Rangemaster Tactical Conference, 2009.

For over a decade, Tom Givens and his Rangemaster staff have run what is one of the greatest training and networking events in the United States. This was one of the events that occurred while the blog was down, but I definitely wanted to share it with all of you readers. The event is always outstanding, but this years Rangemaster Tactical Conference was a significant change from previous events, however, as it was moved from Memphis to an outside location for the first time ever!

If you’re going to take a highly successful event and move it after 10 years, you’ve got to have a good reason.  If that move is a couple states away and involves leaving your own home town (and taking a large number of support staff with you!), it’s got to be a really good reason. The

US Shooting Academy facility offered that reason and Tom jumped at the opportunity to place his event at this outstanding facility. USSA is a relatively young facility located in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Director of Operations, Mike Seeklander, and his entire staff did an outstanding job of supporting the event, which was attended by about 150 people. Those attendees had the opportunity to work with a diverse group of instructors including Mas Ayoob, Marty Hayes, Craig Douglas, John Farnam, Mike Brown, Paul Gomez, John Hearne and several others. The course covered everything from live fire pistol and shotgun topics to instructor liability and managing unknown contacts.

On the first day of the event, I taught a Combat Focus Shooting fundamentals session with Paul White (360 Tactical) that had about 30 attendees. We invited those who could to stay after the initial 2 hours and still had a dozen students at the range about 4 hours after we began. Paul ran the second session on the following day on his own, as I had to fly out.

Reading reports around the internet over the past couple of weeks, everyone who attended seemed to really get the incredible value of the event, which only costs $150 to attend, including all the training sessions you could cram in! Of course, some people really enjoyed the competition as well… did I mention that there was a competition?  In the background of the training conference, Tom hosts a tactical match that tests skills in a variety of stages. This year’s event took full advantage of the sprawling USSA campus, including the 360 degree shoot house. As many of you know,

I’m not much into competition shooting, but when good friend and former course host Jeff Tinsley found me on the first morning to let me know that we had been squadded together and that he would loan me all the gear I needed, I just couldn’t say “no” to a couple of stages. Turns out that the squad was a great bunch of guys, also including reknown gun writer Keith Pridgen! The two stages that we were assigned on the first morning were a “standards” stage which tested our pistol ability from a variety of distances and positions (including some less plausibly defensive ones) and another in which we had to rescue a downed baby from multiple attackers in a crowded parking lot…. really. The first stage offered some great photo ops and some reminders about the need for more practice shooting prone from 25 yards (or so) with a pistol if I want to get good at it. The second one was much more fun. One competitor shot before picking up the baby and another put the baby in the wrong spot behind the truck tire. In competition world, these things are obviously wrong, so they got points deducted… the guy who laid across the hood and shot with his elbows bent at poppers 15 feet away while looking like Elmer Keith shooting .44 magnum pistols at 400 yards didn’t get any penalties though… why don’t I go to more competitions so that I can understand these things? My solution: This is for FUN guys… that’s it… just enjoy it! I locked the baby in the truck before engaging the last targets. Not the best for my score, but it was entertaining and didn’t violate any of the “rules”.

As far as I am concerned, the Rangemaster Tactical Conference is one of the most fun training events in existence because of the people. It really is a great mix of attendees who are interested in learning and enjoying themselves and instructors who take their topics very seriously, but themselves not as much. The diverse group of instructors even all managed to sit at one dinner table together on Saturday night at an annual event that Tom and his wife host as a “thank you” to us for teaching. It didn’t matter what our backgrounds, preferred ready position or favorite pistol type was, everyone enjoyed the company and agreed that Tom gives us all a great opportunity to meet new students and compare notes in a relaxed and professional atmosphere.

Thanks to Tom and his staff for a great weekend. If you have the time, I strongly encourage you to consider attending the 2010 event!

-RJP