Chuck Pressburg "If Your Not Clearing a Shitter in a Single Wide"

Summary

Podcast Summary: The TTPOA Podcast – Episode Featuring Chuck Pressburg

Title: If You're Not Clearing a Shitter in a Single Wide
Release Date: October 14, 2024
Host: Derek and Brandon
Guest: Chuck Pressburg
Description: The TTPOA Podcast, hosted by active-duty SWAT team leaders Derek and Brandon, delves into tactics, training, leadership, and relevant topics for first responders. In this episode, they welcome Chuck Pressburg to discuss firearm technology, training methodologies, and team culture within law enforcement.

---

1. Introduction and Guest Background

The episode kicks off with a friendly banter between Derek, Brandon, and Chuck Pressburg, highlighting Chuck's extensive experience in law enforcement. At [00:27], Derek notes, “This is season four, episode three... Chuck Pressburg is here today.” Chuck humorously refers to himself as a veteran due to his age and experience, setting a collegial tone for the discussion.

2. Establishing Connections and Collaboration

Brandon shares how he connected with TTPOA through mutual industry colleagues and previous collaborations, emphasizing the tight-knit nature of the law enforcement community ([02:20]). Chuck recounts his introduction to the team, highlighting the importance of trust and reputation in selecting training instructors ([04:47]):
Chuck: “If you know Dan or Chuck are telling me that, then we're going to bring this guy into the conference.”

3. Firearm Technology and Product Development

A significant portion of the conversation centers around firearm technology, particularly the Sons Liberty Gunworks 6 Max rifle. Brandon discusses his collaborative work with Sons Liberty, detailing the advancements in their product offerings ([06:07]):
Brandon: “Yesterday was my first time getting trigger time with the 6 Max... watching a 12.5 gun pushing 3,050 ft per second... that's a jump ahead in capability.”

Chuck adds insights into ergonomic developments and the importance of adapting products based on user feedback ([12:46]):
Chuck: “Here's how fast that handguard has evolved... They did the M89... They're listening to the end users.”

4. Training Methodologies and Real-World Applications

Derek and Brandon delve into the evolution of training practices, emphasizing the need for realistic, stress-inducing scenarios to prepare officers for actual engagements. Brandon critiques traditional force-on-force training, advocating for methods that enhance both speed and accuracy under pressure ([20:54]):
Brandon: “If we don't have the ability to teach them better judgment now, we have to assume that the bullets are just kind of coming out like a fire hose.”

Chuck reinforces the importance of integrating fundamentals with reality-based training, ensuring that officers maintain situational awareness and proper shooting techniques under stress ([31:30]):
Chuck: “Everything we do here, your base, your stance for your shooting, right. Is going to reflect in this reality-based training.”

5. The Role of Technology in Training

The discussion highlights how technology, such as body cams and split time data, can inform and improve training practices. Brandon emphasizes the necessity of merging speed and accuracy, using empirical data to enhance officers' shooting performance ([20:54]):
Brandon: “The ability to hold high center and buck some of those external ballistic factors... it is a hardware solution for something you could absolutely solve with software.”

6. Team Culture and Leadership

A critical theme is the cultivation of positive team culture and effective leadership within SWAT teams. Brandon advises ensuring that team culture evolves positively and that new members contribute constructively without disrupting existing dynamics ([70:21]):
Brandon: “Ensure that you're cultivating the right culture... If your team had a very successful or positive culture, you are not changing the culture based on your personality.”

Derek echoes the importance of setting a strong foundation for team players, emphasizing mentorship and the transfer of knowledge to future leaders ([73:19]):
Derek: “We owe it to our guys to, hey, man, make this better. Because that's what I looked at... they're in charge of registration this year... they've earned this right.”

7. Enhancing Shooting Skills and Performance

The hosts and Chuck discuss strategies for improving shooting precision and consistency. Brandon advocates for continuous practice and the integration of advanced techniques to ensure officers can perform effectively under duress ([55:12]):
Brandon: “If you punch the gun out and it's completely off body, you can't expect that you're going to get what your average time is.”

Derek shares his personal journey of retraining his shooting focus after a hiatus, underscoring the necessity of regular practice to maintain proficiency ([39:06]):
Derek: “I was dry firing the other day and I caught myself looking at the TV... Now I want to take my eyes from over here. Now I want to go to the spot I want to shoot.”

8. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

In wrapping up, Brandon encourages listeners to engage with TTPOA regional instructors for further training opportunities ([68:00]):
Brandon: “Reach out and get us out there. I need, there's parts of Texas where I'm not engaged as deeply as I should be... let's have a conversation about it.”

Derek emphasizes the collective responsibility to improve training standards and support one another in the law enforcement community, closing with a motivational message:
Derek: “Train hard, fellas.”

Chuck adds his final thoughts, expressing gratitude for the collaborative environment and the continuous pursuit of excellence within the organization ([76:39]):
Chuck: “Stay safe. Train hard.”

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Chuck Pressburg [02:27]: “If you know Dan or Chuck are telling me that, then we're going to bring this guy into the conference.”
• Brandon [06:07]: “Watching a 12.5 gun pushing 3,050 ft per second... that's a jump ahead in capability.”
• Chuck Pressburg [12:46]: “Here’s how fast that handguard has evolved... They listened to the end users.”
• Brandon [20:54]: “If we don't have the ability to teach them better judgment now, we have to assume that the bullets are just kind of coming out like a fire hose.”
• Brandon [55:12]: “If you punch the gun out and it's completely off body, you can't expect that you're going to get what your average time is.”
• Derek [39:06]: “I was dry firing the other day and I caught myself looking at the TV... Now I want to take my eyes from over here.”

Key Takeaways

• Integration of Technology: Leveraging data from body cams and split times can enhance training effectiveness.
• Realistic Training Scenarios: Emphasizing stress-inducing situations prepares officers for real-life engagements.
• Continuous Improvement: Regular practice and adapting to new techniques ensure sustained shooting proficiency.
• Positive Team Culture: Cultivating a supportive and evolving team environment is crucial for long-term success.
• Product Development Feedback: Manufacturers like Sons Liberty Gunworks benefit from direct user feedback to refine their products.

This episode of The TTPOA Podcast offers valuable insights into the intersection of firearm technology, training methodologies, and team dynamics, making it a must-listen for SWAT officers, military personnel, and first responders striving for excellence on the front lines.

Transcript

[Derek]

Foreign.

[Brandon]

To the TTPOA podcast, a podcast for SWAT officers, military and all first responders. We'll be talking training, tactics and leadership with the best subject matter experts around. Here are your hosts, Derek and Brandon.

[Derek]

Welcome, welcome, welcome, guys. This is season four, episode three podcast. We still haven't got the intro changed yet since Graham's been added to the list. So that's why we're saying, Graham, I'm a veteran now.

[Chuck Pressberg]

I have two. You are? Man, I'm gonna consider myself a veteran.

[Derek]

Yeah, you're. You're old. You're OG now, man.

[Chuck Pressberg]

The 53 year old veteran. A rookie. I guess I would be a rookie. Yeah, I'm gonna consider myself since I'm so old. Yeah, I'm gonna use an agent experience to my.

[Derek]

You are the room right now.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Thank you.

[Derek]

Yeah, you're welcome.

[Chuck Pressberg]

I'm. I'm okay with that. Right. Closer to that retirement.

[Brandon]

Right?

[Derek]

Just.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Hey, man, I did like the sit on my porch on the lake, look out to lake. Sit on my porch because, because Derek.

[Derek]

Was younger than me. So I like my new host is older than me, so I'm not the old guy now.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Let me tell you what I used to tell people on the streets, man.

[Brandon]

Shut.

[Derek]

It's not nice, man. You know, Come on, you, you well enough about us.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Why don't you go ahead and introduce the, the subject matter expert. As our intro said, we bring in these subject matter experts across the table. For me, we got, we got one.

[Derek]

I like it because it's the best.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Dudes in the industry.

[Derek]

We talk about tactics and this. I'm like, we need to add to it to one of those little monikers on, on their stuff that we talk about some. So our guests, I think this is your third podcast, I believe with us. So we have the handsome Chuck Pressberg with us today. How you doing, Chuck?

[Brandon]

Doing good, guys. Excited to be back here in Texas.

[Derek]

Good deal, man. We were just chatting it up before we went live here. Or I don't know if live is, I don't know, whatever you call it.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Recording.

[Derek]

Yeah. What, so this is your what number conference?

[Brandon]

We've decided this is our third one. My third one here and my fourth one. Overall. Overall, yeah.

[Derek]

Cool. And how did you get hooked up with us? How did that start?

[Brandon]

I've been doing OTOA right after I got out. You know, that was the premier conference at the time. And, and I think I was talking to one of my industry, you know, colleagues want one of the fellow instructors and they're like, you know, ttpoas they're coming on hard. And I'm like, that's cool. I don't. I don't know anybody over there. And he's like, bro, we'll get you hooked up. So got a mutual. Mutual friend got me hooked up. And they were like, yeah, man, we're always looking for. For guys to come out and help with the. With the conference. And then I think we had done Region 7 training before that anyway, so I had already come down and train.

[Derek]

And I forgot how I got hooked up with you. Who. Who was the person who got us. I can't remember now how that worked these years run all together and who you met and who you talked with now and stuff like that.

[Chuck Pressberg]

That's where I first met you when Brandon brought you in, because you're. He's like, hey, I'm. I got a hold of. Got a connection, man. I'm bringing in Chuck.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pressberg]

And I was like, no.

[Derek]

Yeah. So I was like, all right.

[Chuck Pressberg]

I went out there. I didn't. I didn't go through the class, but I was on the board. I was like, hey, I'm gonna come over.

[Derek]

Oh, that's right. I forgot you. Yeah. Yeah, because I was in the Rock Wall.

[Brandon]

Yep. Yeah, that was the Rock Wall range.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it was. It was during that trip that Brandon and I realized that we had. We had actually met each other when Dallas brought Garland down. When.

[Derek]

Yes.

[Brandon]

TDY years prior. We. We did, uh. We did some stuff here, and the guys came out and were able to kind of do Q and A and. And kind of check out some of the stuff that we had going on. And. And we both remembered that. That meeting, you know, very, very, very clearly. He's like, yeah, I was in Garland SWAT at the time. And I was like, well, I was one of the guys that. Yeah, you know, was out there.

[Derek]

So it's funny. This. The small world things can. Can be in and stuff like that. And that's. That's what always gets me. You can. You. You have some people that will say, well, I did this, this, and this, and I'll do it. And then it's pretty easy to check some stuff, and then you find out, hey, man, didn't do all this stuff you said you did and things like that. It's just like, man, it's a small community, like you. You know, you just can't throw out without getting checked. Yep. Stuff. So it's funny when our guy starts saying stuff, and you're like, yeah, I know that person. Yeah, I know that. And they're like, oh, you see them crawl fishing? Oh, you didn't expect that, did you? You know, and stuff like that.

[Chuck Pressberg]

So that's cool about the relationship like you said, because, you know, one of our jobs is to vet our instructors, you know, as the regional director or for the conference. The vice president and Brandon had, and I had this discussion the other night when some names brought up and I said, well you know, that's a good thing. Is that you. And we'll bring your name up. For example, we use Dan Brokos when someone else says, hey, this guy wants to come in and teach. And it's, you know, we had him out to our agency. I'm like, okay, sounds cool, man. Yeah, let me reach out to him, give him his contact and then I'm going to call somebody else and go, hey, what do you know about him? He's like, yeah, he's good to go. I was like, okay, well if you know, Dan or Chuck are telling me that, then we're going to bring this guy into the conference.

[Derek]

Yeah, yeah, and, and that's, that's a good thing because it's just like anything else. If, if Graham calls me and asked me about somebody in the law enforcement industry and I say man, yeah, yeah, I know him. Or yeah, oh you, you, that guy is man, he's a fantastic guy. Then it, it, it means a lot because it's once again word of mouth is, is, is, is huge. And you know, you can ruin your reputation really quick in this place. Um, so that's not what you want to do. So fourth conference and you're teaching this year again. What are you teaching?

[Brandon]

Doing two one day pistol classes at Austin PD range.

[Derek]

Okay. Like a good deal.

[Brandon]

49 officers.

[Derek]

Oh wow, nice.

[Brandon]

Over two days.

[Derek]

Nice.

[Brandon]

Gonna be, gonna be packed.

[Derek]

And you're back with Sons Liberty Gunworks.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah. Continuing to, to consult for them. You know, you guys did a separate podcast with them. Not exactly sure which I'll covered, but on the product development side, they're continuing to evolve. They're pushing, pushing a lot of, a lot of new ideas and designs. Yesterday was my first time getting trigger time with the 6 Max. They had been collaborating all of their data with me. I talked to their politicians. I had seen, you know, seen the, the date on paper, but seeing the guns run out there yesterday, you know, watching a 12,5 gun pushing 3,050ft per second, wow, that's, that's a, that's a, that's a jump ahead in capability.

[Derek]

So when I walked over there one of the times I did. You were, you were on a, on a timer and you were going just like from the low ready. Was that the gun? You were teeny and then or.

[Brandon]

No, no, that was, that's my, that was my second gen press check rifle that. Okay. It's just a 14 5. Everything carving? No, specifically I was collecting data on height over bore and how it affects staying connected to the rifle. So you know Matt and other guys in the industry are talking about that cheek to stock weld and the consistency of the Ibox eye relief.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And so I've got on that because it's a do everything gun. I've got a night force NX8 and then on top at 12 o'clock I've got an aim point P2 acro. And first off I put it up front like everybody that has magnified optics does. But then I realized my NX8's got, it's got cap turrets. I'm going to shoot holds. I'm not going to be dialing in like I would with a larger scope. And so I moved the diving board behind the tower and it actually opened up that glass and gave me a better field of view. And I was able to consistently pick up the dot faster with my dot behind the scope instead of in front of the scope tower. And you know that's, that's again like an Assaulter patrol carbine type application as opposed to like DM or sniper light. But I wanted to test speed of acquisition with my 154 mount on the scope. So lower, more traditional versus this, this higher chin weld. And so I was just collecting data, I was doing, you know, ready ups. I use the barricade so getting clean data from the low ready. It's the same angle every time. And just seeing what my splits were hitting a season at 100 with the Annex 8 on 1x with the dot turned on versus in the acro. And theory I would have theorized that the aim point was faster because there's no, no I box issues or anything like that. But in reality I was getting more consistent hits at about the same, maybe giving up a tenth to actually go all the way down to the NX8. And the hardest thing was passing through the, the optics because you see the red dot in the Acro as you're mounting the gun and so your eyes are starting to pick it up visually and it's like there's your dot and it's like no, we're not using that.

[Derek]

Dot, we're using the other dot.

[Brandon]

Right. But you Know, just kind of validate some of the not arguments but assertions that are being made that tall mounts just to have tall mounts. What, what are you giving up? There's no free lunch. Like what is that doing with your max sword on a 50 yard zero? Yeah. How are you inconsistently mounting the gun with a chin weld as opposed to a full, full stock weld? So if you're not full time gas mask guy or whatever and I don't even want to go down the road of passive shooting and how I think that's largely a marketing gimmick and not, not a real problem. You know, do you want to have a mount that's super, super high for these what if situations and it's causing your best use case to just be crappy? Yeah, but rather than throw, just throwing out my opinion out there, I'm doing some data collection. I'm letting other guys do data collection as well and just kind of see if my theories based on experience are actually proving out on the clock.

[Derek]

Yeah, and I think that's, that's, that's so important to have your own shooting journey or journey in whatever you are doing, making that your craft and SWAT or military or whatever because you have to be able to take these one offs, these situational things that people build products for and go, okay, yeah, for that one thing. Yeah, that's good. But the overall, this has been my experience through my own testing, shooting, going to the range and actually doing this, talking with other people that have had the same journey. That's important. Like, it just is like, but that somehow gets lost sometimes and it's frustrating especially I see a lot of young SWAT guys come in and they have all these whiz beam gadget. I'm like, yep, you saw that on the gram, you saw that on this. And it's usually the same products and stuff like that. I'm like, okay, give it a little time. And you're like, okay, screw this stuff.

[Chuck Pressberg]

You know what's cool also is when you go to teach this platform that you're, that you decide to go with is you're giving the why like, hey, this is how I set this up, but this is why I did it. And here's research and data, right? Here's your time standards, here's all these time hacks that I was looking for and this is what my eyes were doing. But then I, you know, after these reps I figured it out. So you're in. A lot of students want to know that. Why they want to know, hey, why, but why this? Right? So, you know, you can say, hey, here it is. You know, my data backs up what I am proposing you, you know, whatever platform it is or, you know, whatever weapon System or the 6 Max or, you know, all that stuff you can. And that's what Mike was really excited about is like all their research and developments. It's about to hit like this summer coming up with, you know, the ergonomics of his new hand grip, you know, and the evolution of that and why they are doing that. So I was like, you could tell how excited he is and what you're seeing there. You're like, yeah, man, this is, this is what I love and this is what I love to put out to these guys or students or anyone in the industry. So it's awesome to hear.

[Derek]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brandon]

I just, I absolutely love the, the evolution of, you know, look at, let's look at this with an open mind. You know, on the Sons M89 rail, they tapered the front end back a little bit because a lot of people use SOCOM Surefire RC cans with the push and rotate locking mechanism. And they're like, well, it'll be easier for you to get your thumb on there and to unlock this thing and take the QD off. But then when they started talking to real end users that were using SBRs, the 12 o'clock rail space was absolutely at a premium. And if you had a laser system that didn't have a button that was easy to access and you were going to need to use a remote switch for that to, for your consistency. Now you've got potentially light laser and laser button remote switch all competing for 12 o'clock rail space for your thumb. And nobody wants to compress their grip to something that they know is not as efficient for keeping the gun flat and running it. And you're all the way back by the barrel nut. And so they're wanting to push those multifunction aiming lasers forward. And so the end users are like square off the front end. And by doing that, Suns was able to give them an extra quarter of an inch and an additional picatinny rail slot.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And so they did the M89. When they thought about it, you know, sitting around a table and thought about it, they're like, let's taper this thing back a little bit for this reason. And then another end user said, but this, for this other reason, we would prefer to have it squared off 90 degrees at the front end of the handguard. And Suns, without just skipping a beat, they're like, yep, let's do that. And so how fast that handguard has evolved has been a factor of. Don't fall in love with your own, your own program. Like, stop thinking that you're the only sole proprietor for good ideas. Somebody brought up something you didn't think about. You weigh it and you're like, yep, we're going to go this new direction. And that was externally driven, not internally driven by the company. And that's awesome.

[Derek]

That's, that's good. Listening to the, to the end user. And I think too, it's, it's so much different than if I just go out and buy a personal rifle for my own pleasure as opposed to, this is my duty rifle that I'm carrying with all this on there that I have to carry. Real estate on. That handguard is so valuable. Like, man, just a quarter inch is like, oh gosh, that just saved me from now not having to do this bullshit. Now I can. It's comfortable and stuff. And that's, that's huge. And that's what, you know, I think that's understanding your audience that you're having to, to work with. And so, because if I had a personal rifle, I don't need all that other shit, man. I just, just need this. And it's not as heavy and easier to shoot and it feels better.

[Brandon]

You know, it's tough even on the patrol carbine side. Like, hey, if your patrol rifle isn't capable because, or it doesn't have a laser on it because you're not on SWAT or whatever, and you bought a son's, you know, M89 rifle, you now know the differences, the nuance differences between the handguards and you're not working the extra side hustle to get overtime to then keep up with the Joneses, you know, like on the back where it matters. The lockup, the drive lock system, it's all the same. Yeah, yours just has a taper and that's fine because you don't even have a laser up there. So just stick with what you've already bought. It's totally okay. You don't have to buy the newest generation every time something comes out. If the change doesn't apply to you, the change doesn't apply to you. So just stick, stick with what you got.

[Derek]

No, for sure. How are you like, how did you like the 6 Max? What were your thoughts on that?

[Brandon]

So I'd kind of been on the fence about 6 arc and I don't want to bash on 6 arcs. I'm certainly not Like a super ballastician guy. But I understood that there was from a mechanical standpoint, there were some challenges that needed to be overcome in terms of feeding magazine reliability, a bunch of other stuff. You're opening up the bolt face. And so I, I love the concept of a intermediate cartridge that can fit into a small frame ar. The magazine pouch issues the overall weight of the system. Like if you don't have to go to a battle rifle AR10 style platform to get more performance, then that's absolutely what I want to do. I want to stay small frame AR as long as I can until the juice is worth the squeeze. And so it's still use until you start showing me 6.5 Creedmoor problems. I don't want to carry a 6.5 Creedmoor or a.308, you know, battle rifle if I don't need to.

[Derek]

Right.

[Brandon]

Why carry the extra weight? And so Arc was attempting to do that. And I was like from a theory, theoretical standpoint, I love a 556-sized cartridge that is providing greater than.556 performance. I just wasn't sure that 6 arc was going to be that thing. And Sons has, has, you know, kind of diligently looked at that 6 max platform and tried to say what, what can we do to get better than 5, 56 performance and not have to pay as much of a penalty in other other ways. And I think they've got, they're getting it figured out. And the 30 round mag I think is going to only increase that capability. But for guys that aren't super ballistics nerds, the like knuckle dragger difference that we're talking about, if you're not a sniper guy, you just, you're not a super external ballistics nerd. Take any grain of 556 bullet you have now with any barrel that you have now and add 3 to 400ft per second of muzzle velocity. That's what 6 gives you.

[Derek]

So yeah, that's, that's a big difference. Yep.

[Brandon]

And if you're out there having to swag range, having to swag wind very, very rapidly from the time that you identify the target and you're at objective reasonableness and you want to do the thing until that target is fleeting behind hardcover, able to hurt somebody or negatively affect the situation, the ability to hold high center and buck some of those external ballistic factors, reduce that wind call, reduce that bullet drop, keep it running, flatter. It is a hardware solution for something you could absolutely solve with software. If you have time to remember holds accurately estimate that Range, be able to swag that wind call better and add a little favor on there in one direction or the other. But 6 max just increases that fudge factor for the officer that if, man, I ain't got time to think about whatever. I just need to put red dot on meat and, and send it. Yeah, it's flying flatter, flatter for longer. And that, that's a, That's a positive thing for sure.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Patrol officers, these guys, Texas, so large out in the county, you know, where they're, you know, the odds are they may have to take a shot like that.

[Derek]

I mean, just look behind us.

[Chuck Pressberg]

I mean, that's even here. And this is, you know, we both work in a pretty much rural environment, but I mean, urban environment. But the guys working out there in those rural environments, man, that's like that, that, like Mike mentioned the lethality and the capabilities that that offers. It could be great for your patrol officers.

[Derek]

No, it. It is. And the thing is, you know, it. I love where technology is going with just making. Not just making dumb stuff, but things that are actually benefiting the end user. Having companies that are actually doing good work and products that are actually, hey, this is a good product. Not just we can sell this and, you know, it's just the next stupid thing out there on the market. That's. That's a huge thing with that. What are you seeing in the training industry right now?

[Brandon]

Guys are continuing to push the edge of accuracy and speed and working that, that fine line. And I think that's nothing, nothing but a good thing. Yeah, me too. I really, really do. I had an interesting argument. Not argument, but I had a firearms instructor for a federal agency, and he said we don't have the ability to vet these officers. That is done by somebody else. I am running in service, and so I have to train the product that is in front of me. And now in the era of body cams and everything, we're able to get split times off of actual shoots, right? And they're collecting that data. And officers, when pressed shooting reactively, they're shooting 0.20 to 0.25 splits, regardless of skill set. That is the pace that a, that a duress officer is discharging their gun. So if we don't have the ability to teach them better judgment now, we have to assume that the bullets are just kind of coming out like a fire hose. And they're. Our job is to manage them to keep the maximum amount of water in the bucket and not splashing it on the driveway. So if they're going to be spitting pills out at 2o to 2.5, regardless of skill set. Let's work on the skill set so that their hit probability goes up at that pace rather than having them read the sights, read the gun, make the shots they can hit. You know, if the bad guy gives you the time, you can absolutely take the time on the clock. And, and that, that's a compelling argument. It's like guys, guys telling me that he's like, you know, this is one of those victim of your frame of reference thing. They're like, you know, your shooting experience and watching our shooting was from individuals that were, that were vetted. And part of a significant portion of that vetting process was judgment and making good decisions behind the gun. And that is a completely different thing than shooting mechanics and shooting efficiency and all of those things. Any, and I, I, I had nothing. I'm like, I, I completely understand the problem set with your, that you're dealing with. You can't change your student like who they are. You just have to work with whatever that student is, is bringing to the table in terms of cognitive load, you know, good shooting, maturity, like all those things.

[Derek]

Yeah. So yeah, yeah, it's a, I've been a big tech group with a lot of guys that are in the law and they're all in law enforcement and all guys that work on the, the craft of shooting and put in time and put in effort and stuff. And there's a lot of good conversations out there like how do we train guys better? How do we take real life and put it on the range and, and how are we, how are we managing the speed and accuracy and putting that together and not making, not making them competing efforts and, and things like that. And there's, there's some range guys that are still understanding the old way of doing things. There's other guys that are pushing the envelope and, and, and stuff. I still, I don't think we're there yet. I think there's guys that are, that are coming into the firearms academies and starting to implement that. But it's going to take a little bit longer to change some philosophies that we've, that some bad things that we've been taught and kind of get that out. And it's going to take a few more years to do that because what I see is it's unacceptable to shoot. Was at 96 something rounds the other day in one deal. You're like, what are we doing? 96 rounds? Like it's one person in a Car like, you know, it's. Or you have 15 round shot and they're three feet from each other, and the guy got hit twice in the thigh. That's unacceptable. You know, and what's, what's, what's. What drives you crazy is that there's administrations that are okay with that. Because guess what? Those 13 rounds that didn't hit the guy, they didn't hit anybody. We're good. That's not the way to look at it. And I'm not talking about you. You screw that guy over and you. But we got to reevaluate. How would we do training wise? We got to get this guy to understand what a true engagement should be, what your accuracy and your speed should look like. And we need a trainer of that standard. Not just go, hey, luck was on our side. Go out and get your days off, come back and do it again.

[Chuck Pressberg]

There.

[Brandon]

There's a lot of nuances in these little short videos that myself and my colleagues put out. And there are key words that I pick up on when they're talking about things. And so even, let's say it's predictive shooting, you know, at speed, when that instructor says, stay connected to. Stay visually connected to what's going on, like, whatever. We're talking about changing your stage plan. Like, while the gun is going off in front of your face, there's a high degree of shot calling and, and things that are happening. And it's not just about repeatable, natural point of aim stuff going on. And when we look at the amount of cops that conduct a reload during a shoot, how many of them are shooting after the reload? And so what we see is the first assessment on how is my gun fight going? Is when the gun stops working.

[Derek]

Yes.

[Brandon]

Like, I lock on, I'm doing the thing. And then it's just repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. And then when the gun quits working. Now, cognitively, they have enough time, like, is the guy down? What's going on? And they top their gun off. But at that point, the suspect has either decided to quit, and so you've got a victory by forfeiture, or the guy is incapacitated or something like that, but they're not even, even seeing that. And they might have achieved the results they wanted on shot 8 or 9 or 10, and then there's another five or six rounds that are going just in that direction until the like. Okay, pause for a second. What's going on? Oh, look, he's down. Cool. Let me top my gun off. And then, you know, do do the thing after and that so that though when I see those slide lock reloads, that to me is an indicator that they're not staying connected visually to what's going on. Yes, their stimulus changed and they weren't picking it up because they were so just basically going through the motions at that point. They're mimicking the rehearsed behavior that they've, that they've done over and over and over again. And that's, that's the bad part.

[Derek]

And so I definitely, and I think too like, I think a lot of times if you were to go back and you had video on these officers in reality based training, you, you would see the same thing. Because most guys when they got a, a paint round in their gun, it's just let me just blast away. And because there's no consequence. And so therefore I think there's been a training scar that, that has been put on these people. And so now I'm going to take you out of this training environment. Now you just got test day. Test day comes and it's even faster than what training day was. So now I'm really blazing because that's all I've ever known because I will on the range. It wasn't ever presented to me this way as hey, let's combine these two things and let's get them a good, good merging of speed and accuracy and what a real life engagement looks like. And then we give you a blue gun and we go fucking just haul ass and shoot as fast as you can. What do you expect to happen when a guy really goes out there and does this? So I think that's, that's been a big fault on, on le that we need, we need to take ownership in.

[Brandon]

A lot of that Improper force on force devolves into paintball.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And you know, if you're going to do force on force scenarios in a place that is like let's say one of your administrative spaces in your department, if you are afraid that firing sims guns in the admin offices after hours in your place is going to result in paint on the walls and whatever, like what do you think real bullets are going to do? You know what I mean? In my old organization we were able to train in a lot of places that had minimal cleanup. Like a good police call of brass, you know, in the cubicles on the carpet. And when we roll out of there the admin people come in in the morning and they can't tell that their office cubicles were used for a gunfight the night Prior because there's not paint all over the walls because they weren't missing.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pressberg]

So, you know, you brought a good point up, but I think that's what's key with your training organizations. And we were good about the last organization I worked for because it was Derek and I and a couple of other guys that were doing, you know, from your firearms instructor to your reality based training instructors, where we know what firearms is teaching you. So when you come into that room, we are holding them accountable and we're like, hey, everything we do here, your base, your stance for your shooting, right. Is going to reflect in this reality based training. So, you know, what we were learning is they were so caught up, like you said, in that force on force and all that training, that we were slowing things down. Like, all right, well, we're going to start with paper targets, right? So you can see where those rounds are impacting because sometimes they'll bounce off and they don't know. But so we had to slow things down because we were seeing exactly. They're pushing out and you know, not getting on their sights or target focusing or any of that stuff. It was just, you know, slapping that trigger that we call them Sims warriors.

[Derek]

Is what we're calling.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Right. So we're like, hey, I know what they teach you on the range, right. Because I'm usually with Derek or I'm teaching it. So you got to go back to those fundamentals, right, in order to be successful here and to win this fight. Go back to what they're teaching you here. Even on the, on the mat, right. When we're, we're setting up on the mat and we're discussing, you know, approach, how we're going to go handle the suspect. We know what they're teaching you, so all of that stuff should roll into.

[Derek]

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, you're basically, you're a reality based teacher. You teach for a company and travel around, Right. I mean, that's one of the things that I'm sure y'all discuss of like, man, this is not a paintball war, right?

[Chuck Pressberg]

Oh, absolutely.

[Derek]

Can't get into this stuff.

[Chuck Pressberg]

And it kind of goes back to what Chuck mentioned about that instructor that was telling you about, hey, we're watching the body cams and this is what we're focusing on because, you know, ahead, the precursor to that, like them recognizing a threat or whatever, it's going to be different based on their level of experience and training. So what we, what we try to explain to the instructors when we're doing the train the trainer is like, hey, you need to put them under stress. Like get, get that heart elevated because it doesn't mean that they're going to do things bad. But if they're training in that environment, hopefully when that happens and that heart rate goes up, right, everything's going back to training or a little bit normal because that's what they've prepared themselves for, you know.

[Derek]

Yeah, that.

[Chuck Pressberg]

I don't know if that makes sense but there's been articles out there done by police1 and they've done like empirical data and research on that. Like no, if you push them at elevated heartbeat rates and that's what they're training at, right. And that's, that's what's happening in the real world. Hopefully they perform the way you want them to perform.

[Brandon]

I think the, the mental aspect of that more so than the physiological of like the, the stress being high heart rate. Like you know, carry this dummy beforehand or do whatever. I think managing your, your increased heart rate and breathing for wobble zone management is that, that's a totally separate thing. We're talking like pre stress jitters. Like that's you go shoot a match because it just hits different when you're in the box. Right. But that only works because the stress is self induced. And that means the reason why you have pre matched jitters is because you're trying to be successful and you know that you're going to be held accountable and whatever. And that's where voluntold in service can kind of fall short. Like it doesn't hold any power over you if you just don't give a. Yeah, no, you just don't care. Right. If you're being there and trying to be the gray man like the instructor standing there with the timer and putting you in the box, it just doesn't hold the same power as the Type A that's trying to excel in this, in this trade or craft. It's kind of like being empathetic versus being sociopathic. Like if the guy's a sociopath, like he, it's not hitting the same because he just, he has a different value system. And so the officer's value system about what, what they should be able to do will largely drive either peer pressure stress or self induced stress or any of that stuff. And it kind of sucks because the people that need it the word the most are almost inoculated. That kind of stress, they just don't care. They just don't care.

[Derek]

And I think too like when, when, when you're operational and you're doing things and then you, you go train and when you're a new guy, you do, you know, training scenarios and stuff and you're like, okay, I'm nervous. I want to impress the other guys. I want to, I want to do good, you know, and all that. There's pressure to do that. And then once you're, you're established on the team and you start making, you know, I'm starting to climb the ladder of leadership and then you get to be a team leader, you're like, all that stuff's kind of gone. Because now I have to be the guy who is just processing this, who is who now I might not be the instructor who is, you know, sitting in the catwalk, but still when I go right and the guy goes left and I know it just doesn't feel right what this guy up and you can see it like. And I think that's just part of the maturity of, of, of being good at your craft of understanding. Hey man, I'm inoculated to the stress because it's just, we've done it so much. It's just, it's fun. But there's also, you just understand, it's just your job. Just go in there, process what's going on, see this, see that and then at the end of the day, because that's your job. Like, and I think that's, I think that's the benefits of the reality based training aspect of that is once you get to that point where, man, this is just training and there's value to it, but I have to be at a level of understanding what's going on with the whole team and myself. Because if you're not, you're, you're bad. I mean, you're not doing anything for your team and stuff.

[Brandon]

Yeah, so I really, I'm a big fan of, of the, you know, the car, the cartoon shoot, don't shoot. And engaging using UTM or whatever. So that paint on paper I think is a, is a really, really good middle of the road. You get 99 of the stuff you get in live fire. All of the simmunition based cartridges from all the manufacturers will hold CQB accuracy out of rifles they've been tested. You know, you're holding sub 3 inch groups out to 25 yards with that, with that paint. So you can still hold a accuracy standard. The only thing you're not getting is the stress of shooting a live gun or if you have gotten unsuppressed weapons, the concussive and a little bit of recoil Management, whatever. But all that can be sorted out on the, on the flat range. Right. So we're teaching people to be target focused. We've got dots on everything, including handguns now, but there's multiple focal plane shifts that have to occur. Not focal plane, but points of interest. So if I'm looking at the hands on the cartoon to get me to the objective reasonableness point, and I, I truly believe it's why the old school FBI target where it had the air gaps in there, the gun was down by the hip. And that's a totally different thing. As an instructor, if you see a hit on that gun down there, as opposed to a cartoon where it's over the chest, if that is a gun hit, that's more than likely a mechanical offset issue. The guy should have held higher and threaded the needle over the top of the gun and gotten the guys ascending aortic trunk or punched in between the lungs somewhere up in there, as opposed to nailing him in the gun. But if somebody stares at that gun and then does exactly what we tell them to do with perspective, performance, now they're presenting the gun and the dot is just magically going to that point. Yeah, that they have. And that point is the barrel. That is actually 9 millimeters, but looks like 105 millimeters. And, and you get surprised and, and that's the last place the officer looks. And so the, the gun is the, their gun is going to the barrel of the other gun. And then they're executing those subconscious things and, and having the, you know, being able to put on your big boy pants and say that gets me to. Using the, the need and justification to use this. That is where I want to hit the person, to incapacitate them. And then with a rifle, potentially. Now what is the hold? So now I've got a third spot. I've got, I've got the intent, the means of what I, what the threat is. Then I've got the critical area that I want to engage with whatever weapon system I have. And then I might have an additional aiming point to make the bullets go to the second place. So that could be up to three different visual things that are happening while you're punching the gun out to target.

[Derek]

Yeah. And it's funny you say that. I've just here recently through just my own journey of dry firing and shooting and stuff. And I, I took a break because I was studying for a promotional test. So three months out of my life, I, I didn't do a whole lot besides just studying. So I'm back now into doing my normal routine. And I was dry frying the other day and I was kind of had the TV on and I caught myself looking at the TV and then the timer would go off and then I would go to what I'm looking at. So I was like, wait a minute, light bulb. So then I intentionally started looking over here, hear the buzzer and then going. Driving my vision to where I was shooting. I'm like, okay, now this is a different ask because I used to just dry fire. I'm staring at that little spot. Now I want to take my eyes from over here. Now I want to go to the spot I want to shoot. So it was, it's been a good transformation. I'm still in the baby steps process of that, of still learning about that. But that's. It's exactly what you're talking about. Of. There's a lot of things that you got to do as you're getting this gun up to do that stuff. Yeah, it's.

[Brandon]

It's a visual race, just like getting your eyes out of the, out of the thing and finding the next thing sooner the sooner while you're, you know, subconsciously executing all the shooting mechanics of the gun, handling of the draw on the presentation, establishing the grip, all that stuff. Visually, you're sorting all of that out so that your eyes are mean mugging where you want that thing to go by the time you're seeing that flash of red. It's a timing issue like anything else. And we know the only way you're going to do timing, get timing down consistent is reps. Wraps. Wraps.

[Derek]

Wraps, yeah. So it's insane just how you get off of that training cycle of just dry firing and shooting at the rain just for three months. I mean, I'm like, damn. Like I'm not awful, but I'm not where I was before I went into all this. And I'm like, okay, man. You know, it's just one of those deals. But it's a, it's a thing that you lose fast.

[Brandon]

And that's the shooting maturity part of it. That's where no fail is more of like a check on learning of skill sets learned from others that are being complementary, applied in this, in this circumstance, as opposed to trying to teach a new shooting strategy or a new stage plan, mentally and visually, you're taking all those reps and then you're applying them to the shooter that's actually there that day. Everybody comes out with a stage plan that. That is too hot. And the sooner you know and, or they're executing at a pace that, that their skill set isn't supporting that day or whatever. Yeah, the guys that can realize like, okay, I'm, I'm three, four shots down, I haven't connected with the guy, haven't hit a bus full of nuns yet either. At what point am I going to take the actual status of what's going on here and potentially modify my behavior to start increasing that hit probability? Or am I just going to run this slide lock and throw more bullets problem?

[Derek]

A lot of them are just throwing more bullets, but like you said, so.

[Chuck Pressberg]

You, so as the instructor there, hopefully you know, you recognize that and you're like, all right, we're gonna push accuracy and speed today.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Chuck Pressberg]

And towards the end, and this is just kind of off my experience, we start going into. Okay, now here's our, the discretionary targets.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Well there's people in the background and that guy's that guy or gals pointing the gun at you. Right. So hey, let's, let's like, let's work what we did. But now you're understanding that like missing here. Right, But I'm pushing myself, which is a good thing, right, that, that you have to, you have to understand that and you have to recognize not what's the, where's the gun at, where's the body. As I'm pushing out and I'm doing all this threat and I'm still seeing people back there, you know.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pressberg]

And then you even may push them. I even like doing patrol guys, I like ended up with a hostage target so they recognize like, oh, I'm going to push out. I'm going to do all these same principles. Now I'm taking that well aimed deal because now this person has a hostage because we don't know what's going to happen to them on the streets. But they have to recognize that, you know, kind of like push versus hold or you know, tactics getting in and stuff like that. So I like, I like finishing up with those discretionary targets so they can put from the dot, you know, to the A zone target to discretionary. And then we're, we're going through all that gamut even on, you know, range days.

[Derek]

Yeah. And what sucks for, for, for us at law enforcement, I mean military as well, part of this job is you get paid to shoot second for the most part, like unless the guy is going for something. But more times than not, they're getting the first round off because they're voting before you are and then you're having to react to their vote.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Right.

[Derek]

And that's, man, there's a lot of that you're having to do to process that and then all the other hard skills that you have to do to get that bullet to go where you're wanting it to go. And I think that's where kind of go on like philosophies or instructors. I think that word gets thrown out a lot. And there's a lot of people out there that are instructing that just don't know what they don't know. And I've been one of those guys. I'm still, there's still things that I'm like, you know what? I don't feel like I'm there yet at this, at this section of whatever I'm looking at. Like, I'm not a preacher, so I'm not. I know the fundamentals of breaching and all that kind of stuff. But I'm not going to teach a preaching class. That's just not my forte. But you got guys out there, unfortunately, depending on department size, hey man, you can do this. And they have no background in, in that to teach you that. And I think that's, that's a, that's a hard thing. Do you see that out there on the, on the road and teaching and stuff? When you have guys that, yeah, I'm the firearms instructor at my. Blah, blah, blah, and you're like, what the, Are you kidding me?

[Brandon]

Happens. It certainly, certainly happens. And I, I see trends. A big one is initiating either your roll through or your trigger prep and agencies that for liability don't, don't want to include that in their stuff. And I'm like, well, have you ever thought that maybe you're tying your shooting mechanics or your gun handling into your, your shot process? Like if we look at an academy and when the officer is given their firearm and when they start doing the draw, the marksmanship is normally front loaded DT and force on force is towards the end. So if you have a shooter that's never used a gun before, how many reps are they defeating? Level three, drawing the gun and it's resulting in a bang. All of those reps on the range when the red shirts are like, draw, fire three, whatever. So now we have defeat level three, pull out gun shoot gun. Defeat level three, draw gun shoot gun.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Are we building neural pathways in that totally new shooter that drawing the gun and shooting the gun are all one event instead of two totally different events? Right, right. And, and we don't start to counter those neuropathways and Making, drawing the gun and then deciding whether or not I'm going to use the gun, that comes later. And so of the total amount of times that, that a, a officer draws their weapon in the academy and they shoot it versus draw their weapon in the academy and not shoot it, it's kind of skewed. And then we wonder why cover officers touch the Glock trigger while somebody's trying to cuff a suspect and either put it in the parking lot, put it in the suspect shoulder, something like that. It's like, well, we kind of did that to them.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

By the not clearly delineating that. And so you know, I do encourage guys especially if you don't work your white light like a whole lot.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

If you're, if you're attacking the little mini A zones maybe one out of every seven or one out of every eight times the beep goes off, you're not mentally thinking gun. And that rep results in a draw activation of light and finger high indexed. So you are throwing reps where you're moving just as fast as you are on a draw and click. But you're doing a draw and hold to either give some verbal direction or maybe use that light to figure out what that is in that guy's hand or whatever. And that's how you break that paradigm where you're not doing 100% of your draws or clicks.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

You need some draw and holds thrown in there because gun handling is gun handling and shot processes, shot process. And they happen one after the other. But they are, they are absolutely two different things.

[Derek]

Oh man. I mean the, the average patrol guy, over a 20 year career just in patrol, there's no telling how many times he's drawn his gun. Never shot at all. Never even got the finger on the trigger. I mean it's all the time. Like daily.

[Brandon]

Every cop has pulled their gun.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Not every cop has had an ois. That says it, that says it right there.

[Derek]

I mean it's huge. And I think, you know, or I draw my gun and I'm giving orders, you know, hey, get on the ground, give me your hand. Show me whatever. I mean you're doing it to sometimes that are just good innocent people that you have no idea. Because man, you're searching a building at three in the morning and you had no idea that the damn shop owner showed up and he's running through his business thinking someone broke into it. And you come around the corner and it's the shop owner like you. I mean it's hap. I mean it happens and so there. There is a huge. Like I said, you get paid to shot. Get to shoot second sometimes. And you know, that, you know, do I want to be able to shoot first? Yeah, give me the choice. But most of the time, that's not what we get, you know, because it just doesn't happen that way. So anything else on that, man?

[Chuck Pressberg]

No, that's good. Like I said, kind of just to add to what Chuck's saying, we, you know, we incorporate that in our taser training as well. They know they're at taser training that day, and here's the taser training, and we have one. We're like, okay, this is scenario, you know, they go into the living room or whatever, and they're already grabbing that taser and pulling out. And the guy standing there with a gun, a blue gun, and we give that to them, and a lot of them go, oh, they'll, you know, start giving commands. We're like, throw that thing down and get that gun out. And we're like, hey, we didn't say you were tasing the. Everybody on these training days. Some days you don't. I mean, some scenarios, you won't. Some scenarios, I don't want you having that taser out. I want you having your gun out. So we're trying to build. Build, like you said, that process of, hey, come in, see what you got, and then assess, then move on to the next level of force or not force or whatever you're saying.

[Derek]

That's one of my biggest pet peeves, watching videos, these guys with tasers, and I'm like, what are you doing? Like, if I was ever a cheat, my policy would be if you pulled your taser and a guy has lethal on you, and you're working this scenario with your taser, you get tased personally by me. Like, it just drives me crazy, man. Like, what are you thinking? It's just. It's sad and stuff. And I do have to. I do realize, like, Graham and I, we've been fortunate to be from the departments that we come from and then the organizations that we've been a part of and the guys that we've been training with, man, we are so blessed. Not everybody has had the opportunities that we have had to do the training that we have. And. And I try to keep that in mind. Sometimes when I'm watching things or people come to our training in Region 7, I'm like, all right, man. Like, you just didn't get it because of your department size or where you live. I mean, you travel the country. I mean, there's some things.

[Brandon]

Policing is regional.

[Derek]

Yeah, it is. I mean, it is. I mean, you know, we've had this conversation before with, with other instructors. I mean, they come to Texas and they're like, wow, this is a different environment. You know, I mean, do we have our screw ups? Yeah. I mean, do we have Buck Tartary? Yeah. But overall there's a different philosophy and mindset and culture, I think in Texas than some other places. I mean, and that's a good thing. And I think contributing back to TTP ways is I look at that as, as part of that culture that we've set for so many years. 40 years, right?

[Chuck Pressberg]

40 years.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Chuck Pressberg]

This is 40 years.

[Derek]

We're 40 years old. Yeah. And stuff.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Our son's sons put their shirts together and they got the 40 on the back of that. Also celebrating with us. So. Yeah, very cool.

[Derek]

I do like that and stuff. So anything else? Let me ask you this. What have you seen maybe in the last about five years in, in training, law enforcement? That's been a positive thing that you see guys now coming to classes or, or whatever it may be that you're like, I'm glad this is happening. Or is there, is there some positive things that you see?

[Brandon]

Yeah, I mean the, the acceptance of performance shooting has raised the bar on gun handling and shooting mechanics like to, to, to a higher level. The use of red dots and then on the precision side too, like I remember when shooting 100 on a 25 yard BA, like that was a big deal with open sites.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

You know, being able to, to do that, accomplish that, to, to execute those skills in isolation, to prove to yourself that you can in isolation. If you can't do it in isolation, you can't do it under stress either. So you gotta, you gotta prove to yourself like the art of the possible. You don't stay there, you know, but, but you got, you got to be able to prove yourself you can do it. And now people throw up hundreds all the time with, with Glocks, you know, like, that's not a big deal anymore. And it's like with any sport, if you look at world records and you know, you know, football and baseball and any of these disciplines, as human beings, we're squeaking every bit of efficiency that we can. And now, you know, somebody that placed, you know, 15th in some type of competition would have been first in 1980 or something because we've just evolved. They used, there used to be people that shot Weaver in, in comp. And, and, and so at the End of the day, like the, the, the cream rises to the top and it debunks certain things like the 9 mil 40 cal kind of argument. But on technique, it's like on a long enough timeline, the dominant technique is going to rise to the top. And when's the last time somebody won national shooting Weaver? Like, like if you're not clearing, if you're not clearing a shitter in a single wide, like what, what do you. What's going on? If there's any old Weaver guys out there, I'm sorry. You can shoot your single stack 45 with your Weaver until, until you die. You'll be fine.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

But, but for the rest of the people like that like there is, there is dominant like body mechanics better ways to do things. And, and the shooting community is embracing that. The, the, the law enforcement community is embracing that. And so I'm seeing more younger red shirts that are, that are, that are masters or even, even GM and, and, and their presence is felt in that department. Like how they're doing things. And any, any body teaching anything that gets that gun up in front of that guy's face sooner so he has more time to make that life or death decision is 100 positive in my, in my opinion. I'm so happy that guys are able to take point four to decide.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And they bought that point four by not driving Miss Daisy out of level three.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And. And that is huge. The shot might break at the same time. There's a big difference between a 1.2 draw and point three to either refined grip and trigger or visually confirm what's going on downrange versus somebody that's doing all of that same crap in point six and now has an additional 0.6 to 0.8 to think and decide before they try to thread the needle. Yeah. And. And so you get two completely different outcomes with a 1.5 shot based on doing the stuff that doesn't matter as blindingly fast as possible to buy more time in the tank.

[Derek]

Yep.

[Brandon]

To like you know. And if you get that bad drugs we know that life happens and the repetition is what gives you that hardwired. And if you chose poorly on maintaining your skill set. I don't believe that your poor outcome on a gunfight was decided by your lack of dry fire three three weeks before. Until the boat leaves the barrel, you still have a choice. So if you punch the gun out and it's completely off body, you can't expect that you're going to get what your average time is. You made it your grip late.

[Derek]

Yep.

[Brandon]

You let your draw hand out, outrun your support hand. And now you've pushed the gun off the left shoulder and you've seen that you're not pointing at the guy. You now have to visually recognize that move the gun, confirm it is where you want it, and then shoot. And all of that thinking, deciding, doing whatever, it's measurable on a clock so you don't get rewarded with the same split of your last draw time because you didn't do the shit you did on the last draw. Man, you screwed X, Y and Z up and you had to fix it. And so guys just get so tied to one or the other and they're like, I want all 20 of my reps to be plus or minus 5, 100 subs a second. Well, you're going to do all of your reps consistently as far as the work to make that happen. Yeah, and. And guys will choose poorly and they will send it and then correct it. And then there's other guys that will wait and have to change it. And then they look at their splits and they're like, I'm in. I'm inconsistent as fuck. Yeah, you're inconsistent as fuck because you're not practice. So your inconsistency is a flag on the play that you're not as hardwired as you think you are. And you need to get back into. Into the. Get back into the show because it's.

[Derek]

It's exhausting doing good proper training. I mean, it's mentally exhausting. It's physically exhausting. It's frustrating. You're like, there's some days I do stuff, I'm like terrible. Like just what is going on here and stuff. And I think too, like, I know when I first got into law enforcement and be on the range, the whole pack timer was a timer just to see who was the fastest on the line. And I think that scarred me and scarred a lot of people of just that's what the single function of that thing was. And then like you were talking about, hey, here's a split for this. Here's. And then, excuse me. Understanding the metrics of what that tool is actually for opens up your eyes to a lot of things. And I think in law enforcement, the range guy has failed on that a lot as well of just using that as. Because that's what I did. The monkey before me told me that. So this is what I'm going to do. And I don't really have the reason why behind this. Besides, who's the Fastest. Oh, you suck. You suck. Oh, this is the pressure deal. There is some components to that, but the majority of it is, what are we. What's a. The data, the metrics that we're. That we're getting for me, where we're getting for you, and you're understanding, putting all this together, what it actually is. And I think. I think instructors do a bad job of that a lot of times in law enforcement, and it drives me crazy.

[Chuck Pressberg]

I think setting those guys up, like, kind of what you're talking about, Chuck, is like, we'll try to do drills. We'll let them know, hey, go ahead and, you know, rest your hand here, because that's what you're seeing as a threat now. Or kind of stand up and you're just talking to someone. All of a sudden, you're like, so we can work those split times. And it's like. Like, look at that. You know, you recognize the threat quicker. Like, even having the gun, you know, up in a ready position. Yeah, right. It's like, look, there's different times for you to have. Be ready on that threat, recognize that threat. And we're already getting ourselves ahead of the curve, so we're observing and we're orienting, like, the whole loop thing, but we're getting ready. So, hey, just kind of stand there and be. Look, we want you looking off the left, and all of a sudden, when you hear that beat, you're got to get. You got to move your feet or whatever to move your body and go right. So prepare, you know, so as you're not just doing the same thing, getting back, going like, okay, hands up in front of you. And on the standby.

[Brandon]

Beep.

[Chuck Pressberg]

You know, and they're doing the same repetition every time. Like, hey, let's put them in different positions. Let's put their hands in different positions. Let them rest their hand on that. That holster. So. Because they're recognizing something.

[Derek]

No, you're right. Different drills, I think. I think Noner does a good job with that in his classes of. You're not just going to stand on the line and draw, man. You're moving your. Your. Your. Your backs to the target. You're looking this way. There's a vision barrier, and. And that's the reality of it. Like, I mean, when you're walking up to the car, you're not walking, you know, with. In the position to shoot all the time, ever. I mean, it just. It is what it is when. When test day happens, there's no. All right, ready, set, go. So.

[Brandon]

And I totally think you should. You should be varying up, you know, different. Different things you're doing. I also think that haters that see high performance stuff and they want to be like, well, look, he had his hand staged or he was cupping his cover garment or whatever, and it's like, have you ever seen somebody that was pretty sure they were going to get in a fight and their hands are not relaxed at their side? When you start reading the shoulders and you're seeing the. The pre assault indicators, you're trying to keep that space, but you're also trying to pre stage so that you have a shorter distance to block when somebody throws at you. So, yeah, if you're. If you're 99 sure that you're gonna have to skin this thing, but you're not there yet, why wouldn't you be staging on your cover garment? Because. Because things are escalating and you're making decisions fast. So if you're smart enough to read the pre assault indicators and get ready, good for you.

[Derek]

You should be.

[Brandon]

Should we do every. Should you be one tricky. And that's the only way that you can do whatever? No, man. What if you get pitted off the road and you're upside down in a ditch with your seatbelt on and you have to literally take the hand and stick it on the roof of the vehicle and push up to get enough tension off the seatbelt to get the gun out of your britches?

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Like, that's a completely different draw stroke. You're like maverick, man. You're in at this point. Like, that's. That's a bad day.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And. And I. It's one of those things of. If you ever found yourself in that position, your ability to draw is probably pretty important because you pissed somebody off, they rolled you up on your roof, you know?

[Derek]

Well, it's like, you know, I'm not a high port guy, but I understand how to do it. I know how to do it. Do I practice it all the time? No. But do I go out there and. And do a few reps? Yeah. You know, it's the same thing. When I walked up to a car and patrol, guess what? And my hand was on the gun and it was undone until I walked up. Okay. I don't feel threatened. It's just soccer mom. Okay. And no one ever knew the wiser, but those tenths of a second mattered. So, you know, once again, if you did that on the ground. Oh, you're doing. No, I'm working this specific deal as I'm walking up to Something, you know.

[Brandon]

I learned something from an Idaho trooper student. We were collecting data on high port versus low ready. Obviously I told my thoughts of, you know, hey, all things being equal, I'm going to be low ready. But obviously there's times where high port is appropriate. And this guy showed me when the average dude takes their gun and they go to high port, they don't, they're not worrying about really what their sling has got going on. And so the, the, the sling will go directly from their shoulder up to the front of the gun and all the slack is down here. And when he transitions to high port and then is going to move around like that, he takes his thumb and he grabs the sling and he goes whack. And he brings all of the slack forward so there's less drag across bangers and breach your tools and whatever and it makes the snap out and up more efficient. And I was like, look at that little life hack. Like never seen that before. Totally checks out.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

So it's like there's another little tool that I'm going to put in there. Like hey, if you're struggling, if you feel like you're fighting your gear. Yeah. With that high port pre staging your sling because you know the next thing is going to have to punch out and then back in into your shoulder. That's a, that's a quick little. Maybe it only saves you a couple hundredths but every, every couple hundredths matter, right?

[Derek]

Yeah, it does.

[Brandon]

And I was like man, look at the old dog learning new tricks out here.

[Chuck Pressberg]

That's cool.

[Brandon]

So yeah.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Especially if it's getting hung if you're right handed shooter and it's getting hung up on.

[Derek]

I know, I hope one day before like I retire. But that's probably not gonna happen. Like everything's wireless. There's no straps. The gun just when I let it go, it just stays to me because all those straps and I just hate all those gun. And I mean there's just so much that you wear now so that you want lightsabers now. Yeah.

[Chuck Pressberg]

You ask a lot.

[Derek]

Well, I do wear a, I wear a badass disco ball hat now so you know it's futuristic and stuff.

[Brandon]

So the, the vice president of Yalls vendor sponsor First Spear he used to be a government employee. He worked on the behalf of the government with industry to build stuff.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

So come before he got out and went to Eagle and then to first spear and he said yeah. The mantra in terms of the man, machine interfaces, fight the enemy, not your gear.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And when slings is one of those things of man, you know, slinging kit set up and all that stuff. If you've got something somewhere where it's a consistent problem, that's why you're pressure testing it under the clock. Because on the flat range, you're working around that and you're not having to fight through it at speed. Yeah, you've got to have. And I don't believe in training in full kit all the time. When you need shake. Kit shake.

[Derek]

Yeah, absolutely. Always love basic SWAT guys. You know, the new dudes come to class and you know, we'll do whatever and they got all their gear. I'm like, yeah, you can tell you're a new guy because you have everything. Once you start doing this job, you're like, I don't need this. I don't need this. This is stupid. Because you, you got hung up, you got caught on something or it's, it's heavy. You're like, I've never my life used this thing. Why do I have it? You know, it's just funny, the evolution of just doing the job, what it does to you. Because now I'm like, man, do I even need all. I mean, I don't, I don't need this extra magazine. Come on now. It's tough sometimes and things like that. So. All right, we've been doing this about an hour or so, so we'll let check by quick. Chuck, get back to what was it, what I say? Shaking babies the last time. Don't shake babies.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Like shaking babies and kissing. Shaking hand. Yeah, don't shake babies.

[Derek]

Yeah, don't shake babies. Kiss babies and stuff. So. Well, Chuck, man, it was a pleasure getting to sit down and talk with you again. I know you have a good relationship with the, with the organization. We appreciate that and your relationship with sons and stuff like that. So is there anything else you want to speak about or anything before we get off of here?

[Brandon]

No, just, you know, shout out to the, the TTPOA regional instructors if, if, if your officers in your area are interested in doing, you know, any training with press check or whatever, reach out and, and get us, get us out there. I, I need, there's, there's parts of Texas where I'm, I'm not, not engaged as deeply as I should be. And, and the guys that, where I'm not at deserve the right to have the same training as the guys that, that were the regions that have figured that out.

[Derek]

So if someone's listening, that's, you know, and wherever. How would they get to train with you, your website, what's up?

[Brandon]

It's presscheck consulting.com. you can contact my admin info at PressTrack Consulting, reach out to one of the other TTPOA directors, reach out to Lieutenant Dan. Like everybody's got my email. And, and, and let's have, let's have a conversation about it.

[Derek]

Cool.

[Brandon]

And, and you know, get out there and continue to do the thing.

[Derek]

Awesome, man, awesome. So one of the things we, we have a question every year and stuff, so I'll ask you that. But when I was talking about that a couple years ago, I reached out to Chuck and a few other guys, SWAT guys and military dudes about hey, what does it take to be a good team person? And man, Chuck sent me like, there's a like five page text message. It was, it was incredible. But I still read that today. I read that the last basic squat school I had and then I've added two other guys asking them. And it's kind of been my mantra of I can't instill the tactics that you're going to use on your team or what you're going to do for your, you know, breaching program or anything like that. But in Basic Squad, I just feel like it's my, my job to set the foundation of what a team member should be. So I appreciate you, you giving me that, that, that information continues to get passed on today and I'm going to share one here when I get a little chance. So I would, I would post that on my, the Region 7 Instagram of hey, here's what the daily quotes were and stuff. And I got a DM from a guy, a young guy who came from the class last year. We had one year on the team and man, he sent me this long ass dm. So I'm gonna post it. I'm like, you get it? Like I, man, it gives me chills right now. Just what the kids said of what his experience has been. I'm like, man, everybody needs to, to listen to that. But I think, I think it's important to be a team player. So I appreciate that Chuck giving me that, that information that I keep sharing. So this year's question that we ask all the guests is how do you leave your team? Or whatever you join better than when you started. So what do you think that looks like for guys that are getting on a SWAT team? What do you think giving us some advice on that?

[Brandon]

Ensure that you're cultivating the right culture. So if your team had a very successful or positive culture, you are not changing the culture of that team based on your personality or whatever. And if you come to a team and they do things that you know that they could be doing better, you have, like trying to move a container ship, it's a really slow thing. You don't want to come in and make radical changes and piss people off, because managing personalities is as important as anything else. But over time, through, you know, setting the right example and doing those things, you can modify that culture to where it's more positive. And then if the people on the team buy into that culture change, it will endure beyond you. If they don't buy into the changes you make, those changes will probably revert back or evolve to something else after you leave. So I don't know if that's a how to do better or a litmus test that you did well. But if a team's culture changes to SOPs, evolution of tactics, maintaining relevancy, new equipment and, and the best use cases for that equipment, all of those things are growing and making us better. You don't want to have your team playing football like they played in leather helmets back in the day. You want to make the best use of the newer and evolving data so that you're not, you know, stuck in that quagmire. And I think the true test to that is how much of that stuff stays and endures once you've, once you've left out. So you either protect the culture that you know is solid, or you're evolving that culture and hoping that it endures upon your departure.

[Derek]

Yeah, it's funny you say that. You know, I get the, the just the fortunate of being around a lot of, a lot of cops during the year. I think I trained like 400 something people came through my region last year. And you get some of these guys that come in that are the new guys or kind of mid level guys and they go to a class and you have those side discussions with them and, and they start talking and it's never a bash. It's just like, man, here's where my frustration is. Like, we have guys on the team and they'll say the team. And I'm like, yeah, I've never seen any of your teammates ever at any training. Like, I just don't. They just, they stick to themselves and, and they're like, man, it's so frustrating. How do we do this? And we want to change this, we want to change that. And I see that their intentions are good. And that's a frustrating thing like you talked about, like, because A lot of those guys, they're stuck in what they were told that you got to do it. And it's a. It's a power. It's a. Man, don't take this little piece of pie that I have from me because, man, I got time on you, so I don't have time to listen to you. And I think that's a sad thing. And it's only the team that loses out on that.

[Brandon]

So, yeah, we've got way too many seasoned fellers telling young folks that have got the right stuff. I'm sorry, man. Your only course of action is wait them out. Yeah, and that's. That's sad that that's an indication of team. That's not progressive. That's not learning from stuff. If the new guys know the answer and they have to wait until they're in charge, can you imagine that? Three or four or five years doing old bunk, just waiting for your shot. When I'm in charge, one day we'll make it right. And it's sad that we. That's the only answer we have for that guy. Because we do have a hierarchy. There is a rank structure. You can't tell a kid, go back and tell your team leader to, you know, piss off or whatever, because you're right.

[Derek]

I mean, I know Graham has done it. Yeah, Graham's done it with their team. You know, we do it with our team. I mean, you see guys that come on your team real quick that are like. And that's. That's one of the future guys on the team that's an. A contributor. Guess what? Hey, man, come to the conference. Hey, I want to give you this little job here, and you're going to take this little job and you own it. And then they do well with that little job. Hey, we're going to give you this. I mean, there's so many guys. I look around this. This organization that started off doing the little deal. I mean, I'm one of them. I mean, you know, and stuff. And I think that's a huge thing that we owe it to our guys to, hey, man, make this better. Because that's what I looked at. I mean, Graham was a Region 7 director. Paul Cerami was a region. Dan was a Region 7 director. And I look at all that. I mean, they worked their way up, but it wasn't trying to manipulate. Well, if I do this, I do that. It's just, man, here's. Here's what. Here's just. Here's this little piece that you get. Hey, man, you're in charge of registration this year. And, hey, hey, you know, we did a good job. So now we're going to move you up here because you've earned this right? And, like, I want my new guys here because they need to be around guys like you. They need to be around grandma. The guys are in that conference room right now. They need to see this, that there's not just one team, and this is the only way we do it, man. There's a lot of things that you can get from people. So no good advice.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Organizational culture, team culture, so important. And like you said, for that team progressing and improving. And then, like you said, you're setting the stage for when you leave, guys are stepping up, and hopefully they're pushing it, too. So I think that's a great, great answer.

[Derek]

Yeah. So I think. I think, like, both of y'all have done that, so you can really speak on. Hey, I was on a team. Now I'm gone. I'm still on a team. I haven't left yet. Graham, you know, here recently is off, so I think it's. I think it's. You've been there, done it. I'm still in that process of doing it, and I'm glad because I still talk, you know, like you. Like, you know, how do you do that? Or what is. What is your experience? So I appreciate that as someone who's still trying to learn. Okay, man, One day I'm going to pass this torch on to somebody, so it's. It's hard, but. Well, you got anything else, Graham?

[Chuck Pressberg]

No, I'm good. I want to thank Chuck once again, man. It's my first time to sit in the podcast with him, so. Yeah, I. I learned a lot, man. Appreciate you, brother. And you mean a lot to the organization and the fact that you keep coming back, so.

[Derek]

Yeah, we appreciate it, so. All right, man. Train hard, fellas.

[Chuck Pressberg]

Stay safe. Train hard.