I took Magill Training's Defensive Pistol 1 (Now "Combative" Pistol 1) in October of 2014 at the Guthsville Rod and Gun Club. I meant to post a review at the time, but it kept getting put off, "later, later." Well I took another course recently and reviewed that class, so I thought I might as well finally put pen to paper about this one.

To cut to the chase, the class was a great introduction to defensive shooting. I took the class with a friend, whom with I had also attended Magill's NRA Basic Pistol class. Turnout for these classes is generally pretty small so it was me, my friend, and one other shooter. The small turnout does not take away from the quality of the instruction, however.

We covered the draw stroke, practicing each count with our finger guns before moving onto dry practice with an unloaded gun and then live fire. It was enforced that we needed to scan before holstering to break tunnel vision and look for other threats. And not just turning your head, actually looking.

We practiced shooting with both hands, strong hand, and weak hand. We learned to transition between the two.

We learned how to reload our weapons, indexing our fingers on the magazine properly and guiding it up into the mag well. We covered emergency reloads and also spent a little time on "tactical" reloads, or reloads with retention.

And we covered malfunctions. This was one of my favorite parts. We learned how to tap, rack, and assess, should we get a click and not a bang, and also how to clear out more stubborn jams, like a double feed.

We shot from kneeling, strong hand and weak hand. We were introduced to the concept of "pieing" and shot around cover. We talked (and practiced) changing elevation if you must come out from cover a second time.

We covered basic movement, incorporating lateral movement into the draw and also shooting while moving. This part included verbalization. Make it sound real! You will have to when it counts.

And we finished with a running drill which involved seeking cover and enagaging targets. Don't get carried away on this one.. seek cover, take the shots you can make. Apply the fundamentals!

Just now looking back I am thinking "gosh, we covered a lot of material in a weekend. I forgot we did all that!" I'm sure there is some stuff I left out, too. Overall this class was the best money I had spent in years in pursuit of becoming competent with a handgun. And most importantly, I now really had an understanding of the things that I need to practice, and how to actually go about practicing those skills.

Rob and Arcadio are very approachable and knowledgeable instructors. I will be attending their upcoming shotgun course this week, I'll try to get that review up a little sooner!