Ghost

Hi Mike,
would like to know if you dont mind what your history with working and teaching gun defense etc is. i have no idea what your background is with it but you seem to know a fair bit about it. So any chance of you listing?

thanks

__________________
Skills: Numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.
Favourite animal: Liger, bred for its skills in magic.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

John McCain promo vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-F...eature=related

Tant01

Yeah... Army operator. You still running the oddesy research group?

__________________

"In all countries where personal freedom is valued, however much each individual may rely on legal redress, the right of each to carry arms - and these the best and the sharpest - for his own protection in case of extremity, is a right of nature indelible and irrepressible, and the more it is sought to be repressed the more it will recur."

James Paterson

Ghost

like this?

__________________
Skills: Numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.
Favourite animal: Liger, bred for its skills in magic.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

John McCain promo vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-F...eature=related

Tant01

Not exactly. Michael S Brewer...Had an ad on the Internet a while ago...


Experience:

Certified Instructor of Jeet Kune Do and Filipino Martial Arts under Dan Inosanto, Paul Vunak, and Brad Garrison
24 years experience in martial arts
13 years experience in boxing
14 years experience in developing personal development programs for athletes in fighting sports, including conditioning, mental preparation, and skills development
Trained with Olympic Program athletes in Colorado Springs and Marquette Michigan
Feature Writer in Martial Arts magazines such as Black Belt and Filipino Martial Arts Magazine
Currently training Professional and Amateur athletes
Have taught seminars and workshops across the globe since 1995
Private Contractor to Army and Air Force, Former US Special Operations Soldier, US Army

__________________

"In all countries where personal freedom is valued, however much each individual may rely on legal redress, the right of each to carry arms - and these the best and the sharpest - for his own protection in case of extremity, is a right of nature indelible and irrepressible, and the more it is sought to be repressed the more it will recur."

James Paterson

Ghost

Private Contractor to Army and Air Force, Former US Special Operations Soldier, US Army

i want to hear more about that. if poss.

__________________
Skills: Numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.
Favourite animal: Liger, bred for its skills in magic.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

John McCain promo vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-F...eature=related

Tant01

I'm sure we'll get the "I can tell you but then I'd have to kill you" routine...

__________________

"In all countries where personal freedom is valued, however much each individual may rely on legal redress, the right of each to carry arms - and these the best and the sharpest - for his own protection in case of extremity, is a right of nature indelible and irrepressible, and the more it is sought to be repressed the more it will recur."

James Paterson

Mike Brewer

No, all that stuff has been public domain for a good long while, Tant.

Ghost,
My background with firearms starts in earnest around 1993. I've been shooting since I was 5 or 6, because my father and grandfather always believed it was an important skill, but I was always a hunter - not a gunfighter. My JKD instructors in 1992-1993 (Harley Elmore and Brad Garrison) made it a requirement that anyone wishing to be certified as an instructor learn how to use shotgun, rifle, and pistol as part of their requirements. At that time, it was just a part of the curriculum and I had no serious passion for it one way or another. To pay the bills, I took a night security job which eventually led to me being armed on the job. Since it was now going to be part of my uniform, I decided to really work on pistol skills and treat it like a practical self-protection matter. That's also around the same time I started really working on my kali, as I also carried an expandable baton and a flashlight.

Fast forward to the Army, 1999. When I joined the Army, I had a school going in full swing. Leaving it with my seniors, I signed up for a Special Operations job - Psychological Operations. I already had a unit assignment - I'd met the commander and he'd already signed off on my request - and I knew that I'd be serving in a tactical company on a three-man team. Knowing that going into Basic Training, I figured I needed to become a small unit expert. I volunteered for every crap detail I could so I could build up favors when it came time to go to the range, and I got selected to demo the special weapons when we went to the range. That allowed me to play with things like anti-tank missiles, grenade launchers, and machine guns. When I got out of there and went to advanced training, I spent extra time learning about the likely weapons I'd be using, like the M4/M203 combination I ended up carrying often, and the M249 SAW. Exit traiining and get to the unit.

When I arrived at my first unit, I was really green, but I'd learned a lot about weapons and radios (I did not want to get caught in the field without a strong ability with either). I volunteered to work in the company arms room in addition to my regular duties. At that time, we had a commander that didn't let us go to the field much (he was a true politician in every way), so I spent a lot of my time taking apart gun and learning about things like accurizing and tuning and whatnot. I also took the opportunity to attend a course at Ft. Meade, MD called the Foreign Materiel and Weapons Course. Basically, it taught us about 100 different foreign issued weapons from pistols to land mines. Now I had a good strong education in how to use just about everything the U.S. issues, and I knew all about the stuff the other guys - allies and assholes alike - used as well.

On the civilian side, I was running my school and working part time at night as a security guard. That's something I've done pretty consistently since I turned 18, either as a bouncer or rent-a-cop. This was an armed position in an area of town that was pretty notorious for shootings. I got shot at more than a dozen times while working there in drive by fashion. Only twice were they close enough to get good descriptions, and only once did they come close to clipping my wings, but it was an interesting exposure to incoming fire.

Based on my training and some other factors (being an instructor, being published in Black Belt, etc) I got tasked by my new commander to come up with a unit level hand to hand program for our unit. This is in around 2000, 2001 timeframe. It was shortly after my Black Belt article on military methods came out. Anyway, I did what he asked, and I based it around the premise that we'd all be armed and loaded down with gear. We trained in body armor using fake weapons, and the program was a big success. It led to me getting tasked to do a much bigger, more comprehensive training project to train the whole unit in their actual jobs. That meant lots of range work, small team drills, and a standardization of our battle drills that would work for small teams instead of squads. The basics of clearing a room, etc. are different when there are only three guys, so we worked through a lot of that stuff and tried to dovetail it in with the drills and methods used by our most common partners - 10th Special Forces. The program was very successful, and it got me sent to other units to train them. It also ended up allowing me to go to Korea and take the lead on a project for my field, earning me a medal and commendation from the Army Chief of Staff at the time.

While this was going on, I also took some civilian NRA classes so I could be a firearms instructor.

Fast forward past the military - or at least to my last few years in it. I took a job as a contractor training deploying troops at Ft. Carson, Colorado. We had a heavy workload, and trained military members in all sorts of skills. My specialty was US and Foreign issued small arms and Convoy Operations. That meant I had to go through a certification process on everything from teaching basic marksmanship and zeroing the weapon to maintenance to basic qualification ranges to close combat to squad and platoon level operations to convoy live fire operations. The army certified me in the M9, M4, M16, M249 series machine guns, M240 series machine guns, M203 grenade launcher, M2 machine gun, Mk 19 Automatic Grenade Launcher, AK-47, AK-74, SVD and SVDS, and various foreign issued pistols. I ran ranges for all of those, taught classes in how to use them, and made sure soldiers were qualified both day and night, with and without night vision before sending them to the live fire and urban warfare ranges. Once they got there, I taught them how to shoot, move, and communicate, and we finished up with live fire exercises.

That's the nuts and bolts of it really. Sprinkled in there, I've worked with some law enforcement personnel in Arkansas and Colorado, but those were short projects.

Ghost

Thats really amazing Mike, id like to ask you some questions about gun if you dont mind, some might be a bit daft, is that ok, if it is ill put a little list together. Firearms training really fascinates me but i have no opportunity to do it. But id still like to know something about it. I know nothing about guns so my questions will be ridiculously simple. is that ok?

__________________
Skills: Numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.
Favourite animal: Liger, bred for its skills in magic.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

John McCain promo vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-F...eature=related

Tant01

He might be over qualified? LOL

__________________

"In all countries where personal freedom is valued, however much each individual may rely on legal redress, the right of each to carry arms - and these the best and the sharpest - for his own protection in case of extremity, is a right of nature indelible and irrepressible, and the more it is sought to be repressed the more it will recur."

James Paterson

Ghost

or might not want to lol

__________________
Skills: Numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.
Favourite animal: Liger, bred for its skills in magic.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

John McCain promo vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-F...eature=related

Tom Yum

Mike B rox!

__________________

Love it, leave it or fix it.

Ghost

you wouldnt know you are just a water baby at the moment.

__________________
Skills: Numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.
Favourite animal: Liger, bred for its skills in magic.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

John McCain promo vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-F...eature=related

Mike Brewer

Ask away, Ghost! That's what the forum is for!

For the record, there are a bunch of people here more qualified than I am. I really don't want to come across as some kind of world authority or anything. The fact is, I've really only trained what was immediately applicable to my jobs and my life. I haven't made it a point to go out and learn all of the different ways of doing things in order to teach other people. Some folks (with far more liquid cash than I have) make the rounds to places like Thunder Ranch and Gunsite and places like that, and they may have some more current, different opinions on things than I do. My stuff is really more a JKD approach of finding my own basics and drilling the unholy hell out of them.

Ghost

ok but you are regular on here and you know a whole lot more than i do about it and have taught it so i can learn some things.

ill ask more in a bit. the most basic questions are going to be pretty stupid but id like to know the answer. you can give brief answers if you want thats ok. below im only asking about pistols.

1.what is a stoppage exactly, i know its a bullet getting stuck but why and how do you clear it.

2.in films ive seen the slider bit at the top of a pistol get stuck in a position where its slid back and they change mag and it slides forward. how does it stick in the back position and why.

3. why do some people in gangster films fire the gun on its side. is there any point to this or does it just look cool.

4. how much room for improvement is there in something like learning to use a pistol. like in the uk any gang that carried guns has probably never shot one before or if they have maybe only a few shots. so if someone trained got in a shoot out with say 5 people is it possible. given any mental aspects involved being covered that that person could take out these 5 or so guys?

5. how hard is it to shoot accurately with a pistol if you havent trained in it before?

6. how far are pistols accurate to?

ill have more soon

__________________
Skills: Numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.
Favourite animal: Liger, bred for its skills in magic.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

John McCain promo vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-F...eature=related

Mike Brewer

A stoppage generally refers to a failure of the gun's action to cycle rather than a bullet stuck in the barrel. It generally happens for any number of reasons, but the more common are weak grip (limpwristing), bad ejector, unclean firearm, some sort of obstacle in front of the ejection port (I've seen this happen when people shoot in doorways leaning the gun up against the door jamb for stability) and stuff like that. Generally, a failure of this type is either a failure to eject, a failure to feed, or both. All it really means is that the spent shell didn't get out of the gun like it was supposed to. On occasion, failures to feed are caused by something mechanically wrong with the gun, but most often they are just bad magazines. In the event of a failure to eject, what you want to do is slap the magazine upward into the gun, yank the slide back hard to allow the ejector to work, and inspect the chamber. If the case that's stuck pops out, let the slide go and get back to work. If not, it usually requires you to drop the magazine, rack the slide, check the chamber, manually clear whatever's stuck, replace the magazine, drop the slide, and try again.

The slide is meant to stay back after the last round of most semi-autos is fired. It's not only an indicator that you're out of bullets, but it insures that the first round of the next magazine is loaded "mechanically" by the slide release. The reason it stays to the rear is because the magazines of most semi-autos has a catch built into it. When there's a bullet in the magazine, the catch doesn't engage because it's pressed down into the magazine. When the bullets are gone, the catch sits at the top where it can grab the notch on the slide and lock it to the rear. When you reload, you press a slide release button/lever and it slams forward and loads another round. You can do this manually of course by simply working the slide back and letting it go.

The gangster side firing position is some Hollywoodism that some people have actually spent time and effort trying to experiment with. Truly? It's just idiotic and meant to look "cool."

There's as much room to improve with pistols as there is in any other skill. When you see an out-of-shape, day one beginner Thai Boxer, you're looking atthe raw basic level of a gunfighter. That world champ at Lumpinee? That's the same level of difference. In other words, there's world of room to improve. It's more than learning marksmanship, or even more than learning how to draw, move, reload, clear malfunctions, and use good cover and concealment. It really is learning to intuit the whole situation the same way you might intuit what a guy is trying to set up in the ring by watching his feet. It's developing that sense of when to do what. Reload when you're out? Rookie idea. Reload whenever there's a good opportunity. That way you don't finish off one room full of bad guys and go crashing into the next one with one bullet left. Stuff like that. It really is a whole art in and of itself. The real advantage comes from the fact that it takes a lot less to execute than empty-hand fighting.

For accurate shooting, I'm going to say it's tough. The reasons are three-fold. First of all, every human instinct with regards to pistols are wrong. You tend to flinch, try to control recoil wrong, use parts of your hand you don't need when squeezing the trigger, and let your breathing go in all the wrong directions. Some people don't even know naturally how to use the sights. Second, the sight plane of a pistol is short, which means little tiny mistakes on the shooter's end translate into great big gawd-awful ones on target. A mistake of just one degree at the muzzle of the gun translates into a miss of many inches in just a few short yards. Finally, most people just don't use the right parts of their brains when they shoot. They get wrapped up in the wrong things, and it eclipses what they ought to be doing to get it right. Learning to shoot is about rewiring your brain, making your body do things it's not used to doing, retraining certain instincts (like the innate startle reflex we all have at loud noises), and coordinating fine motor movements with relatively fast action and lethal consequences.

Accuracy depends on the pistol. Most are not functionally worth a shit past about 30 or 40 meters. Most gunfights happen inside of seven. As far as pure accuracy, I have had shooting matches at 100 yards with semi-auto, defensive pistols. Shooting off a bench with a familiar gun and a familiar, consistent load, you can hit at those distances. The group won't be tight, and in reality, it's a stunt - not a real tactical option - but it can be done. For military shooters, we used to train them to hit a man-sized silhouette at 50 meters, but a hit anywhere on the target counted. Real pistol craft starts inward of that by a considerable amount. People may disputethat, but statistics and real world experiences confirm it to my satisfaction. If you're really concerned about self-defense with a firearm, I strongly recommend working out the longest distance you're likely to have to shoot on your own property and making that a good benchmark. In my old house, for example, the longest possible shot inside my home was a 23 foot diagonal from the living room across the kitchen and out into the back den. I could manage a 35 yard shot if I was shooting from one extreme diagonal corner to the other in my back yard. Even in those situations, cover and concealment or escape would have been better options. For the record, my most practiced distances on the range are probably 25 meters and 7 meters, but I don't pay that much attention to precise distances when I shoot pistols.

What else?