dorton
04-25-11, 21:10
My AAR for Trace Armory's Carbine 0-300yds 2 day class April 21st, and 22nd:
First off, I have taken a couple of their handgun classes in which I thoroughly enjoyed and gained a ton of shooting capability. I had pretty high expectations for this class primarily for these reasons.
Day 1
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5224/5648970339_aeafa520a2_b.jpg
The class started off with some basic equipment checks and setup adjustments. John and Rob went over everything the students had for their load out to make the class not only smoother for that student, but everyone involved.
In the emails they had sent out, they made it very clear they want the student to come to the class with an adjustable 2-point sling like the Vickers, or VTAC. My rifle is a 16" M&P15 with 13.8" quad rail, trijicon accupoint 1-4, and a UBR stock. To say it's light would be an outright lie! this thing used to get heavy after just a few minutes of free hand. I had never been taught the correct way to utilize a sling, they changed that. With my sling properly adjusted, my gun basically will stay at the low ready with a minimal effort for extended periods of time. It feels like the gun's weight has been cut to a half, or a third when the sling is adjusted, and letting it do all the work.
The class went on to sighting in a proper 300 meter zero, and working on trigger control/reset. Until this class, I had never had the chance to shoot that far, so the only verification to me that the 300m zero worked was just what I had been told, and what I had read on the web.We all zero'd and then walked all the way back to the 300 mark, and shot to verify. Before walking back to the targets, they had a student shoot from the 300, 200, 100, 50,and the 25 just for a visual on the rise and drop at that zero. I was impressed with how well it performed at all of those distances,and can now understand why they recommend that zero. All of ther student's shots were in the torso, I don't remember exactly, but I think all shots were in the 8ring or better.(nice shooting)
We hadn't been shooting very long on Thursday before they started making it more challenging by having the class shoot using both strong side, and transition to weak side depending on what the situation dictated.
As the students would approach the barriers and try to shoot from behind cover you could see the difficulty for every single person trying to adapt to something so foreign as shooting with the weak side. It didn't stay like that for long as the class went on we shot 50/50 strong side/weak side and everyone made remarkable improvements as the day went on.
We worked on shooting behind cover utilizing kneeling, sitting, prone, and standing. Each different position would be tied into a real life scenario for example prone weak side could be utilized when shooting under a car at
an assailant in a parking lot, kneeling weak side could be used shooting over the hood of your car while exposing the smallest print of your body in a firefight, etc..
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5185/5648971027_882d55c123_z.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5228/5649531474_c9382bb803_z.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5146/5649533794_d253631579_z.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5027/5648973347_e3894c2e05_z.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/5648975199_cd95f27961_z.jpg
During one of the drills we were running that included using everything we had worked up to that point, thunder started through the trees and behold....an AH-64 Apache Longbow popped over the treetops and hovered for a while, checking out the guys running and gunning below. I can't speak for everyone, but it got me pretty pumped.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5104/5649535684_aeab4a4186_z.jpg
We continued to work different weapon manipulations, and positioning drills as time went on, and later moving into lateral shooting on the move. Shooting on the move laterally is bad enough when you do it from strong side,
when you throw in weak side it really begins to challenge you.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5189/5649536794_77c278f159_z.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5066/5648976973_67219c49dc_z.jpg
Challenge is a word you will be hearing from them throughout the class. They want you to challenge yourself as much as possible in route to become a better shooter.
We moved on to shooting in with forward movement. This involved more than just pulling the trigger. It focused the students on shooting in cadence to steps, trigger control, observation of your partners, and observation of surroundings.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5103/5649536350_96f8992467_z.jpg
First off, I have taken a couple of their handgun classes in which I thoroughly enjoyed and gained a ton of shooting capability. I had pretty high expectations for this class primarily for these reasons.
Day 1
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5224/5648970339_aeafa520a2_b.jpg
The class started off with some basic equipment checks and setup adjustments. John and Rob went over everything the students had for their load out to make the class not only smoother for that student, but everyone involved.
In the emails they had sent out, they made it very clear they want the student to come to the class with an adjustable 2-point sling like the Vickers, or VTAC. My rifle is a 16" M&P15 with 13.8" quad rail, trijicon accupoint 1-4, and a UBR stock. To say it's light would be an outright lie! this thing used to get heavy after just a few minutes of free hand. I had never been taught the correct way to utilize a sling, they changed that. With my sling properly adjusted, my gun basically will stay at the low ready with a minimal effort for extended periods of time. It feels like the gun's weight has been cut to a half, or a third when the sling is adjusted, and letting it do all the work.
The class went on to sighting in a proper 300 meter zero, and working on trigger control/reset. Until this class, I had never had the chance to shoot that far, so the only verification to me that the 300m zero worked was just what I had been told, and what I had read on the web.We all zero'd and then walked all the way back to the 300 mark, and shot to verify. Before walking back to the targets, they had a student shoot from the 300, 200, 100, 50,and the 25 just for a visual on the rise and drop at that zero. I was impressed with how well it performed at all of those distances,and can now understand why they recommend that zero. All of ther student's shots were in the torso, I don't remember exactly, but I think all shots were in the 8ring or better.(nice shooting)
We hadn't been shooting very long on Thursday before they started making it more challenging by having the class shoot using both strong side, and transition to weak side depending on what the situation dictated.
As the students would approach the barriers and try to shoot from behind cover you could see the difficulty for every single person trying to adapt to something so foreign as shooting with the weak side. It didn't stay like that for long as the class went on we shot 50/50 strong side/weak side and everyone made remarkable improvements as the day went on.
We worked on shooting behind cover utilizing kneeling, sitting, prone, and standing. Each different position would be tied into a real life scenario for example prone weak side could be utilized when shooting under a car at
an assailant in a parking lot, kneeling weak side could be used shooting over the hood of your car while exposing the smallest print of your body in a firefight, etc..
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5185/5648971027_882d55c123_z.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5228/5649531474_c9382bb803_z.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5146/5649533794_d253631579_z.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5027/5648973347_e3894c2e05_z.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5101/5648975199_cd95f27961_z.jpg
During one of the drills we were running that included using everything we had worked up to that point, thunder started through the trees and behold....an AH-64 Apache Longbow popped over the treetops and hovered for a while, checking out the guys running and gunning below. I can't speak for everyone, but it got me pretty pumped.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5104/5649535684_aeab4a4186_z.jpg
We continued to work different weapon manipulations, and positioning drills as time went on, and later moving into lateral shooting on the move. Shooting on the move laterally is bad enough when you do it from strong side,
when you throw in weak side it really begins to challenge you.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5189/5649536794_77c278f159_z.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5066/5648976973_67219c49dc_z.jpg
Challenge is a word you will be hearing from them throughout the class. They want you to challenge yourself as much as possible in route to become a better shooter.
We moved on to shooting in with forward movement. This involved more than just pulling the trigger. It focused the students on shooting in cadence to steps, trigger control, observation of your partners, and observation of surroundings.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5103/5649536350_96f8992467_z.jpg