We looking forward to offering our flagship, two-day Practical Fundamentals class in southern Ohio, half-way between Columbus and Cincinnati. The Clinton County Farmers and Sportsmen Association will be hosting the class, with the help of our on-site host Rich Nolde. Rich has taken our Practical Fundamentals class before, and is excited to bring the program to his home range.

Additional information can be found right here on the OpSpec Training website.

This is not a basic class. At minimum, students should have taken a basic handgun safety course and have experience with their firearm and gear. We expect students to have experience shooting on a line in a safe manner, including loading, reloading and shooting from the holster. Shooters with IDPA, USPSA, NRA Action Pistol, 3-Gun, law enforcement and military experience meet the program prerequisites.

Practical Fundamentals
This course teaches the techniques and philosophy of what OpSpec Training believes a shooter needs to improve to their full potential. This is not a beginning handgun course.

Practical Fundamentals may be repeated several times to further one’s understanding of the concepts involved. OpSpec Training is a collaboration of custom gunsmiths, competitive shooting, and law enforcement specialists who have created a training environment and curriculum that is ‘process’ oriented rather than ‘goal’ oriented.

Instructors*: Jerry Jones

When: May 20 & 21, 2017, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.

Class size: Limited to 24 students, with a minimum of 12.

Tuition: $450.

Range Fees: $25 for the weekend.

Local Host: Rich Nolde

Ammunition: Round count will be 600 - 800 rounds.

Important Links and Information

• What to Bring to an OpSpec Training Pistol Class
  
• Online Course Registration
  
• Make a deposit or pay your balance here
  

* Instructors listed for specific programs have committed to teach the class on those dates. Although we do not anticipate changes, travel delays, family emergencies or illness may result in instructor substitutions.

Where:
Clinton County Farmers and Sportsmen Association
301 Batson Road
Wilmington, Ohio
Map

Where to Stay
There are a variety of reasonably-priced hotel accommodations nearby. Our host will soon provide a suggested hotel.

Food at Lunch Break
To ensure you get the most "bang for your buck" we keep lunch breaks to one hour. If you have the ability to bring your lunch, you can do that. If you need to run out and get a quick meal, there are options in the area. Fast food restaurants are located near less than 15 minutes to the north in the downtown Wilmington area. We may also look to arrange to bring lunch on-site for students.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: steve495,

Hello everyone. I took this class from Jerry last year in Paducah, Ky. It really opened my eyes to some new ideas, and I made it my mission to bring the class to my home range in Ohio.

I've noticed a lot of members from the Cincinnati/Dayton/Columbus area. Here is your chance to take this course without having to travel too far. I hope to meet some of you here.

Here are 5 decent hotels in Wilmington. I'm giving you all of them since many of them are already showing limited room availability for that weekend.

http://www.magnusonhotels.com/...gton-inn-wilmington/

http://www.magnusonhotels.com/...lton-Inn-Wilmington/

http://hamptoninn3.hilton.com/...n-CVGWGHX/index.html

https://www.ihg.com/holidayinn....cv.ul.vn.ki&qWch=0#

https://www.ihg.com/holidayinn....cv.ul.vn.ki&qWch=0#

This one is just about a go. BTT

Come on! for those of you in the Indianapolis, Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Louisville region ... this is the class for you!

This is our next Practical Fundamentals class on the schedule, and we are looking for a few more students to enroll in the class.

Spread the word!

I'm interested but not sure yet if I can make it that weekend. How many spots do you have open? I have a few friends that may also be able to attend.

quote:

Originally posted by Brett B:
I'm interested but not sure yet if I can make it that weekend. How many spots do you have open? I have a few friends that may also be able to attend.

We do currently have space available! Get in on it, this is the year we all get back to actively training.

Bump!

This is the year to train!

Class bump.

There are still some spots remaining in this class. I took this class from Jerry last year and can't say enough good things about it.

It would be great to see all of our Ohio forum members come out for some fantastic training and also a chance for everyone to meet.

A couple of weeks out......

A week out. Looks like a chance of rain with highs in the low '80s. Unless it is lightening, we'll shoot in the rain. Come prepared!

AAR- Practical Fundamentals in Wilmington Ohio

Operation Specific Training conducted it's two day Practical Fundamentals Course in Wilmington, OH on May 20 and 21.

Nine students were in attendance. Student to instructor ratio during live fire was 1-1.5 during live fire. Weather was sketchy, and a lot of luck paid out with only short periods of rain. The sun peeked out at times, and temps were in the 70's both days with mainly overcast conditions. Class weapons consisted of a couple of SIG Sauer P320s, a Glock 19, an XD 5.25, a P226ST9, a CZ75, a Smith M&P, and a Smith Shield chambered in .45ACP.

Day One started out with the classroom lecture. The PF course had been reformulated prior to the start of this class. Safety was reinforced, a medical brief was covered, and basic expectations were laid out. Normally, the classroom portion lasts around three hours, but the new format allowed only an hour in the classroom, and then we preceded to the range.

Students loaded up five rounds and fired a five round diagnostic group. The students were asked to photograph their group or remember the size of it for later in the class.

We then went over an advanced look at the fundamentals that is necessary to be successful in both technical marksmanship and speed shooting. Expectations were laid out about keeping accountable for shooting as tightly as possible. A heavy emphasis was placed on trigger control. Mindset was also covered in depth.

Trigger control techniques were covered and demonstrated. The class then worked for several hours to convert prior habits to a good solid prep. Once the students began to prep, the speed of shots and accuracy went up.

The rest of the day was spent working on getting the gun out of the holster fast, and placing fast, accurate multiple shots on target at varying distances.

The day ended with technical marksmanship and another five round group was shot by the class. A marked improvement was noted in comparison to the group shot at the beginning of the day.

Day Two
Day Two started with a severe chance of storms. Instructional staff spent quite a bit of times on their phones watching the weather during the breaks. As it turned out, the weather was overcast all day, with temperatures in the low 70s.

Day Two began with a safety and medical brief, and then moved into a five round technical group shot by students. Most found their groups to be much tighter than the previous two.
We then moved into an instructional block on strong hand and weak hand shooting. The instructional block covered in great detail proper techniques to deploy the pistol with only one hand. Interesting note- the first five rounds fired strong hand only were by Bump Drill. Most of the five round groups netted groups smaller than when the gun was in two hands the first day. When the support hand goes away, we pay attention to what matters and score hits! The block of instruction ended out with multiple shots in the strong and weak hand.

After the chow break, a safety and medical brief was conducted, and we moved into the instructional block on multiple targets. Once in live fire, the drills were called out by the numbers in cadence. Once the students were comfortable with the techniques, they completed the drills technically correct and began scoring fast hits on multiple target areas.

The live fire portion ended with another five round technical marksmanship group and expectations were met.

We broke down the range, had a debrief and handed out certificates. The range was superb. They have a first rate facility even given as bad as weather could have been. Also worth noting, the range offered lunch both days at the clubhouse and I'm told it was pretty awesome. One of our instructors had a cheeseburger out of there, and stated it was one of the best he had.

Total rounds expended- About 7,000 for the class. Round count doesn't necessary mean good training, but I know people are interested in such things. Each round went down range with a purpose.

Hopefully some students will post their reviews, as I know a couple are members here. I'll post some pictures soon.

Don't know how to post video, but here is an instagram of one of my guys shooting the drill with the class.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BUXuCAKBIkg/

We had a great group of instructors and students. I can't remember the last time I had so much fun while also learning so much. Thank you all for making my efforts to bring the class to my club pay off in a big way.

This was my second time taking the class, and I feel like I got as much out of it as I did the first time. There is so much content presented in two days that it can be a little overwhelming the first time through. I'm not saying there is too much content, but that you will probably not retain 100% of the material your first time through. The first time, I felt like my brain was saturated by the second afternoon. This time, I felt like things were really starting to click into place on the second day.

The class has also been updated with some new techniques that Jerry had picked up since last June. Several of us in the class thought this new material was some of the best material presented. The fact that Jerry and his instructors continue to update their class with new material is a sign of their dedication to being the best instructors they can. They go out and learn from some pretty impressive resources that most of us could not access and then pass that knowledge on to their students.

I also like the fact that not everything they teach is completely dogmatic. Some things, like trigger prep, are. Other things, they will tell you that this is what works best for most people, but they will also present some other options. If you are taking this class, you owe it to yourself to try everything they suggest. If their technique(s) don't work for you at first, they will help you refine it until it does or find one that does work for you.

If you haven't taken this class before, take it. If you've taken it before but think maybe you didn't retain everything, take it again; chances are good there are some real gems in there that you missed. Even the stuff that is review can pay big dividends, maybe by trying to do it just a little bit faster or a little bit more accurately.

Wanted to get in some range time and dry-fire practice using the new techniques which were covered during this class in OH in May, before posting my comments regarding this session.

I am happy to report that, in spite of my continued tendency to occasionally jerk the trigger, resulting in the expected low/left POI, my overall performance and consistency is much improved. The big difference now is that I know exactly what I am doing wrong and can concentrate on self-coaching to correct that issue.

My grip is also much more consistent, coming from the draw, and feels more natural now than it did when we made adjustments during the early phase of the session.

Jerry, Doug and Michael use a practical approach to safety, both on and off the firing line, and at no time during the two days was I ever concerned about anyone accidently discharging their pistol, or having an "oh shit" moment.

Coming into the class I realized that I had less experience in a structured shooting environment than most of the other class members, since almost all of my shooting occurs at the family farm, either by myself or with a small group of friends. That concern was quickly overcome once the class started, as I began to focus on the basics of the course.

Course content included trigger "bump" drills, starting with dry-fire, then gradually moving to live-fire. Sight picture, grip and posture were covered early in the course as well, all of which added marked improvement and benefit for me.

As instruction progressed we moved into draw technique, as well as using both strong and weak hand-only. Was actually surprised to find that I shoot almost as well using weak-hand only, vs strong-hand only, which was explained by instructors to be fairly common.

In the final phase of instruction we focused on transitioning from target to target, in horizontal and vertical patterns.

I would definitely recommend this course to anyone who wants to improve on the basics, establish rock-solid fundamentals for consistent performance, or for someone who wants to shake the dust off when things don't click like they once did.

Sure, the money I spent on that weekend could have bought a new pistol for the collection. But, I'm really a casual collector who wants to shoot well with the pistols I own now, not just sit and look at them hoping that someday I may be able to shoot better. This course sets me on the right track for that goal.