PoppaPump
10-31-11, 18:44
AAR -Vickers Tactical 1-Day Advanced Tactics Class
Date: 10/29
Location:
The Beaver Valley Rifle and Pistol Club
Beaver Falls, PA (about 20 minutes from the Pittsburgh International Airport)
Instructor: The LAV
Cost: $275. 00
Class Description / Prerequisites: The Vickers Tactical Advanced Tactics class is a challenging one day course focusing entirely on shooting on the move and use of cover and concealment. An intro section for shooting out of and around vehicles is also part of the course. Since this class will be starting out with shooting on the move students are expected to show up with a solid grasp of handgun & carbine shooting fundamentals. All students are required to have completed at least a basic handgun class with Vickers Tactical or other reputable training organization.
Class Roster – 19 shooters - mix of current LE, former mil and responsible citizens.
Weather – 35f w/ snow/rain and mud.
After the usual safety brief, we jumped right into shooting paper on the move as a warm up. We broke into 2 groups as to not crowd the line. Each group ran drills 4 shots on the beep from the 7 yd line moving in. A group would run the drill x 3 reps and then swap out with the other group. After about 10 reps for each group, the drill was reversed, 4 shots on the beep starting at arm’s length from the paper walking backwards. The same drills were performed w/ pistol first then ran again w/ carbine. A lot of people myself included, seem to shoot better on the move walking backwards than they do forward.
After this evolution we took a break to top off, set up barricades and break down the paper stands as the rest of the day would be spent shooting steel.
The next drill was working from behind wooden barricades. Larry demo’d proper positioning to minimize exposure from behind cover in the standing and kneeling position, shooting from both the right and left shoulder. Starting w/ this drill and all following drills, we ran it dry first so everyone got a feel for what was involved. After the drill was ran as a single shooter, we paired up with a buddy so one guy was kneeling and the other was standing over him to engage multiple targets, one shooter would start engaging the targets working from left to right, the other shooter would engage right to left. The standing shooter would then signal the all clear by squeezing the shoulder of the kneeling shooter and “lifting” him as a signal to move.
The final drill before lunch was stacking the class in a line to the left side of the barricades. On the beep the 1st shooter in line would run to the right side of the 1st barricade and engage the steel downrange in front of that barricade w/ 2 shots in each target. On the next beep, that shooter would move to the next barricade and put 2 shots on that barricades 2 steel targets the next guy in line would fill the first’s vacated position. This continued until the line cycled through all 5 barricades. Once the drill was completed, it was reversed coming back down through the barricades only shooting from the left shoulder on the left side of the barricade.
Lunch break: Where yours truly won idiot of the year by locking not 1, but 2 sets keys in his truck after stowing all my gear and blasters to keep them out of the rain during lunch. Fellow shooter Jim saved the day by calling a towing company he knew to come save the day. If you are reading this, I owe you big time Jim, thanks again brother!
After lunch we broke down the barricades and moved the vehicle’s into place. Larry started the afternoon session with a lecture and hit again on to position your body to minimize exposure (see a recurring theme here?) and the best location of a vehicle to use for cover and why the rest suck. Larry also stressed during this lecture that you want to keep the gun vertical as much as you can instead of canting it and if you have to use the SBU position do it so the ejection port is up if possible as a malfunction can be introduced if the ejection port is facing down in close proximity to a trunk/hood or fender. He also reminded the class to keep line of sight vs. line of bore in mind when shooting around/over the vehicle.
At the conclusion of the lecture we started the next drill, which was pretty similar to the barricade drill only with a van and a Chevy Lumina positioned nose to nose with a 10’ gap between bumpers instead of wood barricades. 4 shooters were positioned with one each at the right rear of the van, the right front wheel of the van, the left front wheel of the Lumina and the left rear of the Lumina. On the beep the shooter would engage target, the guy at the back of the van and the front of the Lumina would fire from the left shoulder and the other 2 would fire from the right shoulder putting 2 rounds into target in your assigned sector. The line of sight/line of bore bit me in the ass here as I got a little too aggressive acquiring a target to my left and smoked the rear windshield of the Lumina. Sight picture through my Aimpoint looked good, but I totally dropped the ball on accounting for offset as my round hit the far side of the windshield right next to the roof support. After everyone ran through this drill in static positions, we incorporated shooting on the move with each shooter maneuvering through each position as it was vacated by the shooter in ahead of him.
After a top off, Q & A session w/ Larry, we moved into drills that involved bailing from the vehicle’s, getting to cover, engaging targets and disengaging. This was ran in 2 man and then 4 man teams. Biggest nugget taken from this drill was that a contact plan needs to be established ahead of time as to who is going to go where and how they are going to get there, i.e., the driver can’t come around the front of the vehicle if the passenger is posted at the passenger front wheel well as the driver would run right into the passengers line of fire. The driver needs to make his egress either to the rear of the vehicle or better yet if possible climb over and out the passenger door. Of course this action would only apply to the scenario set up for this drill, but the bottom line is a plan needs to be communicated ahead of time.
The last drill of the day was engaging the steel from the back of a moving pickup. This was run as 2 man teams w/ both pistol and carbines. LAV drove the truck at what I guess had to be 5mph or less while the teams worked the steel both forward and reverse. This was the first time I have ever done this and it was a hell of a lot harder than it looked, but everyone’s hits seemed to increase as they ran it the second time.
It wouldn’t be a Larry Vickers class without a team competition and that is what we closed out the day with. The shooting from the truck drill was run w/ each member of the 2 man team setup w/ 10 rounds in the carbine and 9 in the blaster. We dropped all the steel except 2 so each team member had a single target to engage. On the forward leg, the carbine was used, blaster on the reverse leg coming back. The winner was crowned by adding up the total number of hits for the team. Grant from M4carbine.net provided tee shirts to the top 2 teams. I believe there was a tie w/ 2 teams getting 21 hits.
All in all, another top notch Vickers Tactical class. Great instruction and great bunch of students combined to make shitty weather a non factor. The sun actually came out for about 30 seconds while we were shooting from the truck.
There were no major gear issues or malfunctions and I think the biggest safety error was myself having my trigger finger inside the trigger guard on a dry fire walk through. LAV was on it like a hawk and corrected me.
I ran a Stag 2T w/ Adams Arms piston kit and Sig 226 with zero issues. My round count was 300 and around 150 pistol.
If you haven’t trained w/ Larry, you are missing out.
If I missed something or described it wrong, feel free to jump in.
Thanks to Tom and Beaver Valley for hosting this class and thanks to the LAV for coming to Western PA again.
Date: 10/29
Location:
The Beaver Valley Rifle and Pistol Club
Beaver Falls, PA (about 20 minutes from the Pittsburgh International Airport)
Instructor: The LAV
Cost: $275. 00
Class Description / Prerequisites: The Vickers Tactical Advanced Tactics class is a challenging one day course focusing entirely on shooting on the move and use of cover and concealment. An intro section for shooting out of and around vehicles is also part of the course. Since this class will be starting out with shooting on the move students are expected to show up with a solid grasp of handgun & carbine shooting fundamentals. All students are required to have completed at least a basic handgun class with Vickers Tactical or other reputable training organization.
Class Roster – 19 shooters - mix of current LE, former mil and responsible citizens.
Weather – 35f w/ snow/rain and mud.
After the usual safety brief, we jumped right into shooting paper on the move as a warm up. We broke into 2 groups as to not crowd the line. Each group ran drills 4 shots on the beep from the 7 yd line moving in. A group would run the drill x 3 reps and then swap out with the other group. After about 10 reps for each group, the drill was reversed, 4 shots on the beep starting at arm’s length from the paper walking backwards. The same drills were performed w/ pistol first then ran again w/ carbine. A lot of people myself included, seem to shoot better on the move walking backwards than they do forward.
After this evolution we took a break to top off, set up barricades and break down the paper stands as the rest of the day would be spent shooting steel.
The next drill was working from behind wooden barricades. Larry demo’d proper positioning to minimize exposure from behind cover in the standing and kneeling position, shooting from both the right and left shoulder. Starting w/ this drill and all following drills, we ran it dry first so everyone got a feel for what was involved. After the drill was ran as a single shooter, we paired up with a buddy so one guy was kneeling and the other was standing over him to engage multiple targets, one shooter would start engaging the targets working from left to right, the other shooter would engage right to left. The standing shooter would then signal the all clear by squeezing the shoulder of the kneeling shooter and “lifting” him as a signal to move.
The final drill before lunch was stacking the class in a line to the left side of the barricades. On the beep the 1st shooter in line would run to the right side of the 1st barricade and engage the steel downrange in front of that barricade w/ 2 shots in each target. On the next beep, that shooter would move to the next barricade and put 2 shots on that barricades 2 steel targets the next guy in line would fill the first’s vacated position. This continued until the line cycled through all 5 barricades. Once the drill was completed, it was reversed coming back down through the barricades only shooting from the left shoulder on the left side of the barricade.
Lunch break: Where yours truly won idiot of the year by locking not 1, but 2 sets keys in his truck after stowing all my gear and blasters to keep them out of the rain during lunch. Fellow shooter Jim saved the day by calling a towing company he knew to come save the day. If you are reading this, I owe you big time Jim, thanks again brother!
After lunch we broke down the barricades and moved the vehicle’s into place. Larry started the afternoon session with a lecture and hit again on to position your body to minimize exposure (see a recurring theme here?) and the best location of a vehicle to use for cover and why the rest suck. Larry also stressed during this lecture that you want to keep the gun vertical as much as you can instead of canting it and if you have to use the SBU position do it so the ejection port is up if possible as a malfunction can be introduced if the ejection port is facing down in close proximity to a trunk/hood or fender. He also reminded the class to keep line of sight vs. line of bore in mind when shooting around/over the vehicle.
At the conclusion of the lecture we started the next drill, which was pretty similar to the barricade drill only with a van and a Chevy Lumina positioned nose to nose with a 10’ gap between bumpers instead of wood barricades. 4 shooters were positioned with one each at the right rear of the van, the right front wheel of the van, the left front wheel of the Lumina and the left rear of the Lumina. On the beep the shooter would engage target, the guy at the back of the van and the front of the Lumina would fire from the left shoulder and the other 2 would fire from the right shoulder putting 2 rounds into target in your assigned sector. The line of sight/line of bore bit me in the ass here as I got a little too aggressive acquiring a target to my left and smoked the rear windshield of the Lumina. Sight picture through my Aimpoint looked good, but I totally dropped the ball on accounting for offset as my round hit the far side of the windshield right next to the roof support. After everyone ran through this drill in static positions, we incorporated shooting on the move with each shooter maneuvering through each position as it was vacated by the shooter in ahead of him.
After a top off, Q & A session w/ Larry, we moved into drills that involved bailing from the vehicle’s, getting to cover, engaging targets and disengaging. This was ran in 2 man and then 4 man teams. Biggest nugget taken from this drill was that a contact plan needs to be established ahead of time as to who is going to go where and how they are going to get there, i.e., the driver can’t come around the front of the vehicle if the passenger is posted at the passenger front wheel well as the driver would run right into the passengers line of fire. The driver needs to make his egress either to the rear of the vehicle or better yet if possible climb over and out the passenger door. Of course this action would only apply to the scenario set up for this drill, but the bottom line is a plan needs to be communicated ahead of time.
The last drill of the day was engaging the steel from the back of a moving pickup. This was run as 2 man teams w/ both pistol and carbines. LAV drove the truck at what I guess had to be 5mph or less while the teams worked the steel both forward and reverse. This was the first time I have ever done this and it was a hell of a lot harder than it looked, but everyone’s hits seemed to increase as they ran it the second time.
It wouldn’t be a Larry Vickers class without a team competition and that is what we closed out the day with. The shooting from the truck drill was run w/ each member of the 2 man team setup w/ 10 rounds in the carbine and 9 in the blaster. We dropped all the steel except 2 so each team member had a single target to engage. On the forward leg, the carbine was used, blaster on the reverse leg coming back. The winner was crowned by adding up the total number of hits for the team. Grant from M4carbine.net provided tee shirts to the top 2 teams. I believe there was a tie w/ 2 teams getting 21 hits.
All in all, another top notch Vickers Tactical class. Great instruction and great bunch of students combined to make shitty weather a non factor. The sun actually came out for about 30 seconds while we were shooting from the truck.
There were no major gear issues or malfunctions and I think the biggest safety error was myself having my trigger finger inside the trigger guard on a dry fire walk through. LAV was on it like a hawk and corrected me.
I ran a Stag 2T w/ Adams Arms piston kit and Sig 226 with zero issues. My round count was 300 and around 150 pistol.
If you haven’t trained w/ Larry, you are missing out.
If I missed something or described it wrong, feel free to jump in.
Thanks to Tom and Beaver Valley for hosting this class and thanks to the LAV for coming to Western PA again.