Setting the Standard for Women in Firearms | Training. Insights. Intelligence.
Strong-hand-only shooting has a wonderful way of telling the truth. When we shoot with two hands, the support hand contributes stability, grip pressure, and recoil
What’s the difference between rimmed and rimless ammunition, and why does it matter? If you’re learning about revolvers, semi-automatic pistols, or handgun ammunition, understanding the difference is a great place to start. Learn how to identify rimmed and rimless cartridges, why each design is used, how the cartridge works with the firearm, and what to look for before choosing ammunition for your firearm.
Some of the best drills are born from a simple idea, a handful of ammunition, and a shooter who looks at the range and thinks, “You know what would make this more interesting?”
Meet Kelly Palomera from the Southern Maine Chapter. Kelly has been a vital part of the Southern Maine A-Team for the past five years. She is an avid pistol shooter, a certified NRA pistol instructor, a Chief Range Safety Officer (CRSO), and a NRA certified shotgun instructor who also teaches shotgun through L.L.Bean’s women’s programs to name a few of her shooting accomplishments. She is inventive, creative, always ready for a challenge, and exactly the kind of person you want dreaming up new ways to keep range day interesting.
This month, we are featuring one of Kelly’s creations: a deceptively simple drill that combines accuracy, reloads, target transitions, mental processing, and a little friendly competition.
It can be run as an individual challenge, a head-to-head competition, or a chapter activity. Better yet, it is easy to modify for different shooter skill levels.
Once target transitions start to feel comfortable, most shooters want the same thing next: more speed. Instead of chasing speed, start cleaning up the process. Efficient target transitions depend on your eyes and hands working together. Your vision identifies where the pistol needs to go next, then your hands deliver it there. As that relationship improves, unnecessary movement and hesitation begin to disappear. For most developing shooters, there are three places where this work can make a noticeable difference.
Improve your shooting skills with A Girl & A Gun’s Pistol Marksmanship Program (PMP) and Defensive Marksmanship Program (DMP). Learn how these structured firearms training programs help shooters build accuracy, confidence, defensive skills, and measurable progress through guided practice. Discover which program is right for your experience level and how purposeful range training leads to long-term marksmanship success.
Every shooter begins with the same goal: make the gun fire accurately and consistently. We spend countless hours learning grip, stance, sight alignment, trigger control, and recoil management. Those are the skills that get us started. Eventually, however, every shooter reaches the same inevitable reality. Firearms are mechanical tools, and mechanical tools occasionally stop working as expected.
During this Virtual Girls’ Night Out presentation, Tatiana Whitlock, Director of Training for A Girl & A Gun, explored an often overlooked but critically important part of becoming a confident shooter: understanding malfunctions and practicing how to solve them with purpose.
Learning to identify and safely clear common pistol malfunctions is an essential firearms skill that builds confidence, improves safety, and keeps shooters prepared when a handgun stops working. Rather than reacting immediately, shooters should first recognize the signs of a malfunction, diagnose the cause, and apply the correct response. This guide explains the differences between common pistol stoppages such as failure to fire, failure to feed, failure to eject (stovepipe), double feed, and the dangerous squib load, while emphasizing proper firearm safety procedures and when to seek assistance from a Range Safety Officer or qualified gunsmith. By following a consistent process of recognize, diagnose, and respond, shooters can safely troubleshoot handgun malfunctions, make better decisions under pressure, and develop reliable defensive shooting skills that apply across virtually any semi-automatic pistol.
Every firearm purchase tells the story of a shooter’s evolving journey. What begins with a first handgun often grows into a collection of firearms selected for concealed carry, home defense, training, competition, and recreation. Along the way, experience becomes the most valuable guide, shaping opinions about performance, reliability, ergonomics, and the brands that earn lasting trust. Recent A Girl & A Gun member surveys reveal how women make those decisions, showing that hands-on experience, trusted relationships, and a supportive community have far greater influence on purchasing behavior than advertising alone. The findings offer valuable insight into how firearm manufacturers can earn not only a customer’s first purchase, but also her long-term loyalty.
Every recommendation is usually well intentioned. Unfortunately, none of those people have your hands. Gun buyers’ remorse is incredibly common, and more often than not it has nothing to do with reliability, accuracy, or quality. It comes from purchasing a firearm that simply doesn’t fit the shooter.
The result? The controls feel awkward. Reloads become frustrating. The slide is difficult to manipulate. The grip requires constant adjustment. Every repetition feels like work instead of becoming intuitive. Many shooters assume they’ll “grow into it.” Within reason, sometimes they do. More often, they spend years adapting themselves to a gun that was never designed for their proportions in the first place.
The good news is that you don’t have to guess. Before you spend a dollar or fire a single round, your hands can tell you whether a handgun truly fits. All you need is a simple, objective evaluation that separates personal preference from mechanical fit.
The most important safety on any firearm is not a lever, button, or switch. It is the person holding it. Mechanical safeties and decocking levers are valuable tools, but they do not make a firearm safe. They support safe firearm handling when used correctly and consistently. Like any tool, their effectiveness depends entirely on the skill and discipline of the shooter using them.
Understanding when you can legally and responsibly present a firearm is one of the most important parts of self defense training. This article breaks down the critical differences between a ready position, a defensive display, and unlawful brandishing in clear, real world terms. Learn how your intent, body language, movement, and decision making can shape the outcome of a defensive encounter both tactically and legally. Through relatable examples and practical insights drawn from modern self defense training principles, you will gain a better understanding of how to stay prepared without escalating danger unnecessarily. Whether you are new to concealed carry or an experienced shooter, this guide offers valuable lessons on awareness, de-escalation, firearm presentation, and use of force. Understanding these distinctions could help protect not only your safety, but your freedom as well.
Every year, A Girl & A Gun’s National Conference delivers one of the clearest snapshots of how women are training, competing, and preparing across the firearms community. More than 700 women participated in UNITE 2026, generating one of the largest real-world firearms equipment datasets focused exclusively on women shooters in the United States. During the event’s Gear Check process, participants logged 783 pistols along with rifles, shotguns, optics, support gear, and safety equipment, providing valuable insight into the firearms and products women trust most on the range.
What do you do with a firearm when you’re not actively shooting? The answer seems simple, but the reality is far more nuanced. In this month’s Virtual Girls Night Out, Director of Training Tatiana Whitlock explores the often-overlooked topic of ready positions and explains why there is no single “right” answer for every situation. From compressed ready and low ready to high ready and Position Sul, Tatiana breaks down the purpose, advantages, limitations, and real-world applications of each technique. More importantly, she challenges common misconceptions and demonstrates how environment, range rules, physical ability, and safety considerations should drive your decisions. Whether you’re looking to build solid fundamentals or seeking a deeper understanding of firearm handling, this GNO offers valuable insights that will help you become safer, more adaptable, and more confident every time you handle a firearm.
The Low Ready position is one of the most commonly taught handgun positions in firearms training, yet its true purpose extends far beyond simply pointing the muzzle downward. While it often begins as a structured range position used for safety and drill organization, Low Ready ultimately serves as a critical bridge between awareness and action in defensive shooting. This article explores how the position supports decision-making, environmental awareness, communication, and emotional control under pressure, while examining the important differences between square-range habits and real-world defensive applications. By understanding when, why, and how to use Low Ready responsibly, shooters begin developing not only stronger gun-handling skills, but also the judgment and restraint that define mature firearms proficiency.
Few handgun ready positions spark as much debate as Position Sul. Mention it at a training event, and you’ll usually hear one of three things: someone loves it, someone hates it, or someone explains it with complete confidence while getting it completely wrong.
Developed by Brazilian law enforcement in the late 1990s, Position Sul was created to solve a specific problem: safely managing a handgun in crowded, confined spaces without unnecessarily muzzling other people. It was never intended to be a universal fighting stance or default ready position.
When used correctly, Sul can be an effective tool. When misunderstood or overapplied, it can create both tactical and safety issues. Like any technique, its value depends on understanding when, why, and how it should be used.
Every shooter wants faster reloads, but the shooters who seem impossibly quick are rarely chasing speed itself. They are chasing efficiency. Smooth reloads are built through consistency, awareness, and disciplined movement that removes wasted motion before the timer ever reflects improvement. A clean reload is not about frantic hands or rushed decisions. It is about building repeatable habits that allow the gun, the magazine, and the shooter to work together without hesitation. When indexing becomes automatic, vision stays connected to the target, and both hands move with purpose, reloads stop feeling like a rushed interruption and start becoming a seamless part of the shooting process. These five principles break down the small details that separate fumbled reloads from confident, efficient gun handling, and once understood, they have the power to transform performance on the range.
Which Reload Method Is Faster, More Efficient, and More Accurate? There comes a point in your training when opinions stop mattering. The timer tells the truth. It shows you where you are fast. It shows you where you fumble. And it makes one thing very clear. The reload is not the goal. The next accurate shot is. Let’s settle the debate the right way. Do you rack the slide, or use the slide lever? The answer is simple. You test both and let your performance decide.
There is a moment that happens for so many women when they step into the world of firearms. It is not loud or dramatic. It is quiet, and often filled with questions. Am I choosing the right gun? Why does this feel harder than it should? Is it me, or is it the equipment? These are not beginner questions. These are smart questions. And they deserve thoughtful answers. During a recent Virtual Girls Night Out, I sat down with Aimee Langdon of Langdon Tactical to explore exactly that. What started as a casual conversation quickly turned into a deep dive into one of the most important topics for any shooter: finding the right firearm for you.
If you’ve ever wondered whether it’s you or your equipment holding you back on the range, this is the conversation you don’t want to miss. In this Virtual Girls Night Out session, Robyn Sandoval spoke with Aimee Langdon of Langdon Tactical for an honest, behind-the-scenes discussion that goes far beyond surface-level advice. Together, they unpack what really matters when choosing a firearm, why so many women struggle with guns that “should” work, and how to confidently navigate an industry that hasn’t always been built with them in mind. From practical insights on fit and performance to real conversations about training, gear, and credibility, this discussion delivers the kind of clarity that can immediately change how shooters approach their time on the range. For anyone looking to shoot smarter, not harder, this is one recording worth hearing in full.
This month’s Virtual Girls Night Out tackles one of the most misunderstood, and often frustrating, skills in shooting: slide manipulation. Far beyond simply “racking the slide,” this session breaks the process down into clear, repeatable techniques that work with your body instead of against it. From foundational mechanics like locking, releasing, and cycling the slide to understanding how proper technique can eliminate unnecessary struggle, this training reframes what many shooters assume is a strength issue into a skill-building opportunity. If you’ve ever felt like the gun was winning, this session shows you exactly how to take control back.
If your grip is failing, your shooting is already telling you. Maybe your sights don’t track the way they used to. Maybe your hands fatigue faster than they should. Maybe your trigger press feels inconsistent. That is not random. That is your body asking for attention. For women 45 and up, this matters even more. We are not chasing strength for the sake of it. We are building strength with purpose and protecting it with smart, consistent movement. These drills are practical, effective, and built for real life. Stay consistent, and your hands will show up for you when it matters most.
For most women over 45, difficulty racking a handgun slide is not about strength. It is about how the body changes with age and how the slide is being manipulated. Small adjustments in technique, equipment, and training can make a huge difference.
Reloading a pistol smoothly and efficiently is one of the most important gun-handling skills a shooter can develop. When the slide locks back, the pistol is telling you something important: it’s hungry and you need to feed it. Whether you are brand new to handgun training or an experienced shooter refining advanced skills, these five pistol reload drills will help you master slide-lock reloads and keep the gun running when it matters most.
Sub-compact pistols are easy to carry, lightweight, compact, and concealable. Many shooters choose them as their first defensive gun. Yet these same features make them more challenging to operate The common assumption is that the shooter lacks strength. In most cases, that assumption is incorrect. The challenge is almost always mechanical. Once the shooter understands how sub-compact pistols function, the solution becomes much clearer.
Your brain pulled that shot long before your finger did. For new and intermediate pistol shooters, trigger control issues are often cognitive before they are mechanical. Hesitation at the wall. Over-confirming the sight picture. Fear-based anticipation. These are not finger strength problems. They are confidence and decision-making problems. If you want better handgun accuracy and stronger shooting performance, you must train your mind as deliberately as you train your grip.
This month’s Virtual Girls Night Out dives deep into the art and science of trigger control, breaking down everything from trigger anatomy and proper finger
If there were an Olympic sport for overcomplicating handgun fundamentals, trigger reset would medal every time. Trigger reset is one of the most debated topics in handgun training. If you have spent any time in a concealed carry class, competition bay, or defensive pistol course, you have likely heard the same instruction repeated with certainty: pin the trigger to the rear, slowly release until you feel the click, hold it there, then press again. So the question remains. Should you ride the trigger reset, or should you release it fully?
Let’s talk about control. Not the “I must shoot a one-hole group at 25 yards or I’m unworthy of snacks” kind of control. I mean the real kind. Because here’s the truth: your best shooting is not built on hype. It’s built on your ability to take control of your mind and body, then apply the fundamentals with purpose.This routine is designed built for real shooters. New shooters. Experienced shooters. Competitive shooters. Defensive shooters. Anyone who has ever fired a shot and immediately thought, “Well… that was educational.” Let’s go.
Thinking about putting a firearm under the tree? Learn how to legally and responsibly gift a gun, with key federal rules, state-law warnings, and practical
In this month’s Virtual Girls Night Out: Pistol Skill of the Month, Tatiana Whitlock takes center stage to teach the fundamentals of support-hand shooting, a crucial skill for improving accuracy, control, and overall confidence with your firearm. Whether you’re a beginner looking to build a strong foundation or an experienced shooter aiming to refine your technique, Tatiana’s step-by-step guidance makes it easy to understand and apply these essential skills.
