]

Thanks, guys. Good training with you again.

I agree. I think it's fair to say that the first Dynamics of the Shotgun class went great. We had another great group of students, and a wide variety of shotgun models, sights, stocks and action types.

Here's a good example of what I'm talking about:


shotties.jpg

A good time was had by all.

I just got back from the Mid Carolina Rifle Club meeting. I have gotten permission to use the range for another Dynamics of the Shotgun class: Friday, February 3. We will use a longer bay that allows us to shoot slugs out to 50 yards if the students are up for it. Look for it to appear on the official schedule soon.

I should have my TSD AR-12 by the time that class rolls around, in case there's anyone wanting to try one out....

I'll let Chris reveal what he has in mind for February 4 and 5!

[Chris Upchurch]

Here's a good example of what I'm talking about:


shotties.jpg

The pink shotshells still crack me up.

I'll let Chris reveal what he has in mind for February 4 and 5!

That would be Combat Rifle Marksmanship and Advanced Combat Rifle Marksmanship. This pair of HITS classes will take the fighting rifle beginner and get them up to speed faster than anything else. Come on out and train!

[hedgedawg]

Another awesome class Alex.

I am amazed at the amount of information & training that we received in one day. No seminar on turning the shotgun into a "mall ninja" dream. Just good old-fashioned training and shooting. As you said "less talky, more shotty". Very well laid out course along with excellent pointers & feed back. Everyone, from begginers to experience shotgun handlers, should take this class. I guarantee that you will take away new understanding & appreciation for use of shotgun as defensive weapon.

I look forward to training with y'all again soon.

JD - Hate to hear of "no joy" in buckland. Great to see & train with you again. Next time you come down, you'll need to have a longer conversation with Uziel Gal's little friend.

[JD Lester]

Hedgedawg,

It was good training with you again Brother.

Yeah that lil thing is gonna cause me to enhance my stamp collection. It is on the list for a barrel reduction but no fun switch.

I will be in the woods at every opportunity until I can punch a tag and get a chunk of back strap on the grill.

Once again great class Alex looking forward to the extended range and checking out the AR12.

v/r

JD

[Alex Nieuwland]

I am amazed at the amount of information & training that we received in one day. No seminar on turning the shotgun into a "mall ninja" dream. Just good old-fashioned training and shooting. As you said "less talky, more shotty". Very well laid out course along with excellent pointers & feed back. Everyone, from begginers to experience shotgun handlers, should take this class. I guarantee that you will take away new understanding & appreciation for use of shotgun as defensive weapon.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you enjoyed it! It was a pleasure to train with you again, as usual. I'll try to make the second edition of Dynamics of the Shotgun in South Carolina even better.

Thanks again for bringing Uziel Gal's little friend. That was, simply put, fantastic. Any day that includes the phrase "Leave the targets up so we can shoot them with the machine gun" is a good day.

[Chris Upchurch]

Last Friday I attended S.I.'s Dynamics of the Shotgun class taught by Alex Nieuwland. This class was part of our S.I. South Carolina Long Gun Weekend. In addition to the shotgun class on Friday, I taught Rifle Gunfighitng on Saturday and Sunday. For the shotgun class, however, I was primarily there as a student.

I brought my 870 Express HD. Since the last shotgun class back in the spring I've made some changes to it. One of the biggest problems I had with it at the previous class was the length of the stock. The long stock, with a rubber recoil pad that wanted to stick to the jacket I was shooting was a huge pain. I bought a Choate stock with a pistol grip in the 'Youth/body armor' size. This is actually a bit on the short side, but too short works a heck of a lot better for these applications than too long. An even better solution would the Mesa Tactical adapter for an AR-style collapsable stock.

Gabe talked about the potential virtues of running a Magpul Angled Foregrip on a pump shotgun forend and I'd see him running a VFG on the TSD 870 in this video. I picked up a cheap ProMag railed forend just for a proof of concept, to see if I liked some sort of grip on there. I didn't have very high expectations for the ProMag forend and it still managed to disappoint. It doesn't feel very solid and the spacing of the gaps picatinny rail seems to be off. I had to file on them quite a bit to get the LaRue VFG on there. Before I do anything else with this gun the ProMag is getting replaced with a SureFire railed forend. I tried both a VFG and the Magpul AFG and found the VFG a lot more to my liking. With the pistol grip on there grabbing a vertical grip and bringing it back to cycle the gun just feels natural.

The 870 was definitely the most popular shotgun in the class. One student shot a Remmington 1100. S.I. Staff Instructor J.D. Lester who came down for the class shot most of the class with his 870, but switched to a Mossberg 500 later in the day and did the final exercise with his Saiga. Alex taught the class with his Mossberg 500.

I carried extra shells in a Hawkepack rifle bag. It's got velcro on the inside, which I've used to attach shell loops to hold extra rounds. The top two rows are for buckshot (or birdshot when training) the bottom row holds slugs. To keep things fed during class I dump a box of shells into the bottom of the pouch every so often. There were a wide variety of solutions for holding extra shells in evidence, including a couple of shoulder bags (Maxpedition and Sneakbag), some belt bags, and some dedicated shotgun shell caddies that mounted on the belt.

The Class
After the usual safety briefings, Alex kicked things off by talking a bit about the context of the shotgun. It's definitely a niche weapon, but within that niche it can be devastating. Since I was teaching the rifle class the next day Alex tapped me to discuss a shotgun versus a rifle.

Compared to a semi-auto rifle or pistol, a shotgun is a very fiddly weapon. You've got to manipulate individual shells (Saiga and AR-12 excepted) and effectively use quite a few different controls to run the weapon effectively. Accordingly we spent quite a bit of time in the class going through the basic manipulations: loading, unloading, reloading after you shoot, and emergency loading after you've run the gun dry. We also did some slug transitions, switching from buckshot to a slug when the situation calls for it (usually either due to distance or due to the need for penetration).

During one of the drills I managed to strip the LaRue VFG off the forend. I was coming back to the VFG after loading a round into the gun and hit the grip's locking lever with my thumb, releasing it. I finished the drill and put the grip back on with the lever pointed the other way. A VFG with a lever style attachment like the LaRue probably isn't the best choice for a shotgun, where you're doing a lot of forward and back movement of the hand to cycle the slide and going to and from the receiver to load ammo into the gun.

One of the major differences between a shotgun and a rifle or handgun is it's multiple projectile nature. One of the implications of this is that you need to know what's going on with your pattern at different ranges. I really like the way Alex does the patterning. You get a new sheet of 8.5x11 paper at each range (two sheets stapled together at the longer ranges). After firing your shot you write down the range and tear the sheet off the target. This allows you to go home, pace off the length of your hallway, or any other likely shot, and pull out the appropriate target to see what your shotgun actually did at that range.

We also covered the usual array of S.I. long gun skills, like pistol transitions, after action assessments, shoulder transfers, and, of course, getting off the X. Most of these work pretty much the same with a shotgun as they do with a rifle, though the shoulder transfers, in particular can be pretty punishing with a 12 gauge.

We finished everything up with an exercise that brings all of the elements together: getting off the X, shooting on the move, using cover, and transitioning to a pistol or slug.

Final Thoughts
This was a great class. Alex did an excellent job, as usual. I think everybody went home much more able to run their shotguns that they were when they came.

My 870 ran fine, aside from the little fumble with the VFG. Most student's shotguns did as well. The only major problem came when J.D.'s 870 had a round become trapped by the shell lifter halfway out of the magazine tube. Since he'd brought a couple other shotguns, rather than spending a lot of time fixing it he just switched to a Mossberg (and later, his Saiga). I want to thank Warriortalk member Hedgedawg for letting me try his 870 with the Knoxx stock on it (and giving me a couple of 3" magnum loads to put it to the test).

I'm really starting to like the High Intensity Tactical Skills (HITS) classes. Gabe has done a great job laying out the curriculum to pack lots of stuff into each class without overburdening the student. In particular, this class really concentrates on the shotgun specific manipulations. If you've already mastered the S.I. long gun curriculum this class will allow you to effectively apply those skills to a shotgun. Accordingly, I think it makes a really great package with an S.I. rifle class, as we did this weekend. In fact, Alex and I think it went so well that we're planning on doing the same thing the first weekend in February next year. Dynamics of the Shotgun on Friday, followed by Combat Rifle Marksmanship and Advanced Combat Rifle Marksmanship on Saturday and Sunday.

[Alex Nieuwland]

This was a great class. Alex did an excellent job, as usual. I think everybody went home much more able to run their shotguns that they were when they came.

Thanks, and thanks for your assistance during the class.

Alex and I think it went so well that we're planning on doing the same thing the first weekend in February next year. Dynamics of the Shotgun on Friday, followed by Combat Rifle Marksmanship and Advanced Combat Rifle Marksmanship on Saturday and Sunday.

I'm already looking forward to it!

[JoeB40]

In fact, Alex and I think it went so well that we're planning on doing the same thing the first weekend in February next year. Dynamics of the Shotgun on Friday, followed by Combat Rifle Marksmanship and Advanced Combat Rifle Marksmanship on Saturday and Sunday.

Chris- you guys ever think about a road trip? You know where I'm talking about....