I did a class for Hatcher’s a couple years ago on firearms cleaning with pistols. If I dig around I could probably find the old presentation, and I’ve gotten substantially more well-versed in the general subject of firearms since then. I can volunteer a lot of subject matter knowledge regarding just about everything except reloading.
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@Draco I am very excited to see your push for Hatcher’s classes and I support you in the effort. I’ll give you some of my impressions and suggestions below.
This classes were by far the most enjoyable and interesting classes that we did in Hatcher’s, because we got hands on. We not only explained how the firearms worked, we walked the student through disassembly, cleaning and reassembly. Often times having the instructor disassemble and reassemble the firearm and then having the student do it themselves also. As many gun owners only have 1 or 2 firearms and they view these items as expensive and very precise machines that can be broken, they often are scared to do any disassembly. Also, the disassembly of firearms often requires the use of force higher than many people consider, due to items under high spring tension. This class removed that fear of breaking the firearm and I felt it was an incredible success for doing so, but the hands on work really was the part that made it successful.
That all said, I’m not sure if you would be able to do a hands on class like this at DMS anymore given the rules. As you saw in your thread on the AR Build Class, no assembly of firearms is allowed on property. So you would have to do everything remotely. This non-hands on approach I feel drastically reduces the value of the class to the group.
This is a good addition to the maintenance class. But, doesn’t really have the breath of information to take up a stand alone class. My current favorite gun safety talk is given by the Second Guy ( I forget his name) in charge at Proactive Defense inside of the Quail Creek Gun Range in Argyle. It is a short 10 minute discussion of their range rules, and mainly, “Always treat your firearm as loaded, even when you know it is not.” This range will allow you to do anything you want as long as you can do it safely. Plus, they have some nice instruction and include class time in their membership.
In short, good subject, not big enough for a stand alone class in my eyes.
Always a fun idea, but what is the goal of the meet up? Most people that go to the range, go alone, shoot 50 or less rounds and leave, or spend less than an hour and leave. The public gun ranges are all setup to cater to this crowd. If you put on a simple meet up and shoot, expect most people to be done after an hour.
It is hard to implement safely for groups larger than 3 (1 instructor and 2 students). @Gimli and I have done these in the past and have really thought a lot about safety when doing so. It isn’t easy to do this kind of stuff at public ranges, because those places are loud, busy, confusing and range policing is done by the employees rather than people in the group. Handling of firearms by more than one person is also difficult in these settings.
I’m excited at you trying this. I’m sure you can put all the info in one place. There are also many youtube videos to base this class off of to make curriculum easier to put together.
The only catch will be that hands on help will not be possible and that was the one feature of our previous AR Build Class that everyone really appreciated and enjoyed. The class we put on originally was a 2 part class, the first part was a instructional class talking about the components and the process and had @thatguy disassemble and reassemble his AR. While the first part was well attended the students wanted hands on help with their particular builds. The second part of the class was that hands on portion and ended up being the exact class that everyone wanted. Steven and others who had built ARs walked around the class giving 1 on 1 attentions and help as we build 3 ARs over about 1.5 hours.
The biggest value to our reloading classes was setting up and resetting the dies on a press. You should make sure any class like that includes those steps multiple time. I would hope that you can load fake rounds at DMS to teach this class as it is a Hands On only class as you really need time using the equipment to understand how to use the equipment.
The answer to this is probably the internet, which is kind of a sad. But, the best prices, return policies and inventories are on the internet.
No clue on this one.
Good Luck, no sarcasm intended.
Target Masters and Eagle Gun Range are my favorite indoor. Proactive Defense is my favorite outdoor pistol and carbine range. Terrell Gun Club is my fav outdoor close-ish rifle range, but it is private members only.
In their case, in a cool dry place, with a light coating a barricade on the outside and the barrel swabbed with a oiled patch to prevent rusting.
Separate from TALK?
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I’m still holding out for a reloading supply swap meet as I have lots of brass in calibers I don’t shoot to trade for things I want.
I’m also still up to do casting classes and hope to go into powder-coating of lead rounds myself this winter.
And I now have the press and supplies to demo or teach bullet swaging should we ever overcome some of the current challenges.
All these things can be done with no powder and no primers - - nothing flammable at all.
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I have an oven for powder coating now. Axel, we should get together and do some. I have some bullets in 45 that I need to coat.
I think we can do this at the space. Have we gotten the larger powdercoater up and running?
As long as we don’t use flammables like gunpowder and primers, we can do many things.
- We can have a reloading swap meet
- We can powdercoat bullets as long as the oven will work for us
- If we had the annealing oven, we could anneal (we never bought it but the money is available still)
- We can put together bullets for key rings
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I know there is already a lot of interest in a general powder coating class!
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Based upon all the “can nots” this is a great idea.
While not “reloading” this would use the same equipment and process, just minus the flammable stuff correct? Could give a good impression to someone who hasn’t reloaded before (like myself).
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What about holding CHL classes for people
This would be a good one (for the in-class portion at least, then maybe the students pop over to one of the local ranges for the practical).
Are any of the active DMS members licensed instructors, or would this be a we try to organize a group / discount rate kind of thing?
Eagle Gun Range had a promo on these classes for $50(class only) a couple of months back.
Range qualification has to be same day according to them not on a different date.
I was thinking more like find an instructor who teaches every now and then to the general public and let him hold it for members and non members at the space like once a season. Then yes go to a range and pop off a clip for practical. If someone motions that the new space include a firing range for hatchers Ill 2nd it lol
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Someone has suggested an Airsoft range. That would be cool as it can teach firearms safety, sight picture, trigger discipline, shooting, and etc. without the cost or risks or live ammo.
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I can all but guarantee no indoor range will ever be created or managed by the DMS. The liability and technical challenges are tremendous, on top of the zoning restrictions and other city regulations that come from operating such a risky business. That’s leaving aside the tremendous expense of essentially building a giant AR-500 steel box and keeping RSOs on-hand to run it.
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So true. Any info on what regulations are for airsoft?
No regulations whatsoever. They’re expensive toys, which is why I see little value in teaching anything related to firearms using them or burning an enormous amount of floorspace on an indoor range for it. We’d be better off organizing routine events at a local range, although pretty much any within a reasonable distance of the DMS are either indoor (terrible for teaching), or just terrible (Elm Fork).
The licensed replicas can be pricey(for the pistols and some rifles) compared to real steel but I’ve found that you can teach sight picture, trigger pull cause & effect much more economically with less ND risk.
There’s not a lot of space needed at long distance for even high fps AEGs don’t usually exceed 50yds with 40+ being typical more most before the bb’s point of impact become unpredictable.
It’s a different aspect of shooting, that has a bit of cosplay, mil-sim, survival skills(outdoor, overnighters) and tactics thrown in the mix(at games).
Not that I’m saying DMS should or it needs to reach out to 50yds.
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I know with paintball you can turn the pressure down … can airsoft guns turn down the pressure to make them a shorter range?
RE: airsoft range
After the expansion goes through and things settle down … if a makery enough case can be made for an airsoft range, I don’t think it is completely out of the question … but it will be a while … like a year before I would even attempt to go for it
However, we can have a meeting or class at an airsoft range … we can have off-site classes and meetings
You can and can’t depending on the method of generating air pressure.
Automatic Electric Guns are fixed fps wherein the velocity is determined by the force of the spring that drives the piston. I’ve heard but not seen that they can be tweaked up to 900 fps range(which is banned in almost all game sites worldwide save for very few). Most game sites limit it to the 400-450 range. Unmodified AEGs will be in the 300-330fps(~100 m/s).
Gas guns which that have external tanks can be adjusted via the regulators but I’ve never had the opportunity to work with them.
There’s also the newer gas guns which have the compressed propellant charged in the magazines of the guns. I don’t know how the velocity is adjusted on these; but they aren’t popular during cooler weather as the velocity supposedly drops off dramatically due to ambient temperatures affecting gas expansion.
Springers are generally reserved for affordable pistols marketed towards kids(at least, outside of the US). Think of nerf gun action but in realistic looking bodies wherein you cock the action by pulling back on the slide.
For target shooting a backstop is used. A strong net or fabric with give that absorbs the force is usually enough, or a rigid backstop.
Point blank, an unmodified AEG will puncture at least one side of a soda can while the higher fps guns can supposedly puncture the bead on the rim of the soda can.
They aren’t quite toys and aren’t treated as such by the people into it(although many of those starting out and the general public view them as such).
Guys I was just joking about an indoor range next to the bowling alley for RETRO