When Jose G. earned his F.A.S.T. pin this past Saturday, our little gathering of shooters was made up of one F.A.S.T. coin holder (me) and three other guys on the Wall: Jose, Krasen Georgiev, and Joe S. Wanting to achieve more harmonious balance with the universe and apparently having some bizarre penchant for the number eight, Joe S. stepped up and earned himself F.A.S.T. coin #08!
Joe’s times:
- 4.49 (clean): 1.55, .44 / 1.89 / .20, .22, .19
- 7.40 (-1H, -1B): 1.67, .44 / 1.69 / .20, .21, .19
- 4.88 (clean): 1.85, .47 / 1.92 / .23, .21, .20
Joe becomes the first coin winner to shoot from retention gear instead of concealment. He shot a 9mm SIG P226 from a Safariland SLS tactical rig. Ammo was basic 115gr CCI Blazer TMJ. To make things a little harder, he did it while wearing a production sample of the upcoming FDT Gloves from P.I.G. As anyone who’s done it knows, wearing gloves is definitely a detriment to serious handgun shooting. But the FDT — Full Dexterity Tactical — go a long way toward fixing that. They allow for a surprising amount of tactile feedback from the gun and don’t seem to hinder motion in any way. The palms are grippy enough to allow decent control under recoil without being sticky. I tested a prototype set last year and definitely like the improvements made to the final version. I’m looking forward to getting a pair when they become available at the SHOT Show in January.
It’s no surprise that Joe earned his coin. Years ago — before there was a pistol-training.com or F.A.S.T. coins — Joe S. shot a sub-5 clean run during a class Rich Verdi and I co-taught. As I said before, he has some weird thing about the number eight. Once he saw that JV took #07, he packed up the car and drove down to get #08. Congratulations again, Joe!
So, who has a thing for the number nine?
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
Congratulations!!
. . . but he’ll do it with a DA/SA pistol, from a retention holster . . . with gloves . . . on Easter Sunday!
Congrats Jose!
9 sounds good. For the lives used up….
I’ll take it.
Sean M — So you’re saying you’re better than a cat because you have more than nine? I wonder what animal comes after cat… 8)
ToddG- Thanks for not mentioning the other opportunities I had in earning the coin over the past few years, all of which were train wrecks. FAST is by far my favorite tool to quickly assess gun-handling skills. You and P-T.com have elevated the shooting community. Thanks guys!
I’s a retarded cat……..can’t count, so really doesn’t know how many lives have been used.