AAR - Bob Vogel: World Class Pistol Skills - Salina, KS - Sept 7&8 2013

I attended Bob Vogel’s World Class Pistol Skills class at Spear Point Ranch in Kansas Sept 7-8 2013. Primary instruction for the class was handled by Mr. Vogel. The class was arranged through Grey Group Training.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8QrWm3Acc0


Before I get rolling, if you haven’t read Doc Roberts AAR of this class (different location, same POI) on Lightfigher you’re missing out. He must actually pay attention and take notes. ;)

Gun/Gear – I was shooting a G19 with an X300U pistol light. The pistol has Dawson adjustable sights and a KKM barrel. Stippling was done by Ben Simonson at Boresight Solutions.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l3...ps3a13912f.jpg



1st line – I wore a maxpedition LIGER belt and a JM Custom Kydex holster and pistol mag pouch.

2nd line – None.

All the equipment functioned as designed. There were a few operator induced issues that I’ll address later.

CLASS POI –As a general rule I don’t usually run through the entire POI drill by drill but here's the general layout. (If you want to know what someone teaches that bad, go take the class. ;) )



The class began with about an hour of discussion on safety, shooting and gear.

Mr. Vogel discussed some of his training and equipment. A few points to mention from this;

First is trigger control. Mr. Vogel taught that trigger control is the most important aspect of accurate shooting. He works this with dry fire. Specifically he practices working the trigger several times even though it only breaks on the first press. This allows practicing multiple shots without relaxing his grip on the gun.

Next is the grip. To control the gun during a rapid string of fire Mr. Vogel teaches to grab the gun as high on the frame as you can. He pinches the gun with his strong hand and uses inward rotation with both arms to apply pressure to the frame of the gun. Mr. Vogel is a big believer in grip training and uses the Captains of Crush grip trainers (available from Iron Mind) for this purpose.

I started using these same grip trainers after a discussion with Flashpoint a few months ago and it’s had a noticeable effect on my grip strength. Particularly when shooting rapid strings of fire.

After the Safety brief we moved out to the range.

The range was a clearing on the edge of a creek. Spear Point Ranch had target stands for paper, some steel IPSC targets (as well as some big “E” type gongs we didn’t use and a Texas Star we did). There were also lots of trees to provide shade. That was awesome because the weather claimed it was in the 90s both days. With some shade and a nice breeze it was pretty comfortable shooting weather.

Mr. Vogel was self-effacing and extremely personable. He was never arrogant and he was perfectly willing to get up in front of the class and demonstrate everything he taught. If he messed something it was used as a learning opportunity and then he re-shot it.

The shooting drills were pretty standard fair. Mr. Vogel is a big advocate of shooting 6 round drills. His perspective is that you to be able to consistently establish a good grip to control a gun through six rounds (vs. being able to scam on a good grip when only firing one or two shots).

The first day we shot from 15yds and in. The second day we shot from 25yds and in and addressed multiple targets and movement. We wrapped the class up shooting a simulated stage after which we shot a drill head to head. The fastest guy in the class (an area LEO) then went head to head with Mr. Vogel and got burned down(… but he did it with style).

Personal Lessons Learned –

If you start changing your grip, you might need to rethink parts – I mentioned earlier that I started using the COC grippers a few months back. Something I noticed recently is that I’m gripping the pistol higher and harder with my support hand. One side effect of this is that I’ve started to lock the slide to the rear by putting pressure on my Vickers Slide stop. I fucked myself on a couple of drills (I ended up doing a mag change when there were still rounds in the magazine).

I like the Vickers slide stop (I had them on most of my guns for the last couple of years). But if I’m gripping the gun higher and harder it no longer works for me. Fortunately RumPunch had an OEM part in his bag and he swapped me for mine. No issues after that.

Understand your pace. Know when you can ramp it up and when you need to dial it back – Shooting a Bill Drill from 7yds you can really burn it down. Doing the same thing from 15yds might require a little more time between shots. Understanding what you’re capable of is key.

I may be rethinking my sights – I can hold on one target and track my front sight while I fire multiple rounds without much difficulty. Shooting multiple targets (picking the sight back up after my eyes move laterally) isn’t as easy and I don’t feel like I’m as fast as I could be.

I got away from night sights a few years back because I don’t see a ton of use for them. (If it’s so dark that I can’t see my sights, I can’t see to ID my target either.) As a result, I have a few guns with a tritium front sight but most of my guns are black front and rear. I’m going to play around with both set ups and see what, if any, quantifiable difference that makes in my times.

There are no shortcuts to being blazing fast and oily smooth – Anyone who thinks there is just needs to look at Mr. Vogel’s right hand. That dude has serious callouses built up where most of us complain about getting rubbed a little raw from a weekend of shooting. That’s indicative of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of repetitions. Most of them dry practice. This is a man dedicated to his craft, and there are no short cuts to get there.

Don’t let yourself Stagnate – Constantly update what you consider fast/accurate. Don’t just shoot drills out of a book and accept their standards for speed and accuracy. Push yourself right up to the point of failure and then back off just a touch. Be able to ride that line.



Like a lot of classes I’ve attended, one of the greatest parts was the other students. Sitting around during lunch and discussing trainers, gear, drills and telling lies was a good time.


Overall this was a good class. Mr. Vogel’s perspective on training is definitely applicable to anyone serious about pistol work. His insights into thinking and planning during competition were also really interesting.. Even for someone like me, who rarely shoots matches.

Excellent write-up.. Thank you!

No worries!

Something I forgot to mention -

Mr. Vogel says (and repeatedly demonstrates) that you should be able to accomplish your reload in the same amount of time it takes you to accomplish a draw stroke and put one round on target. If you can reliably hit center mass out of the holster in 1.25sec, your reload should be done in a comparable time.


With that as a baseline, I lose a boatload of time getting my reloads done. Something that needs fixing.

Thanks for the report, I look forward to reading your AARs

Pace is dictated by the required sight picture to "shoot an A". This is discussed in depth in Brian Enos' book Practical Shooting and the four different sight focuses used in pistol shooting.

Your sight picture is a trade-off. The Dawson sight picture is a tight picture with a more shallow rear notch and thin front post. This gives you a sic accurate sight picture to even further out targets. BUT, it does slow you down a little in the transitions to pick the picture back up again. It's basically too precise for up close drag racing target shooting. You have to learn at which distance you can stop drag racing and start getting picky with the sight picture for more accuracy. The other alternative is to go to a more open iron sight like the Warren/Sevigny sights. Its a thin front sight with a wide and deep rear notch. It's fricken fast like alcohol cars, but as soon as you want to dump head shots at 15 yards, you better shoot extra shots. It's just too sloppy a picture to really get accurate on long shots. Wider front sights are shit, flat out worthless IMO. Finding something between the Dawson and the W/S just doesn't exist right now. Probably the closest would be the fixed rear Dawson and a new Dawson front of the right height for somewhere in-between. Personally, I like the tight picture and practice my transitions to overcome the slightly more difficult sight pick-up.

I can get away with the G34/35 slide release. Almost everyone I know just runs the basic OEM so they don't lock up the slide inadvertently. Toss the Vickers in the spare parts bin.

SA Friday, Copy all.

Most of my Glocks have the .100 wide front sight. I find this to be a pretty good compromise and I can keep pretty fast splits when shooting a multiple shot string on one target. I've got one pistol with a .125 wide front and it's a laser for precision (avg. high 90s on a ten shot string into a B8 Repair center at 25M) but not as good if I want to run fast. (fast being a relative term based on my skill).

I'm a big believer in quantification. If something is "better" that should be verifiable with data. For shooting I want faster and more accurate so a shot timer and B8 repair centers are the order of the day if I'm going to decide something is "better".

I'm going to try taking a paint pen to a front sight and see how that affects the splits on target to target drills. I've never liked the FO front sights because I've seen several guys lose the FO insert but I may have to give them a try and see what kind of difference it makes.

I'm not trying to beat the race gun guys. But if there is a way I can cheat a little with my carry or duty gun I'm going to be on it like a fat kid on a cupcake. The catch is that it needs to be able to hold up to the abuse that a carry or duty gun will sustain.

In Doc's AAR he says, "he replaces the fiberoptic rod about every 3 mo." "In addition, the Warren model front sight he is using provides more retention and protection than many other fiberoptic front sight bases."

Maybe this is how to avoid breakage/loss of rod. I am a skeptic of them for hard running , but this could be a solution.

Yep. I spoke to Mr. Vogel about it before getting on the road at the end of class. He said he also used a FO front sight on his pistols when he was full time with the PD an he undoubtedly does significantly more shooting than I do.

I may be off base with my concerns but I'm going to try a few things before buying new gear.

might wanna look into the truglo tfos

I tried the Truglos a few years back on a pistol. I found them to be lacking in both speed and accuracy for me. I put more emphasis on accuracy but I want speed too.

I should note that when I talk about speed and accuracy I'm talking about quantifiable things and sometimes the differences are minute.

If I can run .25 sec splits with one set of sights and .20 sec splits with another set (while not losing anything in accuracy), I'm going to go with the second set. The .05 seconds might not actually matter much in real life, but I'm going to try an stack the deck in my favor as often as I can.

So Dan512 and I had an interesting day at the range a few days back. I wanted to get some times on target to target transitions and see how black sights compared to various other colors and a front sight with a tritium insert. Unfortunately the pistol with the Tritium FS cracked an Apex extractor right off the bat so it wasn't included.


Task - Determine fastest sight set up that can be run without sacrificing accuracy.

Conditions - Three targets 1M apart. Shooter on the 10M line firing from the low ready.

Standards - Engage all three targets with two rounds each. Shots must hit "C" zone or better.

Each sight variation was shot five times. Total time was looked at in addition to time from target to target (between the 2nd and 3rd shots and between the 4th and 5th shots). I shot the same pistol and used Sharpie paint pens to paint the front sight. All times are in seconds.

Data (in order shot)-

Black (baseline): Avg time - 3.02, Avg Target to target split - 0.635

Pink: Avg time - 2.69, Avg target to target split - 0.567

Orange: Avg time - 2.32, Avg target to target split - 0.463

Green: Avg time - 2.27, Avg target to target split - 0.467

Black (double check baseline): Avg time - 2.10, Avg target to target split - 0.419



So what conclusions do I draw from this (highly unscientific) test?

STOP LOOKING FOR HARDWARE SOLUTIONS TO TRAINING PROBLEMS [facepalm]

Clearly I got a good deal faster just shooting the drill a number of times... I need to stop worrying about which front sight I'm using and just train more target to target transitions.

An interesting side note to our range day; I also shot a drill I like for training my eyes to hang onto the front sight during a multiple round engagement. The COF is 1 IPSC (or "C" zone steel for more fun), shooter at the 10M line at the low ready. On the buzzer engage the target with 10 rounds as fast as possible keeping everything in the "C" (or on the steel). Par time is 3.5 sec. I can usually shoot it in about 2.8 or 2.9.

I shot that drill with the Orange FS and the Black FS. There was almost no variation in my times at all. But I felt like the Orange painted FS was much easier to hang onto. If my trigger finger ever gets any faster that my be something to look at.

Nice write ups! Dom said he thinks he could beat his times..... lol All he could say was WOW. Over and over again! I need to get more rounds down range is all I can say.

10mm I am with you. Every now and then I start to get a little uppity and start thinking I'm a pretty good shooter, then watch someone like Bob Vogel do it and remember how much I suck.