[jatx]

Background

After entering military service last year, I began investigating ways to maintain and improve my shooting skills. I expect to deploy overseas very soon after becoming branch qualified and therefore feel the need to work on these critical skills on my own time and at my own expense. However, I was not interested in instructors lacking a SOF background or in those catering to the “gun game” crowd. Team Sergeant recommended Paul Howe to me, placing him at the top of a very short list.

Paul runs a shooting school near Nacogdoches, Texas, named Combat Shooting & Tactics. Last year, the opportunities to train with him were limited somewhat by work he was doing with Triple Canopy. However, around Christmas time I was on his website and saw that he had both Tactical Rifle and Tactical Pistol classes open early this year. I immediately enrolled in both.

Facilities

CSAT sits on several dozen acres of rolling woodland just south of town. There is a running stream and abundant wildlife, including wild pigs and coyote. Multiple ranges have been constructed, including one covered 100 yard range, another 100 yard range with barricades and reactive steel targets, a “sniper hill” with 200 and 300 yard lanes, an elaborate obstacle course, and a “scrambler” course with about a dozen stations. For the last of these, imagine a sort of tactical sporting clays course with each point requiring a mix of rifle and pistol shots on steel at ranges from 25 to 200 yards.

There are also two classrooms, including one open air area and another indoors. There are multiple hotels and restaurants within minutes of the facility, as well as good nightlife options owing to the presence of Stephen F. Austin State University.

Overall Orientation

The shooting system taught at CSAT is geared toward making lethal hits at realistic ranges and speeds. Students in my class included a mix of private citizens, contractors, LEOs and National Guard SF soldiers. All arrived with a sound base of skills and experience.

Paul’s goal with students is to give them a basis and program for improving on those skills over time. He measures progress based on individual performance when shooting his “standards”, which are 11 drills with corresponding time goals. All shooting is done on modified IPSC torso targets with a kill zone approximately five inches wide and extending from the bottom of the sternum to the neck. His philosophy is that, in order to quickly incapacitate with the 5.56 round, bullets must strike the spine, the heart and its immediate blood vessels, or the brain. Whether the target is viewed from the side or the front, this kill zone is the same size.

The standards are:

1. 1 shot/1 target, 7 yards, 1 second
2. 2 shots/1 target, 7 yards, 1.5 seconds
3. 5 shots to torso, 1 to head/1 target, 7 yards, 3 seconds
4. 2 shots/2 targets, 7 yards, 3 seconds
5. 1 shot rifle, 1 shot pistol/1 target, 7 yards, 3 seconds
6. 5 shots/1 target, 100 yards prone unsupported, 15 seconds
7. 5 shots/1 target, 75 yards kneeling, 12 seconds
8. 5 shots/1 target, 50 yards kneeling, 10 seconds
9. 5 shots/1 target, 25 yards standing, 8 seconds
10. 5 shots/1 target, 200 yards prone unsupported, 15 seconds
11. 5 shots/1 target, 300 yards prone unsupported, 15 seconds

The starting position for all drills, including prone and kneeling shots, is standing at the low ready. Students are measured on the standards early in the first day of instruction for a baseline, then repeatedly throughout the weekend to measure their progress. The ratio of dry to live fire during the course is approximately 70/30, and I shot about 800 rounds of rifle ammunition and another 50 or so of pistol over the course of two days.

Most of the first day was spent refining student technique on these standards. Paul’s emphasis is on accuracy and economy of motion, not speed (although most students experienced an increase in speed after two days). Shots impacting outside of his kill zone are not counted as hits. Firing is done from a slightly bladed fighting stance and all shots require a full and complete sight picture and follow-through. Emphasis is placed on developing a firing rhythm that takes advantage of the natural respiratory cycle, just as the Army teaches during BRM.

A night fire exercise is also conducted during which students are introduced to the use of barricades and various light sources (ambient, weapon-mounted and car headlights). This is a high round count exercise on reactive steel targets with shooting done from both the strong and weak sides and the standing and kneeling positions.

The second day of the course includes additional practice on the standards, barricade techniques and the “scrambler”, which is performed in buddy teams with hot weapons.