TacCon 2024

JAG and I just got back from our first trip to TacCon. JAG taught some well-received classes and I hung out with friends I hadn’t seen in a while. We also made some new friends and overall had a very nice time. Most of you are probably more familiar with TacCon than I am so I will just hit the highlights.

I managed to get into all of the pistol classes that Tim Herron was teaching. Tim is an excellent instructor and it has been a few years since I shot with him so it was nice to catch up. Craig Douglas taught his popular experiential lab block, and I was able to catch some of that. As a long-time student of Shivworks and Craig, this was nothing new to me but it was nice to see Craig in action again. I also spent a couple of hours listening to Wayne Dobbs teach trigger control to a rapt group of students. Wayne is a very patient instructor and his class was very interesting. In all honesty, Wayne has one of those voices that you want to listen to. He could be teaching you to tie your shoes and it would be interesting to hear.

Other trainers I also managed to hang out with include Jeff Gonzalez, Cecil Birch, Larry Lindeman, Claude Werner, Andy Stanford, John Farnam, Bryan Eastridge, Layne Thayer, The Guys from Apache Group, as well as others I can’t think of right now but were great to meet and talk to.

Aside from trainers, I was also able to see fellow students from past classes and meet some new friends (those of you shooting HK’s are the best, of course!). Many different guns, from sub-caliber hideouts to “micro” guns, to full-size comped beasts. The only malfunction I saw was a 2011, so there is that.

Of course, I also visited with Tom and Lynn Givens, the masterminds behind TacCon. If TacCon is Tom’s baby, then Tiffany Johnson is the doctor, midwife, nurse, teacher and babysitter. She was everywhere, doing everything, and always smiling. I’m quite sure TacCon would not be without her efforts.

A very cool thing happened at TacCon for Pistol-Training.com. I managed to win the annual competition, shooting against the top 16 shooters at the conference. That’s not the cool part though. The cool thing about it is that TLG won the competition in 2010. I think that makes it a clean sweep for Pistol-Training.com. If you haven’t been to Tac-Con, I recommend you check it out. Just don’t dawdle, as it sells out very quickly.

18 comments

  1. Hey SLG!

    I made the bottom of the top 16 shootoffs and got knocked out by Riley Bowman right away, but I was also in Tim’s transition class with you. I asked if you were from PT because of the clothes. Funny thing is when you told me your name and later after shootoffs I still didn’t put 2 and 2 together until I saw you are SLG the name I’d always seen on the forums. Great meeting you in person and you were a machine all day, congrats!

  2. Didn’t get a chance to say hi at TACCON. But, it was great to at least put a face to initials. Grats on winning the shoot off!

  3. That was so fun watching you and Dave compete. Congrats on your win, and it was a real pleasure to chat with you and Julie. 🙂

  4. That looks like fun. Nice shooting.

    What’s with the empty box of ammunition that you have to drop at the start? I’ve not seen anything like that before, although I don’t shoot competitively, so maybe it is more common.

    1. Thank you, it was a lot of fun! The empty box was meant to be your cell phone. You were required to have both thumbs on the “phone” at the start. Not a very common practice in competition, but certainly not unusual in several sports.

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