Experience & Training

We opened in 1991, before the Texas CHL program existed, and for many years we were the only school in the area offering firearms training to private citizens. When CHL passed and was signed into law, Karl, Penny and Tom were in the first CHL instructor classes DPS ran, and we started teaching CHL courses on the first day. We've trained thousands of students over the past 20 years.

Tom Schaefer, our lead CHL instructor, has over 20 years experience as a law enforcement officer working the streets of Austin, including experience confronting violent criminals and dealing with criminal trials. In addition to his CHL instructor rating, he has multiple law enforcement instructor ratings in firearms, driving, and unarmed self-defense, and undergraduate and graduate degrees in law enforcement-related fields. As an off duty police officer, Tom carried concealed every day for decades, and as a holster maker, he understands the nuances of proper holster selection and fit and how it affects concealability and draw speed.

Our primary shooting instructors (Karl and Penny) have trained with a long list of respected tactical schools (Thunder Ranch, InSights, Tactical Defense Institute, and many more), and have trained with world champion competitive shooters (Todd Jarrett, Max Michel, Ted Bonnet, Kay Clark-Miculek, Jerry Miculek and others). We compete in local, state, national and world level matches. Karl is a nationally known trainer and certified law enforcement instructor specializing in force on force training who has taught instructor-level courses in multiple states, and runs the force on force component of the Polite Society Tactical Conference each year.

Instructors and Top Handgun Shooters Train With Us

Many of the newer firearms training schools in the Austin area are run and staffed by people who got their NRA instructor training from us, and/or took advanced firearms and tactics courses with us. Most of the shooters winning local matches, and members of local law enforcement SWAT teams, have trained with us or with guest instructors we have hosted at our facility.

Wide Range of Courses

Most other schools only offer CHL. A few offer beginner classes modeled on our program. We offer classes to get you from total novice to well-prepared armed citizen and skilled handgun shooter.

Facilities & Equipment

We own and operate private, dedicated training facilities so that students can learn in a comfortable environment free from interruptions, spectators and other distractions. We have a wide selection of loaner/rental guns and holsters available for students to use in our beginner classes. In our advanced classes students get to use reactive steel targets, moving targets and other specialized equipment unavailable at commercial shooting ranges.

Quality Is Important to Us

In order to keep our skills sharp and our course content up to date, our instructors spend time each year in professional development: taking classes from subject matter experts, shooting competitions, and attending and/or presenting at training conferences. Our team includes male and female instructors, because there are gender-specific issues related to shooting techniques and equipment selection.

We don't combine CHL new permit and renewal classes into a single "combo" course. Instructors do this out of greed and for their own convenience, not to provide a quality course for students. We believe that it is too confusing for new permit students to learn critical topics such as use of force and Texas gun laws by sitting through a "review" lecture that assumes students already know the material. Some schools cram as many students as they can get into each course, again to maximize profit at the expense of class quality, and then fail to adequately supervise the range. Other schools will let students with absolutely no shooting experience or skill into a CHL new permit class, and then hand them a gun, provide them minimal skills training and certify that student as "ready to carry" when the student shoots the minimum score required to pass.

We want our students to have the best possible chances of surviving a violent attack. That means more than just "having a gun" and making a C- on the CHL written and shooting tests. Our goal is to teach students what they actually need to know to make a smart handgun selection, to shoot fast and accurate, and to make legally justifiable and tactically correct decisions about what actions to take in a life-threatening situation.

If your life is important enough to you to spend the money and time to attend training in gun safety, shooting skills and concealed carry- it should be important enough to get the best training value for your money, which means more than finding the cheapest, shortest class with the lowest standards that involves the least amount of driving.