I attended my first 2 day tactical handgun course at Front Sight last week.  The day prior to the course I did some practice at Clark County Shooting Complex  and also took a CCW class at American Shooters for a warmup.  It was getting warmer, about 50 degrees in the morning getting close to 80 degrees at noon.  Range master Estep was leading the training.  There were 32 students in my class with 1 woman.  One guy looked like Stan Lee (the Marvel guy) but his name was Roger.  There was a 2nd class on the next range.  Mix of guns on the range, mostly Glocks, XD's, and 1911s.  The class went on smoothly as there were no lectures to attend.  All of the shooters were proficient with handgun at a similar skill level compared to the 4 day defensive handgun where you had a mix of newbies, recreational, and expert shooters.

We went through the new stuff for the class and most of it isn't tested.  The one handed malfunction clearing was unusual as I've never done them before.  Then it felt very weird having to do it with my left hand next.  It would've made for a funny youtube video watching everyone doing awkward things to get the gun running.   Then we practiced kneeling and prone shooting which is optional on the test at the 25/50 yard line.  I've been practicing my one handed shooting before the class and my left hand shooting is still pretty awful.  Then lastly we did the "response to threats" which is facing to the right/left/rear and having to pivot to the target and shoot.

Other cool stuff we did that wasn't tested was moving while shooting steel silhouettes.  Shooting moving forward and backward was easy.  Shooting while moving to the sides one handed (fire/support side) was challenging.  At night we shot in low light and using flashlights (technique of your choice harris, FBI, etc)...same drills we go through for the old 4 day handgun course or night skill builders.  Went through the shoothouse at night which was cool.  Next day after the test we practiced hostage situations, and trying to do one hole drills from the holster  under quick time pressure.

The test was the same as the 4 day defensive handgun test except a bit faster and more stuff thrown in.  The added stuff was shooting from the 25 and 50 yard lines, close-contact & palm strikes, shooting up to 4 targets, and doing the turn and shoot.  3 people got the distinguished graduate, most (including myself) got the graduate cert, and a few didn't make the cut.  Fortunately you just need a graduate certificate to move on to the other advanced classes.  The only advantage to the DG cert was to skip the first two days of the 4 day combat handgun master prep course.  There were a few ND's during the course, most occurring in the malfunction clearing drills where we're supposed to have empty chambers or firing off a round when we're supposed to clear and not shoot.

I enjoyed taking the class which got me shooting a bit faster and clearing my malfunctions quicker.  I've done some of the exercises in the military and other classes before so I was used to them already, though I was never under that kind of time pressure before.  I still need to work on my group sizes and left handed shooting.  My Glock 9mm conversion worked good most of the time except for a couple of type 3 malfunctions (double feeds) and a few cases whacked my forehead somehow.  I finally switched out my old plastic Fobus holster and bought a Blade Tech Kydex one using some frontsight credits and it made quite a difference.  The struggle to unholster my gun from the sticky holster was replaced with a buttery smooth draw which probably took one or two tenths of a second off my draw times.

Take aways:
Practice the skills used in the 4 day defensive handgun class using a timer.
Practice shooting with your support hand.
Practice shooting at the 50 yard targets at Koko Head and reducing your group sizes.
You just need a graduate certificate to move on to other classes.
I couldn't find reasonably priced 9mm at walmart, some gun stores, and Clark County range.  A lot of places were out of 22lr and 5.56 also.  Fortunately FS was stocked up at a reasonable price.
I barely made the malfunction clearance/reload times.  I need to invest in a extended slide stop lever and magazine release.

Equipment used:
Glock 22 with a 9mm lone wolf conversion barrel
Fobus Blade Tech kydex holster and 2 mag pouch
5 magazines
500 rounds magtech ammo bought at FS

Another good review.  Thank you.  I found 10 round mags to be a huge disadvantage during some of the shoots where you had to fire about 12 rounds and I found myself trying to reload mags while moving to the next target.  I have 3 standard capacity mags for my Glock 19 and 3 10 round mags.  I am taking all of them on my next trip there.  Having to load mags will destroy your time for sure.

Zippz - Do you believe that the malfunctions were mag related?  Or other likely cause?  The reason why I ask is that buddy is trying to get rid of his 23 and I was debating on picking it up as a project gun.  I rarely shoot 40 and have lots of 9, so I was looking at conversion barrels.  Another friend was having problems feeding with his 22 (or maybe 23) and a Lone Wolf conversion barrel.  I haven't shot with him in a while, so I'll have to ask him.  Just curious as to your thoughts. 

Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences!  I always enjoy hearing about peoples thought's on training, especially when they travel to the mainland to do so.  I haven't taken a mainland class in a couple of years.  I'll be in Vegas with family for about a week in April and will definitely be hitting up the Clark County range with a buddy that lives in Vegas now.  I'll have to check what else they have going on up there. 

Yeah, the one handed malfunction clearance was an eye opener for me first time I tried.  I gouged my sides more than a couple of times when trying to rack the slide on my belt.  Haha.

Another good review.  Thank you.  I found 10 round mags to be a huge disadvantage during some of the shoots where you had to fire about 12 rounds and I found myself trying to reload mags while moving to the next target.  I have 3 standard capacity mags for my Glock 19 and 3 10 round mags.  I am taking all of them on my next trip there.  Having to load mags will destroy your time for sure.

Yup.  I can relate.  I've had friends loan me their standard cap Glock 17 mags, but the first couple of classes I took, I used my 10 rounders.  Many didn't have that elaborate courses of fire, so 10 rounds were good, but occasionally there were times where I wished I had those 15-17ish round mags.  Or like the CZs now that can hold up to 18+1!  A maglula definitely saved me and I also had a lot of mags so that I could load them all up during breaks. 

Another way to think about it is that you have more practice reloading.   

Using 10 round magazines does really suck.  I constantly do tactical reloads and topping off magazines on the firing line.  Fortunately I had 5 magazines when the minimum was 3 which helped out a bit.

I'm not sure what's the problem with my Glock conversion, it seems to be extractor related.  My first problem is once in a while it would throw shells directly back into my forehead.  I replaced the extractor which didn't fix the problem.  Next I used a lighter recoil spring (15lb vs 17lb) which still throws shells at me and maybe causing the type 3 malfunctions.  The type 3 malfunctions didn't extract the empty case from the chamber.  Still trying to figure it out.  I'm using 9mm magazines (half of my .40SW magazines didn't work with the conversion).

Las Vegas Walmart  had the cheapest ammo at $11.50 for 9mm.  However some of them were out of 9mm, 22lr, and 5.56. Clark county range were out of those calibers and charged $18 for a box of 9mm I think.  Other gun stores had 9mm and charged $16 for a box.

Using 10 round magazines does really suck.  I constantly do tactical reloads and topping off magazines on the firing line.  Fortunately I had 5 magazines when the minimum was 3 which helped out a bit.

I'm not sure what's the problem with my Glock conversion, it seems to be extractor related.  My first problem is once in a while it would throw shells directly back into my forehead.  I replaced the extractor which didn't fix the problem.  Next I used a lighter recoil spring (15lb vs 17lb) which still throws shells at me and maybe causing the type 3 malfunctions.  The type 3 malfunctions didn't extract the empty case from the chamber.  Still trying to figure it out.  I'm using 9mm magazines (half of my .40SW magazines didn't work with the conversion).

Las Vegas Walmart  had the cheapest ammo at $11.50 for 9mm.  However some of them were out of 9mm, 22lr, and 5.56. Clark county range were out of those calibers and charged $18 for a box of 9mm I think.  Other gun stores had 9mm and charged $16 for a box.

Thanks for the feedback.  The recoil spring was another thing that I've been told (or read) to check function with the 9 conversions.  Were you shooting 115 gr or 124 gr?  I recall having some consistent malfunctions with the Federal Range Ammo (white box) out of my Glock 17s where both guns run reliably on pretty much everything else.  I could only guess that it was a bad batch with some rounds being under powered. 

That you were using the 9 mm mags is interesting as I would think that would eliminate one possible hangup. 

One shooter at the match over the weekend was shooting a 35 with a 9 mm conversion barrel and he was getting some weak extraction where it would almost sort of tumble out of the gun and others where it would hit him right on the top of the cap.  Didn't think much of it until you mentioned your experience with the 22 and conversion barrel. 

Been researching the brass flying back issue and it has to do with the .40 ejector hitting the 9mm brass in the wrong spot, making it fly straight back.  It's not as simple a swap as you'd have to take the whole action apart to switch the ejector.  Fortunately glock's don't have too many parts.

Been researching the brass flying back issue and it has to do with the .40 ejector hitting the 9mm brass in the wrong spot, making it fly straight back.  It's not as simple a swap as you'd have to take the whole action apart to switch the ejector.  Fortunately glock's don't have too many parts.

The brass to face thing has been a known issue for Gen 4 19s and 17s for a while.  I haven't read much about it for a while, but IIRC the main fixes were making sure you had the updated RSA (I believe 0-4-2 for 17, not sure for 19) and the ejector (I believe the current is 30274 and old is 336).  I don't recall of the top of my head if the extractor was an issue as well.  Luckily, none of my Gen 4 17s or 34 have experienced this and all have the updated RSA and ejector.  My buddy's 19 was having some stovepipes and occasional brass to face/head.  He recently swapped out the ejector and I think extractor and so far that has solved his issues. 

Glocks are really easy to work on and there are tons of videos out there to help.  My buddy is not what I would call a gun guy at all and he swapped all of that stuff out no problems.  That said, you should have a certified Glock armorer install all of your replacement parts. . . (mostly kidding on the last part  )