Guns: Panteao Productions' "Make Ready" series

The "Make Ready" series is a line of firearms training DVDs by Panteao Productions. Each DVD contains a lesson taught by a professional shooter, gunsmith, or firearms instructor, and the whole series is available for unlimited online streaming at Panteao's website for a monthly or yearly charge.

I tried the streaming service, and was mostly pleased. The material is available in high-definition, though only the fastest broadband connections will be able to pull down a 1080p stream.

Here are the standouts from the current library:

• Bill Rogers: Reactive Pistol Shooting
In a real life fight, the bad guys rarely stand still. The reactive pistol training course developed by former FBI agent Bill Rogers is built around this fact; instead of standard static targets, Rogers emphasizes getting hits on small areas that are partially exposed for fractions of a second - nicely simulating the stress of hitting someone who is moving or behind cover.

• Travis Haley: Adaptive Carbine
If you're a fan of the Magpul Dynamics "Art of the Tactical Carbine" series, you'll be familiar with much of what Travis Haley teaches on this DVD. Haley is a great instructor, and there's also some new material here, so the DVD is still worth a watch. There's a detailed breakdown of the modern carbine shooting stance, discussions of speed and accuracy, and the usual malfunction/reloading/zeroing advice.

• Louis Awerbuck: Analysis of the Survival Mindset
There are very few people who are qualified to teach a course about close range gunfighting, and Louis Awerbuck is one of them. Here, you'll get advice on where to aim at a bad guy, when to draw a second gun (the New York reload), and, most importantly, thoughts on the mindset, strategy, and tactics needed for survival, all delivered in an awesome South African accent.

I wish the site had a lower bandwidth video option for people who don't have super high-speed cable internet - even the 480p format chugged at times on my budget DSL connection. I also think they'd make a lot of money selling digital "copies" of individual DVDs at reduced price. On the balance, though, the Panteao series is well worth a look.