Most reputable school in the U.S.?

I'd mostly be looking for practical experience from the military or law enforcement communities. Everything else is just armchair commandoing.

You can't teach someone how to drive a car just because you read a book on it once. Without countless hours behind the wheel of a car, you're not competent enough to teach someone how to drive. It's that simple.

 

If you want to make money in the training realm, you need to follow the lead of the existing schools.

First off, the training is going to come second. Like it, or not, the training is going to be why they come there, but not where you are going to make your money back.

You need lodging, and food/drink, to turn the profit you are going to need to be able to pay the guys who are going to be conducting the training. You need to plan on having swag that they can only get from you to "prove" they were there to all their friends and cohorts. Stuff like that.

NRA certifications are nice, 10 years as a basic firerarms instructor is good also. BUT, if you want to capture the market, you need a handful of proven operators that can point to 12 years in "The Teams" and 8 to 10 years with "such & such" SWAT.

Your target SWAT / Special Teams / and Military units, if you are lucky enough to pull it off, aren't going to be coming to your school for basic firearms instruction. It doesn't matter if you have the best facilities on Earth, if half of your class is shaking their head and laughing at the instructor because he has never been in the field and can't speak from "experience" your chances of good reviews and repeat customers is going to be pretty low.

I been to Thunder Ranch & Valhalla. I would go back to Valhalla in a heartbeat. Thunder Ranch, not if I am paying for it....

JD

 

There is also Frontsight and the Sig Academy.

 

Okay, up until now, I was taking this thread seriously, but this post demands proof.

You either post some proof of these shooting skills, skills that outclass an undisclosed SeAL TEAM, or you move on to other threads that don't involve outrageous claims.

I know a former SeAL - he was on Team 2, and Team 3. He is also one of the BEST SHOTS I have ever seen. He is double distinguished in Rifle and he is flat out one of the best shots with a handgun I have ever seen live!

I have been to Thunder Ranch and I have been to Valhalla - so I know the difference, plus I spend a lot of time around the guy and he isn't talk, this guy is hardcore.

You want to talk about being as good, or better, as an undisclosed SeAL Team, I want proof.....

JD

 

At Thunder Ranch, I was a number, and I wasn't important to what was going on. I was number such and such, and I had the instructors time form point A on the clock until Point B - then it was go ahead and practice what I have shown you and I will be back...

There were plenty of Alpha Males at Thunder Ranch, that was never in question, but never was there any "connection" with any of them.

At Valhalla, I had one instructor, even though other people were going through the same training. I had an instructor that assessed my skills, worked with my skills, and spent his time with me.

I also spent time talking with, and drinking with later, Rob Pincus, who was the lead instructor and Director of Operations for Valhalla.

Valhalla had a State of the Art facility, and I had input on the training, along with what I wanted to work on with my specific weapon and skill set.

I never felt that I was one box in an assembly line, and that made a world of difference for me.

JD

 

I'd like to see operators as instructors at a tactical course, because that is an operators area of expertise. A hobbiest will never had the experience that a professional has, ever in any field.

I've seen SOCOM guys in action and I can tell you that they are able to make incredible shots under great duress. They get to the point that their shots actually suffer when they're not. It doesn't surprise me that you were able to out shoot operators, as you were in your element and they were probably bored to tears.

 

First off, SeAL Teams don't run around telling people they are SeAL Teams, that's kind of protocol. If an instructor mentioned it, it could have been true, it also could have been a line of BS.

Regards, I find blanket statements like "They were pretty good, but not better than me or my buddy" to be seriously stretching the Internet Fabric.

First off, former SeAL - clearly listed. I listed some of his credentials ( double distinguished rifleman ), Held a couple of state records himself, but what I think makes him hardcore is his ability to pick up any small arm and put rounds on target. Not just "his" weapons, they can be yours, that guys, or some piece of crap that "just doesn't shoot right" some clown brought to the range. The guy can make anything run, and shoot straight, not some specially tuned, custom built, competition pistol.

I know all about Rob Leatham. You think you are the only guy who used to watch him compete?

Rob can shoot, there is no question, but he is a competition shooter. Granted, he may be one of the best ever at doing so, and kudos to him. He is disciplined and he is very good at what he does.

HOWEVER, he isn't a breacher, he isn't a sniper and he isn't a member of a tac-team. He is one guy with a hell of a talent - but are you telling me that you are going to bring Rob Leatham in and have him teach a SWAT team to breach a hostage situation?

You asked about opening a school to train police and like minded units. You can read books all day about tactics, but that doesn't mean you know the little idiosyncrasies that only someone who has done the job, in real life, would be able to point out.

And, irrelevant to this conversation. No, Rob is a better shooter. But Rob is a shooter. He isn't an Operator. Big difference.

No, what I am saying is that I don't believe that you and your buddy showed up at a training site and were just as good, or better, than an undisclosed SeAL Team, sometime back in 1992.

There were former military team unit members on response to the North Hollywood Bank Robbery, but those two idiots ( I won't name them & continue to give them their 15 minutes ) were obviously better trained at what they were doing ( keeping the police at bay and trying to get away with the cash ) who proved that "amateurs" can play on the big field and more than hold their own.

Would either of those two clowns be able to beat ANY two man team from a SWAT unit from, oh, I don't know, middle of nowhere Kansas/Arkansas/etc at the SWAT trials?

Absolutely not - but that is not the point here.

Get outside the SeAL train of thought here. This has nothing to do with them other than you said you and your buddy could hang with them, if they were even SeAL's, which you stepped back from on the initial statement.

People also tend to make claims, especially concerning history, that is easy to brush over with statements like this:

You may be one hell of a pistol shooter. You might be one of the best out there not currently named Rob Leatham. You may be one of the top at the discipline that you have chosen to devote your time too.

HOWEVER

That doesn't mean that given a check list of attributes that go into being a member of a real unit, trained for specific purpose(s), you are going to stack up apples to apples favorably.

And with THAT in mind, a statement like this:

Demands proof, or a retraction/clarification. Perhaps the unit in question was running off hand drills. Perhaps the unit in question was at the end of their training session and "just goofing off". Perhaps the unit in question weren't SeALs at all, but 4 or 8 like minded guys who came there for some training and the instructors told everyone they were SeALs because it was better for the reputation of the business at hand. "Look at us, we have SeALs training here". Perhaps it was a bunch of guys getting ready to go to BUDs and WANTED to be SeALs.

The other important thing to factor in is this - IF they were really SeALs, or DELTA, or Marine Force Recon, or any ELITE unit, those guys are trained to put bullets on target when EVERYTHING around them is going to hell in a hand basket. They don't freeze up, and they don't jerk their triggers. True Operators, the real ones, probably wouldn't have been taking the "training" at the site with the same wide eyed, taking in everything that is being said because a lot of it was what they were already doing. They were probably watching the clock and looking forward to getting their time in, over with and getting on with their off time. No lives were on the line at Gunsite. No Mission Critical performance was required. Big difference.

That would be like having a free throw shooting contest with Michael Jordan at a playground.

JD

 

There is some credence to having non-operators teach nowadays. Bennie Cooley and Rob Leatham (mentioned above) are both instructors who have been contracted by the military to teach marksmanship, due to their experience in IPSC and 3-Gun competitions.

That is one of the reasons that the Army Marksmanship Unit holds the Ft. Benning 3-Gun every year: to see what the gun-gamers are doing that they may be able to use.

 

I have to disagree.

Why would I want to fly to his place in Florida, when there are tons of "gypsy instructors" running around out there, who will come to a range that is only 20 minutes from my house? IMHO, he will need to take the approach that his instructors will come to you, and train a class for you, but all of his advanced classes will be held at his home range (sorta like how James Yeager does it).

Further, some people will just attend the class at the resort ranges as an excuse to escape the wife, and not really care about the shooting instruction. While you will still make the money on this, it can start to aggravate the other students, who will give you a poor review, and will not return.

The NRA instructor creds, either basic or law enforcement, are something that I look for, merely because they are the closest thing to a standard that the industry has. Unless I know of the person by reputation/reading a book (Pincus or Kyle Lamb), I will see where he is accredited from to make a choice if I want to train with him.

 

I'm going to ignore the portion of this wherein you claim to be God's right hand of the handgun, because it is patently unbelievable...

But, if the hobbyist misses, what happens? NOTHING! He doesn't die; someone else doesn't die; the bomb doesn't go off; nothing happens. He can take his time and re-center himself, reacquire his target and shoot again.

Military and law enforcement may not have that option. There are circumstances where they cannot miss. That is the major difference between a hobbyist and a professional.

And before you start bringing the World Class IPSC/IDPA shooters into this, they are also professionals. If they miss a target, it is the difference between 1st place, and a $500 purse, and 2nd place, and a $250 purse.

I put forth that the military was, and still is, sending these guys to these schools not for training on how to fight, but rather on training on marksmanship or something that the civilian world has a better handle on (medium to long range marksmanship for example).

The reason that people want to see those qualifications is they are a tangible way to see how well the instructor is. It's not the obsession and hero worship that you make it out to be. It is a tangible qualification. If you were an IPSC Grand Master (and were willing to post your name, but that's an argument on another board), I would be just as inclined to believe that you can do what you need to as I would if you were SF or SWAT.

Unless you have something to prove it in a recognized and tangible format (IPSC/IDPA), then, for all we know, this is just you telling lies. That's the reason that people want to take classes from military and law enforcement. These guys have met a standard...

 

He isn't referring to a 1-to-1 instructor student ratio. He is instead referring to the time that the Valhalla Instructor gave to him. He was saying that the instructor taught him a skill, then spent time with him, and gave him feedback on how he performed that skill.
The Thunder Ranch Instructor taught him the skill, and then walked away, never taking time to see if learning had occurred.

 

I have. It was more similar to the second one, but driven from a laptop.

But the best training I have come across thus far would have to be doing it with Airsoft, Real Action Markers, or Simunitions.