Ashton
Founding Instructor

Ashton Ray is the owner of 360 Performance Shooting, a veteran owned company, based near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has been instructing shooters for nearly two decades, but if you ask him to define who he is, he will say he’s a coach, not an instructor. Rather than standing in front of his students requiring that they simply follow his directions, he believes in tailored coaching to maximize what each student needs, whether it be to improve skill in competition, self defense, or law enforcement. Ashton has a keen understanding of the concept of coaching students to success, looking at each individual and finding the means to grow each student. He helps his clients raise the bar on their performance individually, personally making it his goal to have his students see their own personal growth. He also ensures that students leave his training classes with clear goals to work on, as well as the diagnostic tools to evaluate their own progress as they pursue individual improvement.

Ashton’s first mentor in firearms training, David Morford, had a knack of cutting to heart of what it meant to be a trainer. David willingly shared his hard earned wisdom, encouraging Ashton to think of himself as “always a student and sometimes an instructor.” These insights have been the roadmap of his personal journey as a firearms trainer.

Ashton started out as a volunteer coach, helping new shooters in a local club’s NRA Basic Pistol program. He became an NRA pistol instructor, but the more he learned, the more he realized how little he knew. Some years later, Todd Green showed him that with glowing clarity. Ashton was out of his depth in the inaugural Aim Fast, Hit Fast, and he knew it. He told Todd that he didn’t belong in his class due to his lack of skill, but Todd convinced him to stay and work through it, and it was another watershed moment for him. Ashton later returned to the class, earning a score of advanced on the F.A.S.T. after putting in the work to improve.

Since then Ashton has trained with some of the best instructors in the business, folks with military, law enforcement, and competition backgrounds, and gathered a number of different instructor certifications along the way. That’s where the name of his company, 360 Performance Shooting comes from. Rather than limiting his training to only military, or law enforcement, or competition, or personal defense, he’s drawn lessons from many different shooting disciplines, and distilled those learnings into what he believes to be some of the most effective training available to improve any shooter’s skills, regardless of the reason for learning.

Ashton has co-developed and performed the following with secure installation security forces:

  • FOF scenario development
  • FOF scenario controller
  • Curriculum/lesson plan development
  • Regulatory compliance
  • Target Set development
  • Instructor evaluations
  • Range operations and oversight

Training Experience

He’s trained with some of the best instructors in the shooting industry, including:

Experience as an Instructor

Ashton Ray holds multiple instructor certifications including Rangemaster Master, NRA Law Enforcement Division Handgun, Shotgun and Patrol Rifle.

  • Certified NRA Law Enforcement Handgun/Shotgun Instructor/Patrol Rifle Instructor
  • Certified NRA Range Safety Officer
  • Certified NRA Pistol and Protection Inside the Home Instructor
  • Certified Rangemaster Master Firearms Instructor
  • Certified Rangemaster Professional Pistolcraft Instructor
  • Graduate of TMACS TAPS/Law Enforcement Pistol Instructor Course
  • State of Pennsylvania Certified Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor
  • Smith & Wesson M&P Armorer
  • Beretta 1301 Factory Armorer
  • Certified Lubrication Specialist, Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers
  • FAST Wall of Fame member
  • Teaching faculty at Beaver County Community College
  • Instructor certified by Institute of Nuclear Power Operations
  • Vang Comp Remington 870 Armorer
  • Vang Comp Mossberg 500/590 Armorer
  • Repeat Rangemaster Tactical Conference presenter