Gunsite #1...

...okay, I'm sorry. I've been slacking on the blogging front. Hard though it is to believe, I've been working. Two days; two episodes of SHOOTING GALLERY down. Two to go.

Still, it has been an aamzing couple of days. Monday, we spent the afternoon with Col. Jeff Cooper, the 85-year-old Lord-High-God-Of-The-1911 and the man who invented practical shooting. I think it may be the definitive interview with the most important man in the firearms field since John Browning, but I may be prejudiced. One of the coolest things was that we got to spend the afternoon in Cooper's armory, which is sort of the Mother Church of Practical Shooting. I think this is going to knock your socks off when we cut the interview. Considering that I've always considered Cooper one of the major influences on both my writing and my life, it was one heck of an afternoon.

Today was BUZZ GUN DAY AT GUNSITE. We spent most of the day working with venerable H-K MP-5s, running through about a thousand rounds of 9mm working with Cory Trapp, Gunsite's main full-auto guy. Excellent instructor, and Gunsite's facility is beyond compare.

Late in the afternoon, when we were all punchy, we shifted over to Glock 18 machine pistols, proving that if you have vast amounts of ammunition to get rid of, we have just the device to help you out. I did a quick opening running four 33-round mags through a compensated 18...sucker was smoking hot when I finished, but it never missed a beat. We even did some strong-hand-only work with the little machine pistol, and it hummed right along. I'm not saying that you don't have t0 pay attention — it will rise on you — but it's not a particularly hard gun to shoot. In an ideal world, every Glock should have a selector switch!

I will say again that GUNSITE is once again the premiere shooting school in the United States. I base that on several factors — the long-term instructors, the quality of the facility, the comprehensive nature of the instruction and the willingness of the instructors to embrace change. I'm pretty familiar with shooting schools, and I think that Gunsite is hands-down the best of the best.

There are only a few tactical schools I'd personally recommend — Gunsite, the Firearms Academy of Seattle, Valhalla and the Rogers Shooting School. There are other individual instructors I like (here's a hint...if they're featured on SHOOTING GALLERY, it's ONLY because I am willing to recommend them!).

Tomorrow is rifle day (Steyr Scout rifles and maybe the Springfield Armory SOCOM rifle), and we finish up on Thursday with some of the new Remington .223 pump carbines! I'll keep you posted.