AAR: Hackathorn/Vickers Low Light Intensive Course II

[VA_Dinger]

The class went well.

Lets use this new thread for all reviews & discussions about Low Light Class #2.

[dubb-1]

Make it snappy, will ya?! I hate that I had to miss this...again...

Paul, great sig line!

[John_Wayne777]

I'm writing this having just arrived home about 15 minutes ago, so forgive me if this writeup sucks....

Anyway, overall I would rate the class as excellent. This is the first opportunity I've had to train with Ken Hackathorn...I sincerely hope it isn't my last.

The essence of the class was, as Ken put it, to "wean" us off the improper use of the white light. Human beings have a natural fear of the dark and we tend to like lots and lots of light....especially if we think there are bad guys trying to hurt us. The problem is that somebody with a flashlight becomes an instant target at night and thus one must learn to employ light properly if survival is a priority for them.

To that end the vast majority of the class was done in the dark. We did some shooting during daylight hours, mainly rehearsing what we would be doing later on that night without the aid of that big burning ball in the sky.

In the "armpit of Ohio" it gets pretty darn dark.

Personally I didn't find basic manipulation of my weapons to be much of a problem in the dark. I've done enough of these training things both in formal training courses and in my own personal training time that making my weapons function sans-light wasn't much of an issue for me.

Accuracy, on the other hand, went straight to hell. With the LIE method of engaging a target which involves engaging a target without a light on the target you are engaging essentially from memory, I found that my shots with the carbine weren't as good as I would prefer, but still quite doable thanks to the Aimpoint. The pistol was just flat out embarrassing. My M&P's Trijicon night sights went Tango Uniform on me and I was essentially point shooting at a target I could barely see in the pitch friggin' blackness.

The target was UGLY.

Non-tritium iron sights are next to useless in the dark or in low light.

For handguns, people with Crimson Trace grips had the easiest night. After watching the CT grips in use for one relay in the dark, I was sold. I'll be acquiring some for my carry guns ASAP.

Gear In general:

People sometimes get too worked up over gear choices, and still others will tell you that gear choices don't really matter, but the person behind the gear matters. Both of them are wrong.

Gear does not make the man, that is for absolute certain...but at the same time improper gear choices can cornhole you something fierce and can make the task of surviving something nasty HARDER.

For instance: During the daylight run on defensive clearing yours truly did just fine. Even the knife wielding target that claimed several members of the group I was in didn't get me because I put his friggin' lights out.

Easy day, especially since it wasn't my first trip through a shoot house doing room clearing.

Now fast forward to the night. I'm going through the same shoothouse with the same targets and the same layout and with the same equipment as before...only now I can barely see my hand in front of my face. I've finally confirmed that my night sights are indeed completely FUBAR and so I'm attempting to go through the shoothouse with my M&P just using my Surefire X200B and any flash sight picture I can glean using it.

That didn't turn out so good.

I still managed to stop the knife wielding attacker...but the rest of the bad guys killed me....all because I was trying to get my f**king light on and off. I was so damn busy trying to make my light work using the standard pain in the ass switch that I got stupid and did things like stand in the middle of a doorway and engage bad guys.

That's a no-no.

When my weapon ran dry I flipped off my X200 and began to reload...except that I didn't manage to actually turn off the X200. I managed to turn the switch all the way to the OTHER on position leaving a huge friggin' SHOOT ME beacon in the night and I didn't realize it until mid-reload, shortly before Ken started hollering at me to get the light off.

I finally managed to get the damn thing turned off and then switched to a hand held light which worked much better. The hits on my targets were all good, but my focus on trying to make that friggin' light work took enough clock cycles of brain power to make me do stupid stuff like stand in a doorway and shoot it out with two bad guy targets...both armed with SMGs.

Lesson learned:

1. Gear choices really can f**k you up.
2. Momentary switches are put onto "tactical" lights for a reason.
3. Multiple sighting systems on a handgun (lasers/night sights) = good idea.

Corrective action(s) taken:

1. Grant is getting an order for a pressure switch for that X200 very soon. While the pressure switch has a higher risk of light AD's than the standard Surefire switch, I'd rather risk that than the complete and utter melt-down experienced here.

2. CT grips will be acquired very soon.


Handgun Weapon lights:

I thought I would be at a significant disadvantage (in this course and in real life) if I didn't have a weapon light for my handgun. That turned out not to be true. I only used the X200 on my handgun on a couple of brief and as it turns out disastrous occasions, relying instead on my standard Surefire combat lights as my primary lights with the handgun. Turns out that my performance wasn't hindered in the slightest...and in fact, I performed significantly BETTER using the standard lights both in terms of using the light in a tactically correct fashion and in terms of where my bullets went. I've done low light training (albeit nowhere near this extensive) with the handgun before and always with standard hand held lights, and my performance with them showed it.

Are weapon mounted lights on a handgun a bad thing? No, but my personal experience shows that you need to spend some dedicated training time to figuring out the best way to run one if you intend to run one. You will not simply be able to slap one on your blaster and be good to go....well, at least not if you're at my skill level. (Which is admittedly pretty low...)


Crimson Trace Laser Grips:

Yes, they really do work and yes, they are to the handgun what the Aimpoint is for the carbine. The next revolution in handgunning is going to be the standard integration of some sort of laser/red dot style system into the handgun as a basic configuration for defensive purposes.


ARMS Throw Lever Mount for the Surefire M96 Weapon Light:

Blows goats. Seriously. The damn thing FELL OFF MY WEAPON in the middle of a friggin drill. I go to illuminate a target and there's nothing friggin' there to illuminate with. The lever was in the "locked" position and everything. That's going to be replaced ASAP, even if I have to resort to hose clamps.


Aimpoints:

They rock. Period.


Vickers BFG sling:

Best sling I've ever used. I've never been as happy with any sling arrangement as I am with this one.


AMMO:

A lot of folks don't consider the importance of muzzle flash when selecting ammo for serious social purposes. That used to include me. After doing this much low light shooting at once, however, and after attempting to use the LIE system taught by Larry and Ken, and after experiencing a COMPLETE loss of vision for brief periods of time (because of the flashbulb effect) after shooting flame-throwing rounds, I'm changing that. It's not the primary factor in choosing ammo, but it ought to be something people put into the mix of factors involved in selecting a carry load for a weapon. (Handgun or carbine)


Night Vision:

If there's a significant chance you're going to be using weapons to stop bad guys at night, or if you've just got a spare 3-4 grand laying around and you want something good to spend it on, night vision is a good choice. It's cheating, and cheating is always a good thing in a fight.

ASSORTED:

1. When a certain Carolina cop starts a sentence with the phrase "Interesting jail story..." you should plug your ears and run in the opposite direction as fast as you can. You don't really want to hear what's coming next. Seriously.

2. Canadians don't say "eh" as much as I thought they did. Kind of odd, eh? So now I have to wonder "aboot" the stuff I've heard regarding hockey and the perverted nonsense they refer to as "bacon".

3. If there is ever a version of Jeopardy in the gun world and if Templar is one of the contestants, just forfeit and save yourself the humiliation. How in the hell he knows all that stuff is beyond me.

4. Don't ask if Larry Vickers owns a particular weapon. The answer is almost certain to be yes. It would probably be easier to list the guns he DOESN'T own.

5. It takes guts to announce to a group of 2nd amendment loving guys that' you're from the UN and you are going to need registration information on all the weapons being used at this course....which leads me to:

6. There are places in Ohio where nobody can hear you scream...and if somebody does happen to hear it, they probably won't give a damn anyway.

7. I found a really neat blue helmet in Ohio. It's in great shape. It has a small bullet hole in it, and the inside of the helmet is kind of sticky, but other than that...

8. Apparently all flash-bangs are not created equal.

9. Chrome plated pizza pistols are the ultimate CQB weapon.

10. Freddie Blish is the man. He was handing out Aimpoints for folks to try, and even hooked my Bushmaster up with night vision and a DBAL...in one fell swoop mounting hardware on my weapon that was more valuable than my weapon AND my car put together.

I'm sure that later when I have some sleep I'll think of more, but that ought to be good enough to get the thread going.

EDIT --

MOST IMPORTANTLY I want to say flat out that if there is a low light course offered in 2008, I'M IN. I know this class is a pain in the neck logistically and that the teaching demands of the subject matter on the instructors is significant...but this is valuable info and experience that people just aren't going to be able to get any other way.

I appreciate Ken and Larry offering the course, and I appreciate the hospitality shown to us by the facilities we trained at.

We need MORE of this sort of class. Lots more.

[VA_Dinger]

Thanks John, that is a great review.

[Business_Casual]

Class photo:

[John_Wayne777]

Now that I've had some sleep, a few more things:

1. Anyone who gets their panties in a twist because of any of Ken Hackathorn's drills is either ignorant of what is involved with them, or is a complete idiot.

2. This won't be a revelation to many people, but threat-focused shooting is a viable and valid method of engaging a target, especially at night. I used it to great effect both day and night in this course. You don't need the traditional bullseye sight picture (front sight clear, rear sight and target fuzzy) to make accurate shots. You can be focused on the threat, superimpose your sights on the threat and make a GOOD TRIGGER PULL and make head shots all day long at shorter ranges.

3. Again, this won't be a revelation to many people but it should be said for the benefit of those who haven't examined the question for themselves: Anyone who tells you about X lumens from a flashlight "blinding" an opponent and rendering them unable to shoot/stab/whatever you is a fool. Even with a light blazing in your eyes you can still put rounds on a target.

The demonstration using M4C's own KevinB (which is one of several I have seen) demonstrated pretty conclusively that a guy with a big honkin' light into his eyes can still pull a 1911 and put seven rounds center mass of a target. I've seen demonstrations using simunitions and even when moving you still see guys holding the lights getting hit...including being hit directly in the flashlight.

4. If you want to spark Ken's interest, pull out a Smith & Wesson 442 and start shooting with it. "Ah...now there's a man with a real gun!"

5. PRACTICE HAND HELD LIGHT TECHNIQUES!!! Operating a light AND a weapon in the dark under stress is a lot more difficult than you think it will be if you've never done it before. You need to get to the point that you naturally index the light and the weapon in the same place without thought or adjustment.

6. Learn and PRACTICE multiple hand held light techniques. You need an "inside" and an "outside" technique. Personally I find the Rogers and Harries techniques to be the most useful.

7. When you go to a class like this, listen to experienced students in the class. You often learn as much from fellow students as you do from the instructors. In this class, for instance, I picked up a lanyard technique for the combat lights from our German friend that I'd never seen before and that turned out to be the heat. It's so simple I don't know why I didn't think of it, but it's the best use of the lanyard I've ever seen. I used it for the rest of the course with very happy results.

Let the guys who have more experience do most of the talking and be prepared to soak up every little last tidbit of useful information you possibly can.

Notice I said "useful" information, which is not the same thing as jail stories from Carolina.

8. I'm glad I got rid of my P220s.

9. I almost fell over when I heard Ken Hackathorn call the M&P the pistol of the future.

10. G36es and UMPs SUCK.

11. There is no weapon or piece of gear in the world that can help you if you don't exercise proper trigger control. If you can develop your trigger control to the point where you can properly manipulate a trigger without conscious thought, you've assured that in a bad situation you'll be able to hit the threat.

12. The jerky at Abel's is pretty good...but not as good as the deer jerky we make around here in my opinion.

13. What is it about gun people and jerky anyway?

[John_Wayne777]

Class photo:

I'm third from the left.

[Sam]

Now that I've had some sleep, a few more things:

1. Anyone who gets their panties in a twist because of any of Ken Hackathorn's drills is either ignorant of what is involved with them, or is a complete idiot.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

On your item #1, I told an editor of a handgun magazine basically what you said verbatim after he and his henchman attacked Ken publicly, I cancelled my subscription immediately. He didn't care what I had to say.

[markm]

Wow!

I need to get my sorry ass out to the range at night and practice.

Good write up.

[cfrazier]

JOHNWAYNE ,

I'LL STILL CARRY MY P220. ONLY ONE MALFUNCTION AND THAT WAS MAG. RELATED. HAD A GREAT TIME LEARNING FROM KEN AND LARRY AND GLAD TO MEET ALL OF YOU FACE TO FACE. YES EVEN YOU UN.