OM DENNE EPISODE
This is a conversation about the gap between checking the box and being genuinely competent and confident when it counts. Bryan Williams, Chancey Pogue, Matt Pranka, and Dustin Mowery walk through the real roadmap: why the stigma against competition shooting is rooted in ego and not evidence, why the qualification score is one of the most useless metrics in law enforcement, and what training in isolation actually means when you strip away the buzzwords and get honest about the work.
Dry fire is the thread running through the whole episode, and not in the vague, post-it-on-Instagram way. You'll hear what to focus on, how long to go, when to stop, how to marry it to live fire when you only have 50 rounds to your name, and why grip and vision are the only two things that matter until you have truly mastered them. The principles are simple. The work isn't. But if you understand why you are doing it, the framework and roadmap becomes clear.
If you've ever said, "I can't do that at my agency" or "I'm not trying to be a GM," this episode is specifically for you. The guys lay out exactly what it looks like to start wherever you are, eliminate the excuses, and build the kind of skill that holds up when everything is moving fast and the stakes are real.
In this episode:
• Law enforcement qualifications are a box to check, not a measure of skill: shooting at seven yards on a line with no time pressure is not a test of your ability to run a gun under stress, and anchoring your identity to that score is actively holding you back
• The stigma against competition shooting comes from ego, not evidence: the best shooters in the world are practical shooting competitors, and the 'targets don't shoot back' argument falls apart the moment you realize no targets on any LE range shoot back either
• Peer pressure inside a ranked department is a more powerful culture driver than any mandate: when officers can see exactly where they rank in ability, the bottom of the stack starts climbing, and culturally the whole group shifts upward over time
• Grip and vision are the foundation that everything else is built on: if those two things are not dialed in, every rep of dry fire and every round of live fire is reinforcing a flawed pattern, not building a better one
• Dry fire sessions should be short, focused, and honest: when your grip pressure, visual discipline, or mechanical consistency starts to degrade, that session is over for that task, point of diminishing returns is real and ignoring it means taking steps backward
• A 10 to 1 dry fire to live fire ratio maximizes limited ammo: settle grip and vision in dry fire first, then test it live, do not use your 50 rounds to figure out things that cost you nothing to figure out in your living room
• Chancey's recruit class averaged 98.6 out of 100 on their qualification after eight weeks of structured dry fire with zero live rounds fired beforehand, two 30 minute sessions per week, no fancy facility required
• Visual discipline and visual control are the two principles that govern the vision side: use the right aiming scheme for the distance and difficulty at hand, connect to the exact spot on the target you need to hit, and do not over confirm or under confirm, no more and no less
Chapters:
0:56 Welcome to TTPOA 2026 in Round Rock
2:17 Guest introductions around the table
3:57 Setting the stage: what is wrong with LE firearms training
11:05 Breaking the stigma against practical/competition shooting
14:22 Why the qualification score is a broken measuring stick
20:55 How practical shooting culture spreads inside departments
28:36 The ego reset: your first match is supposed to hurt
40:19 Training in isolation: what it actually means
47:57 Building the dry fire habit: capturing time wherever you can
1:05:40 Chancey's recruit dry fire protocol and the 98.6 average
1:28:46 Making the most of limited ammo: the 10 to 1 rule
1:37:34 Wrapping up: grip, vision, and the two principles that never change
Mentioned:
Bryan Williams — Nearly 39-year law enforcement veteran, former police chief in Central Texas, one of the first five USPSA Grand Masters in the nation and the first in Texas, joins the roundtable at TTPOA 2026.
Chancey Pogue — Lieutenant over the weapons range and all reality-based training at a large North Texas agency with approximately 2,000 officers, credited with implementing practical shooting and a structured recruit dry fire program.
Matt Pranka — Owner of X-Ray Alpha, retired Army Special Operations background, USPSA competitor for about 13 years and GM, has spent six years working to bring practical shooting and competition-style training to law enforcement and military.
Dustin Mowery — Retired Ohio police officer with 27 years of service, helped introduce practical shooting to his department's firearms unit around 2019 after connecting with Matt Pranka, now teaches classes independently and with Matt.
Kim Pastore — Described as a runaway train working tirelessly through the Jorge Pastore Foundation to get the right coaches in front of law enforcement and raise money to send officers to training for free.
Ben Stoeger — Referenced as having done more for the practical shooting training world than anyone, praised for his ability to reverse-engineer classifiers, self-teach to a GM level, and present foundational concepts in the simplest and most effective way.
Jerry Barnhart — Legendary practical shooter Bryan Williams saw run stages at the nationals in Reno in the nineties, described as a beast whose performance was a formative, eye-opening demonstration of what is possible with a handgun.
Sean Griffith — Described as a world-class shooter who teaches more cops on a day-to-day basis than almost anyone through the entity he works with, called out as a heavy lifter at the TTPOA match.
Gabe Rivera — High-level shooter whose dramatic skill improvement since 2019 is highlighted as an example of the hockey-stick trajectory possible with focused training; was about to appear in the booth after the roundtable.
Adrian Yun — High-level shooter praised alongside Gabe Rivera and Clay for the rapid skill development they achieved, also noted during the match for his grip awareness and in-stage self-correction.
Clay B — High-level shooter nicknamed 'speed demon,' noted for shooting with the wrong hand and called out as one of the heavy lifters whose improvement since 2019 is remarkable.
Jay — Person Chancey met who was highly skilled at shooting without ever having competed, described as someone whose natural drive and desire to improve explained everything about how he got that good.
