T.A.P.S. : Tactical Application of Practical Shooting

Great book by a great guy. Outstanding program to review for any instructor in the field of training new shooters.

This book is divided into two major parts. The first third of the book contains advice on shooting and firearms training. The last two-thirds is filled with various drills and courses of fire for shooting competitions.The first third was the most useful to me. As a firearms instructor I am always on the lookout for advice on how to train people to shoot, and to fight. Patrick McNamara clearly has a great deal of experience and knowledge about the subject. I do not agree with everything, but even when I disagreed his writing was generally though provoking. However, I feel the format of the book does a poor job presenting these nuggets of wisdom. This portion of the book is presented as a series of short 1-2 page articles, which don't flow together, or even seem to be organized in much of a logical order. A more integrated presentation that does a better job of putting these into context would have been much better.The drills presented in the second two-thirds of the book suffer similar problems. The individual drills are not always described well, and many of them could benefit from better diagrams of graphics showing how they are laid out. Instead, most of the graphics in this section are pictures of targets. Many of these targets do not have any relation to the drills they accompany. Others do relate the drills, but after the fourth or fifth time, I think we know what an IPSC target looks like. A better approach would have been to show each target once, at the beginning of the section (perhaps accompanied by some description of what Mr. McNamara feels a particular target does well) and use the remaining graphics space to better diagram the layout of the drills. Some of the drill descriptions provide context, saying what skills each drill or stage is supposed to exercise, but others lack this information. A more consistent presentation of each drill would have been better. I also have some quibbles with a few of the drills, which may instill what I feel are bad habits in a shooter from a tactical perspective.

Apparently I'm the only guy writing a review on this page that doesn't personally know the Author, I wish I did! He is a person with an impressive resume in tactical shooting. This is a great book but you need to understand the scope before you order it. This is not a "how to shoot" book. There are a couple of decent tidbits in here about how to shoot but, this book assumes that you already understand the fundamentals of not only basic shooting, but of practical shooting. For example, there are no pictures or description of all the shooting positions. This is a "how to teach other people to shoot" book. In that respect it is a great resource. The book is basically in two parts. First there are a lot of great insights on training people to shoot. I love the author's style of commentary and how it is arranged as "tidbits" of knowledge instead of being forced into a traditional format. I found myself pleasantly surprised that I had come to some of the same conclusions as the author. It made me feel vindicated, and where I didn't It gave me reason to rethink some of my own views on practical shooting. After this there is a collection of "courses of fire" that will aid in running a competition or a training program. If you need a book on the basics of shooting, I would recommend Kyle Lamb's "Green Eyes Black Rifles." But, if you run a training program, shooting competition, or have hit a wall in the development of your own skills, you should have this book.

I want to say that I have found Pat McNamara's info very useful and I really like his courses of fire and drills. I went into this book as a fan and wanting a little more than what I already had gleaned by various readings and his YouTube channel. Overall I expected more info than it provided.The bad: My qualms aren't with the info itself; they are with the overall layout of the book. The structure leaves a lot to be desired. It reads more as a collection of notes than a well planned, structured book. There are aren't really any chapters, just individual sections of info that might or might not relate to the previous or subsequent section. Reorganizing the info in a more logical manner would be highly beneficial and would allow the book to be used as more of a reference. There are some typos and the graphics could use improvement. The diagrams of the shooting drills left me wanting more and if I hadn't seen the courses of fire on his YouTube channel, I would have been confused by the explanation of them. While it goes over using barricades in training, the book is lacking on an overview of weapons manipulations and shooting positions.The good: I like the focus on teaching others how to shoot or train. Great emphasis on training and some of the mental aspects behind it. Pat McNamara does a great job catering to and attempting to cultivate a thinking man, not just a trigger puller. The courses of fire are really great and can be scaled from beginner to expert by attaching different standards to them.Overall: A good start. Some great stuff in here but its hard to find. I would buy a third edition if it was reorganized in a more user friendly, logical manner. Adding a section on shooting positions would be huge. Rewriting the courses of fire with improved diagrams would make it easier to flip to a "Courses of Fire" section and select one to run.

An excellent aid for instructors and trainers but let down slightly by occasional poor, or incorrect diagrams of range layouts. Still worthwhile despite that.

when you are some expert in shooting, you like how to know improve your training way, here you have a book where you can find all kind of tips to be a better shooter and instructor

Very good !

Great read, training grounded in real life applications. I will definately take some of these tips and insight and apply them to my shooters on the range.

great info