Fox News goes to Gunsite Academy

And now I'll be a spoil sport. We've had some fun with this, but I'd now like to see what others have to say about the actual story.

For example, I appreciated that the film showed some of the exercises done in the class.

What did folks think about the speed exercises (called school drills at Gunsite)?

How about the shoot house and outside simulator exercises? Did watching pique anyone's interest. Would anyone not want to go through something like that with a qualified instructor?

Who has done some night shooting?

So let's put the cows back in the barn and hear some thoughts on Gunsite, Katie Pavlich's story and her experience.

BTW, Dave Starin (in the video) was one of the instructors when I took the Intermediate Handgun class (350) at Gunsite a couple of years ago.
 
Actually, my best takeaway was the nurse who didn't shoot until four years ago. She had a lot of good things to say about knowing guns and how they work make them safer. My wife doesn't like guns and thinks she will never shoot. I'm going to show her this video.
 
And yeah, I'd love to spend a week at Gunsite Frank. Those are the kind of drills we all need to practice on a regular basis. To be immersed for a full week must be wonderful!
 
22-rimfire said:
Saw that when it aired. I think they did a pretty good job and Katie seems nice and likeable.
Click to expand...

Katie Pavlich was also the big driver behind the Fast and Furious expose and wrote a NYT-bestselling book about it.

She's only 24.

Totally out of my league in just about every way.
 
I really enjoyed watching the shoot house/outdoor simulator exercises. I'd like to take a class like this, either Gunsite or Thunder Ranch, as I can see a lot of benefits to it. My range time is just that, range time, static shooting in one position. To be able to move and shoot in a safe environment would be great, and would enhance everything else I've done.
 
In a class I took entitled Journalism and Politicis, I argued long and hard that Ms. Pavlich is the closet thing the current generation has to a real investigative-journalist along the lines of Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein.

I think that Ms. Pavlich and Emily Miller would make an effective duo for countering just about any pice of anti- proposition out there.

In regards to the video, I just wish I could afford to go to Gunsite.

Sidenote: In further googling, I didn't realize the author Barrett Tillman is also a Gunsite family memeber. Even going so far as to have characters in his book pack the GSP.

Great piece and great video.
 
My wife attended a Women's Pistol class about 2 years ago. She was one of only a few who had a working knowledge of handguns. There were several in the class who had never even touched a handgun, much less fired one, before going to Gunsite. I would say the average age was about 40.

By the end of the class it seemed like a whole different group. They all did extremely well and by the end of the class all were confident in their ability to carry a handgun.
 
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That was a nice piece. I really enjoyed it.

FWIW: I have taken Gunsite's 250, 350 (Basic and Advanced Hangun), 223, 556, (Basic and Advanced Carbine) and 260 (Shotgun). It was a lot of fun, but it has been awhile ago. Today, it would be a lot more expensive than what it was when I went. The price of ammo alone, not to mention the price of the classes is almost double what it was when I went. However, all those ranges looked very familiar to me. The Scrambler (the one where she was shooting the AR) was expecially fun.

Another FWIW: In two of the classes I took there, I got to meet Jeff Cooper. The 350 class I took was supposed to be the last class ever taught by Jeff Cooper. Unfortunately he just wasn't up to it. However he did come to the range and spent one afternoon with us. When I took 260 (Shotgun), we got to go to his home and spent an hour or so with him. A number of the instructors I had in my classes are people that I had heard about for years and have since seen many times: Louis Awerbuck and Jeff Gonzales are two that come to mind in addition to Jeff Cooper.

This was answered earlier but the purpose of the targets is to break up it's outline and cause you to shoot center of mass. Bad Guys don't have scoring rings on them, so they feel you shouldn't learn to shoot into scoring rings. They have a philosophy that if you are shooting groups tighter than a hand-span group, you arn't shooting fast enough. This is a school about using guns as weapons: the only score that matters if you are getting COM hits as fast as possible.
 
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