Firearms Instructor Development Course by Tom Givens

My latest training in firearms was the 3-day Firearms Instructor Development Course taught by Tom Givens – one of the top firearms and defensive tactics instructor in the US and the owner of the Rangemaster Firearms Training Services.

What an experience!

I am glad I did it!

Although I had previously attended the Combative Pistol 1 again taught by Tom Givens, and although some of the material overlapped the added material and the level of training under stress really took us all to the next level.

In just three days my level of confidence in my knowledge and skills increased dramatically.

Just to give you an idea…

At the end in order to become certified as Firearms Instructors by Rangemaster we had to successfully pass two exams: a shooting exam and a written exam.

The shooting exam consisted of two parts:

1. The New (from 2013) FBI Qualification Course of Fire – passing score 90+ (FBI agents need 80+ to pass and FBI Instructors need 90+). Tom Givens calls this “the warm-up” for the real test, which is…
2. The Rangemaster Firearms Instructor Qualification Course of Fire – a course of fire that is quite a bit more difficult than the FBI course of fire. It requires hits in the vital zones (thoracic box and ocular box, using the QIT-99 target), sidestepping at 3 and 5 ft distances. Passing score – 90 percent or better.

The written test consisted of 80 questions with mostly fill-in-the-blanks sentences and a few true/false questions. Time constraint – 1 our.

For the passing of this exam we had to read a 200+ page manual, supplied by Rangemaster, basically after class on the first day, after class on the second day and one hour during the third day while half the shooters were doing the shooting exams.

My scores:

— FBI Qualification Course of Fire – 100 percent (hard to believe, but that’s what it was – I saw my target)

— Rangemaster Firearms Instructor Qualification Course of Fire – 97.6 percent

— Rangemaster Firearms Instructor written exam – 89.4 percent

BAM!!

No wonder why my confidence went up quite a bit..

There is a two-day advanced Firearms Instructor Course by Rangemaster, which I intend to take as well – if not this year definitely next year.. I hear next year it will be taught here in Austin, TX area. This year it is in Oklahoma.

That’s it.. It’s been two weeks already and I’m still processing what happened..

What firearms courses have you taken and where? Share your experience!