Tulster at Ohio Range Day: What Three Days of Real Training Taught Us
Quick answer
Ohio Range Day is a three-day, application-based firearms training event in Garrettsville, Ohio, hosted by Achilles Heel Tactical. It combines day and night live-fire training blocks taught by vetted instructors with a sponsor midway, live-fire demo bays, and shared meals. Tulster brought its Kydex holsters and carry gear to run them through the event's drills, and is using the trip to raise money for Sentinel Foundation, a nonprofit that fights child exploitation and human trafficking.
There's a version of range day most of us know well. You drive out, hang a target, shoot a couple of boxes at a static distance, and drive home feeling good about a tight group. Nothing wrong with that. But it doesn't tell you much about how you'll draw from concealment when your heart rate is up, how your holster behaves after the two-hundredth reholster, or whether you can find your sights when the sun goes down.
Ohio Range Day is built to answer those questions. So this year, the Tulster crew loaded up in Jenks, Oklahoma and headed to northeast Ohio to find out what our gear, and our skills, looked like under real pressure.
What is Ohio Range Day?
Ohio Range Day is a multi-day training event hosted by Achilles Heel Tactical in Garrettsville, Ohio. It's not an open-gate range party. Attendance runs through an application, slots are limited, and the people who get in are there to be pushed.
The weekend is organized around structured training blocks led by vetted instructors, roughly 16 hours of instruction across three days. Sessions run during the day and continue after dark, which is one of the event's defining features. Between blocks, attendees work through a sponsor midway with live-fire bays, demonstrations, competitions, and time with companies across the industry. Meals are catered, and they're a bigger part of the experience than you'd guess.
If you're weighing whether a multi-day event like this is worth the drive and the ticket, here's the short version from our side: it's the closest thing to a stress test you can get outside of a formal course, with a community attached.
The training: fundamentals under pressure
The daytime blocks focused on the skills that matter most for people who carry every day: drawing from concealment, shooting on the move, and running fundamentals when you're tired, rushed, or both.
The value of a structured block isn't the round count. It's the feedback. A good instructor will watch one draw and tell you exactly where you're losing time, whether that's a grip you're fixing after the gun clears the holster, a cover garment you're fighting, or a reholster you're rushing. [Add one specific moment from the team: an instructor correction, a drill that humbled someone, a before-and-after time.]
That kind of feedback is hard to get alone, and it's the reason we'd tell any concealed carrier who's past the basics to find a structured event at least once a year.
After dark: why low-light training matters
Most defensive encounters don't happen at noon on a sunny square range, which is why Ohio Range Day's night sessions were a highlight for our crew.
Low-light work changes everything. Target identification gets harder. Your sights may disappear. Your draw, which felt automatic all afternoon, suddenly has to happen by feel. It's also where the case for a weapon-mounted light stops being theoretical: if you can't see what you're shooting at, you can't responsibly shoot it.
For anyone who carries with a light, night training is also a holster test. A light-bearing holster has to index the light consistently, release cleanly, and accept the gun back without fumbling, all without you looking down. [Note which Tulster light-bearing holsters the team ran, if any.]
Our holsters, run hard
We build holsters in Jenks with a simple standard: they should be comfortable enough to wear all day and secure enough to trust when it counts. A training weekend like this is where that standard gets checked.
Over three days, our Kydex holsters went through hours of drawing, moving, and reholstering, alongside shooters running gear from every corner of the industry. That's the feedback we can't get in the shop. What held up, what we'd tweak, and what other shooters noticed about our gear all goes straight back into how we design and build. If you're shopping for a holster and want to see how it holds up to real training, that's what the video shows. If you're still deciding on a carry position, our guide to appendix vs. other carry positions is a good place to start, and our Oath vs. Profile+ comparison breaks down two of the holsters we lean on most.
The people make the event
Ask anyone who's been to Ohio Range Day what they remember, and the training is only half the answer. The other half is the people.
It's the conversations over dinner. The instructors who stayed late to fix one more draw. The other companies on the midway who were just as happy to talk shop as to talk product. The shooters who showed up as strangers and left as friends. For a small, family-built company like ours, that community is the whole point. Most of our customers found us because someone they trusted recommended us, and events like this are where that kind of trust gets built in person.
Why we're raising money for Sentinel Foundation
Alongside our Ohio Range Day video, Tulster is raising money for Sentinel Foundation, a nonprofit that fights child exploitation and human trafficking.
Sentinel's mission is to "protect the vulnerable, confront the predators, and train others to do the same." Its team includes veterans of special operations, federal law enforcement, and the intelligence community. They run missions on the ground to track traffickers, break up criminal networks, and rescue exploited children, and they train law enforcement officers around the world in anti-trafficking work. In 2024, they evacuated 59 disabled and at-risk children from Haiti and got them to safety and medical care.
The connection to a weekend like Ohio Range Day is simple. The skills we practice are about protecting the people we love. Sentinel Foundation uses those same skills to protect children who have no one else.
Every dollar goes to Sentinel Foundation. If you can't give right now, sharing this post or the video helps more people find out about their work.
Carry gear built for training like this
Every Tulster holster is made in Jenks, Oklahoma, backed by a lifetime warranty, and ships free the same day. If you want a holster you'll trust through a full weekend of drills, and every ordinary day after it, shop Tulster holsters.
Thank you to Achilles Heel Tactical for hosting, and to every instructor, sponsor, and shooter who made the weekend what it was. We'll see you on the line next year.
FAQ
What is Ohio Range Day? Ohio Range Day is a three-day firearms training event in Garrettsville, Ohio, hosted by Achilles Heel Tactical. It combines day and night training blocks with vetted instructors, a sponsor midway with live-fire bays, and catered meals.
Where is Ohio Range Day held? Ohio Range Day is held in Garrettsville, Ohio, in the northeast part of the state, about an hour southeast of Cleveland.
Who hosts Ohio Range Day? Ohio Range Day is hosted by Achilles Heel Tactical, a training company that organizes the event's instruction and vets its instructors.
How do you get into Ohio Range Day? Attendance at Ohio Range Day is application-based, and slots are limited. Check Achilles Heel Tactical's official channels for the current application window and ticket price.
Does Ohio Range Day include night shooting? Yes. Ohio Range Day includes night training sessions that cover low-light shooting, target identification, and the use of weapon-mounted lights.
Is Ohio Range Day good for concealed carriers? Yes, for concealed carriers who are past the basics. The training covers drawing from concealment, shooting on the move, and fundamentals under pressure, which are the skills that matter most for everyday carry.
Why did Tulster go to Ohio Range Day? Tulster went to Ohio Range Day to put its Kydex holsters through hours of real training drills, gather feedback from serious shooters, and raise money for Sentinel Foundation, a nonprofit that fights child exploitation and human trafficking.
What is Sentinel Foundation? Sentinel Foundation is a nonprofit that fights child exploitation and human trafficking. Its team of special operations, federal law enforcement, and intelligence veterans runs rescue missions and trains law enforcement worldwide.