I'm often asked by friends where they should go for good training. I'll address this with this thread. First, what kind of training do you want? There are some facilities that orient their training towards those that want to improve their competition skills. I'm going to discuss defensive handgun training. Find a local training facility, which is usually located at a state of the art indoor range, and get either group or one-on-one training with a certified pistol instructor. This would be an entry level course for those just entering the handgun field. Nest comes the fun part. As a police officer I took a slew of courses, some excellent and others very average. Not my money so no general complaint. But when you start rolling out the dough from your pocket, you want to get the best for money spent. Initially, you may go to a trainer or training facility that has a good reputation, but the training will be on a static range. Targets will be fixed with any number of different images from the Police B-27, IDPA targets, or pictures of a threat pointing a gun r holding a knife. These ranges are OK initially, but after a while, you'll find it's the same old thing; drawing with a timer going to normal stance, moving right or left while drawing, magazine changes, strong hand only, support hand only, shooting around a barrel or a plywood barricade (some with holes cut in it forcing you into unusual positions), and shooting from various positions and distances without a barricade. Nothing wrong with this, but you're spending money for just the same thing with a different instructors slant on it. The next level is a facility like Thunder Ranch, Gunsite, or in the case of the rifle, Rifles Only. You will have moving targets, rotating and timed targets, shoot houses and often automobiles that you shoot around and through. In other words, there are numerous ranges on these facilities and they are often used for military, law enforcement and civilian training. You can count on the instructors being top notch and always willing to demonstrate what they are teaching. Just because someone was a SEAL, Marine Sniper or world class competition shooter, may not mean they are good instructors. They may or may not be. For example, check out the Instructors at Gunsite on their website. What they don't tell you is the rigorous process that they go through to be instructors there. And when you read the CV of the instructors, you will find former world champions, retired law enforcement SWAT and instructors with major police departments, former Marine and other military branches, but that is only part of their background. Before going to a place it helps if you can talk to someone that has trained there, and get an honest appraisal of the training. It's your money, spend it wisely.