The Front Sight Experience

After hyping up my impending trip to Front Sight, a firearms training institute an hour west of Las Vegas in the Nevada desert, I thought I’d share my experience of just what went down in the four-day defensive handgun class I took last week.

When I arrived on the property, my first reaction was just how large the facility was — 550 acres, with multiple ranges for handgun, shotgun, rifle, a rope and rappel course, a large lecture hall, pro shop, and even large underground metal corrugated pipes that doubled as a training location. The owner of Front Sight also envisions the erection of a hotel and, much like a community centered around a golf course, about 200 houses on the property for those interested in continuing to tweak their shooting skills.

Upon entering the lecture hall I was surprised by just how many people were there — about 200 (three handgun classes and a shotgun class were being held during the four days I was there), yet I met no one that didn’t strike me as a good person.

Also, with virtually everyone walking around armed, it goes without saying that I never felt more safe than at any other time in my life. In fact, as we headed in to lunch on our first day our lead instructor on the range told us that we could leave our range bags and other items there because

for some reason, we don’t have a problem with crime here.

No doubt.

We started with the basics: stance, grip, and what Front Sight deems as “The Three Secrets”: sight alignment, sight picture, and trigger control. Later, we built upon these fundamentals by doing things such as safely and quickly clearing a variety of malfunctions, presenting from concealment, putting a pair of controlled shots into the thoracic cavity and later one to the optical-cranial cavity. We soon added targets that turned to face us at progressively faster times, shoot from a kneeling position, shoot in low-light/night conditions and had a man vs. man competition between all those in the handgun course. Though I advanced a couple of rounds(!) I was taken down by a faster guy from the Coast Guard.

In addition to the top-notch firearms-related training I received, Front Sight underscored their emphasis on the safe and responsible use of firearms by holding lectures on the use of deadly force (both the mindset required and the criminal and civil legality associated with its use), tactical shotgun and practical rifle, selection of a defensive handgun, concealed carrying techniques, tactical entry, clearing room, hostage situations, and more.

All in all, the trip was well-worth the investment of my time and dollars and strongly recommend that anyone interested check out Front Sight.