My wife and I had no prior experience with guns. She grew up afraid of them, and I grew up wanting to try em but never had the chance. We decided to get some training to demystify the whole gun thing, and began the search for instruction in the Santa Rosa area.
There were gun shops that did lessons for 200 per person, but you needed to bring a gun. We didn't want to purchase a gun without having safety and handling training first. It was a problem. It was intimidating and ridiculous. Lots of forums online said to "find a range that rented guns" and learn that way. None in the area.
Then we found Tom. His website had a blank testimonial section, and no yelp reviews whatsoever. We googled him a bit and he seemed legit, and it was a nice and intimate 1-on-1 learning environment (Well, 2-on-1 for us. Still only 80 bucks!) We contacted him and he got back to us very promptly and scheduled us in for a week or so away. When we arrived at his house it was a very clean, nice environment laid out for learning. No dry lecture-style classroom stuff, it was all questions and answers and pointers and tips. He fielded any questions we had in a low-stress, comfortable environment, let us handle many different types of unloaded guns, we practiced dry firing, our stances, and he let us fire some 1911-type airsoft guns at 5 yards at a target which we got to take home.
We left knowing so much more than we had going in. We felt confident around firearms, and had enough safety hammered in that we wouldn't hurt ourselves too badly. We opted to schedule for the next part of his course, the "beginners package" which took us to a range to fire an assortment of handguns ranging from the smallest caliber .22 all the way up to .357 and .45. The range he took us to was beautiful, not crowded, and again, a low stress environment. Minor corrections for our stance and safety the whole way through, gently, not spooky at all. No lectures, just pointers.
We spent hours there firing many types of handguns, which let us decide which ones we felt most comfortable with, and will definitely help us in our purchase of one soon.
I have only great things to say about Tom and his training. We had a wonderful time and recommend him to anyone who wants to learn more about firearms in a no-stress, more intimate type of environment. read more