# Best firearm instructors you have had...and their stories...



## billc (Aug 8, 2014)

Okay, how about telling us about the best firearm instructors you have trained with, or the best schools you have been to civilian or law enforcement and any memorable stories...from the class or from the instructors...brag on your teachers...let's hear about them so we can possibly seek them out...


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## PhotonGuy (Aug 11, 2014)

The best instructors I've had were some of the instructors from FrontSight, one of the biggest and most popular shooting schools in the country, and the best shooting school that I've attended.


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## Bill Mattocks (Aug 11, 2014)

US Marine Corps, Edson Range, Camp Pendleton, CA.  1979-1985.  Instructors varied.


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## Buka (Aug 11, 2014)

Sorry for a long post, but it's tough to talk about these two guys in a sentence or two.

Gene Marley. Everyone called him Gino. Thirty years as a cop/firearm  instructor in Massachusetts. Then twenty more at a Federal level.

 I wasn't a cop until I was 36. A late bloomer, but I'd been around the  block a time or two. Had a permit to  carry from my twenties and taught  as a civilian contractor at the Boston  Police Academy for years before I  ever wore a badge.

Gino had to qualify me as part of the academy process. He was a   grizzled old guy in his seventies, with skinny arms, bow legs  and stone  cold, blue eyes. We were breaking for lunch one day and he  said, "Hey,  karate guy, stick around for a minute. So I did.

He set up a chair at the firing line on the range, went to his  office  and brought back a wooden box, kinda looked like the base of  speakers  podium made out of scrap wood. He set it up halfway down the  firing  range, which was seventy five feet, so this was half of that. He  went  to his desk and took out a huge fricken butcher's knife. Looked  like  the kind of thing you would behead a bull with. Walked down range  to  the block thing and stuck it in the top with a *thunk*, the blade facing us.

He took two balloons out of his pocket and blew them up. Taped  them to  the backstop at the back of the range. Two blue balloons, about  twenty  feet apart. He said, "I'm going to shoot...hit that blade dead  center  and hit those two balloons. I'm thinking, "yeah, right"

He made an interesting production out of it. Takes the  telescope they  use as a range finder,  and sets it on the big old knife.  He makes  several trips down to the box, adjusting ever so little, then  checks  the scope again. Finally he's ready. Sits in the chair.  Aims......Then  snaps his fingers, gets up, goes in his office and comes  out with a  hand mirror. One of those things old ladies use to look at  their hair.  Then he turns the chair around backwards, sits in it, puts  his ears on,  levels the gun over his shoulder, aims for twenty seconds  and fires.  Both balloons explode.

I damn near soiled myself. A few minutes later he asks, "All  karate  people as gullible as you?" He puts up two more balloons and  says,  "Shoot the backstop."  So I do. Both balloons explode. "lead is  soft"  he says, "the backstop is not. The lead shatters. Don't believe   everything you see, investigate first, rookie."

He could  watch a guy shoot for five seconds and tell if the guy had  weak triceps,  which would make him draw more with his shoulder, could  tell which eye  was dominant on the guy, give you all the reasons why  the guy was  pulling left or right, up or down. It was all so second  nature to him.  He constantly preached "back gound - civilians or  crossfire"  "two in the  body, one in the head" "hit him in the hips"  and he always said, "cover and reload - you  should be able to reload in  your sleep, drunk and half blind, on a hill  in the rain. And FAST". 

Gino had one of the best  collections of antique firearms in the  country. Even had one of the  first ten Colt 45s ever made. He was  collecting antique guns for over  fifty years. He'd bring some in every  now and then and let us shoot  them. It was a hoot.
I doubt if he's still alive. But, I don't want to know. I like remembering him just like he was.

Joey  B was another firearm instructor of mine. Fascinated by guns since   childhood, he was running a gun store from the time he was 22. He sold   me my first gun, back in the day. He eventually left the gun business   because of insurance costs in Massachusetts. (Mass HATES the gun   business). Became a Fed and eventually was my Captain. Best armorer I've   ever met. If he couldn't get a replacement part for a weapon, he'd  make  the damn thing. I have no idea how. I asked him "do you have   manufacturing equipment at your house?" He'd just smile.

Something  cool....if you were sitting in front of TV with the remote in  your  hand, and flicked through the stations as fast as you could, you  would  be able to recognize and name the various sports that were on.  Even if  it was on screen for less than a second, you could say, "that  was  hockey, then basketball, then boxing, that's skiiing, that's  boxing,  there's soccer, that's gymnastics." Joey could do that with  guns. Didn't  matter if it was news footage of a foreign war, a western,  a gangster  movie or a police documentary, he'd just rattle off any gun  - handgun or  rifle, like he was reading them from a list. I'd ask him  how he could  tell the difference between so and so and such and such,  and he'd say,  "look at the way it sits in the holster". And he'd  identify the ammo by  sound. The man knew the whole business of  firearms, knew guns like he  knew his own kids, knew ammo, knew holsters  and really knew the law as  it pertains to weapons. He might get the  names of his nephews wrong,  but, damn, he sure knew about things that  go bang. 

I owe both men a great deal.


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## Tgace (Aug 11, 2014)

I can't recall their names, but Ill list the crew from The Ontario Provincial Police Tactical Unit who instructed me in my SWAT Basic Academy.

The OPP SWAT team is a full time unit who trains with international teams as varied as SAS, GSG9, SEALS, etc. And their operational territory is all of Ontario so these guys have to travel to locations as varied as Toronto to remote Native Territories.

I shot till my hands were scarred. Had to race people to boxes where all my firearms were broken down to pieces...the magazines too...so I had to assemble them then shoot a course head to head. And their qualification courses were no $%#@@%rs. Any miss on a humanoid target was a fail. Fail after remedial training and you were out.

I don't know if I'm still at that level anymore...

After that course Id say the second best was the FBI's Street Survival School...tons of live fire but the Simunition training was probably the best thing they had.

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk 2


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