I recently had the pleasure of meeting and shooting with Dan Brokos. Dan Brokos is the owner and primary instructor of Lead Faucet Tactical. Lead Faucet Tactical is a veteran-owned company that specializes in pistol classes, carbine classes, CQB classes, and urban fighting classes which are available for both private citizens as well as military and law enforcement agencies. Dan Brokos is a 27 year military veteran with 21 of those years being spent in the SOF community. Not only is Dan a phenomenally accurate pistol shooter, he is also fast as lightning on top of that. Myself and a group of other shooters were treated to an ad hoc two-day pistol training course focused on red dot optics and I asked Dan for a short interview where he could give our readers some quick tips for improving their pistol shooting performance. Dan likes to keep things simple and to the point so he provided some very succinct and logical approaches and I think a lot of us can benefit from his knowledge and experience.

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Dan Brokos Gives TFB Some Quick Tips for Improving Your Pistol Game

Over the two days we shot with Dan, we had a good opportunity not only to learn from him but also to watch him shoot quite a bit as well. Everyone was equipped with a Glock 19 Gen 5 complete with a red dot and with this equipment Dan was able to show us how he does things and also helped refine our own pistol shooting techniques. By the end of the two days of shooting, Dan had all of us pretty dialed in and working well with the setup we were offered. When I asked Dan to boil down his top tips for us here at TFB, he had the following things on the list of importance to say about that.

1. Stick with One Gun and One Trigger

As a reviewer of many different pistols and many different triggers, this one came out as sort of surprising to me upon first hearing it. Shouldn’t a basic set of actions and a solid trigger pull be all that is needed to maintain accuracy? Yes and no according to Dan. Yes, knowing not to jerk the trigger and not to apply too much pressure as to jerk the gun around work across the board but in that same vein, not all pistols and triggers operate or break in the same way.

Dan suggested that you “get to know your pistol” and getting used to how and when the trigger breaks. Basically, he meant that even if you practiced with a bone stock Glock 19 (which is what we all shot) then you should just stick with that if that is what is available to you. Becoming familiar with that specific setup and how it works will be far better than constantly making incremental upgrades and changing the characteristics of your handgun setup which will lead you to have to relearn how to maintain accuracy with it.

Photo: Lead Faucet Tactical

As an extension to this, Dan also mentioned that you should really practice your presentation when running a red dot on your pistol. Red dots are great shooting aides but finding that dot consistently from a draw takes a bit of work. If you’re running a red dot, it’s probably best to maintain the same dot on that pistol and practice a lot with it.

2. Prioritize Accuracy over Speed

A personal observation I made during the event was that all of us wanted to be fast. Being fast is great and all but it means nothing unless you’re also accurate. Training for accuracy first over speed will ensure that as you improve your accuracy, your speed will improve as well. Our group frequently had to make shots at 25 yards at 8″ targets and it’s hard to be both fast and accurate with this type of setup. Even at short distances of 5-yards, it is a struggle for me to keep double taps on a 3-inch dot target while trying to go fast.

The lesson here is to basically just slow down and make your shots count. That shouldn’t be too hard to do in today’s ammunition environment. Another tip Dan gave was to do your dry fire practice after your daily workout routine for just 5 minutes. Dan told me what he does is he keeps a small 1″ dot on the wall and after his workout routine he will sit there and dry fire for about 5 minutes and he said “if your sight picture drifts out of that 1″ dot, it’s 100% on you and you’re still anticipating the recoil.” He said if you do this dry fire practice just 3 times a week, you’ll be on your way to improving your accuracy with your pistol. This also happens to be a good time to get your presentation down with your red dot.

Photo: Lead Faucet Tactical

Practice your Lower Body Stance

Dan finally said as a final tip that people should really focus more on their stance, specifically their lower body stance. Dan is a huge proponent of the modern isosceles stance and discourages adopting a Weaver or Chapman stance which is more traditional. He did, however, mention that if the stance you already have is serving you well and you are accurate and fast, then there is probably no need to change it this late in the game.

He made specific reference to exactly how and where the weight of your body should be distributed in an isosceles stance. “Your weight should be counterbalanced forward on the balls of your feet.” He said this stance will serve you well both for pistol shooting as well as carbine shooting. A good rule of thumb is to test your stance out with a buddy and to see if they can easily push you backward from your ready stance. Another good tip is to attempt to move your heels off the ground slightly before you begin to shoot. If your heels are still on the ground then you should probably reposition yourself to provide your upper body with a more stable platform to shoot from.

Photo: Lead Faucet Tactical

Practice Practice Practice

At the end of the day, improvement is largely dependent on one single thing – practice. In the absence of official training from reputable and knowledgeable trainers, go to the range and shoot and practice drills that are freely available online, in the absence of that, dry fire! Being accurate with a pistol is hard but if you put in the time and the effort to shore up your skills it could very well save your life whether firearms are a part of your job or a self-defense tool you carry on you daily.

Hopefully, these tips from Dan Brokos were helpful for some of you. If you’d like to learn more about Dan Brokos and his training company Lead Faucet Tactical, you can check them out here and get a listing of all of their currently offered classes. I’d like to extend a personal thanks out to Dan for sharing these tips with us and for helping our group to improve their skills. Lead Faucet Tactical also sells a solid lineup of gear for both pistols and carbines that you can check out here.