Oregon Shooter

What follows is my opinion of a recent class taken at OFA (Oregon Firearms Academy) featuring the instruction of John Farnam.

The class lasted two days and John, along with the help of his wife Vickie and several OFA instructors, kept everyone busy learning new skills and dealing with bad habits that somehow always seem to creep into one's own defensive handgunning methods.

The class was geared toward those who had been through the basics already and OFA did an excellent job of prescreening the seventeen students that attended to ensure everyone met the base level of skills needed for the class.

I was glad to see John developing the students into a "complete package" as the weekend progressed. Having read his book (The Farnam Method of Defensive Handgunning), I was hoping he would touch on the wide range of topics included in that excellent resource, of which he did throughout the weekend.

Day One

The early morning of the first day was spent in classroom instruction and I could see the group itchin to get on the range and fire some of the 800 plus rounds they had brought for the class, I myself was guilty of wanting to "get into it" also. Soon enough though we were on the range and the show was about to begin.

After a quick refresher on safely loading, unloading, and doing admin reloads (OFA and John both run "hot" ranges), we spent time working on "hitting the marshmallows" as John puts it. The marshmallows are John's way of describing the soft disks found in the spinal cord that once destroyed by a bullet will shut down a perpetrators central nervous system in a prompt manner.

While the zipper approach made sense to me initially, I found that when stress was introduced (as in the charging target drill) everyone shot center of mass. The theory behind the zipper is that when you have a BG (Bad Guy) at gun point, your weapon should be aimed at his abdomen to allow you to see his hands. Since we are already at this lowered point of aim, it only makes sense to start shooting while moving up the torso, rather than waste time getting on target COM (Center Of Mass) before firing. In the static example I just made, I can see a valid point for the technique. On the other hand, I feel that for most engagements we will default to COM targeting as it's the most natural and plays well into the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle.

Emphasis was put on shooter movement before drawing, after the initial shot volley, and again while reloading. Basically, if you were not shooting you were moving. Movement and breaking "tunnel vision" were a top priority and vocalizing to the threat was also emphasized. Unfortunately the class spent the whole weekend shooting groups of (4) rounds for nearly every exercise along with doing admin reloads at the end of volleys to conserve class time. At this level I felt that the students needed to think for themselves a bit more and would have liked to have seen the students given freedom to shoot varying amounts of rounds during volleys, along with performing tactical reloads while breaking tunnel vision verses admin reloads after the string was finished.

Shooting drills included using steel turners, with a "spoiler" (another student) trying to spin them the opposite direction. Running man targets, and the worst of the worst... shooting a BG randomly moving behind a row of innocent bystanders. Also included was a trip through the shoot house to show just how futile it is to search a building by yourself. These are just a few of the shooting treats we got in the class.

While the shooting was good, I felt the best information gleaned was in the form of several mini lectures given on topics such as:

• Battle wound treatment
• Instructing females
• The AR15 platform
• The role of the offside knife
• Backup guns
• etc.

At one point we did some scenario work and practiced our avoidance techniques on the would be mugger and even did a 3:1 mock up of being blind sided, and the importance of looking behind you (breaking the tunnel vision) when approached from the front by a stranger.

Here's were I got into trouble with Vickie by not following the program and trying to think for myself. Since the objective was to get past the three attackers safely, I took it upon myself to J-Hook the initial aggressor at which point I knew I had a "safe" area (one previously behind the initiating BG) to my back. This action also revealed the other (2) attackers that I had not seen coming up behind me. Well, that was "not with the program" as I was told and I was suppose to "back out" of the situation at first sign of trouble. That meant backing into the (2) attackers coming up behind me, which made no sense to me! If I was aware enough to realize there were (3) attackers, I would not continue into their circle to begin with. Anyway, I felt that the "canned" approach to the scenario and being disciplined for not going with the program was uncalled for to say the least.

Later the next day I would again have a run in with Vickie, when after shooting a mover and during my scanning stage she yelled "RELOAD" at me to which I became irritated. Maybe I just let my ego get the best of me, but I decide when it's time to reload!

While we had not made tactical reloads a part of the scan cycle all day the previous day, suddenly I was getting barked at for not reloading. Firstly in my defense, I was not done scanning the area and secondly my threat (the running target) was not reset so I considered it a "live" target still. I wanted to suggest that she use a phrase as John had been doing throughout the weekend to let the shooter know that in the present simulation the BG was disposed of and appropriate action (like reloading) should be taken, but from the look I was getting on this second confrontation I felt anything I had to say on the matter would be falling on def ears.

John's approach was to state something like "I think the bad guy's have all left now." This served to let us know that the threat was gone... act appropriately. If you then did not move, scan, reload, and scan again... it was on you!

Please don't get me wrong, I think the world of Vickie and have learned a lot from her and her book, but felt it would be dishonest not to mention the above incidents during a review of the class.

To round out the class, we spent time learning a few gun disarms, and the importance of having a prior plan should you or your spouse ever be held at gun point. John and his wife demonstrated how they had developed a "trigger phrase" that would serve to alert the other that (3) seconds after saying this phrase they would be dropping to the ground and expecting the other spouse to start shooting the BG immediately. This was just one of those simple but important parts revealed in the "complete package" approach the Farnam's take in their classes. Yeah it doesn't seem like much, but ask yourself how many couples have probably thought about this? The time to come up with a plan is not when there is a gun to your spouses head, so if you don't already have a code phrase I would suggest thinking of one soon.

The first day went long into the evening and included a very excellent dinner served by Rick of the OFA staff. That boy can cook!

After dinner and some time after the sun had set, we began our night fire course. Night fire is one of the most neglected aspects of defensive handgunning in my book, and this was an excellent opportunity to see how difficult it can be shooting under less than optimal conditions. If you do not have access to a night fire range, as most do not I would suspect, I would highly encourage you to take one of OFA's dedicated courses on the matter as this type of shooting can not be stressed enough. Remember, most shootings do not happen in broad day light.

We started by engaging front lit steel targets approximately 7 yards away, lighting being provided by road flares. Then we moved the flares behind us, then had a partner randomly highlight the target with his flashlight, and finally tried a couple of flashlight techniques. The first of which was the popular Harries technique, then the Ken Hackthorn (according to John) method also known as the "Turret" method. I concluded that with night sights on my gun, the Harries was more natural and easy to use but quickly tiring. The Hackthorn method was better suited to guns without night sights and was more comfortable IF having a light (read: target indicator) next to your "brain housing group" is considered acceptable to you!

Maybe it was due to time constraints, but I had hoped we would spend time practicing clearance drills with dummy rounds that night. Learning to manipulate our guns without "eyeballing" them was a key point stressed over and over again, and I thought the night shoot would be a good time to show why we need to learn this way, especially by introducing double feeds. Either way, the night shoot was definitely a highlight of the class.

Day Two

The second day brought more review and testing. The skills test John has developed for this class is pretty good. I guess a "standards" test by it very nature requires certain bad habits to exist, but there were a few issues I had with the exam, besides a hard time passing it.

The exam (from memory) included something like the following:

1. Assuming a defensive "Interview" stance, scanning area.
2. Moving draw, and vocalizing to threat.
3. Shooting (4) rounds into threat (steel plate ~8X10) while clearing one randomly placed dummy round , moving again.
4. Reloading on move, shooting (4) rounds, moving, shooting (4) rounds.
5. Scanning area with gun to front, quick peek behind while moving.
6. Command to holster

My issues with the test were firstly that the round count was a constant (4) rounds. As I found out in the shoot house stage, you will default to your training, including any fixed number of rounds that you shoot before disengaging a target. As an ISPC shooter who spent three years shooting (2) into the target and moving on, I found that this is exactly how I shot the BG in the house even though it was a reactive target and I had time to put another (3) shots on it. Reactive targets are a must for training!!! We need to move away from "shoot (x) amount of times and evaluate" to "shooting the BG down" in our training. Reactive targets are the only way to train appropriately.

My other issue was with getting DQ'd for moving one step with my finger on the trigger. While indexing the trigger finger for non shooting movement is crucial, I was still engaging the target and had sights on at all times, ready and willing to shoot. This overly strict enforcement of the finger index rule takes away from the reality of dynamic shooting, which is really what we should be encouraging. One thing that IPSC does teach you is to shoot while in constant motion. Something that is not practiced enough in my opinion. Several steps while not targeting would dictate removing the trigger finger from the guard, but I felt the instructor assigned to me was being too strict on this one, although it was at the direction of John and not his call to make.

Conclusion

I thought the class was excellent and would recommend it to anyone serious about becoming a more complete handgunner. Every person at the class knew how to shoot already, and at this intermediate/advanced level this is a given. What the class and John's teaching methods do is teach the shooter to look at the complete package and reevaluate where they are on the learning curve. Where do you need work the most?

OFA provided a truly state of the art facility and excellent instructors for the class, and having taken one of OFA's classes prior to this I can attest to the high standards that Dan and the others hold their classes to.

Don't wait for John to come around next year though to get some good training, as OFA teaches a lot of the Farnam Method verbatim and adds to it some good stuff from other doctrines also. If you get a chance at all, make the trip to the OFA range and I guarantee you will not be disappointed!