Sampson Consulting

Women On Target Coming June 13th!

Who: All women 12 and older. Young ladies age 12-17 must be accompanied by a paying Adult. No experience necessary! Beginners welcome! We will have an intermediate pistol session available as well as an optional safety class.

When: Saturday, check-in begins at 8:45 a.m. Runs until 5 p.m.

Where: Airfield 4-H Conference Center, Wakefield, Virginia 23888

What: Women will have the opportunity to attend 4 out of 11 training sessions. The Classes offered are: Rifle, Archery, Shotgun, EITHER Entry level or Advance Pistol (not both), Stop the Bleed, Use of Deadly Force, After the Use of Force, Handgun Cleaning, Making your Home a Harder Target, Less than Lethal and Situational Awareness.

Agenda:

8:45 - 9:00 a.m. Check-in
9:00 – 9:15 am Welcome
9:15 – 12:20 p.m First two training sessions
12:30 - 1:30 p.m. Lunch
1:40 – 4:40 p.m. Second two training sessions
4:405 - 5:00 p.m. Closing Remarks - Awarding of certificates

Cost:

$75.00 (pre-registration required). Cost is non-refundable (unless approved by ASC Board). Cost includes loaner fi****ms, all ammunition, targets, instruction by

certified instructors and lunch. Attendance limited to the first 48 applicants.

Contact:

Scott Sampson (757) 618-1525 (please, no calls after 9:00 p.m.) or via email at [email protected]

Registration:

Registration will be online. Go to www.airfieldshootingclub.org and click on “Club Programs” and then click on “Women on Target”.

If you are unable to register online, contact Scott Sampson (Contact information above.)

Airfield Shooting Club – P.O. Box 250 Wakefield, VA 23888 Rimfire Challenge, A modified Long Gong Challenge Tom Sanford April 15, 2026, 4:34 am April 15, 2026 Uncategorized Rimfire Challenge, A modified Long Gong Challenge The 100 Yard Gong shooting event is uniquely designed to test and challenge your shooting skills. Join us on Sunday, April 19th, 2026,....

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June 13th Women on Target Event — Sampson Consulting | Firearm Training and Handling Southeastern Virginia Airfield Shooting Club is hosting a Women On Target Event. All women, ages 12+ are welcome and encouraged to come out to experience firearm education in a safe and supportive environment.  This women only event will cover education in pistol, shotgun, rifle and archery with 7 more option

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What makes a good shooting instructor qualification?

Having been qualified by two major organizations I think there are some opportunities for improvement. As a student, I expect that the instructor has the knowledge and ability to teach me to shoot. Generally, we "teach" an instructor on how teach a curriculum and give them a shooting qualification test. In reality I don't care if he/she can or can't shoot as long as they can teach me to shoot successfully.

Knowledge Basis - as an instructor you will be fielding a ton of questions from students. As a certifying agency, just teaching facts from a PowerPoint slide is not really sufficient. He/she should understand and be able to articulate the way behind what is on the slide. For example, we teach in handgun shooting to focus on the front sight. But why? This isn't covered in the material, if a student asks why, an instructor should be able to answer.

As the saying goes there is more than one way to skin a cat, so an instructor needs to have multiple tools in their toolbox to be able to teach a topic. For example, grip strength, how many different approaches are out there for different grip strengths? An instructor should understand all of these, whether they teach/believe in that method or not. They should be aware and understand why.

So many times, I see an emphasis on shooting quals as the basis for an instructor. The quals however are two handed strong side generally speaking. Instructors should be required to address shooting with both hands, loading, unloading etc. They need to demonstrate proficiency in the variations of students they are going to see, not just a shoot a target with whatever gun and sight system they want.

It is a complete difference between doing and teaching someone else to do. There is not enough emphasis on how to teach a shooter while on the line. I have not seen a curriculum for instructors that forces them to recognize what the student is doing wrong and then how to verbally tell them to correct the issue. How do you correct a flinch? Squeezing the gun as you press the trigger etc. A standard set of issues need to be addressed in the curriculum.

Emotional IQ - is another area that is important for instructors. Students come with all kinds of experience and some of it is bad. The fact that they had the courage to show up to a class when they are scared to death should be recognized and championed. Their fears are real, you should not minimize them. How should an instructor deal with tears on the firing line, or nerves etc. They need to understand to be successful.

Range Safety Officer - Instructors should really have an RSO class ensuring they understand how to control an overly excited student, or someone who might drop a gun, etc.

Let me know your thoughts…

What makes a good gun training curriculum Standard?

There are several national gun training standards out there. Are they what the public needs? Is there more to be had? Here are my thoughts on what some items a good standard should be focused on:

Instructors - Convenient but thorough means to qualify trainers. More on this in a future post.

Good materials - These should have the following criteria:
Updated - pictures and content. For example Red dot use, laser use etc
Consistent - They should match the common items from one lesson to another
Correct - If there are errors they need to be corrected, not wait for years
Version control - Make it easy to know if you have the latest (in title, with change description)

Good Curriculum options - These should address the public demand/need. Here are some thoughts :
Firearm Safety - This is to provide to any family to include kids on how to stay around fi****ms
Handgun 101 - Revolver and semi auto variants
Marksmanship Handgun
Self-defense Handgun
Competitive Pistol Games
Rifle 101 - AR and other variants
Marksmanship Rifle
Self-defense with a AR
Long Range shooting
Hunting with a rifle
Competitive Rifle Games
Shotgun 101 - All types
Trap
S***t
Sporting Clays/5 Stand
Home defense with a Shotgun
Hunting with a Shotgun

Class/lesson options. We need to think about the lesson plans and try to incorporate the following as much as possible:
They should be able to be taught in small sections so they can be offered in ranges that don’t want to obligate a range/classroom for 8 hours. Many ranges seem to offer 3-hour sessions in my area.
They should be able to teach lessons or sub sections of a curriculum.

While classroom is important, students should spend more time behind the gun or at least dryfiring, simulators like SIRTS etc.

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