Now that the proverbial cat's out of the bag about my "profession", you should realize why this is so long ... sorry for those who have a short attention span.
A LONG take on the Awerbuck class
I had the sincere pleasure of attending Louis Awerbuck’s Shotgun I class May 8-10.
When I was growing up, there was one name everyone associated with shotgun training – Awerbuck. I didn’t even know how to pronounce the name; hell, I didn’t even know anything about the man. But every gun rag on the newsstand with an article about scatterguns dropped his name. For him to still be around more than 15 years later is testament enough that what he teaches is good stuff.
So for three days the master of “the gauge” passed on just a touch his knowledge to the 13 of us who were man enough to leave our egos in the parking lot of the LSU Police Department’s range in Baton Rouge, La. The couple of us who forgot to check our egos had them checked pretty quickly by the self-proclaimed “midget” from South Africa.
I’ve always been a pretty fast shooter, often sacrificing accuracy for raw speed. One of the first drills we did was on hanging steel plates. After running both of our relays through hitting the steel, Awerbuck brought up two students at a time, one on each set of three plates. Though he said it wasn’t a head-to-head competition, it was hard to get past the testosterone. I mean, that’s like telling a guy in a Mustang and a guy in a Camaro it’s not a race when they show up at a traffic light. So, of course I went too fast and dropped a shot … from about 5 yds, on a 10” hanging plate, with #8 birdshot.
After asking my age, he told the older gentlemen behind me to pass on the story of the young and old bull looking down on a group of heffers. Of course, I knew better, but even at 30, I still have a bit of the young bull in me, and I showed it, plain and simple.
I’m not going to go through all three days of instruction; if you want to know what’s taught, take the class. But here are my takeaways from each day.
Day 1
The morning class was long and drawn out, but it was also interesting. His formula for iron sight correction is getting laminated and going in a save file where it won’t get lost. Two important lessons from day one had nothing to do with the shotgun or even shooting: first, unless you absolutely, positively REQUIRE it, leave your cell phone in your vehicle; and two, don’t be “that guy” who’s late. When Awerbuck broke us for lunch, he gave us an hour … and “that guy” was 20 minutes late.
One of the basics of running the gauge is loading, and Awerbuck’s method of loading is slightly different from what I’ve used. But after doing it his way for three days, I’m going to stick with it. His method places the brass against the pinky, finding the big hole in the bottom of the gun, and then rotating your thumb around to the back to shove it forward into the magazine tube. There is actually quite a bit of fine-motor skills required with this method, but after a little practice, there’s very little fumbling involved. I’m confident it will become second nature after a week or so of GOOD dry practice.
While loading, he constantly stressed NOT looking at the gun. The man is full of absolutely hilarious phrases, and the one he used here was probably one of the best over the whole course (something about your virginity and not being able to see the hole anyway, I think you can figure the rest out). Thankfully, I had practiced loading without looking at the weapon the whole week prior, so I didn’t have any issues there. Some guys obviously hadn’t practiced it that much and ended up dropping quite a bit of live rounds the first day. One of his rules is never to pick up rounds from the ground, and I think I only lost about two or three through the entire course.
The first day was also an eye opener to me, and again, it had nothing to do with the gun or shooting. I’m going to be brutally honest, and if you were in the course and are reading this, I hope you know it doesn’t apply to everyone. First of all, as many of the other students learned, I’m an active-duty Marine and have been for over 10 years. That means, for over 10 years, the vast majority of weapons training I’ve done has been with other Marines, and we’ve all had more or less the same training. I was completely shocked when I “realized” there were guys at this class who didn’t really have much in the way of firearms handling experience or the mindset to use them.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit I am by no means some special forces operator with trigger time in far away lands. But what I do have is the mindset that someone determined to do me or my family harm is going to meet the maximum resistance I can possibly muster against them. Enough about that …
Day 2
Awerbuck’s target presentations were completely different from anything I’ve seen before. The use of no-shoot targets in front of and behind the steel shoot targets was amazing! I can honestly say, I didn’t hit the no-shoot targets at all, even if that meant holding back a shot from what was called for. The poor “friendlies” were chewed up pretty bad by birdshot the first couple times we ran through drills with the no-shoots behind the steel … again, the mindset issue at play. He continued to stress thinking about the no-shoots as our family members, and continually they were peppered with shot. Apparently, someone must have thought of them as their in-laws or something!
One of the most important parts of this course for me came at the end of day two, literally: the night shoot. Both in the class at the beginning of the first day, and sporadically throughout day two, he told us how important having a weapon-mounted light on the shotgun was going to be. There were a handful of students who found out exactly how hard it is to run a pump gun while holding a flashlight in their non-firing hand, especially when the drill called for going from buckshot to a slug (known as a “select slug” drill). Some tried duct taping a light to their forend, but that didn’t work out too well for most. I was smart and purchased a Sure-Fire forend a couple weeks before the course, and I must say that was probably the BEST $200 gun accessory I’ve ever bought!
CONTINUED
A LONG take on the Awerbuck class
I had the sincere pleasure of attending Louis Awerbuck’s Shotgun I class May 8-10.
When I was growing up, there was one name everyone associated with shotgun training – Awerbuck. I didn’t even know how to pronounce the name; hell, I didn’t even know anything about the man. But every gun rag on the newsstand with an article about scatterguns dropped his name. For him to still be around more than 15 years later is testament enough that what he teaches is good stuff.
So for three days the master of “the gauge” passed on just a touch his knowledge to the 13 of us who were man enough to leave our egos in the parking lot of the LSU Police Department’s range in Baton Rouge, La. The couple of us who forgot to check our egos had them checked pretty quickly by the self-proclaimed “midget” from South Africa.
I’ve always been a pretty fast shooter, often sacrificing accuracy for raw speed. One of the first drills we did was on hanging steel plates. After running both of our relays through hitting the steel, Awerbuck brought up two students at a time, one on each set of three plates. Though he said it wasn’t a head-to-head competition, it was hard to get past the testosterone. I mean, that’s like telling a guy in a Mustang and a guy in a Camaro it’s not a race when they show up at a traffic light. So, of course I went too fast and dropped a shot … from about 5 yds, on a 10” hanging plate, with #8 birdshot.
After asking my age, he told the older gentlemen behind me to pass on the story of the young and old bull looking down on a group of heffers. Of course, I knew better, but even at 30, I still have a bit of the young bull in me, and I showed it, plain and simple.
I’m not going to go through all three days of instruction; if you want to know what’s taught, take the class. But here are my takeaways from each day.
Day 1
The morning class was long and drawn out, but it was also interesting. His formula for iron sight correction is getting laminated and going in a save file where it won’t get lost. Two important lessons from day one had nothing to do with the shotgun or even shooting: first, unless you absolutely, positively REQUIRE it, leave your cell phone in your vehicle; and two, don’t be “that guy” who’s late. When Awerbuck broke us for lunch, he gave us an hour … and “that guy” was 20 minutes late.
One of the basics of running the gauge is loading, and Awerbuck’s method of loading is slightly different from what I’ve used. But after doing it his way for three days, I’m going to stick with it. His method places the brass against the pinky, finding the big hole in the bottom of the gun, and then rotating your thumb around to the back to shove it forward into the magazine tube. There is actually quite a bit of fine-motor skills required with this method, but after a little practice, there’s very little fumbling involved. I’m confident it will become second nature after a week or so of GOOD dry practice.
While loading, he constantly stressed NOT looking at the gun. The man is full of absolutely hilarious phrases, and the one he used here was probably one of the best over the whole course (something about your virginity and not being able to see the hole anyway, I think you can figure the rest out). Thankfully, I had practiced loading without looking at the weapon the whole week prior, so I didn’t have any issues there. Some guys obviously hadn’t practiced it that much and ended up dropping quite a bit of live rounds the first day. One of his rules is never to pick up rounds from the ground, and I think I only lost about two or three through the entire course.
The first day was also an eye opener to me, and again, it had nothing to do with the gun or shooting. I’m going to be brutally honest, and if you were in the course and are reading this, I hope you know it doesn’t apply to everyone. First of all, as many of the other students learned, I’m an active-duty Marine and have been for over 10 years. That means, for over 10 years, the vast majority of weapons training I’ve done has been with other Marines, and we’ve all had more or less the same training. I was completely shocked when I “realized” there were guys at this class who didn’t really have much in the way of firearms handling experience or the mindset to use them.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit I am by no means some special forces operator with trigger time in far away lands. But what I do have is the mindset that someone determined to do me or my family harm is going to meet the maximum resistance I can possibly muster against them. Enough about that …
Day 2
Awerbuck’s target presentations were completely different from anything I’ve seen before. The use of no-shoot targets in front of and behind the steel shoot targets was amazing! I can honestly say, I didn’t hit the no-shoot targets at all, even if that meant holding back a shot from what was called for. The poor “friendlies” were chewed up pretty bad by birdshot the first couple times we ran through drills with the no-shoots behind the steel … again, the mindset issue at play. He continued to stress thinking about the no-shoots as our family members, and continually they were peppered with shot. Apparently, someone must have thought of them as their in-laws or something!
One of the most important parts of this course for me came at the end of day two, literally: the night shoot. Both in the class at the beginning of the first day, and sporadically throughout day two, he told us how important having a weapon-mounted light on the shotgun was going to be. There were a handful of students who found out exactly how hard it is to run a pump gun while holding a flashlight in their non-firing hand, especially when the drill called for going from buckshot to a slug (known as a “select slug” drill). Some tried duct taping a light to their forend, but that didn’t work out too well for most. I was smart and purchased a Sure-Fire forend a couple weeks before the course, and I must say that was probably the BEST $200 gun accessory I’ve ever bought!
CONTINUED
