SIGARMS Academy built its reputation with law enforcement, military and concealed carry training courses. Now the academy is in the process of expanding the curriculum to include practical pistol competition.

To kick off the new program, SIG invited guest instructor Bruce Gray to teach his two-day Practical Fundamentals Competition Course. Bruce has a long history as a Grand Master competitor and is one of the top gunsmiths in the country. He's also an old friend from my California days and is an occasional contributor to Handguns.

As a prerequisite to the course, students must have had some practical pistol experience. For those who needed a little refresher, Bruce taught his Skill Builder pistol course the day before the Practical Fundamentals course.

As a special New Hampshire welcome for Bruce, it snowed 18 inches during his Skill Builder class on that day in March. Thankfully, as I arrived the following day the sun was shining from a beautiful blue sky, and the temperature was a balmy 38 degrees.

SIG's Paul Erhardt and Chris Gosselin greeted me and gave me a quick tour of the academy. The newness and cleanliness of the facility were very apparent.

I've been in dirtier hospitals, nevermind indoor range facilities.

Once students were settled into their seats, Bruce Gray took center stage. He asked the students to give a little background on their shooting experience. This was followed by a safety briefing where all guns were checked to make sure that they were unloaded. Ammunition was not allowed in the classroom.

Bruce Gray demonstrates proper trigger control while shooting a tight group.

Of the 15 students in attendance, 14 had SIGs of various models. SIG doesn't require those attending classes at the academy to use its products, but I'm sure the high percentage of SIG pistols did not go unnoticed.

Bruce began by humbly telling the class, "What I'm going to teach you has been stolen from people better than me." He briefly flew over some of the key elements that he would cover, including proper equipment, grip, stance, how to construct the draw and presentation, reloading techniques and trigger control.

This last fundamental--trigger control--has been verbally flogged to death in mostly superficial terms, i.e. "don't pull, just squeeze" or "don't squeeze--press." Bruce has devised a system that allows students to get inside the trigger/shooter loop. This unique series of drills he calls the GrayGuns Dry Fire Program.

One of the drills is designed to help the shooter keep the trigger finger in contact with the trigger while breaking a shot. This is the opposite of slapping the trigger, where your finger flies off the trigger as you break a shot. To experience this, students faced away from each other, drew their guns and pointed them in a safe direction. Slides were then racked to cock the hammers. As they focused on their front sights, the students were told to break the shot and not release the trigger. Then they were asked to rack the slide again, get back on their front sight and release the trigger until they could feel the click as it reset. At this point they would break another shot and repeat the process.

As simple as this sounds, it still takes a little practice to smoothly perform this drill. But practice they did, and I can guarantee that none of the students had ever experienced anything like it. The room was filled with the sounds of racking slides, falling hammers and resetting triggers. This was an aerobic activity where people were using breaks in the action to towel off and hydrate.

Bruce had introduced me to this same drill about 16 years ago. We were scheduled to attend a practical pistol match in Long Beach, California, and I was bemoaning my lack of practice on the day prior to the shoot. Seeing my distress, Bruce told me that he had just the ticket to fix the situation, and he headed out the door. He returned a little while later with a smile on his face and handed me a VHS copy of the original Dawn of the Dead movie.

"What's this for?" I asked.

"We're going to dry fire while watching the movie. It never fails," was his reply.