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View Full Version : AAR: VSM 1 Day Carbine May 21st 2011



kwelz
05-23-11, 10:32
VSM 1 Day Basic Carbine Class
May 21st 2011
https://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=77809

Instructors: Joe Barnsfather
Location: Knob Creek shooting range.

Total in attendance: 10 + instructor

Range conditions: Great water but muddy as hell. This range was under 15+ Feet of water just a couple weeks ago. There were puddles everywhere that you could just about fish out of and a boat on the range that I don't think was brought there by a trailer(And no I am not kidding). There were points I sank down into the mud past my ankles.

I also loved every moment of it. :)


Equipment: This class had a bit more diversity than I am used to on equipment. Most of us were running AR patter rifles. But two gentlemen brought Sig rifles. one was a 552 and I believe the other was a 556. Sighting system ranged from irons to full sized ACOGs.

Myself and one other student were running suppressed SBRs. More on that later.


Class and Drills:
The class started off as we always do with a safety briefing. Since we run a hot range all day emphasis was put on safe handling of the firearms at all time. We also covered the proper way to handle a carbine, and recoil control.

After the briefing we moved onto Zeroing in our guns. This was especially fun considering the range conditions I mentioned earlier. Nobody comes to class expecting to stay clean however. :jester: Joe was nice enough to let us use targets from the previous days class to go prone and. Walking back and forth from the targets was interesting to say the least. And we were all especially amused to see the hundreds of tadpoles that had taken up residence in the range. :eek:
One important lesson I learned at this point. Going prone with a suppressed gun is no fun at all. All those gases were right back in my face.

At this point it was decided to move the targets back to a closer range instead of advancing on them like we normally do. I think i speak for the entire class in extending my thanks to Mr. Barnsfather for this.

Our first drills of the day were simple singe and double shot drills. I know some people who don't think there is value in this. But to me these are some of the most important drills we do. If you can not consistently place a single shot where it needs to be then there is no point in firing off 5 or more rounds. We discussed the importance of trigger control and the height over bore issue brought out by the AR platform.

We then moved on to transition drills. Sadly for me this is where things fell apart. Thankfully I was no alone. We all had trouble to varying degrees in hitting the target after the transition. I threw a couple rounds as did others. However with a little gentle prodding from Joe we all got our heads together and started keeping them in the black.

As normal we also moved onto reload drills and the ever so love Malfunction drills. I managed to jack my gun up so bad that I had to break out my strait knife and multi took on the gun.

And speaking of malfunctions. Except for the self induced ones above the only equipment problems were on the Sig Rifles. Although I guess they were not really equipment problems. One of the gentlemen was having failures to fire. Turns out he was having trouble feeling the reset on the trigger and was failing to reset under recoil properly so he would have a dead trigger when he tried to fire again.

In the afternoon we did some fun drills. One of my personal favorite is the 1-5 drill. Three targets, 1 shot on the first, 2 on the second, 3 on the third, 4 on the second, and finally 5 back on the first. It is a great drill to teach switching targets and keeping rounds where they belong. We also did a slightly modified version of the 10-10-10 drill.

Finally we also did Battlefield pickup. I feel this drill should be required in every class no matter who teaches it. Everyone loads a full magazine and sits the gun on the ground. We all move to the left and pick up that gun and put 3 rounds on target. It is very interesting to see other guns and how they are configured. I feel it helps a lot of people that are newer get a feel for what may or may not work for them. A number of people said they were going to get longer rails on their guns after it was done!

In this case it also brought up the importance of wearing gloves when shooting. As I mentioned earlier, myself and another gentleman had suppressed guns at this class. I was running a 11.5 with an AAC can and he was running a shorter gun with the can recessed inside his hand guard. I was immediately to his right so I shot his gun first. I had no issued with it. But by halfway through the line his hand guard had gotten extremely hot and the people without gloves were feeling it.

Another gentlemen picked up my gun and reached out to grab as far on the rail as possible. Only to discover that big round thing wasn't part of the rail but instead was a suppressor with about 300 rounds through it that day. He caught himself in time but it could have been a bad situation if he had grabbed onto it hard.

This drill also rekindled my hatred for single point bungee slings and Magpul MS2 Slings.

Overall it was a great day. I probably shot better than I ever have in a class before. The other students were great and as always I feel I learned a lot.
We also dodged a bullet with the weather. A thunderstorm rolled in less than an hour after we wrapped up class. Overall kind of hard to complain about the day.


Photos will be added later and I encourage the other students to add their thoughts.

Oh yeah I almost forgot.
GROUNDHOG DOWN! I REPEAT, GROUNDHOG DOWN!

Morcelu
05-23-11, 11:33
This was my 2nd VSM class with Joe, but my first carbine class ever. kwelz did a great job of going over the class content, so I'll stick to giving observations on what I took away from it.

-I need a pistol grip with a smaller backstrap. I ran a MOE grip in the class, but quickly came to the realization that the grip made it physically impossible to position my trigger finger along the dust cover door like Joe taught. I'm probably going to end up changing to a MIAD with the small backstrap or the TangoDown grip.
-The Aimpoint Micro is a great optic. This was the first serious shooting I've done since I got the sight back around Christmas.
-I recently switched from a Magpul sling to a VCAS sling. After the class, I'm thinking that this was a wise decision on my part. My neck and back were a little sore the next day, but I can't imagine what I'd have felt like using the Magpul sling all day.
-The battlefield pickup drill really made me appreciate the 13" rain on my gun. I am tall and have long arms, so I make use of all of that space. (And could probably stand to have another inch or so of rail space). As the guy who almost burned his hand on the suppressor, it also made me realize how instinctive it can be to pick up a gun and immediately fall into the stance that you are used to.
-The Vickers motto of 'Speed is fine; Accuracy is final" really stuck with me throughout the day. I found that I could get shots off very quickly if I wanted to, but always at the expense of accuracy. When I slowed down and was very deliberate about my shooting is when my shots really started to hit the center. When we went on the timer for drills, we weren't judged by our times; we were judged by whether or not we shot the drill clean.

That's all I can think of for now. I will add more later if I think of anything.

JBRIII
05-23-11, 11:37
This was my second class with Joe and the VSM. Brought my cousin along for his first class as well. The weather was much better than January . I'll take 80 and sunny over 15 and blowing any day.

The range had been under 15 feet of water for over a month and was still pretty mucky. Presented some navigational challenges. Joe had done some work on my BCM to change the rail to a TRX and I went up to the line to re-chck zero before class since barrel nut was removed and couldn't chamber a round. It went about 80% of the way in and got stuck. WTF... I went back to truck and no cleaning kit in the bag - another WTF. Luckily a class mate had a chamber brush and I gave it a good scrubbing. Ran like a champ after that. I think when I duracoated it a few months ago some overspray got in the chamber. Pays to constantly function check your gear. I learned a valuable lesson, luckily not the hard way.

Class began with the safety lecture and then we went to the 50 yard line to check zero's. After a few attempts and adjustments everyone was where they wanted to be. Mine was pretty close but needed some tweeking after the barrel nut was removed.

The drills progressively built on each other and accuracy was stressed and emphasized. We started with singles, then doubles, triples, head shots, all from various ranges. Because of range conditions we kept everything within 25 yards which meant draw your handgun if your long gun goes down. My favorite drill again was the battlefield pickup. We rotated to the left one spot until you got to try everyones rifle for 3 shot drills. Everyone was shooting an M4 of some type (2 suppressed) and 2 sigs (1 US and 1 Swiss). Most had aimpoints, but a couple with ACOG's and 2 with Iron Sights. Everyone who was bitching about my Surefire Break, wasn't after they got to shoot it.........

I used a BFG Battlebelt this time with a Jones Tactical Cobra Buckle Velcro lined belt, 2 Eagle FB M4 Pouches, 2 Eagle FB G-19 pouches,
Blade-Tech DOH LH G19 w/ TLR-1 Holster, and Rollup Dump Pouch. I really like this setup for a class when you only need a few mags.

Overall it was a great class and reinforced what I had learned earlier. I just need to find the time and place to get out and practice it more often.

superr.stu
05-23-11, 21:41
This was my first ever carbine course, third VSM class with Joe though. I came to this class without any real idea of what to expect, I signed up for it solely because I was coming down for pistol the next day anyway, and that was probably one of the best decisions I've ever made. I only have a couple things to add off the top of my head that really stuck with me.

-Mr. Smith wasn't kidding about flipflops.
-after a transition if you shoot your pistol like it's a carbine you'll probably get a WTF to go along with you snatcho-grande meal.
-the battlefield pick up showed me more about my carbine than I would have learned in a week at my home range.

Overall it was probably the best class I've attended and was the perfect start to a great weekend.

-I'll have more to add later after I can go through my notes and get my thoughts a little more organized.

Mr. Smith
05-24-11, 13:24
Thank you guys it is nice to get to the range with all of you.

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/SuperiorFirearms/VSM%20CLASS%205-21-2011/100_3421.jpg

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/SuperiorFirearms/VSM%20CLASS%205-21-2011/100_3407.jpg

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/SuperiorFirearms/VSM%20CLASS%205-21-2011/100_3412.jpg

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/SuperiorFirearms/VSM%20CLASS%205-21-2011/100_3406.jpg