Iron Sights

On this Iron Sights episode recorded live on the vendor floor at TTPOA Conference, Scott Howell sits down for a collab with the TTPOA Podcast hosts Brandon Hernandez and Matt Smith. Their guests are Brad Ortiz, Director of Sales for the Law Enforcement Division at Silencer Shop and former officer, and Dewayne Manson, Project Manager at the American Warrior Association, to dig into the thing the Law Enforcement community has been slow to confront: the compounding weight of moral injury, and why the reactive system built to support officers is failing the people who need it most.

The conversation goes deep on what moral injury actually is, how it differs from PTSD, and why the officer who has never been in a critical incident can be just as broken as the one who has. Brad and Dewayne walk through what a culturally competent clinician actually looks like, why baseline brain and blood health mapping belongs in the academy, and how the American Warrior Association's R3 program is embedding proactive resilience training directly into TTPOA's regional structure, the first partnership of its kind nationally.

But this episode isn't just about mental health. It's about identity. What happens to the guy who IS the job when the job ends? Brad gets personal about his own struggles stepping away from full-time law enforcement, Dewayne shares the moment his teenage son had to pick him up after a DUI, and Scott connects it all to the broader truth that your calling and your identity are not the same thing, and that confusing the two is costing officers their health, their relationships, and sometimes their lives before and after retirement.

The back half gets into the business world and how everything these men learned going through doors, managing teams, and serving their communities translates directly into relationship-based sales, leadership under pressure, and building something that outlasts the badge. If you've ever told yourself you're not capable of anything outside law enforcement, this one is going to challenge that story hard.

In this episode:

• Moral injury is NOT PTSD: it is the cumulative damage caused when you perpetrate something, fail to prevent something, or are ordered to act against your moral compass, and it compounds silently over an entire career without a single critical incident ever being the trigger

• Culturally competent clinicians are practitioners who have lived the lifestyle or are married to someone who has: Dewayne walked out of his first VA appointment when the counselor opened with pronouns, then found a female therapist married to a 20-year infantry veteran and experienced a completely different outcome

• The American Warrior Association's R3 program is building proactive resilience frameworks inside agencies, including regional resiliency coordinators, vetted clinician networks, and fully funded Warriors Refuge retreats where flights and lodging are free to eligible officers and spouses

• Brad Ortiz's Sound Off program at Silencer Shop donates $2 per purchase to a vetted nonprofit fund, and every individual officer purchase routes through silencershop.com where buyers work directly with Brad and Chris

• The inflection point analogy: moral injury deposits are made silently every shift, just like compounding interest, and what looks like a single critical incident blowing up is actually the hockey-stick moment on a years-long accumulation nobody was tracking

• Social media pile-ons after a justified OIS caused Brad more lasting moral injury than the shooting itself, a blind spot no clinician or debrief ever addressed until he found the right cultural fit in counseling

• Baseline blood panels and brain mapping done at the academy level would give officers a before-and-after reference for physiological change across a career: the greater endocrine system and brain health are being completely ignored while TRT gets all the attention

• The law enforcement skill set transfers directly into business leadership: problem-solving under pressure, decision-making without perfect information, ownership of mistakes, and relationship-first sales are all things operators have already built on the job, they just don't recognize it as a resume

Chapters:

0:39 Iron Sights mission statement and welcome
2:02 Introducing Brad Ortiz and Dewayne Manson
2:49 Brad's background: The Uncommon Line podcast
9:40 American Warrior Association programs overview
11:43 Resilience training inside TTPOA: the first of its kind
12:08 What moral injury actually is and why it's not PTSD
14:20 Culturally competent clinicians: Dewayne's personal story
31:52 Compounding critical incidents over a career
38:37 Social media pile-ons as a hidden source of moral injury
44:55 Identity vs. calling: challenging how officers define themselves
1:12:18 Relationship-first sales, legacy brands losing ground, and the business parallel
1:21:46 How to access AWA, R3, and SoundOff resources

Mentioned:
Brad Ortiz — Director of Sales for the Law Enforcement Division at Silencer Shop, former law enforcement officer and fugitive investigator, and former host of The Uncommon Line podcast, joined as a guest to discuss the SoundOff program and the AWA partnership.

Dewayne Manson — Representative of the American Warrior Association, infantry veteran who served in Afghanistan and contracted there through 2020, shared his personal journey through moral injury and recovery as context for AWA's R3 program.

Matt Smith — Co-host of the TTPOA podcast with 21 years on SWAT, co-hosted this live conference episode alongside Scott Howell and competed in the TTPOA shooting competition the day prior.

Brandon Hernandez — Region 7 Director and Director of Training for TTPOA, co-host of the TTPOA podcast, referred to on air as the celebrity of the group when a passerby stopped to greet him.

Anna Heil — Associated with the American Warrior Association, attended a TTPOA show in St. Louis and briefed other state organizations on the AWA partnership afterward.

Chris — Works alongside Brad Ortiz at Silencer Shop on the SoundOff individual officer program, mentioned as a direct point of contact buyers will reach at soundsoftshop.com.

Neil Noakes — Former Chief of Police of the Fort Worth Police Department, cited as an example of a career officer who, when asked how many critical incidents he had been on, simply said he had lost count.

Simon Sinek — Author and speaker known for the concept of finding your 'why,' referenced when Brad Ortiz challenged every officer in the room to examine the deeper reason behind their career and identity.

You know there is a gap between how your team trains and how your team performs. You've felt it. Gabe Rivera felt it too, and instead of talking about it, he built a system to close it. Full-time SWAT officer, Lead Faucet Tactical instructor, and founder of Mindset Tactical Solutions, Gabe sits down with Scott at the Texas Tactical Police Officers Association Conference in Round Rock, Texas to walk through eighteen years of hard lessons: how to vet instructors without getting burned by theory masquerading as experience, how competition shooting exposed gaps that thousands of hours of tactical courses never revealed, and how a small group of motivated cops turned a text thread into a sold-out law enforcement shooting match movement spreading from Southern California to Tennessee to TTPOA.
This isn't a conversation about chasing classifications or social media clout. Gabe is relentlessly mission-focused: make the people around you better, lead by example, and build a culture where your weakest link is not weak for long. He breaks down how his agency went from a one-time thirty-two-hour active shooter block to annual refreshers, quarterly reps, and academy-level integration, and how the same forward-thinking philosophy is now driving a USPSA club, an intro-to-competition course for cops, and an intra-team quarterly competition with a plaque and serious bragging rights on the line.
If you are a SWAT officer, a range sergeant, a team leader, or any cop who has ever wondered whether competition shooting is worth your time, this episode gives you the full picture, from Gabe's first humbling match experience alongside JJ Racaza to the stage-design lessons learned from rain-soaked stages at TTPOA this week. The roadmap is here. The people willing to help are already lined up. The only thing left is for you to start.
Scott and Gabe also get into what it actually takes to put on a law enforcement match from scratch: finding a USPSA club willing to partner, building walls out of nothing, managing squad flow so nobody is standing around for eight hours, and leaning on sponsors like Howitzer Clothing to make the economics work. Whether you want to attend one of these matches or host one in your region, you'll leave this episode knowing exactly where to begin.
In this episode: 
• Vetting instructors on tactics means prioritizing people whose techniques have been stress-tested for real, not just proven effective in Sims houses: one-off experiences are worth learning from, but not worth re-engineering your entire SOP around
 • Gabe's agency moved from a single thirty-two-hour active shooter block to academy-level integration plus annual refresher training plus quarterly reps after a post-incident debrief trip to Dallas surfaced the gap between their readiness and what actually-trained agencies were doing 
• Competition shooting exposed performance gaps that thousands of hours of tactical classes and certificates never did: the move to 'one match a month' then 'every match I can shoot' followed directly from realizing that class environments reward relative performance, while matches reveal absolute performance 
• The intra-team competition format Gabe built scores each team's top three shooters PLUS its bottom two, forcing accountability at the weakest link rather than letting high performers mask squad-wide deficiencies 
• The Southeast law enforcement match in Tennessee was the proof-of-concept Gabe and his crew replicated in the Southwest: copy the model, learn from their stage-flow lessons (including a full-service staff-reset format), and let the virus spread region by region 
• A USPSA section chair approved Gabe's agency-affiliated club to run official classifiers inside law enforcement courses, meaning cops can get their USPSA member number and classification within a course environment specifically designed around duty gear and relevant skill sets 
• Intro-to-competition classes for cops specifically address the three barriers Scott hears most: fear of DQ, not understanding stage planning, and not knowing how to sign up, and Gabe's model walks officers through a live match with coaching squad support their first time out 
• Sponsors like Howitzer Clothing (Eric Foss, Project Blue Lion) are funding JJ Racaza team courses and law enforcement match infrastructure outright, and USPSA clubs with materials and range facilities are the key first partnership to secure when replicating this model anywhere in the country
Chapters: 
0:39 Iron Sights intro and show mission 
1:09 Welcoming Gabe Rivera and Scott's personal history with him 
5:56 Gabe's background: 18 years in LEO and full-time SWAT
 6:27 Origin of Mindset Tactical Solutions and active shooter training 8:15 Lead Faucet Tactical and the instructor vetting process 
9:38 Dallas debrief, annual training evolution, and closing the readiness gap 
24:26 What 'vet your instructors' actually means in practice 
29:47 First exposure to competition shooting and Ben Stoeger's course 
31:37 Training with JJ Racaza and the decision to go all-in on competition 
44:03 Building a competition culture inside the agency 
51:03 Launching the Southwest LEO match and learning from Tennessee 
1:24:13 USPSA classification inside LEO courses and what is next
Mentioned: 
Gabe Rivera — Owner and instructor of Mindset Tactical Solutions, full-time SWAT officer with eighteen years in Southern California law enforcement, and Lead Faucet Tactical instructor; primary guest of this episode. Dan Brokos — Founder of Lead Faucet Tactical; mentioned as someone Gabe assists as an instructor and who was teaching in Southern California during the week of the TTPOA conference. 
Ben Stoeger — World-class competition shooter whose Los Angeles-area private course required a USPSA B classification for entry, giving Gabe his first serious exposure to high-level practical shooting in 2015. JJ Racaza — World-class competition shooter who invited Gabe to shoot a match after training together, and who later ran private performance shooting courses for Gabe's SWAT team, funded in part by Howitzer Clothing. 
Cody — Referenced as a helpful contact associated with the Southeast law enforcement shooting match in Tennessee whose team provided guidance and support to the Southwest match organizers. 
Sean Griffith — Described as a top-ten shooter in the world who helped design stages for the TTPOA match and is cited as an example of elite-level competitors willing to invest time in helping law enforcement get into competition. 
Eric Foss — Associated with Howitzer Clothing and Project Blue Lion; credited with sponsoring JJ Racaza's private course for Gabe's team at no cost to the agency and with funding law enforcement match infrastructure. 
Anthony Coley — Mentioned as a recent Iron Sights guest whose attitude of asking for help openly was cited as a model for the law enforcement match-building community. 
Dustin Mowry — Named as a previous Iron Sights guest and one of the people involved in the TTPOA match effort whom Gabe has known since approximately 2015. 
Chancey Pogue — Named as a previous Iron Sights guest involved in the TTPOA match collaboration alongside Gabe.
 Bryan Williams — Named alongside Dustin Mowry and Chancey Pogue as a previous Iron Sights guest involved in the TTPOA match effort.

You have heard the arguments a thousand times and every time you hear them, something in your gut says it doesn't add up. In this episode, recorded live at the TTPOA conference in Round Rock, Texas, Iron Sights collaborated with the TTPOA Podcast host Brandon Hernandez and cohost Matt Smith to sit down with Matt Pranka for an honest conversation about training.

Matt pulls zero punches on the dynamic versus deliberate debate, the real definition of CQB as a tactic, why slow is NOT safe when the fight is opposed, and how foundational skills are the only real safety mitigation factor your team has. You'll walk away understanding why your shoot house training may be building bad habits, what targets are actually doing to your vision discipline, and how a predictive shooting framework built around doubles, triples, and reactive shooting should be driving your 100-round range session.

The Q&A portion adds ground-level perspective of a small-agency officer who built his own live-fire shoot house from scratch just to get his community access to real training. His questions on shoot house construction, target discrimination, and bridging the gap from patrolman to operator kick off a conversation that just keeps getting deeper. And threaded throughout all of it is the culture piece: loyalty, willingness, owning your mistakes in the AAR, and why the guys who refuse to admit they were wrong are the ones who never make it. This one is a labor of love, and it shows.

In this episode:
• Dynamic CQB is not fast movement across the ground, it is the speed at which you go from one task to the next with zero delay, and training pace must be significantly faster than execution pace so that real-life speed feels controlled, not chaotic
• Shoot houses built with bullet traps eliminate a critical processing element: when operators can see the trap, they already know where the target is, removing the visual discrimination loop of demeanor, hands, and decision that mirrors real encounters
• A shoot house SOP should be a simple three-page document with graphics that standardizes corner-fed versus center-fed rooms, hallway attacks, and door procedures before any contingency or procedure documents are layered on top
• Force-on-force fails most often because role players maintain vigilance for only the five minutes before the team enters, so the most realistic FoF uses opposing SWAT teams cocked for 45 to 120 minutes who are caught off guard when surprise is given up
• The 100-round range session breakdown: 40% predictive doubles (always preceded by 5 to 10 dry reps per block), 30% reactive multi-target shooting, 20% movement including lateral and shooting on the move, 10% live verification of whatever you are working in dry fire
• Dry fire sessions should cap at 10 to 15 minutes of full cognitive and grip intensity, because sustained focus beyond that window is where the intensity drops and bad habits are grooved, and multiple short sessions accumulate more quality volume than one long unfocused one
• The triangle of CQB principles, surprise then speed then violence of action, is ordered intentionally: if surprise is never given up, speed is not required, but the moment surprise is lost, speed and violence of action must immediately fill the gap
• The most important character trait in a teammate is loyalty, not to the individual but to shared values and standards, because unlike shooting skill or fitness it cannot be trained, programmed, or faked, and it is the one trait that is essentially hard-coded by the time someone joins a team

Chapters:
0:10 Iron Sights intro and mission statement
0:56 Live at TTPOA: setting the scene
1:58 George Pastore Foundation and the podcast booth
11:27 Justin Torres and Battlegrounds CQB House
12:17 Building a better shoot house for law enforcement
17:40 Targets, visual discrimination, and shoot house training
29:42 Dynamic vs. deliberate: the real definitions
31:45 True CQB speed: task-to-task efficiency
40:26 Loyalty, willingness, and what makes a good teammate
1:01:50 The 100-round training session blueprint
1:09:17 When slow is justified: surprise, darkness, and standoff
1:30:38 AARs as a culture-shifting training tool

Mentioned:
Matt Pranka — Returning guest, practical shooting and CQB instructor, keynote speaker at the TTPOA conference, and the primary subject matter expert in the episode's CQB discussion.
Justin Torres — Owner of Battlegrounds CQB House in San Antonio and a police officer with a small local agency, who built his own shoot house to bring training access to smaller departments.
Kim Pastore — Runs the Jorge Pastore Foundation and partnered with the TTPOA and Iron Sights team to build and fund the conference podcast booth.
Chris Palmer — Friend of Matt Pranka and prior TTPOA keynote speaker, mentioned in the context of shooting review videos where officers misremember their own actions on body cam footage.
Dan Collosanto — Referenced as the person who invited Matt Pranka to be the TTPOA keynote speaker, jokingly described as someone who 'fucked up' by giving Matt the slot.
Jordan — Owner of Arise Manufacturing, who direct-mills Matt Prankla's personal pistols so no optic plate is needed.
Zach Harrison — Owner-operator of Ascension Training Group was seated in the audience at the podcast booth and asked the question about the value of AARs in law enforcement training culture.
Hwansik Kim — Cited by Matt Pranka as an example of a shooter who achieved top national-level match finishes on approximately 2,000 total rounds by mastering dry fire methodology.
Jeff Mau — From Tenicor, he appeared on a prior Iron Sights episode alongside Matt Pranka and John Valentine.
Mike Pannone— Mentioned as having co-taught a course in California with Matt Pranka, after which both appeared on a previous Iron Sights episode.

You think breaching is just kicking in a door. Shane Foster is here to tell you how wrong that is, and why that assumption is costing agencies millions of dollars, officers their careers, and in some cases, lives. Shane is the founder of Guild Solutions Group, director of training development for Pryme Infill, and one of the most quietly credentialed practitioners in the law enforcement and military training space. Over fourteen years in law enforcement across three agencies, a National Guard FAST team, deployments to Yemen and Afghanistan, time in Fortune 500 corporate leadership, and now building one of the most progressive breaching programs in the country, Shane does not fit neatly into a box. That is exactly the point.

This conversation goes deep into the broken culture inside law enforcement training, the dangerous gap between experience and competence, and why ego is not just a soft problem but a hard operational one. Shane breaks down the real categories of breaching, from manual and ballistic to exothermic, hydraulic, bypass, and energetic, and explains why most agencies are leaving officers dangerously under-prepared because of liability avoidance, administrative checkbox training, and a stubborn refusal to evolve curriculum.

You will also hear a frank conversation about the physical, neurological, and legal costs of doing this work incorrectly. Shane pulls no punches on TBI exposure, biomechanical failure patterns in ram technique, the litigation crisis hitting agencies nationwide, and why the solution to all of it is not more of the same. It is holistic, leveled, continually updated training paired with the documentation technology to back it up in court.

If you are in law enforcement, military, or any preparedness-minded community, this episode will challenge how you think about training quality, institutional culture, and what it actually means to be ready when the door comes down. Stick with it all the way through. The back half on Pryme Infill alone is worth the full runtime.

In this episode:
• Ego as an operational failure point: Shane explains that culture problems in law enforcement training are rooted in ego, specifically the institutional unwillingness to admit wrong techniques, outdated case law applications, or poor curriculum, because the personal cost of admitting error feels higher than the cost of staying wrong.
• Concepts over absolutes in breaching instruction: the Guild teaches that every technique has contextual conditions that determine its application, so training must build decision-making capacity rather than rote replication of a single method.
• The six categories of breaching broken down: manual, ballistic, exothermic, hydraulic, bypass, and energetic access each serve distinct tactical purposes, and most patrol officers graduate from academies knowing only a ram and a halogen, which Shane calls subpar even for a one-zero-one level.
• Biomechanical failure in ram technique: pendulum and FBI swings are still being taught generation to generation despite causing broken fingers, rotator cuff injuries, and over-penetration that blades the officer away from a threat inside the structure.
• TBI mitigation is no longer just suck it up: cumulative blast pressure exposure during training, not operations, is the primary issue. Shane references computational fluid dynamics, AI cross-referenced brain wave tracking via Nurable headsets, daily PSI limits, and creatine and vitamin D3 protocols as part of a modern mitigation stack.
• The legal dimension must be taught in real time during every course: case laws governing breaching are rarely actually discussed even when listed on course objectives, and that gap is contributing to a $3 billion-plus payout crisis in law enforcement civil litigation over the past ten years.
• Pryme Infill closes the documentation gap: the platform combines a sanctioned encrypted communication app, geospatial Blue Force Tracker-style awareness, override-capable notifications, mission planning, and a PDF-builder that generates comprehensive legal-grade training records, all designed specifically to protect officers in depositions and civil discovery.
• Midsize agencies are the sweet spot for developing well-rounded officers: small agencies give full-spectrum experience but limited specialization, large agencies define roles narrowly and officers can get lost, while the 200 to 400 officer range provides both operational breadth and enough structure to develop real expertise.

Chapters:
0:00 Iron Sights intro and show philosophy
1:03 Guest intro: who is Shane Foster
1:42 Shane's background and the starfish career
17:55 Agency size, experience, and the midsize sweet spot
22:37 When officers realize training is failing them
30:16 What good instruction actually looks like
32:05 Law enforcement culture, ego, and the cost of not changing
50:27 Building Guild Solutions Group from the ground up
59:39 The six categories of breaching explained
1:28:03 Physical fitness, TBI, and the real cost of this work
1:40:34 How Pryme Infill was born and what it actually does
2:03:16 Where to find Guild Solutions and Pryme Infill

Mentioned:
Chris Kuras — Mutual friend who referred Shane Foster to the host and is associated with BRB and Good Dude Concepts.
Pete Blaber — Author of The Mission, the Men, and Me, cited by Shane as one of his favorite books and as an example of common sense leadership.
Ben Stoeger — Shane mentions encountering him briefly at SHOT Show and cites him as an example of a non-law enforcement, non-military practitioner who became a world-class shooter sought after by elite units.
Matt Pranka — Shane credits him with the idea that instructors cannot make people process faster but can eliminate physical barriers so the student can focus on the problem.
Pete Coletta — Shane's business partner in Guild Applied Solutions, the R and D arm of the Guild.
Jared — Co-founder of Pryme Infill who built the platform after a high-scrutiny deposition following the 2020 Floyd riots, determined never to be caught undocumented again.

Welcome back to another After Dark episode of the Iron Sights Podcast. My guest today is Chris Woomer, founder of VEIL Solutions. Chris is a designer, builder, and instructor who has spent years developing holsters and equipment for responsibly armed citizens, law enforcement, and military professionals. He’s also a masterclass competitive shooter and martial artist who approaches his craft with the mindset of both an artist and a problem solver.
I first came across Chris while searching for people presenting ideas rooted in philosophy and methodology rather than internet noise. His stoic approach, deep conviction, and willingness to challenge conventional thinking immediately stood out. We finally had the chance to sit down face-to-face at SHOT Show 2026.
Chris isn’t chasing hype or headlines. He’s focused on the work—often behind the scenes—pushing the industry forward through thoughtful design, hard-earned experience, and a relentless pursuit of getting it right. 
Sit back and enjoy this After Dark conversation with Chris Woomer here on the Iron Sights Podcast.
Timestamps:
00.00 Intro
07:54 Chris's Background
12:04 Building Veil Solutions
18:13 Focus And Rabbit Holes
25:44 Becoming An Instructor
31:05 Why Teaching Matters
36:35 Who Seeks Training
46:04 Work Ethic Mindset
53:39 Luck Vs Preparation
01:02:36 Design And Reps
01:09:27 Product Development
01:16:20 SHOT Show Reality
01:20:14 Breaching Origin Story
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