From: bressler@iftccu.ca.boeing.com (Rick Bressler)
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: John Farnum Training Review. (long)
Date: 15 Aug 92 17:00:49 GMT
Organization: Boeing Commercial Airplane Group


         Nothing is more important than speed, except accuracy!

I recently attended a three day / 30 hour intensive firearms class put
on by John Farnum.  John and his wife Vicky, who is in her own right an
excellent trainer, have impressive credentials.  They have done quite a
bit of training for foreign governments, the US government, police
agencies and civilians.

I would rate this particular class intermediate to advanced.
Prerequisites were LFI II, API 250, or equivalent.  Where Ayoob spends
about 50% of the time teaching you when, and the other 50% how, John's
advanced courses concentrate 90% on the how.  He's assuming that by now
you know when.

John claims he that modifies his class content based on the actual
training level of his students, and what they want to learn.  The class
was small enough, 16 people, that we didn't have any trouble reaching a
consensus on what we wanted to do, but if you take this class, you might
wind up doing something entirely different.

Day 1

We met in the classroom, and spent about 3 hours getting to know each
other.  John had some interesting tapes to show and we traded advice.
John explained his rules for the range, and those of you that have read
his book will know that he runs a 'hot' range.  That is, all guns are
always loaded and in the ready condition.  For us 1911 types, that meant
cocked, locked, and fully loaded mags.

John showed a DEA video that shows the fallacy of stopping a car with a
small arms.  DEA guy drives up and gets out of a mid 70's full sized
ford.  A bunch of DEA guys open up with, .223, 12 gauge slugs, 12 gauge
00-buck, 9mm, .357, .45, and in short just about every caliber in use by
law enforcement today in the US today.

After the car absorbs over 500 rounds of assorted ordinance, he then
gets in the car, starts it, and drives away.  Now, it wasn't going fast,
and it was on 4 flat tires, and it was smoking and clanking, but it was
running and could have still been used as a weapon.  Further, before the
demonstration he had placed a couple of IPSC targets folded tent wise on
the front and rear floor, to simulate somebody crouched on the floor.
Neither of these had ANY holes in them.  Moral of story:  If you are
attacked in your car, stay in the car.  If you are attacked by a car,
get out of the way.  If you need to stop a car, put something solid in
front of it.  That is the only way.  Shooting it probably won't help.
Hollywood scenes of bullets stopping cars are as much of a fantasy as
anything else you see in the movies.

Other tips:

We've talked about airlines and guns in this group quit a bit.  John
does a lot of traveling.  He says that even if you declare the gun, get
it tagged and placed in another suitcase, you still stand a good chance
of having it stolen.  He claims, (don't blame me if you get arrested if
you try this...) that according to the FAA regulations, a gun in pieces
isn't a gun!  Unlike the BTF which claims the serial numbered part is
the gun, the FAA considers only functioning guns to be firearms.  Thus,
a simple separation of the slide from the frame on a semi auto turns it
into 'machine parts.'  They don't even need to be in separate bags, or
declared....  Removing the cylinder from a revolver is the same thing.

He also cautions against taking too many of the new style 100 dollar
bills through a metal detector.  Apparently 10-13 of the damn things
will set it off.  This is of course due to the strip embedded in the
bill.  It was designed for this, among other things.  More of our
government pressuring us into a cashless society.  We also discussed
other methods of 'keeping a low profile.'  Anybody who carries regularly
for some time will eventually pass the point where they feel like a
'little person strapped to a big gun' and start to get real practical
about it.  Keeping a low profile is important if you don't want to get
hassled.

Anyway after about 3-4 hours of this, it was off to the range.

The next 8 hours were spent reviewing and practicing some basics.  This
covered drawing and firing, multiple shots, multiple targets,
malfunction clearing, tactical and speed reloading, and on and on and
on.  John's philosophy is that nothing is more important than speed,
except accuracy.  Thus all of his drills are designed to push you time
wise, but if you miss even a single shot, you fail.  Additionally there
is usually some other form of stress that can range from somebody
screaming in your ear to peer pressure.  More on this later.

John uses only reactive targets.  For the first two days, we shot only
20 by 30 cm steel plates.  We drilled and drilled until our fingers were
sore and our arms ached and we were able to meet his time requirements,
for that day anyway.  With two instructors, and six people on the line
at a time, you get lots of personal attention.  Most of the drills are
individually timed.

In particular we were required to draw and fire within 2 seconds at 15
yards, 1.5 seconds at 8 yards, and 1.3 seconds point blank.
Additionally, we were required to holster in 1.5 seconds, one handed
without looking.  John feels it is important to be able to get the gun
out of sight quickly and safely.  This ties in pretty well with some of
the 'what do you do when the cops show up' threads.

Second day:

Met in classroom for a brief time.  Exchanged a bit more info, and some
general BS.  John started to introduce some of his tactics for armed
confrontations.  We also viewed some videos of actual shootings to
underscore his statement:  "Do you know what happens when you shoot
somebody?  Funny thing is, that for three to twelve seconds, nothing at
all!  You probably won't even be able to tell if you hit them or not!"
Bottom line, if you do open fire, keep shooting until there is nothing
in your sights any more.  Reload if you have to, but keep shooting until
the 'garboons' (as John calls them) are down.

Out to the range.

Today we put the components we practiced yesterday together.  One of the
things we did was 'team' sports.  He broke us up into three teams of
five.  First drill, run back to designated marker, run to firing line,
take single shot at stationary plate.  (There are three of these per
team.)  If you hit it and knock it down, great.  If not, the next person
in your team has a go at it.  Thus, if you miss, you make somebody else
in your team run.  This is called peer pressure.  Further, the first
team to win gets to sit the next one out and catch their breath.  The
looser continues to play the other teams until it wins!

It gets harder.  Towards the end, you are firing 5 or six shots at the
swinging plate, then knocking over your stationary plate.  You will have
reloads, strong hand only, weak hand only and every variation you can
think of.  Towards the end, everybody puts their gun in the 'pot' and
when you run to the line, one of the instructors points to a gun, you
have to load, get it running and do the drill with a strange gun.  This
is point that many of us don't think of.  The gun that saves your life
may not always be your own.  It might even be that cheap shit little .22
Raven covered with blood and filth sliding across the floor....  It
pays to have a passing familiarity with a variety of firearms.

If it seems like there is a lot of running, John points out that if you
can't shoot you'd better learn to run and either way he is going prepare
you.  Actually it wasn't that far and even the couple of over-weight (I
border on that classification and I survived) folks in our class didn't
collapse or anything.  We all left the range with our butts dragging.
And we left for another range!

Yes, we headed towards one of the local indoor ranges where we did 4
hours of night and low light shooting.  (ouch, my aching hands...)

That night we got together for a BBQ at the house of the owner of the
firearms school that was hosting John.  We told war stories until late.
John spends as much time with his students as he can.  He is as serious
as Ayoob, but manages not to use the four letter words as much, and
maintains a bit lighter sense of humor.  Like Ayoob, he is a good
speaker and quite entertaining.


Third day:

A couple of hours are spent in the classroom practicing some weapons
retention, weapons retrieval, and a few other tips in hand to hand and
close order firearms fighting.  Just a few basics, and some advice to
get more if you are serious about carrying a gun full time.  John in
particular recommended Clint Smiths class as 'continuing education' in
this area.

Off to the range.

Today we spend working in teams of two.  We have a (junk) car.  John
demonstrates some of the things we saw in the car video.  In particular
he demonstrates bouncing 9mm and .357 off of the glass at fairly acute
angles.  He demonstrates that penetration of the passenger compartment
is impossible from the front and unlikely from the side.  Then we get in
the car....

John has set up a bunch of duotron targets.  (These are the two sided
targets that rotate.  You can have a good guy on one side, a bad guy on
the other, or a hostage on one side etc...)  He has a remote control for
these.  You are supposed to let him set them up, then open your eyes.
You and your partner are supposed to diagnose the situation, and take
appropriate action.  It starts out easy.  By the end of the day, it is
like a war zone.  Sometimes the targets will take 4 or 5 or 6 solid hits
before going down.  Sometimes they get back up.  I had three mags for my
.45 and two hide outs that John didn't know about.  My partner had three
mags for his Glock 17.  I think we had 7 or eight rounds left between us
after our last trip through the exercise.

We were also introduced to his test.  Most of us were expected to shoot
at instructor level by this point.  You hand a magazine, 5 live rounds
and a dummy to a 'friend.'  This person loads the mag for you, and
inserts it in your gun so you have no idea where the dummy is.  You are
then expected on a signal from the timer to draw, fire until you hit the
malfunction, clear the malfunction, shoot the gun dry, reload and fire
one more round.  Times are:  Time from signal to first shot 2 seconds.
Max time between shots, .75 sec.  Time clear malfunction, 3 sec, time to
reload 4 sec.  If three seconds sounds like a long time for tap,
rack,bang, consider, you've already used .5-.75 on that dud shot, you've
got to clear, and use your .5-.75 to get the next shot off.  That
actually gives you 1-2 sec to actually clear the malfunction.  Ditto for
the magazine change.  If you count shots, you will be too slow.  You
have to react, not count.  Further, he requires that you have a hand on
the new mag before you drop the old one.  You are shooting at a 20x30 cm
steel plate at 12-15 yards.  As usual, any misses immediately
disqualifies you.

I've probably only broadly covered about 1/3 of what we actually did,
but in summary, I found this class to be well worth the 400 dollars.
John is also an expert witness and will go to bat for you if necessary,
similar, to but not as cheap as Ayoob.  (Mas claims he will defend
students for a plane ticket, a place to sleep and all the rolling rock
beer he can drink..  Guess that could get expensive..)  I recommend this
class to the firearms student that wants be challenged and desires to
improve their shooting skills under stress.

[MODERATOR:  Nice summary, Rick, thanks for posting!]