A Modified Department of Energy Shotgun Low Light Qualification Course

In the November 2025 Sensible Self Defense Academy Home Defense Shotgun Low Light Match, I modified the Department of Energy (DOE) Shotgun Qualification Course* for low light competition. I did not use kneeling for safety reasons and substituted moving to cover on one string where the DOE course uses kneeling. The DOE Protective Force are the guys and gals that protect nuclear weapons in transit (within the United States) and nuclear facilities.

For practical purposes and to save time during the match, we use steel silhouette targets. Fired in three strings from the twenty-five-yard line, the fifteen yard line, and the seven-yard line, firing ten total rounds. For this match, we scored time only as long as the competitor made the hits.

The competitor in the video for this course of fire used a standard Winchester SXP Defender pump shotgun. The video is available here.

Course of fire:

String I: Immediate response to a lethal threat at a moderate range while moving to more advantageous (cover) position. From the twenty-five-yard line: four rounds, two targets.

From standing with four rounds in the shotgun. At the start signal, fire one hit on each target, move to cover (barricade), and fire one hit on each target.

String II: Immediate and continuing response to a lethal threat at a moderate range while reloading. From the fifteen-yard line: four rounds, two targets.

From standing with three rounds in the shotgun. At the signal, fire one hit on each target, load one round in the magazine tube, and fire one hit on each target.

String III: Immediate and continual response to a lethal threat at a short range, using an alternate method to load. From the seven-yard line: four rounds, two targets.

Load with two rounds in the shotgun, chamber empty (house or cruiser ready). At the signal, charge the shotgun, fire one hit on each target, load one round in the chamber and one round in the magazine tube, and fire one hit on each target from a standing position.

Lessons: This home defense shotgun low light match demonstrated some lessons that we seem to repeat each match.

    -- Know your shotgun’s manual of arms. I saw the same shooters having the same challenges they had in the last low light match. One competitor using a Berretta 1301 forgot that the 1301 will not load from the magazine simply by pulling the charging handle. You must place a shell on the lifter first.

    -- Depending upon your personal circumstances, you may not need to have a light on your shotgun; however, I believe you must have practiced manipulating the shotgun “by feel” rather than relying on seeing what you are doing. If competitors did not have lights, the Safety Officer illuminated the target area with just enough light to see the target. Even so, the competitor still had to manipulate their shotgun by feel. Some struggled with this. One competitor took eight seconds to find the ejection port on his shotgun so he could insert a shell.

So, with my modifications is still the DOE shotgun qualification? No, it is not. To see the standard DOE qualification click here.

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 * DOE Protective Force Firearms Qualification Courses, July 2011

Wednesday Wisdom: 10 December 2025

Medal of Honor: John Upshur Dennis Page

On the night of 10 December 1950, the convoy reached the bottom of the pass but was halted by a strong enemy force at the front and on both flanks. Deadly small-arms fire poured into the column. Realizing the danger to the column as it lay motionless, LTC Page fought his way to the head of the column and plunged forward into the heart of the hostile position. His intrepid action so surprised the enemy that their ranks became disordered and suffered heavy casualties. 

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A Burner Phone?

Whether you should be using a burner phone depends on your risk model—the factors and concerns that are specific to you. Every one of us is exposed to a different set of risks that can vary depending on your nationality, citizenship, political views, profession, and much more. For example, lawyers, activists, and journalists may be at higher risk of being targeted than, say, an electrician or a stay-at-home mom.

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Learn Interrogation Techniques from a Professional

Professional interrogators are just that — professionals. Their techniques are not rocket science or mysterious sorcery, but they work. If you want to figure out what happened in a given situation or if the person you are talking to is lying and how to get them, as we say in the trade, to make statements against their best interests, read on.

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The Modern Version: The Ant and the Grasshopper

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

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What is Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) and why do you need it?

U2F security keys help to keep your online accounts secure even if your passwords are compromised.

Passwords alone aren’t enough to secure your online accounts. Too many passwords are easy for hackers to crack, and even if you use unique, strong passwords, they could still be stolen any day in a phishing attack or data breach.

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Red Dots – Are We Training to Use Them Best?

The thinking is that officers would save the time typically spent shifting back and forth between the intended target and their sights to make an accurate shot. Thus, officers could fire their pistols sooner and hopefully more accurately.

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Myth: Criminals buy guns at gun stores and gun shows

Fact: Fewer than 1% of crime guns are acquired at gun shows, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Fact: In total, about 10-11% of crime guns come from retail sources where background checks are conducted. About 2.3% of guns used in violent crime come from retail sources.

Fact: One study of adult offenders living in the Chicago area determined that criminals obtain most of their guns through their social network and personal connections. Rarely is the proximate source either direct purchase from a gun store, or even theft. This agrees with other, broader studies of incarcerated felons.

Fact: Another city-wide study, this one in Pittsburgh, showed that 80% of people illegally carrying guns were prohibited from possessing guns, and that at least of 30% of the guns were stolen.

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Cooper Commentaries: Vol. 2, No. 14; 10 November 1994

Per Jeff Cooper: Let us consider the "L-shaped Pepper Popper." The standard Pepper Popper goes down when it is well hit, and stays down. This makes it necessary for somebody, usually the shooter, to step forward and set it up again. This is fine for pistol activity where the ranges are short, but when one uses the Popper as a rifle target the problem of getting it to come back up again becomes "labor intensive." At the recent Gunsite Reunion at Whittington Center, John Gannaway showed us some heavy-duty Poppers which were designed to bounce but not fall when struck solidly by a rifle of adequate power. They worked quite well, but they were somewhat difficult to judge at 300 meters - or even 200. Now then, let us consider the provision of a forward-extended counter-weight affixed to the base of the popper. This could be a smooth metal rod on which a sliding weight could be adjusted for calibration. When properly set up this popper would flinch to a hit by starting over rearward and then it would come back to vertical due to the adjusted weight on the rod. Such a device would be more complicated to manufacture and hence more expensive than a standard popper, but it would be more useful for training and practice purposes, and if made of proper armored steel it could be made reactive for almost any caliber, even including the 223. Why didn't we think of this before? (Many years ago, I shot matches in Maryland with THE John Pepper – the inventor of the Pepper Popper. He was a great shot.)

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Out Where the West Begins: A Deputy and His R8

I think I’ll do okay,” he told me with a slowly-developing wry smile under a horseshoe mustache (not to be confused with a Fu Manchu) and an immaculate platinum four-inch brim Serratelli western hat. I always wondered how he kept that thing so clean patrolling our infamous red dirt roads. In retrospect, I had probably come across a little incredulous as to Garfield County Deputy Cory Rink’s choice of new duty pistol while we were discussing the dynamics of modern law enforcement shootings, split times, reloading speed and accuracy. 

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Wednesday Wisdom: 3 December 2025

“False is the idea … that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it … The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm those only who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides …” Cesare Bonesana di Beccaria (1738-1794)

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 The Definitive Guide to Flying with Guns

A good overview concerning flying with firearms.

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Border Patrol is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with ‘suspicious’ travel patterns

The U.S. Border Patrol is monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide in a secretive program to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious.

The problem of course is that people going about their daily business is not probable cause that a crime has been or is being committed; however, it can be flagged as suspicious. 

The predictive intelligence program has resulted in people being stopped, searched and in some cases arrested. A network of cameras scans and records vehicle license plate information and an algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took. Federal agents in turn may then notify local law enforcement.

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Understanding the VPN Threat Model

Proton VPN is one of the best VPNs available. Its paid version is quite fast and Proton has a free plan if you'd like to try it out first. Proton’s VPN is feature rich and the pricing is reasonable for the features the program contains, especially if you bundle Proton VPN with the company's other software. I have been using Proton Mail since it was launched in 2014 and started using their VPN when they released it and I am very satisfied with the product.

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Cornwallis’ Last Guard — A Carolina Sportsman’s Ghost Story

The year was 1919. The shrill of hounds broke the night’s silence on Abbotts Creek. A huntsman followed their barking on horseback through the Carolina brush. His gun dogs, Cash and Mean, had just bolted to chase what he thought was a racoon. Gun in hand, he dismounted and made his way through the cockleburs to see his dogs barking frantically up a tree.

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You can take the clans out of Africa; but you can't take Africa out of the clans.

In Africa national borders — and thus nations — are matters of political convenience, if not flat-out arbitrary. Only newbies to Africa even think about nationality, old hands know that tribal affiliation trumps all. Remarkably, these tribal affiliations can have a direct impact on who sits in the mayor’s office in a major US city.

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Reputation 

After assisting a pair of detectives with an evidence search I escorted them out of the jail. One turned and said, "You must have a major reputation. That guy was NOT going to go easily, and you showed up and he calmed right down."  

"Naah, I'm kind, sweet, innocent and gentle. Everybody loves me."

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Doorbell Camera Shows Dekalb Woman Killed Confronting Burglars

Be careful about confronting burglars. A woman was shot and killed Saturday night after driving up to confront suspected burglars outside her DeKalb County home, police said. Doorbell footage shows the burglary in progress and captures the moment Scott pulled up to the house in her vehicle. One of the suspected burglars then opened fire, according to police.

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American Rifleman Archives: Oxford Gunsight

A very early dot sight using a small incandescent bulb. The working principle is this: The bulb is positioned at the focus of the rear surface of the lens. Light rays striking this surface are partially reflected back to the eye of the shooter. All rays from the same point of the bulb are reflected parallel, and because the aperture for the special little bulb is so tiny the total rays are effectively parallel.

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Notes on Building a Warrior Culture

Yet the truth remains: a society that cannot build warriors cannot defend anything it values. We can talk endlessly about rights, but without the men and women who can protect those rights under threat, they are fragile illusions.

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The New Colt Automatic - Pistols in WWI

Canadian Contract 1911 Pistol

One-hand guns were, undoubtedly, designed for the use of mounted men so that they could deliver fire at the enemy while, at the same time, they had the other hand free for the management of their horses. They only fired the one shot and were then useless until reloaded, so they made them big and cumbersome in order that they could be used effectively as a club until a time came when they could again be loaded-a slow process in that day. They were, really and truly, "horse pistols," being so big and cumbersome that no gentleman could have carried one on his person while afoot.

When and where they were first invented is probably known to some of our specialists in antique weapons-I don't know and it is really of no consequence here as this is not supposed to be a treatise on the evolution of firearms anyway. But I am afraid that I shall, now and then, refer to some of the old timers. You see, I'm just as big a "nut" as the next one, and anything pertaining to firearms-yes anything pertaining to killing, whether it be with a stone axe or a blow gun, excites my interest and I want to know about it.

As the son of an ex-cavalryman, born soon after the end of the Civil War, I had a good initiation into the pistol question. Everything from Starr and Colt revolvers back to Tower flintlocks were available for my education. Pepper-boxes, derringers-I tried them all and just naturally grew up with the idea that it was a part of the education of every American citizen to know how to shoot a pistol well enough to disable your enemy before he gets you. I never, then or since, have made any effort to become a prize-winning shot on the range.

I am not and never have been a threat to the pistol shooters in the National Matches, but have always tried to keep in practice sufficiently to give myself the feeling of assurance that in a pinch I can get my gun out and shoot as fast and as straight as the other fellow. Well, that's the way it was when the war started in 1914, and I went up to Canada to see what it was all about.

The regulation equipment for officers in the Canadian Army, or at least in the Second Division, included the Colt .45 Automatic, an exact duplicate of our Model 1911. Naturally I was quite familiar with this gun and it was my privilege, as Musketry Instructor, to be present when these arms were received by the officers of the Twenty-first Battalion. The officers first tried out these .45s on our improvised indoor rifle range, in the armouries at Kingston, and their experience was exactly the same as I had seen, numberless times, in the United States Army. The range was fifty feet, and the targets of the usual short-range type used by the infantry for indoor instruction firing with reduced ammunition. 

At the first attempts, many of the shots struck on the concrete floor, anywhere from fifteen to forty feet in front of the firer. You can probably imagine the effect this had upon that crowd. It required a lot of argument to persuade some of those officers that the gun was "worth a damn." But that was only temporary. After a little instruction, emphasized by practical demonstration with those same guns, they soon learned the game and could hold and squeeze as well as the next fellow.

I have said that this pistol was the authorized "regulation." Well, that is true in the sense that they were authorized for use, and quantities had been purchased so that the officers could procure them, but it was not obligatory. Those who so desired were at liberty to use the Webley or the .45 Colt or Smith and Wesson revolver. One, whom I well remember, had two Colts which took the .455 Webley cartridge-and did good work with them too. The Webley pistol never appealed to me, probably because of its cumbersome appearance. The thing would shoot however, and it made a dandy club with which to bean an obstreperous prisoner.

As I was quite familiar with the new Colt Automatic I was able to be of some assistance during the preliminary work of breaking them in and it was not long until the officers were accustomed to the peculiarities of the gun and could make it behave to their satisfaction. Those who had had experience with the revolver entertained the almost universal prejudice against the automatic: 's funny, isn't it-how we hate to discard our old loves and take up with new ones (in this shooting game I mean, it appears to be easy enough regarding some other things). But even the most conservative of the old timers soon recognized the real advantages of the later type weapon.

I staged several realistic demonstrations; including fast reloading in the dark and such stunts, and that converted most of them. As to reliability-dependability in an emergency-there was little choice between the revolver and the automatic. Both types would function properly with the same degree of care. It is possible that there were instances of an automatic "jamming" now and then, but personally I never had it happen to me during the war, nor did I see or hear of any instance of it happening.

All these arguments as to the relative merits of the revolver and the automatic pistol will probably continue for another generation. Most of the old timers who learned to shoot with the revolver have a deep-seated prejudice against the automatic-but when you come down to the root of their argument, it all seems to base upon the "hang" of the two guns, the newer automatic does not point right with the same old habitual kink in the wrist. I have used the .45 Automatic ever since 1911, but for twenty years prior to that time had used the revolver. 

Even now, I find myself having a sneaking sort of preference for the revolver and feel confident that I can make a better score on the target with it, either slow or rapid fire. But in spite of all this, I unhesitatingly choose the automatic for actual use in war. To my mind, the great advantage of the automatic lies in the ease and rapidity with which it can be reloaded-especially in the dark. 

Anyone who doubts this can easily satisfy himself by trying to hurriedly reload a revolver in the dark, with a crowd of roughnecks milling all around and trying to hit someone with clubs, knives and fists. Or, if this seems too rough, just get some friend to jostle you about or run into you while trying it. There is really no comparison between slipping a fresh magazine into the butt of the pistol and fumbling with six small cartridges in trying to get them into six different revolver chambers.

(Excerpt from A Rifleman Went to War, Herbert W. McBride, Published by Samworth / Small-Arms Technical Pub. Co., 1935., Onslow County, 1935) 

Capt. Ret. Herbert W. McBride (1873 - 1933) was an American who joined the Canadian Army in 1914 during the beginning of WWI because he “wanted to find out what a ‘regular war’ was like.” He found out.

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