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Hi, my name is Keith Charley. I have been shooting guns for most of my life. I am an active police officer right now. I’ve been a police officer for 16 years. Started out with the New York City Police Department and I have moved on to the Suffolk County Police Department where I am currently active as a patrol officer. I have been shooting recreationally my entire life.

In my police career, I’ve earned Distinguished Expert every year in all my training exercises and I’ve taken several, several schools and training academies over the years to further my own skills and I’ve firearms. I really love to shoot. I think it’s one of the best hobbies you could have. It’s a lot of fun. It’s part of my career, so my proficiency at it is definitely very important, but also it’s a lot of fun. You go to the range. The target shooting, it’s amazing.

I also teach at an academy here in New York City. We teach everything from intro, the basic NRA intro course to basic pistol handling to tactical classes. We do security classes. We have a lot of really great, great pistol tactics we teach. The name of that school is the Cramaga Academy.

You can check us out at cramagasolutions.com. We hope to hear from you. I hope everyone that’s been watching this series has learned a lot from it. Maybe I’ve inspired someone to take up shooting and when done the right way, guns are very safe, they’re a lot of fun and it can be a great hobby. Just remember, guns don’t kill people, people do.

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Today we’re going to talk about how to oil a gun.

There’s several types of guns out there and most guns take apart and go back together differently, different parts. But for the most part on a gun, any main moving part inside the gun needs a little bit of oil once the gun has been cleaned.

This here is a Glock 23. It’s already taken apart. I’m going to show you the typical moving parts that would get oiled. This is gun oil. On a gun like this you want to lubricate the rails, which are these metal parts here because that’s where the slide will be sliding. So, again, anything that’s moving has to be oiled or you’re going to have a problem.

So what you would do is one little drop, less is more with this, on each of the 4 rails. Now, when you pull the trigger, you see this mechanism here moving? You’re going to get just a little oil in there, lubricate any kind of springs, anything moving but never too much. You don’t want to put too much oil in.

That’s all you have to oil on this. When I’m oiling my guns, what I also like to do is I like to take a dab of oil on the outside of the barrel and I would rub it around. That just lubricates everything because the slide does slide around the barrel and what I would also do, these are typical cleaning pads, I’ll put one of these cleaning pads on the pull here and I will put a little oil here and I’ll run it through the barrel. You want a nice coat of oil on the inside of the barrel.

There are other guns that get oiled differently. Which is right here, you would just do each cylinder individually and oil any moving parts on the cylinder here. But otherwise it’s pretty much the same with all guns. Just get those moving parts and make sure they’re oiled well but not too much oil.

And that’s how you oil a gun.

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Today we’re going to talk about some gun cleaning basics and tips.

First thing you want to do before you clean a gun is make sure the gun is safe and empty. So you want to move your ammo source. And check the gun and make sure it’s empty.

Once you’ve done that you’re going to disassemble the gun. All guns are going to disassemble a little differently than others and are going to clean differently. But basically, the first thing you want to do when you take a gun apart is anything that would get dirty from shooting you want to make sure it gets cleaned.

So there’s a few ways to do this. You have spray cleaners like this which you can take and spray parts of the gun. Or you can use a regular cleaner and you can dip it and clean the gun.

What I like to use is an old toothbrush. Once you spray it or get some solvent on there, give everything a good scrub. Get all that dirt off. Anywhere you can get that toothbrush, just give it a good cleaning.

Then you’re going to take a clean rag and just wipe it down. Get all the gunk out.

I also like to use these cotton tip applicators. You can get them at a medical supply store or drug store. They’re great for getting into little places and getting things clean. These are very good.

Once the gun’s cleaned, another very important part is the barrel. To clean the barrel, you’re going to take your bore cleaning brush. These are specific for each caliber of gun so you have to have one for each caliber of gun that you have because they’re different sizes to fit the diameter of the barrel. What you’re going to do is just put a little solvent on the brush and just run it through the barrel a few times.

After you do that, you’re going to switch tips on the pole and put a patch, a clean patch to the tip. You’re going to put it on this pole here and you’re also going to run that through the barrel to get any solvent, any dirt, anything that’s left in there out of the barrel.

And then what I like to do is put one more of these on, dab some oil on it, and run that through the barrel just to put a light coating of oil in the barrel.

Once you’re done with that it’s pretty much just check everything, make sure everything’s clean and oil the gun.

Every gun’s going to be a little bit different but those basic steps will get any gun clean.

And that’s basic tips on how to clean a gun.

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Today, we’re going to talk a little bit about how to store a gun at home safely. When storing guns in your home, the first thing that you have to decide is where you’re going to store them, what part of your house and what kind of guns are going to be stored. Do you have handguns, long guns, maybe a combination of both. There are hundreds and hundreds of commercially available safes out there in various sizes from standing floor safes that can be five, six feet tall to little tiny safes. So, it just basically depends on your needs and wants for the gun.

If you’re storing a large amount, a floor safe is a good bet. You can hide them in a closet or in a basement, wherever you want to put them. Generally, you can secure them with a bolt through the wall to the studs making them hard to move and you can pretty store everything you have, handguns, rifles, ammunition. Everything can go in these. There are other ways to store guns.

If you want a gun say, maybe you want a pistol readily accessible near your bed when you’re sleeping, they have small safes that’ll hold one or two pistols. They’ll have either a quick combination, sometimes they have a hand indent on the top where you can set your own combination. You just put your hand on it and hit a series of button. It’ll open right up.

Also they have biometricsafes which when you put your hand on the latch it reads your fingerprint. As soon as it reads your fingerprint it pops open and the gun’s right in your hand. Those can be programmed for multiple people. So, say you have family members, a spouse, or someone else living in the house that you want to also have access to that gun, you can do that. It’ll also prevent any unauthorized access from anyone else in the house.

Shot unlocks are a very popular home safety tool too. If you want to keep a shotgun say, handy in a closet in a bedroom whilst still keeping it secure and locked, they have what’s called a shot lock which is just a metal box that you would bolt into the wall and it’s just a door. It opens up. You put the shotgun in and close it and it has a preprogrammed combination which you can set yourself and hit a button, turn the knob, the door opens and your shotgun is ready.

They’re excellent. I highly recommend them. I have one myself. They’re very good. They’re very safe. The bottom line here is you want to be safe. You don’t want any children or any unauthorized people, people that don’t know how to handle a gun to get a hold of your weapons. So, the biggest thing here is to just make sure those guns are locked away in the safe and that safe is secure because no sense having a gun in a safe if someone could steal the safe. These are a few ways on how to safeguard your guns at home.

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Today we’re going to talk about how to use a gun safety lock. First thing you want to do when you want to lock up a gun and make it safe is to make sure the gun is empty. So, first thing you do is remove your magazine, lock back your slide and make sure your gun is empty. From there, you want to lock the action back on the gun, like this.

Typical gun safety lock is an example of one, it’s a cable lock. There are other kinds. We’ll get into that in a second, but for a cable lock what you want to do is you want to put the cable into the gun and have it come out through the ejection port. You’re going to bring it around and lock it into itself. Once you remove the key, the gun can’t be loaded or fired. Doesn’t prevent the gun from being stolen or taken, but the gun can’t be used with the lock. Magazine can’t be inserted, bullet can’t be loaded into the chamber.

To remove the lock you just unlock it and remove it from the gun. This can be used on virtually any type of gun. If you have a revolver, let’s say you can open up the cylinder and just wrap it through to prevent the cylinder from being closed or you can actually run it through a cylinder. Either way the rounds can’t be loaded and the cylinder can’t be closed, so the gun lock is effective. For rifles all you have to do is open up the action and put this through. It’ll keep the gun from being used.

There’s also what they have called trigger locks. It’s just a little lock that will go on either side of a trigger and lock itself and it prevents the trigger from being pulled. Both are very effective ways to lock up the gun as long as you remember to keep the gun in a secure place as well. That’s how to use a gun safety lock.

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Today, we’re going to talk about some gun safety tips. There’s lots of things you could do to be safe with a gun. The first most important thing is if you’re a beginner, you should take a licensed NRA course. They’ll teach you all the basics, shooting, safety, everything. Get you ready to shoot.

Other safety tips, the first thing you want to always remember is a gun is always loaded. Rule number one, no matter what happens you always treat a gun as if it’s loaded. There’s so many accidents, so many things that happen that you can never be too careful with a gun. So, whenever you’re picking up a gun and handling it, the first thing you want to do is you open up a gun and check and make sure it is empty. Someone hands it to you and tells you it’s empty, no, you don’t take their word for it. You do it yourself. You always be sure to make sure the gun is empty.

That being said, even with knowing it’s empty, never point that gun in an unsafe direction, at a person, anywhere where if it did go off it would do damage. You always, always treat a gun as if it’s loaded. When you’re shooting, a very good safe tip is keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot though we see people want to grab a gun and just put their finger on the trigger right away.

It’s a beginner’s instinct and you want to always avoid whenever you’re grabbing a gun, keep your finger like this. You know, if you’re aiming, when you’re getting ready, anything you do you want to keep your finger like this until you are ready to shoot. Then you could put your finger on the trigger and pull it. Very important. Always keep your finger out of that trigger until you’re ready to shoot.

Safety at home. I recommend a safe. A nice, heavy gun safe that you can bolt into a wall into the studs that it can’t be taken out of your house and keeps kids away. Keeps if someone were to break into your house from taking the safe out of the house. Guns in drawers and under beds and under pillows is a terrible idea. Kids get into everything.

So, to be safe at home please put your gun in a safe, lock it up, keep it away from kids or anyone else that’s not supposed to have the gun. Keep your ammunition separate from the guns and do not keep those guns loaded until you need them. Those are some basic gun safety tips.

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Today, we’re going to talk about how to conceal a gun. If you’re carrying a gun concealed, that pretty much means you don’t want anyone to know you have it. So, the first thing you have to do is decide which gun you’re going to carry and where on your body you want to carry it. Your most common place to carry a gun is somewhere on your waist. Usually in the very front or around the side, so you can access it easily.

If that’s going to be done, you have pretty much two options. You have an inside of the pants holster or an on the belt holster. An inside of the pants holster such as this allows the gun to go inside and the whole gun tucks inside your waist and just this clip will clip on the outside of your belt. It’s easily concealed. You can wear a t-shirt. Sometimes with smaller guns you can actually tuck a shirt in just pull it out a little bit to cover the handle. It’s probably one of the more preferred methods to conceal a gun that works very well.

Another way to conceal the gun on your waist would be a regular belt holster such as this. This holster has loops right here. You would thread your belt through it and put it on your waist and you just put the gun in. Its got a strap that would lock the gun into place, so it can’t be pulled out too easily and you would wear it on your holster, but to conceal this you would need to have to be wearing a jacket. Pull the shirt up and you have to put it in the right spot because a very important aspect of concealing a gun is not having a big bulge on the side where someone can look at you and say oh, he’s carrying a gun. So, that’s very important to think about too.

Another way to conceal a gun would be an ankle holster. You’d put mostly smaller guns in an ankle holster like such and you just wrap it around your ankle nice and tight as long as you have pants with a little bit wider of a cut to cover it. Once again, you don’t want that bulge sticking out to give away that you are carrying a gun.

The last method we have here for concealing a gun would be a shoulder holster. Once again, these are more for law enforcement typically, detectives or undercover officers that carry these. You wear them on your shoulders, but you’d have to cover it with a jacket or some kind of outer garment to prevent the gun from being seen. So, that’s not really one of my favorite methods, but these are generally the best, the most popular ways to conceal guns.

There are other ways [inaudible 00:02:07] available. They have undergarments you could wear that have pockets. There’s shirts you can buy on websites that have specially made pockets for guns. There’s so many ways, but these are the most popular and why I feel the most effective. Now, these are the ways to conceal [inaudible 00:02:22] handgun.

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Today I’m going to talk about how to carry a handgun. There’s several different ways to carry a handgun. First of all, you have to decide whether you’re going to be carrying concealed or not concealed. Then you have to look at your purposes, are you carrying for law enforcement purposes? Are you carrying at the range? There’s a lot of things you have to decide on. I have a few examples of different ways to carry a gun. Unconcealed, you have mostly hip mounted holsters. You have a variety that go on the outside of your belt, usually they hook right on, the guns will slide right in.

Also, they have holsters that will slide into your pants, they’ll be outside your belt or inside your belt depending on what you’re doing. One tactical holster that a lot of law enforcement uses, especially SWAT teams, maybe military special forces, they’ll use a tactical leg holster, which is right here. What this does is this brings the gun down on your leg for an easier grab because when your arm drops down your natural place it’s going to be is on your leg not on your hip. So a lot of people prefer having the gun down there for easy access. Another very popular method, more popular in law enforcement with detectives, people working in plain clothes or undercover assignments, is a shoulder holster. A shoulder holster is worn on the shoulders, it goes around the back to the other side, typically it will hold a gun on one side like this and usually it will hold a spare magazine or two like this one does.

Another common way to carry a gun, usually smaller guns, is what’s called an ankle holster. Typically Velcro like this, it’s padded on the inside for comfort and what you’ll do is you’ll put a small frame gun in it like such and you can strap it in and then you just wrap it around your ankle nice and tight and it’s there for getting to. But it’s a little hard to get to so I generally tend to stay away from these. Another very popular method is carrying concealed holsters. Concealed holsters are when you want to carry a gun, but you don’t want anyone to see it. My personal favorite would be an in the pants holster. It looks like this, it’s just a holster with a clip and what you would do is you would slide the gun into it and you could also hold an extra magazine in here, then you would tuck it into your pants and this clip would wrap around the outside of the belt and hold it in place so when you draw the gun out the holster doesn’t come out with it; it’ll stay where it’s suppose to be. And these are some typical ways to carry a gun.

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Today we’re going to talk about what is a .44 magnum. A 44 Magnum, as you can see by the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle, is a very, very powerful round. Magnum designation comes from a, originally a .44 was a regular round, and what they did was they made it a little bigger, with a little more gunpowder to get more velocity, more [starting] power, hence the Magnum designation.

Several bullets come in Magnum sizes such as the .44 Magnum, and the .357 Magnum.

There is also .22 Magnum rifle cartridges which are a little bit bigger and longer than a typical .22. But for our purposes the .44 Magnum is a little bit larger, a little bit more powerful than a regular .44 round, which you don’t see very often anyway. It has incredible firing and stopping power, as evidenced by the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle which is one of the more powerful guns in existence. And that’s a little bit about what a .44 Magnum is.

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Today we’re going to talk about what is a gun’s caliber. A commonly heard word is “caliber” of a gun. You hear whether it’s a 45 caliber or you hear sometimes in metric is a 9mm.

Basically a caliber is the diameter of the projectile fired or the barrel itself. It’s broken down and so if you see, this for example is a 44 magnum shell for the very popular Desert Eagle. It showing .44 but it’s pronounced 44 caliber, when you’re pronouncing it you’re going to drop the decimal point. And what that means is it’s .44 of an inch. So 44 caliber is .44 of an inch. And typically, the larger the caliber of a gun, the more powerful the gun is. You have 22’s, which are a very small caliber, .22 of an inch, up to for pistols 44 and 50 caliber. And then you of course have your rifle calibers.

They have several subtle different difference, but typically the caliber is the diameter of the barrel or the projectile being fired. And I drop the decimal point to pronounce it. I hope that clears up any questions you might have of what is a gun’s caliber.

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Today we’re going to talk about rimfire versus center fire cartridges. Rimfire and center fire cartridges are the two cartridges used in guns today. We’ll start with rimfire.

Rimfire was the first cartridge that was developed back in 1800s. Basically the back of a rimfire cartridge has no primer in the back. The entire back of the cartridge itself, is the striking surface. So, when the gun’s firing pane will strike the back, as long as it hits anywhere here, it will ignite and that will fire down range. Your next type of round is what’s called a center fire. If you look in here, you’ll see in the center of the round, there’s the primer.

The firing pane will strike this primer and ignite the round and send this down range. The difference between the two rounds is, a center fire round is the most commonly used round today, they’re much cheaper to manufacture, and they can handle a lot more powerful, higher caliber bullets. The rimfires are generally 22 caliber rounds and smaller rounds such as that, the cases of them generally can’t handle the bigger, more poweful rounds. Besides 22’s today, you really very rarely will see a rimfire cartridge out there. And that’s the difference between rimfire and center fire cartidges.

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Today we’re going to talk about types of bullets and the anatomy of a bullet.

What’s commonly referred to as a bullet is really called a shell or a cartridge. The bullet is actually just the end that will project out of a shell.

There’s several types of bullets or shells or cartridges out there available. You have pistol ammunition, rifle ammunition, shotguns. We have several here to talk about.

We’ll start with rifles. This is a typical rifle round. This is for a 308 rifle. The rifles are generally larger, more powerful rounds for longer distances. The cartridges are made up of several aspects here.

You have what’s the shell which is the silver part you see here. The shell is full of gunpowder and the bullet or the projectile is inserted into the top.

On the rear of the bullet you’ll see a round circle, right here, that’s the primer. The primer is a small little explosive packet which makes a spark so when the firing pin for the gun strikes the primer, it creates a spark which will in turn ignite the gunpowder inside the round causing an explosion, forcing the bullet out of the barrel of the gun to your intended target.

There’s several types of other kinds of bullets. We have shotgun bullets, which is pictured here. This is a 12-gauge double-ought buck shotgun round.

The way this works is there’s about 8 or 9 large pellets inside this round. When fired, they will leave the barrel of the gun and spread out in a pattern covering a wider range.

We have several pistol rounds. First we have here, this is a 40 caliber hollow point round. Hollow points are generally used for law enforcement, security purposes. The reason for that is if you look here, it’s hollow and there’s little cuts in the round. What that does is when this round passes into a person or an object or whatever the intended target is, it will spread out and mushroom and stay inside the intended target causing maximum damage with these pieces because they splinter out, but it will not exit the intended target.

Another popular handgun round is what’s called the full metal jacket round. This is a rounded ball-shaped projectile. This will pass through a lot of intended targets, especially at a closer range, while the bullet still has a lot of velocity. Very commonly used for target practice and general civilian use.

We also have, very popular, 22. This is a 22 rifle round. This is what’s called a rim fire. If you look at the back, there’s no primer in the back. The whole back of the casing is the primer. So wherever the firing pin strikes is good enough. There’s no primer there. But this is a very, very popular round. Very inexpensive. Probably the most popular round out there today.

And that’s an overview of bullets and the anatomy of the bullet.

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Today we’re going to talk about how to buy ammunition. When looking to buy ammunition for any particular gun, first thing you do is decide which type of gun you’re going to buy the ammunition for. Once you know that, you have to think about what the ammunition is going to be used for, whether it’s hunting, home defense, personal protection, law enforcement, or just general target shooting. There’s different kind of ammunition for everything. General target shooting is probably the most popular out there for the public.

A general target round would be something like this; it’s got a flat head, it’s not real good for hunting, or any kind of personal protection, but it’s good for hitting targets. It’s going to minimize the risk of ricochet and such and they’re usually the cheapest rounds to get. When you start getting into full metal jacket rounds, and hollow points and such, they start to get a lot more expensive. Hunting rounds generally are going to be rifle rounds. They’re going to be specific for the type of hunting rifle or shotgun you’re going use for your hunting.

Personal protection and self-defense round generally should be hollow point rounds; they tend to stay in one target if you are shooting at a target. They won’t pass through (they’ll splinter out and cause maximum damage to your intended target and minimal chance of passing through and damaging something that was not intended. When you’re buying ammunition, the first thing you do is know your local laws. A lot of states have regulations, especially for pistol ammunition.

Most states will require that you have a pistol license even to sell you ammunition. Some states will even require licensing for rifle and shotgun ammunition, it depends. So, your best bet is to look up your local and state laws. Let that guide you on how to buy ammunition, otherwise go to your local gun dealer and they can help you out as well. That’s how to buy ammunition.

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Today we’re going to discuss basic gun shop etiquette.

When purchasing a gun, the first thing you need to do is find a gun shop. The easiest way to do this, if you don’t know where one is already, you can look online, you can do a search, if you have the local yellow pages, find a gun shop that’s close to you. If you talk to people sometimes certain people will recommend some shops over others, depending on the sales people and the level of help that you get and the selection at the stores.

When you find the store and you go in, it can be very intimidating. Myself, sometimes I’d walk around, not knowing anybody and you can be intimidated. Don’t be. At most gun shops, the people are very happy to help, they’re just usually busy. Just go on in, look around, grab someone that’s working there and ask your questions. Everyone was a beginner or a first time shooter at some point so believe me, they are more than happy to help you out, answer any questions, they’ll help you select the right gun for you. If you have questions regarding licensing or anything else, they’re more than happy to do it. Most gun shops believe in helping with the paperwork and they’ll help you get the licenses.

When you’re at the gun shop, one thing you want to always remember is if you have gun on you, first of all you make sure it’s always unloaded. You don’t want to bring a gun into a gun shop and take it out. They don’t like that. if there are guns there, do not touch them unless you’re talking to a salesman and they give you the gun, they allow it. Don’t ever load a gun, also, while you’re there. That’s a big no-no at a gun shop. And that’s about it.

The gun shop is like any other store. You go in, you talk to the people, you find out what you want and get it and enjoy. And that’s basic gun shop etiquette.

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Today we’re going to talk about how to buy a gun. When you are looking to buy a gun, the first thing you need to do is take a training course and learn the basics of shooting and gun safety. Once you’ve done that, you need to check with your local municipality, whether you’re in a town, a city, or county, and see what their specific rules are for owning guns and for licensing. They’re going to vary from state to state, county to county, different countries, where ever you are, there’s different rules.

Once you’ve decided on your licensing requirements and you’ve fulfilled them, you got your license, you go to your local gun store and you have to decide which is the right gun for you. You could talk to the salesmen, there’s help online, there’s books, anything you want to get. You can decide whether you want a rifle, a pistol, or a shotgun. Whatever it is there’s plenty of ways to find that out and avenues to get help for that. So just do a little bit of research, find out whats perfect for you, and you buy it. And then, enjoy yourself. Get some ammo and go to the range and have fun.

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A lot of factors come into play when you’re trying to decide which is the right gun for you. First thing you gotta think about: What do I want the gun for? You want it for home defense, personal protection to carry, are you going to the shooting range just to do target shooting, are you going to do competition shooting, maybe even go hunting? So first step, decide what you’re going to use the gun for. After that, once you decide that, you need to check with all of your local laws.

They vary from different states, different counties, towns, municipalities. Everyone has got their own laws, so the first thing you want to do is check with your local municipality, make sure you’re not breaking any laws, and find out your licensing requirements. Some places will require a license for anything, some just for pistols, some don’t require licenses, so it depends on where you live. Once you’ve gotten that figured out, there’s some things you want to think about. Home defense: my opinion, the best weapon for home defense, especially for someone who is not very proficient with guns, would be a shotgun. This is a 12-gauge pump shotgun.

It’s pistol grip with a fold-out stock. This is an ideal weapon for home defense. It’s very simple to use. It doesn’t require a high level of skill for aiming. You can pretty much even hold it like this and shoot it, the bullets they fire, the pattern spreads out, so it’s very, very good for home defense. Not to mention that the telltale sound of a shotgun racking, unmistakable that someone breaking into your house or you were using it for defense, they hear that, they’re going to know that you have a shotgun and they’re going to leave.

If you’re going for target shooting there’s plenty to pick from. You have pistols, you have rifles, you have to decide what’s right for you. If you’re a larger person, some of the larger caliber guns are going to be good. Smaller frame people with smaller hands, they might want to go with a smaller caliber like a 380 or a 38 maybe or a 9mm. Hunting: you have rifles and shotguns. There’s a huge variety of guns for that. And you really just have to decide what you want to shoot and what you’re comfortable with. And take the right training courses and happy shooting. And that’s how to choose a gun for you.

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Today we’re going to talk about different types of guns on the market today. What I like to do is we like to categorize guns. There are two different kinds. Basically, you have handguns and long guns. Once you have that, you can categorize them into different subcategories. With handguns, for example, you have automatics such as this Desert Eagle here. Automatics, they’re magazine fed and they’re automatic, which means every time you fire the weapon, the gas propels the slide back and forth, which ejects the old round and automatically puts a new round in. So you don’t have to do anything but pull the trigger, pull the trigger, pull the trigger. The gun does all the work.

Revolvers, on the other hand, they have a cylinder. This is a .357 magnum and you can put six bullets in. Put your six bullets in, and now, you have to pull the trigger each time. Every time you pull the trigger, this cylinder will move and put the next bullet in line for you to shoot. Pull the trigger each time, the cylinder moves. It’s all done manually. These are very reliable and less likely to jam and give you problems than an automatic, but they also hold less rounds.

When you’re talking about long guns, you have rifles and shotguns. You also have what’s called sub-machine guns. They’re kind of in the middle between pistols and rifles. This is an Uzi 9mm sub-machine gun. It’s very small and compact. It shoots 9mm, so it’s decently powerful. The stock can be extended for longer, more accurate shooting. It’s a very good gun and very fun to shoot.

Shotguns and rifles, you have shotguns. This is a Mossberg 12-gauge Pump Action shotgun. It’s very good for certain kinds of hunting and excellent for home defense. This is a pistol grip. I have added a fold-out stock, so from pistol grip, you can make it a full-size shotgun. A little more support, it’s a little easier to shoot this way. You also have several, several types of rifles on the market. You have hunting and sniper rifles which are usually bolt action, which you can see behind me.

Also, you have several, several types of assault rifles on the market. There are a few examples behind as well. Those are higher capacity, very powerful and very long-range weapons. This is a basic overview of different types of guns on the market today.

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Today we’re going to talk about understanding the different parts of a gun.

There’s several types of guns out there and they’re all different but most of them have a lot of similarities.

We’ll start with an automatic pistol such as this right here. The basic parts of this gun. You have the frame which is bottom with the handle and the trigger guard, and you have the slide which is on the top which moves back and forth.

Now inside the slide, you have the barrel which is where the bullet will spin and come out of, and inside here you also have your firing pin. The firing pin is what comes out and hits the bullet causing it to fire.

Behind the firing pin on every gun is some kind of hammer. The hammer hits the pin making the pin hit the bullet and making it go off.

Most of these guns have a concealed hammer, some of them have an exposed hammer. We’ll show you both of those today.

Another part of the gun as far as an automatic is you have your magazine. The magazine goes in the bottom. This is what holds your ammunition.

The magazine well is right here. This is where the magazine goes. Insert it in, that’s how you’re going to load the gun.

Those are pretty much all the standard parts of the gun. Also you have the trigger, which is right here, which you pull the trigger, causes the hammer to hit the firing pin, which causes the gun to go off.

Another very important part on an automatic is what’s called the slide release. When the slide is locked back like this, a little button, it’s on this side here, when you depress that, it releases the slide which will load a round into the chamber.

Those are your basic parts of a handgun. The only difference for a revolver on a handgun was this is your exposed hammer which I referred to, it’s on the outside. You can see it.

And you have a cylinder instead of a magazine in this gun. The cylinder will hold your ammunition. This will hold 6. Put them in, load them in. Every time you pull the trigger, the cylinder turns and a new round is loaded. Otherwise the components are still the same.

When it comes to long guns, a lot of the similar components have the same names. One shotguns, you have what is called the pump which is right here. The pump is what will load a round into the chamber. The rounds are stored inside this housing here and every time you hit this pump it will eject the spent round that was just shot and load a new one in at the same time.

Otherwise the components are all the same. You have the grip, the trigger, your firing pin’s in here.

You also have rifles which are pictured behind me. They all have similar components. They have upper and lower receivers. The triggers and the firing pins, everything works pretty much the same as the pistols, they’re just a little bit bigger and sometimes the rifles have a few more parts added.

But this is basically a general overview of the different parts of a gun.

Transcript

Today we’re going to talk about how a gun works. Now, there are several types of guns out there in lockers today and they all work differently, but they all share a lot of common similarities. So, basically a gun, the first thing it needs is ammunition such as this. This is a 44 caliber bullet. You would load this into the gun.

Guns load different ways. Some guns like automatics, you would load your ammunition into a magazine which would go into the gun. You have revolvers which load into a cylinder, shot guns, there’s several types of guns, but they all feed the ammunition somehow.

Once the ammunition is fed into the gun, it’ll be loaded into the barrel. When that bullet is loaded in the barrel a trigger is pulled. When the trigger is pulled what happens is there’s a hammer that will hit into a firing pin. The firing pin will hit the back of this which is called the arm and that will cause an explosion igniting the gunpowder in the round and sending the projectile, which is called the bullet, out of the barrel into your intended target.

It’s a general overview of how a gun works. Automatics you have to manually rack, but then each time you shoot it will automatically load a new bullet whereas revolvers you have to pull the trigger each time and it turns the cylinder. Once the gun is loaded, you also need to aim the gun. When aiming a gun you have sites on the gun. This here is called fixed sites. They’re built onto the gun. There are no optics, no scopes or anything like that. These are called iron sites.

Basically, you have two posts in the back and one in the front. What you’re going to do is you’re going to look at your target and you want to line up the front site in the middle of the rear sites so they’re even and they make one straight line. You’re going to take that line and underline your target. When you gently pull the trigger that’s how you aim a gun and shoot the gun as well. This has been a general overview of how a gun works.

Transcript

Today, we’re going to talk about some common jams in semi-automatic pistols and how to clear them. The first jam clearing drill we want to talk about is you pull your weapon out, you go to fire and nothing happens. Okay, the first thing you do, tap the bottom of the magazine to make sure that the magazine is properly seated and rack the gun and then fire.
That right there is going to clear most of your common jams.

The second common jam you’re going to find with a gun is which is called a double feed. With a double feed you have a round in the chamber and another round is attempting to be loaded into the chamber behind it causing the two bullets to push up against each other and jam the gun. So, you’re shooting, all of a sudden nothing happens, you’re going to look at your gun. When you look down, you’re going to see the double feed. You’ll see the two bullets behind each other, so you’re going to remove your magazine.

When you pull your magazine out, you’re going to work the slide a couple times to make sure you clear any rounds that are left in the chamber. You’re going to reinsert your magazine and rack it again. From there the gun fires as normal, locks back showing the gun is empty.

The third common jam you’re going to come across is which is called a stove pipe. A stove pipe is when you have either a spent casing or a live round which is half ejected from the ejection port, sticking out of the gun like this and it’s preventing the slide from going forward. So, once again, you’re firing, the gun stops firing, you’re going to look and see what you have. You look at the gun, you see the stove pipe and you’re going to remove the magazine and work the gun several times making sure to clear the jam. Put your magazine source back in and rack the gun and continue firing. That is how to clear the three most common jams you’re going to come across while firing.

Transcript

Today we’re going to discuss how to load the magazine for a semi-automatic pistol.

First thing you do is you take the magazine. I like to use my left hand. Get a nice firm grip on it. Take your rounds in your right hand. What I do is for the first round, I’m going to push it straight down with my thumb. You want to go in and clear the little rails here and just slide the round in.

From there you can use the thumb on this hand to help push it down a little bit. Just apply downward pressure with your thumb and push the next one down and in. And just keep loading them in that fashion.

Straight down. Clear the rails. And in. There.

For larger capacity magazines you want to every few rounds, maybe ten rounds or so, smack it on something maybe the hard surface of your hand just to make sure all the rounds are evenly seeded.

For people out there who may have a hand injury or maybe not as strong in their hands and their thumbs, they have several items on the market for easy loading or speed loading. This for the Glock comes with the Glock pistols. You would slide this on and then the inside of this will push down on the round. So you can just push down with your thumb and you can see it pushes them down. And it’s just kind of an assist. It helps you to get the rounds in. It’s not always easier for someone that’s used to doing it the other way but like I said if you have a hand injury or your thumbs or hands aren’t strong, a speed loader like this will definitely help.

There’s another type of speed loader on the market for larger magazines. This is a 9mm magazine for an Uzi sub-machine gun. There’s loaders like this. You would put it on top like this and then you could load a few rounds on the top. A lot of rifles and larger capacity weapons have loaders like this. And then all you do is push them straight down. There’s 32 rounds in this magazine so it takes awhile to load it. It kind of hurts on your thumbs. So speed loaders like this will definitely help.

And that’s how to load a magazine for a semi-automatic pistol.

Transcript

Today we’re going to talk about some basic shooting fundamentals.

First thing, when shooting, you want to think about is your position. With your position is your stance. You either have your isosceles stance like this or you’re taking your weaver stance like such.

From there you want to talk about aiming. Aiming is broken down into two parts. You have sight alignment and picture alignment.

With sight alignment, you’re going to line up your sights, you have your rear sights and your front sights. Your rear sights have two posts spread apart, and your front sight is a single post. What you want to do is you’re going to look down the gun and you’re going to line up the rear sights with the front sights so you see the front sight post lined up in the middle of the two rear sights. And you’re going to make sure they’re even and level with even space on either side of them so when you bring the gun up to your target, they look like one straight line across.

Which is going to take you into picture alignment. You want to underline your target with the line that your sight’s created and you’re going to focus on your front sight. This is very important. Your rear sight and your target are going to be blurry in your vision and all of your focus is going to be concentrated on your front sight.
So when you aim, the front sight comes into view, you’ve aligned your picture.

The next thing from there, we’re going to talk about your breathing control. Breathing is very important when you’re shooting. As you line up your sight, right before you pull the trigger you want to take a nice breath, exhale just a little bit, and then stop. You stop breathing just a moment, you fire your shot, and then you continue your breathing. The longer you hold the breath, the more tremors you’re going to have and your hands will shake and your aiming will be off.

The next thing we’re going to talk about is trigger control. Trigger control is very important.

Where you place your finger on the trigger will definitely affect your shot. You want to touch the trigger halfway between the tip of your finger and the first line. So right in the middle, you’re going to put that part on the trigger. If your finger is too far one way or the other, you’re going to shoot left or right. So you want to be right in the middle and have a good firm grip on the gun.

If you hold the gun loosely, your shot will be off or your gun could actually jam. So you want to get a nice firm grip, line up your finger on the trigger, and squeeze your trigger.

Another thing to remember with trigger pull is you want to, once you’re lined up with your finger on the trigger, you want to pull the trigger nice and smooth and steady. You don’t want to anticipate the shot. You want to create a surprise break. So your body is not anticipating the shot. When you anticipate, you’re going to tense up, you’re going to push forward causing your shots to go low.

From there we want to talk about follow through. With follow through you want to make sure to do every one of these fundamentals every time, step by step, for every shot insuring the most accurate shots possible.

And those are the five basic fundamentals of accurate shooting.

Transcript

Today we’re going to talk about different shooting stances.

There are two basic shooting stances that are used mostly today. They are the weaver stance and the isosceles stance.

The weaver stance is the typical stance for most target shooting. A lot of law enforcement academies used to teach this way. You’re going to stand bladed so your lead foot is going to be a little bit forward, your rear foot’s going to take a step back and be at a little bit to the side. So you have a nice, nice firm base. Your rear hand is going to be straight, almost locked out. Your support hand is going to be bent. All right? And then you can lean forward with your cheek to aim the gun.

This is a nice comfortable stance. It lends itself to good accuracy. And it’s used mostly for range shooting and sport shooting.

The other stance I’d like to talk about is the isosceles stance. This is when you’re straight-facing your target and both arms are straight. Knees are bent. Your back is straight. And your arms are out like this.

This is more of a combat stance. Police, military. This is a very strong stance. It allows you to scan in all directions. No blind spots. Whereas the weaver stance, when you’re like this, this area here is in your field of view but as you start going this way you’re kind of going to be off-balance and it’s out of your line of sight. So for police and combat shooting, I feel this is the better stance.

When you take your stance, you want to shoot your arms out, bend your knees a bit, and you aim and fire like this. This allows you to move, move your feet, gives you a very solid base.

So from here, we’re going to shoot with our two stances. Once again, the isosceles stance. Knees bent, arms out forward, you’re firing like this.

The weaver stance. You put your rear foot back, out to the right a little bit. You’re firing like such.

And those are the two basic shooting stances used today.

Transcript

Today we’re going to discuss some shooting range safety tips.

The first thing you want to think about when you’re going to the shooting range is to make sure that you’re not drinking any alcohol or under the influence of any type of prescription or recreational drugs. It’s very important. You want to have a good sound state of mind when you’re shooting.

The second thing, it’s very important. Ear protection and eye protection. It’s very important to wear these when you’re shooting to protect yourself from any flying debris, loud noises and stuff like that.

Once you get out to the range you want to remember to always keep the muzzle of your gun pointed in a safe direction. The gun is always loaded. You’ve got to treat it as such. And you never point a gun anywhere but down range.

You also want to keep your finger off the trigger until the moment you are ready to shoot. When you’re lining up, you keep your finger straight. Ready to pull that trigger, that’s when you put that finger on that trigger and you pull the trigger.

When you’re not shooting you want to keep the action on your gun open and the gun unloaded. It’s very important to avoid any type of accident.

You also want to know your fire arm and your ammunition. You want to be familiar with your gun. How to fix it if there’s a problem. Make sure you have the right ammunition for the gun. You don’t want to have any problems. You can jam up a gun really good with the wrong ammunition or potentially cause a problem that could injure or kill someone.

It’s a good idea to have one caliber of ammunition in a gun at a time. That way you don’t get confused and maybe accidentally add the wrong ammo to a gun, once again causing a serious problem for your gun.

You’ve got to know and obey all the rules and commands of the particular range you’re at. Most ranges will have a set of rules and directions posted. Just read them over. Know the specific rules for that place. They’re going to explain everything to do to be safe at the range.

Also when you’re on a firing line, if there’s any problems, you have a jam, if there’s a range officer, just raise your hand. Don’t turn around with your gun and start pointing your gun around. Raise your hand. Someone will come over and help you if you need assistance.

Also, you never, ever, ever go down range until the firing has stopped. If there’s a range officer, they’ll usually blow a whistle or sound a horn and everyone will put their guns down. And then if you need to go down range to change targets or to pick up something that was dropped, you can do so at that time.

Lastly, it’s just very important to remember, treat every gun as if it was loaded. No matter what. If you know you unloaded it, treat it as if it was loaded because you never can be too careful and mistakes do happen, accidents do happen, and we want to avoid that.

And those are some range safety tips.