Defensive Shotgun Skills I

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The shotgun is a very commonly available, very powerful, yet often misunderstood firearm. Training for the defensive shotgun is often outdated and ineffective. Beginning with recoil mitigation, we will teach you how to employ the most powerful defensive tool commonly available painlessly and effectively. This course focuses on honing shooting skill with the defensive shotgun, but more importantly retaining a high level of skill while forced to assess information and make correct decisions.

Course Goal: to simultaneously improve decision making and shooting ability under stress

Prerequisites: This course is designed for those who already have prior training in employing a defensive shotgun and following the four primary rules of firearms safety. This is not designed to be someone’s first formal training class with a defensive shotgun. If you are looking for more fundamental instruction, see our Defensive Shotgun Essentials Course. Or see one of our Industry Partners.

Duration:  8 Hours Link Up: 8:35 AM Convoy Departs: 8:45 AM Class Start 9:00 AM

Location: Old Stone Quarry, Culpeper VA

Link Up Point: E.V. Baker’s Gas Station & Country Store 4066 Zachary Taylor Highway (Rt 522) Culpeper, VA

Equipment Requirements: You will need a reliable pump-action or semi-automatic shotgun (legally owned short-barrel shotguns are allowed. Pistol-grip-only shotguns are not appropriate for this course), a practical method for carriage of extra ammunition (side saddles and butt cuffs are common), 200 rounds of bird shot, 50 rounds of buckshot, 10 slugs, some method of keeping at least 25 extra shells on your body (cargo pockets or a dump pouch are common), ballistically rated eye protection, hearing protection (electronic ear pro highly recommended), and a brimmed cap.

We strongly recommend: a shotgun with rifle-style sights and/or a red dot optic, a quality sling, a stock on your gun that has a 13” or shorter length of pull (unless you are taller than 6’2”), use of low-recoil buckshot and slugs, ensuring that you have at least some premium defensive quality buckshot that you would consider using as your main defensive load to use for patterning and the qualification…Federal’s low-recoil Flight Control buckshot loads work very well for this, in our experience.  

Topics to be covered:

  • Mindset – the importance of avoidance, prior preparation, and other critical considerations

  • Factors that legally allow (“Justify”) the use of force

  • Firearms Safety

  • Proper stance for fighting with a shotgun

  • Combat Marksmanship Fundamentals (Hold Control, Sight Picture & Trigger Control)

  • Recoil Mitigation techniques

  • Loading & Unloading Procedures

  • Reloading Techniques

  • Live Fire Drills (to include split attention tasks)

  • Proper ammunition selection for the mission

  • Positions, and Effective Use of Cover

  • Shooting Evaluation (Qualification)

  • Decision Making (Shoot/No Shoot) Exercise

Attendance Considerations: This is not designed as a student’s first firearms course and it is certainly not introductory level material. Verification of previous training is not required but honest self-assessment is. We do stress the fundamentals and highly encourage all that choose to use a firearm for self-defense to pursue excellence in its use. At a minimum to attend you must know and should be able to follow at all times the 4 Cardinal Rules of Firearms safety, you also need to be familiar with handling a firearm around other people, knowledge of your firearms manual of operation specifically how to safely load it, and unload it, open the action and  keep the action open is necessary. An open mind and a willingness to be challenged, to learn and to improve are desirable. Train hard! We hope to see you on the range.