Now you know we have trigger time and some experience, so here’s some cheap advice and insight based on what we see each week. Sunday AM we stand in line at Ben Avery to be the first shooting group. Within an hour over 100 shooters are on line, week in, week out. Not one pistol shooter drops his magazines on the ground and does any type of actual real life my god I’m in a firefight reload. As each mags ammo is expended the magazine is carefully removed and placed on the table whilst another is sought and is carefully inserted in the magazine well. Erstwhile, Rockegroup’s magazines are bouncing off the concrete, being stepped and stomped on, and kicked out on the range in the sand. Oh yeah; did I mention? They are Glock plastic magazines bouncing hither and yon. 72 of them by the time we are done, all on the ground. Pick em up, take em to the shop, reload em, back in the bucket. No mag malfunctions, never bothered cleaning em either. How’s those steel mags holding up? Let me enter a funny story here.. so one of the drills we do is a malfunction drill; tap, rack, and roll. We insert a fresh full mag, fire one round, pretend there is a malfunction and tap, rack, and roll. So you fire one and eject one, then fire, then tap rack and roll which ejects another live round at which point we fire the subsequent round and repeat till dry. It is a drill which expends every other round.. so an old know it all coot walks over and says “you know you wouldn’t have so many malfunctions if you didn’t drop all your magazines on the ground!”. Funny or sad? He reckons he is a Gunslinger but does not know of nor practice a malfunction drill. One more true story out of thousands which is germane to our topic. Marine goes to Iraq, firefight, insurgent down and crawling, Marine is alone, runs dry, does mag change the way he was taught which is remove magazine, open mag pouch, insert expended magazine in ammo pouch, remove full magazine, enter into carbine, release catch, reacquire target and resume fighting. Which takes a lifetime of seconds in a life or death situation. Marine while doing his mag change the way he was taught thousands of times which takes forever seconds was shot by the “down” insurgent through the guts into the spine. Lived. Is paralyzed. Forever. He is the first to declare unequivocally if he had dumped the mag and done a “speed” reload he would still be good to go. You will fight the way you train; so why are you not dumping magazines? By the by the military at the time (all branches) never told any of us magazines were expendable.. we all did the same.

Our range has target slots at 5, 10, 15, 25, and 50 yards for pistol shooting. And where do you all set up? First time shooters set up at 25 yards (whom knows why), experienced repeat shooters set up at 10 or 15 yards, and Rockegroup sets up at 5 yards. Why 5 yards? cause they won’t let us set up at 2 yards. Alex is going apeshit now.. see I told you they were frauds they wanna shoot at 2 yards arggghhh! What are you training for? Ask anyone up and down the line and you will hear self defense 99% of the time. If so you should be training at contact distance cause odds are that’s where your fight will be. You are not in Afghanistan, so stop now. How many of you training at 15 yards (45) feet have any room in your home that long? Thanks to Obama these well known gunfights years ago spring readily to mind; the “Gentle Giant” which led to the Ferguson debacle after investigation proved the fight and subsequent shooting occurred inside the door of the police vehicle. At contact distance. Trayvon Martin? Contact distance. FBI statistics show more than 50% at contact distance. Keep training at 45 feet. Good for you. Yes we train at all distances but 90% of our training revolves around reality. So 5 yards. 15 feet. Cause we can’t put targets at 2 yards. Let’s really twist Alex up now! We also train at 200 yards with our pistols admittedly cause it is fun. Put a silhouette at 200 yards and I guarantee a hit within 3 rounds. Standing up. With a G17. As Kerry say’s “for the most part”.

Ok, we are the first to admit we do not follow our own advice (but we do have a reason). Compensated pistols should not be used in the tactical self defense arena, yet all of our carry and practice firearms are Gen 3 LE issue Glock 17C and 19C. Compensated Glock’s expel surprisingly voluminous amounts of gases and debris thru the barrel and slide ports. In a contact distance fight your pistol may not be extended at all and as it discharges while held close to the body these gasses may/will head straight for the eyeballs which will seriously impede your ability to stay in the fight. In addition any Glock Compensated pistol will become shockingly filthy at an indescribable rate in comparison to a non comp Glock. The average shooter gains nothing worthwhile overall when going to a compensated pistol; but for a serious voluminous round count shooter whom wants to put out an inordinate amount of ordnance to stop a CQB threat the compensated pistol will allow several more rounds per split second (yeah Alex split second). So it works for us, and we train to use the compensated pistol at contact and take measures to alleviate expelled gas issues.

You go ahead. I’ll just kill you with my pistol. Whom came up with that happy crappy and regurgitated it in print? Why am I going to fight my way to a long gun? Again you are not in Afghanistan cleaning the crappers cause you got an Article 15 and need to fight to the team room for your “long gun”. Let’s talk home defense. An M4? AR? Shotgun? Fer what? A civilian legal AR platform has a 16 inch barrel which makes you a whack job for using it when you hear a bump in the night. Think contact distance fight. I hope YOU have an AR so I can kick your ass with my G17. All day. I am more maneuverable, have easier light access, can use one hand independent of the other without sacrificing lethality (oh yeah, we practice one handed too Alex), and am proficient. Shotgun? “Yeah when they hear me rack the slide it will send shivers up and down their spine and they will crap their pants and run”; or when they hear you lumbering around to get that 52 inch long thingy and you “rack the slide” they just shoot you. Duh.

Every pistol must have night sights. Statistically the first thing a shooter replaces on their pistol are factory sights for night sights. A multi-million dollar industry revolves soley around night sights so they gotta be a must have! Well, not so fast.. let’s think about this. For the 5th time we are not in Afghanistan! Name one situation where you can legally, morally, or ethically engage a target as an LEO or civilian and not KNOW what you are shooting. Night sights allow an enhanced view of your sights in dark environments. They do not illuminate, define, nor identify whatever you are pointing at and afraid of. That’s why you have a Surefire under the G17 right? And when you turn it on and identify the target the night sights are useless right? Now you are using the front post and rear sight window silhouetted in the light, not night sights. That said our pistols do have night sights on them specifically Trijicon HD Orange. I personally find them invaluable on the weekends as I get up before my significant other; as I go into the closet the night sights allow me to find my pants at a glance (since my G17 is belted and holstered on them) slip them on, and depart the AO without her knowing I am up since no lights were turned on. Priceless.

There is a percentage of the population that has acquired perceptions that simply cannot be corrected regardless of fact or evidence. As an example an intelligent individual whom is an RN, has a couple degrees to include business accolades has routinely stated if she was confronted by a bad guy/gal she would shoot em in the leg. Say whatever you want to say you cannot change her mind. On the semi bright side she does not own nor carry a firearm. Recent events caused her to change her thought processes and take a CCW class and a separate shooting class with the goal to acquire a “self defense” pistol. Upon her graduation(s) and additional training she still stated she would just “shoot em in the leg”. Overwhelmed with frustration I finally asked her to have me stand at whatever distance she felt she would feel compelled to shoot the threat “in the leg” and whenever she felt ready to draw her pistol to engage. At 10 feet it was a no brainer for me to beat the draw and in a simulated fashion kill her. How fast can you cover 10 feet? As fast as you can blink; which is why all tactical self defense training is center mass shots again as Kerry say’s “for the most part”.

Being simplistic, I say again being simplistic, having the ability to put numerous rounds in a kill zone in an extremely fast and efficient manner at close distance under pressure negating or killing said threat. Numerous rounds in an extremely fast and efficient (accurate) manner. At contact distance to 30 feet. Yet you practice shooting one round, looking up over your pistol to see where you hit, lowering your head and shooting another round, raising your head to see where you hit again. Hey If I gotta get in a gunfight can I choose you? Step off 30′ and have some kid show you how fast he can cover it and then stick you in the neck with a Benchmade. Numerous rounds in a split second all on target to negate the threat. Not one. Numerous rounds. Then some more until I am positive you are out of the fight. Thousands of documented cases where opponent’s were shot dozens of times and stayed in the fight. Quit looking keep squeezing. Or pressing. Or whatever is currently in vogue that you do to a trigger to make it go bang.

There was this commentator a couple decades ago who was famous for this line “and now, for the rest of the story!”. Paul Harvey. Here’s the “rest of the story”. Chatroom’s are FOR PROFIT and generate substantial income from advertising. Take AR19.com or snipershideout.com or whomever.. the more people “chatting” the more money they make; ie it is in their best interests to get as many posts and people online as they can. They then take these numbers to advertisers such as Remington, Colt, Vortex, Gunwerks, etc and extoll the benefits of advertising with them; “why Mr. Remington as you can see there are 12,432 people online RIGHT NOW all gun buyers “chatting” about guns and if you advertise with us all 12,432 people will see your advertisement and everyone will buy your product and you can sign up today at a special reduced cost with a 2 year contract and plus we will send you a ginsu knife for only $55,552 payable in quarterly installments” .

Pretty awesome. And smart. Problem is they have to promote people “chatting” and the chats gotta be monitored or “moderated”. So they need “Moderators”. Where do you get a “Moderator”? You make moderators out of those whom have the most posts, or “chat” the most. Their power (and problem) is that a moderator can delete any post he wants, slant a “thread” to go where he wants, and in addition delete his own feedback! I’m agonna tell a true funny/sad story in a minute BUT understand there IS a place for chatrooms and they can and do provide a valuable service as an information seeking tool when used properly; unfortunately “General” threads are routinely from anonymous nameless societal outcasts aka “haters” whom frankly have no true knowledge but just gotta bitch. All the time. And yet oddly portray themselves as “knowledgeable”..

By the by my name is Kurt Klimek and my address is on our FFL and all of our business licenses. No anonymity here.. anyhoo, so this great client calls us up a couple years ago and say’s hey there’s a really funny rant about Rocke Guns on AR19.com you gotta read it! So I do and I’m honestly kinda p.o.’d (irritated). Then I read it again and I am laughing my arse off! A month later I am still laughing about it and go to copy the entire thread to publish and post; not so funny now. The moderator had deleted 1/2 of the posts leaving only negative rants..

It went along the lines of “Rocke Guns sells fake guns they’re not real they were “take off’s” from used Delta (Special Forces) M4s” then someone else piled on and another and another all like little piranha trying hard to impress each other with how smart each little piranha was.. and then the fun started. A member typed in “oh yeah, they’re all fake. They are all Airsoft!”. Then another.. “hey Google his address; Rocke Guns is in a 2 million dollar plus 12 acre compound. Yeah, that’s fake too!” Another jumped in with “is this the gun dealer we love to hate this month?” followed by one of our customer’s ” I bought six pistols from Rocke Guns and never had a problem”. Well.. when we went to print this out ALL the comments that were positive or were poking fun at all the little piranha had been deleted.. by the moderator.. whom it turns out had started the thread.

And the moderator? He has over 70,700 posts. Think about that. 70,700 posts. Who has time to post 70,700 times? Do you really think this guy is a shooter? You think he has trigger time? Gainful employment? True knowledge based by actually doing? Any LE or military experience?

Point? Anonymous CCR Klowns whom have never purchased anything from Rockegroup, LLC should be taken exactly as they portray themselves. Wanna see what what real customers are saying about Rockegroup, LLC and their 2 million plus inventory? Get off your Google browser, go to Bing.. or click on the REAL Gunbroker review link at the top of this page!

Everyone needs continuing education in the evolving concept of Gunfighting. Problem is half of our instructors are, well, not so great! Pretty easy for a new shooter to get entry level instruction as there are a plethora of entry level qualified instructors available. A one or two day course however simply does not cut it; Gunsite 250 pistol course is a 5 day course and is awesome for the new or semi-experienced shooter. And, um, hey.. if you shoot 20 rounds at the range every other week you can call yourself “semi-experienced”. Maybe. The problem arises for the intermediate to advanced shooter to get an experienced educated instructor. The majority of these instructors seem to believe we are in Afghanistan and train as such; crawling over and under, jumping hither and yon, running for cover. No. My fight is at Walmart not Afghanistan. Was at the “highest level” pistol training course offered (supposedly) where one of the instructors keeps yapping about how he was a Green Beret Medic. No such thing. There are Special Forces Aidman (300F1) trained to the level of ER Doctors in the longest (and hardest) Special Forces Course in existence. Yeah I oughta know and yes it’s on my DD214. He is also a “pilot”, Hollywood stunt man, business expert, the list just does not stop and nor does his mouth. So anyhoo he has us at 25 yards, 75′, long way. Ok I get it. We DO need to be able to whack at 25 yards.. scenario is no cover, no retreat, we are in a fight to the death. So his instruction is to fire one round, skimmy hoople two steps right (using the special skimmy hoople technique), fire another round, skimmy hoople two steps left, fire another round. Gotta keep moving so we are harder to hit! Yeah. No. In the above scenario I’m not moving left right nowhere. In fact I am going to move toward my opponent in a fast and efficient manner while constantly pulling the trigger; let him him hoople skim left and right and I’ll simply ventilate him. Alot. Point being after you gain enough experience you need to evaluate and sift through information provided to you, keep what you can use and makes sense, and discard the rest. This same instructor was one whom said you do not need to ever look behind you AFTER your threat is down. Huh? What? Soon as my threat is not a threat I am checking my six FAST and if clear reloading with a full mag. I can do bad instructor stories all day long.. just do some checking and get some bona fides or talk to the guy and feel em out. Another “instructor” promoted himself as a hot shit Marine Force Recon (Mustang) and fooled everyone for a decade. Took one of his courses with my wife, sat in the car after, called bullshit. Chicken shit AR course of no value. Turns out he was a fraud. No one in the community ever asked to see his bona fides or DD214. And hey you don’t need a veteran to be your instructor either. Colonel Cooper used to only allow and hire instructor’s whom “have been shot at”. Sorry but that’s just dumb. What about the ex navy SEAL whom is now an instructor and has you skinny up a telephone pole and engage targets with your pistol? Say what? There’s an “instructor” whom hangs out at our local coffee shop. Calls himself “Reaper”. Really. Apparently was in the Army 3 years and claims his platoon gave him the nickname. The Reaper. My ass. Anyone having you call them the “Reaper” or “Terminator” or “Killer” is a wannabe. Stay away from em.
There is some serious talent out there to learn from and one of the better ones is Ernest Langdon. Look him up and take a couple of his courses. And no I don’t agree with everything he teaches but he is an awesome instructor regardless!

Before I start on this morass let me give you the GOOD ones! Best guide for hunting in Alaska = Henry Tiffany. If he cannot help you he will refer you to another exceptional outfitter whom can. Absolutely superb. Africa and any of five “huntable” African countries look up Theo De Marillac. Cabela’s used to have a service called WTA Adventures which split off from Cabela’s but they maintain a close relationship. Look up WTA “Worldwide Trophy Adventures” but be VERY explicit in what you want to do; there is a huge difference in “I wanna shot an Elk” and “I want to shoot a world class trophy Elk”. You can book a 5k nigh to 100% success rate in Colorado for Elk. Won’t score much but you will get a shot opportunity. For around 17k you can get in an area that holds Elk in the 350+ range. Be clear and concise on what YOUR expectations are and they will typically exceed them.

Booked a hunt in Utah for Elk. Operation was run by a family with 5 or 6 sons. Our “guide” (one of the sons) picked us up at the airport and during the 70 minute drive we came across literally 5 miles of construction cones on the freeway. He ran over every one of them. Intentionally. Said “that’s what we do here”. It went downhill from there. Shoulda coulda woulda had em turn around and take us back to the airport!

Same outfitter had six of us in camp and at dinner one of the “hunters” told us he came every year. Left his rifle there every year. Never practiced, ever. His arrogance was beyond the pale; while we were discussing tactics, checking equipment, dry-firing, and checking our zeroes he literally drank red wine and laughed at us. He did get his shot opportunity and shot an Elk in the ass which subsequently ran off never to be seen again. I find this individual and his ilk disgusting and literally reprehensible. A “Hunter” owes his quarry an ethical quick clean kill. A “Hunter” should know his limitations and be mentally mature and strong enough to recognize and adhere to his limitations.

Colorado Elk hunt the outfitter had three hunters with guides spread across the front of a mountain range overlooking a valley. Each A.M. a herd of Elk would come in off the plains and take a different path up the mountains. Elk went center and up; the hunter stationed “center” shot at these Elk eight times. I am not kidding. Really. Eight times. Shoot. Reload. Shoot Reload. His guide encouraged him to keep shooting! Didn’t hit squat. Elk backtracked down the mountain and bedded down in the plains, in the open, 1200 yards away or so. Smart Elk. They could hang out there all day with 360 degrees of visibility. They radioed my guide; we hoofed down the mountain and subsequently low crawled to a ridge 555 yards from the bull we wanted. One shot, heart, .300 Jarrett. Done. I had practiced, had confidence, and knew exactly where my shot would be at 550 yards using a Swarovski with BDC. That’s not arrogance; that’s confidence in my ability with that equipment after eons of practice. By the by that same hunter had an afternoon shot opportunity and missed four more times. There was a range not 5 miles from where we were and we could shoot during the afternoon lull; I very kindly offered to take him there and help him out. No way. Too macho. Too much testosterone. Had bragged about all the game he killed “back East”. After this I orally tortured the crap out of him with analogies from baseball on.. “yeah you’re a major league pitcher who just walked twelve batters” Guess what? Manager just pulled you out of the game hot shot.. on and on until he packed up and drove away. Good riddance. As an aside as long as he was running around shooting holes in trees and chasing Elk all over Kingdom Come the other hunters didn’t have a chance.. like my wife. So yeah; screw him.

We could do this all day but here’s some insight. Most “guides” are just locals whom know the “outfitter” and work on a part time basis. Does not mean they are experienced nor pros. How about the “guide” in Alaska whom pulled out a bic and lit it to see “which way the wind is blowing”. Umm.. we were in a 12′ aluminum boat which was skipping forward at about 8 knots. Which way do you think the wind was blowing?

Another guide whom was a quarterback on a college team and was called up (or whatever) to the “pro’s”. Played one play in one game and was done but FOR CHRISTOPHER’S SAKE every freaking minute of every freaking day was about him and his football “glory day’s” think Bruce Springsteen. He was 35 years old at the time. Drove a beat up old truck, was broke, divorced, and had nothing. Wonder why.

We hunted in Pike County for years and of course you have to have a “guide” to hunt. One year we were hunting Turkey’s and it started raining. “Guide” said we had to go in cause Turkey’s apparently beam to another dimension when it rains. We stayed out and bagged our two Turkeys. Yep they were wet and didn’t look so good dead n wet but a blowdryer before pics fixed that..

Canadian guide bragged up and down about how a rifle was just a tool the same as a hammer and NEVER cleaned his rifle. Then kept talking smack about what an awesome shot he was. Prior to the hunt we wanted to check our zeroes (demanded) and finally he relented. Shot our groups, all fine, zeroes good. Told him to check his; show us how awesome he is. At 100 yards he was not within a foot of paper..