This is a unique and outstanding course! It’s one thing to handle a long gun during daylight hours when you can see what it going on and don’t have to worry about managing a light source at the same time you're aiming your weapon. It’s entirely different when the sun goes down. This course offers the opportunity to learn how to deal with that in a live-fire environment, something that most of the ranges we use don’t allow.
Trek and the cadre stepped us through how to BYOL (“Bring Your Own Lumens”), how to manage the light along with the weapon, and the necessary steps for defending ourselves after sunset. I was surprised by the viability of the different combinations of light sources and weapons (long gun light/long gun; hand-held light/long gun; long gun light/handgun; handgun light/handgun; and hand-held light/handgun). I was also surprised by how darkness increased the difficulty of even simple tasks.
If you’re serious about learning to defend yourself and your family with a long gun, this course is a must—not only don’t the bad guys stop when the sun goes down, many of them are just getting started. I’d further suggest that if your primary home defense weapon is a shotgun (mine is), than take the course with your shotgun—in my opinion (for what it’s worth), if you haven’t trained to use your primary weapon in the dark, your training is deficient. To date, not many have taken this course with a shotgun—but I did, and found the experience to be very valuable. If I could survive the experience at my age, so can you!