Setting the Standard for Women in Firearms | Training. Insights. Intelligence.
Just like real-world self-defense situations, pistol malfunctions are inherently unpredictable. By regularly practicing malfunction drills, shooters can improve their performance, enhance their safety, and build the confidence to handle high-pressure situations. Preparing for malfunctions can make all the difference, whether on the competition stage or in a real-world encounter.
What shooting distance do you regularly practice at? Most of us have our favorites. Familiar yardage yields predictable positive results that boost the ego and produce refrigerator-worthy targets. That kind of success is addicting and quite possibly why many shooters get stuck working at ten yards and in. Moving targets past your comfort zone can feel risky, but it is worth it.
Ready positions are methods for safely holding an unholstered firearm before beginning a drill, movement, or other shooting activity. The three most common and widely accepted range safe ready positions are low ready, compressed ready, and modified high compressed ready. This activity thoroughly explores each ready position to perfect pistol presentation and sight acquisition for the first shot.
Slide lock reloads, also called emergency reloads, are among the more addictive learn-and-practice skills. A slide lock reload is required when the semiautomatic runs out of ammunition and locks the slide to the rear. The shooter must eject the empty magazine, replace it with a loaded magazine, chamber a round, and carry on with the shooting exercise. This particular reload is conducted with a sense of urgency.
New shooters often go to the range with multiple firearms and no plan of action. Sending hundreds of rounds down range with no measurable way to evaluate their success or failure. Success is often measured by blowing a hole through the center of target. This is an expensive and non-productive way to spend the day. To ensure a productive training day at the range, start by organizing your essentials.
SLIDE INTO SPEED – Slide Manipulations SLIDE MANIPULATIONS are this month’s theme and the focus of our Drill of the Month training exercise. There are
February’s Shooting Journal theme is Trigger Control. For in-depth articles and dryfire practice exercises corresponding to live fire drills, refer to Month 2 in your journal. Also, please take advantage of our monthly Virtual Girls Night Outs streaming live or in our archived recordings available to active members on the topic of Trigger Control.
In this Virtual Girls Night Out, Tatiana Whitlock discusses movement, which is the December pistol topic from the AG & AG Shooting Journal.
In this Bonus Virtual Girls Night Out, our expert panel shares more insights about how get started in your hunting adventures.
In this Bonus Virtual Girls Night Out, our expert panel begins a discussion about hunting — why, how, where, and what. If you’ve always been curious about hunting, listen in!
In this Bonus Virtual Girls Night Out, Geoff Stout from SureFire reviews some of the options, features, and uses of tactical flashlights.
As an A Girl & A Gun Member, you have access to one of our most powerful training resources, our Shooting Journal. Over the years,
This month we read Strategies and Standards for Defensive Handgun Training by Karl Rehn & Free of Malice by Liz Lazarus. Both authors were gracious to join us for our book club meeting.
In this Virtual Girls Night Out, sponsored shooter Reanna Kadic gives some insight and tips for shooting on the move!
At the 9th Annual A Girl & A Gun National Conference, RISE 2021, instructor Morgan Ballis of Defensive Tactics and Firearms led 48 women through exercises to test Dennis Tueller’s research on the human response time. He set out to test the ability of A Girl & A Gun members to cover 21 feet so that they could relate this information to potential threats. By understanding their own abilities and limitations, the women could determine their own minimum safe distance if faced with a hostile threat. In addition, the women would learn their ability to effectively employ a handgun from a holster while taking into account how quickly a potential threat can reasonably cover an estimated distance. This knowledge would allow them to better articulate their actions if their decisions during a self-defense encounter were ever called into question.
Shoοting while moving is an advanced skill that requires practice and training; however, it is an important skill that most shoοters will want to work on. It is unlikely there would a defensive scenario when you would stand face-to-face with a gunman like a old Western duel. Get off the X! Move! Get to safety as fast as possible. If you’re a competitor, there may be stages when you move then shοot, but there may be some that require shοts while moving, too.
In this impromptu video, Adam Winch and Russell Anthon of Defenders-USA introduce you to some fundamentals of long-range precision shooting. They quickly go through some of the aspects of the craft, different load outs, variables and constants, and optics. This introduction will hopefully pique your interest to learn more.
In this video, Adam Winch offers a few tips for long-range precision shooters. He discusses the importance of covering your rifle and ammunition from the sun. He also shows a few different homemade sand socks that can help you adjust and stabilize the buttstock of the rifle.
This video, Josh Crosby introduces you to basic fighting skills with a pistol and rifle. Techniques include one-handed operation, moving and shooting, reloading and drawing from multiple positions, including barricades.
In this video, Lou Ann Hamblin teaches the importance of understanding and utilizing barriers and barricades. Students will learn about various firing and positional techniques from behind cover as well as using barricades for positional firing. Tactics will address functional movement and use of cover.
This video is jam-packed with great tips and tactics from Dave Miller as he takes GunDigestTV’s Luke Hartle into the field. Dave addresses the fundamentals of hunting, including working the dogs, carrying the shotgun through the field, and adjusting your mount based on the birds and wind conditions. You’ll learn the importance of adjusting your feet for a proper stance and taking your time to square up with the bird. With his techniques, you’ll have a successful upland hunt and have a lot of fun!
Just like kids can “Build-a-Bear” at the mall, you can “Build-an-AR” with A Girl & A Gun! More specifically, in this video you will learn
In this video, you will learn how to make the most of your dry-fire practice. Tatiana Whitlock thoroughly reviews the necessary equipment, tools, techniques, safety procedures and more so you can establish a beneficial home dry-fire practice. Dry fire pays dividends by elevating your essential gun handling skills development, increasing you efficiency and speed out of the holster, and increasing your overall performance on target.
In Josh Crosby’s Civilian Operator Course (COC), you work on problem solving with both pistol and rifle platforms, as well as weapon transition. Part of COC is actually scenario-based training where students will have to make decisions involving the use of deadly force. The in-person class will be very advanced and induce stress. It’s not for the faint of heart.
What is your most common mode of carry? Can you draw, fire and hit what you want to hit when you want to hit it? Can you gauge the distance and time it takes to hit accurately? Participants will learn concepts on how to work from holsters, move on the draw, and learn to understand how important it is to be aware of what we are doing in each nano-second from the decision to draw to the hit on the target. In this video, Vicki Farnam reviews the elements of the draw, grip, sights, trigger control, recoil, and trigger reset. Wishful thinking will never make it happen consistently!
In this hour-long video. Mike Ox explains that you can learn faster and train more effectively at home than what’s possible at the range by using his Praxis 6-in-1 protocol for gunfight training. Students will discover the little-known “6 Attack Factors” your training MUST include if you ever hope to survive a real gunfight! (WARNING: You’ll see violent video footage of real attacks as proof!) You’ll also learn the groundbreaking study that accidentally uncovered a simple way to see faster results from ALL your firearms training… in less than 5 minutes! Finally, you will get the shortcut to achieving a lightning-fast “first shot – first hit” on any attacker, even if you’re ambushed without warning.
In this video, Mia Anstine offers an introduction of archery history, gear, proper form, and target shooting. Students will have the opportunity to learn about longbows, recurve bows, and compound bows.
The bad guys have the luxury of choosing when and where they will attack. And, because most defensive encounters occur in low-light environments, Mark Suchy of Team One Network teaches you options for hand-held lights to give you time, information, and distance in an encounter.
The FBI qual is an excellent whole-shooter exercise that covers a wide range of fundamental pistol skills. This workshop breaks down each component of the qual, reviews the required skills to complete it with confidence, and provides strategies for success. In addition to the technical aspects of shooting to a standard, Tatiana Whitlock dives into stress management, emotional control and positive methods to harness the stress of the “test” and conquer any qual!
How fast can you shoot and still hit your intended target? In this session, participants will improve speed of presentation, shot delivery, target transition, and reload, all while maintaining essential accuracy. Drills and repetition will reinforce fundamentals and improve time out and first shot from the holster, a critical skill for defensive and competitive shooting. In this video series, Joshua White reviews acceptable sight picture transitions, and how to balance speed vs. accuracy while working from various shooting positions.
