[Megatron96]

So yesterday I went to my Advanced Skills Defensive Handgun class again, but for the first time we learned the Basics of CAR training (Center Axis Relock). For anyone not familiar, Center Axis Relock is a defensive handgun method developed by the recently deceased Paul Castle, former LEO, which can be seen in the various John Wick series.

The CAR method is a shooting system primarily intended for close quarters battle focusing on weapon retention, the body's instinctive response mechanisms, improved recoil control, and aimed point shooting.

I'm not going to go into detail about the particular drills we ran; I just wanted to share some observations I made while I was there.

First observation: out of 13 shooters, all but 3 showed a dramatic improvement in accuracy almost immediately. What I mean by accuracy, as opposed to precision, is that most shooters immediately shot more consistent groups. Several shooters that I've seen before suddenly eliminated dropping shots. The groups weren't significantly tighter than the groups they shot previously, but the outlier shots 6-12 inches away from the rest of the group failed to appear.

The three other shooters were all older, much more advanced shooters that all had a little trouble using the new technique. That includes myself; old habits kept me from consistently getting into the correct posture/mechanics to shoot from a proper CAR position. My body kept wanting to revert to modified Weaver and my hands kept trying to hold the gun vertically instead of canted.

When I did manage to do it correctly (when I slowed down), while my groups were still larger than what I'm used to, they were all nearly perfectly centered in the A-boxes (ISPC targets). Discussions with the other two more advanced shooters revealed the same issues and consequent results.

Second observation: headshots, usually an issue with less accomplished shooters, were suddenly much easier, even for myself. But what was really eye-opening was how many shooters I'd observed several times in the past that consistently couldn't get more than a couple hits inside the head A-box, suddenly be able to consistently get 7-10 almost from the get-go. Two of them went 10 for 10.

Third observation: one of the harder things for newer shooters to do well at first is shoot at multiple targets (transitions) and get consistent A-box hits, unless they slow the drill way down. The standard drill for this class is 4 targets at 7 yards. Par is 10 seconds from the draw. For a competent shooter, I've seen times in less than 7 seconds. For the uninitiated, I've seen times as long as 30 seconds.

One shooter in particular, who I've seen several times already, usually takes about 20 seconds for the drill, and rarely gets more than two A-box torso hits in a run. Yesterday, she ran the drill three times, with her worst run in 11 seconds, and only missed an A-box once in three runs! In particular, her recoil control was exponentially better yesterday than I've ever seen from her. She almost looked like a pro, with barely any muzzle flip, no chronic readjust of her grip, no hunting for her sight picture, etc.

More impressive was her three headshots: in the past, her average was about 30 seconds for three headshots, and most of the time she'd maybe get one good hit in the A-boxes. The other shots were usually complete misses, or maybe clip an 'ear.'

Yesterday, she took an average of 3-4 seconds per shot, and hit all three A-boxes! I was so impressed that I involuntarily whooped when she hit that last headshot, nearly perfect center. She's come to the class probably 10 times by now, and I've seen and spoken to her about her frustrations more than once. To see her success was, well, it was heart-warming.

I spoke to her between drills and she admitted she hasn't fired her gun since the last class, over a month ago. Aside: She was ecstatic with the class, the CAR Method, and her dramatic improvement.

Fourth observation: after just one drill, and the general success/improvement in performance, the excitement of the entire class was palpable. Usually after a drill or two, there's some discussion, students speaking with the instructor or each other about what they're doing wrong, how can they fix this or that issue. Essentially frustrations. Not yesterday. All conversations were about how surprised everyone was with their own successes and what we were going to learn next.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this. I know there's probably a lot of uncertainty about the true value of CAR method, due to a lot of people thinking it's just a Hollywood movie gimmick, but after my first experience with it, my opinion is firmly 'give it an honest try and see what happens.'

I was personally on the fence about CAR. Now I'm serious about learning more about it.