AAR: Redback One 2 Day Basic Carbine, 3/31-4/1, 2012 - Wallingford, CT
Redback One Two Day Basic Carbine
March 31 and April 1, 2012
Blue Trail Range – Wallingford, CT
Participants: 12
Two words that best describe this class: “Holy Shit.”
Another student said: “This class was pretty intense I think for a basic level class…”
I really struggle to write a halfway decent AAR for Jason’s classes.
The problem with doing so is that such an AAR would cover several pages, easily. Jason presents a staggering amount of material in a short period of time, and I hate to say it - because sometimes this expression is overused - but I felt like I was drinking from a fire hose again. This class had the informational density of a neutron star.
So, I’ll strive to be brief and let some of the class pictures do the talking. What I liked about this class is that it started from the bottoms up – it assumed little knowledge on the part of the student and included a good deal of classroom time. On TD1, we were in the classroom from 0830 to about 1400. That’s unusual for just about any shooting class. Secondly, Jason really hammered repetition to build muscle memory, even in the classroom sessions. Thirdly, Jason conducted the class in a military manner, imbuing the drills with a sense of urgency – which ensured that the students hustled preparing for what could be a life or death situation.
TD1 was spent mostly in the classroom, where Jason covered safety, hands-on handling and presentation of the carbine, characteristics and capabilities of the milspec AR15/M4, detail stripping, maintenance, cleaning and lubrication pointers, and carbine shooting fundamentals. Following this, students headed out to the range to zero the carbine from the prone at 50 yards, and basic presentation drills from alert ready and high ready at 7 yards.
TD2 was a whirlwind of activity that included some physical exertion to induce stress. The day was interspersed with plenty of dry fire drills covering weapons manipulation. Live fire included more presentations (fine-tuning the POA vs. POI), post-engagement sequence (scan and assess, systems check), transitions to pistol, reloading the carbine tactically, malfunctions (double feeds, CH impingements), power turns, shooting on the move (advancing), and shooting from cover (barricades) and some lateral bounding.
What did students get out of this class? A better appreciation of the defensive capabilities of the M4 (you can do a lot more than shoot this rifle from a bench). Secondly, under Jason’s watchful eye, the class developed some really slick weapons manipulation by the end of TD2.
Speaking for myself, I really enjoyed this class and I would take it again. I learned quite a bit, particularly in the classroom session. You’ll get a sense on the following pages that the classroom portion wasn’t just listening to a powerpoint presentation.
It was almost a year ago that Jason said to me “our basic level class is not like anyone else’s.” That piqued my curiosity, and I would agree with that statement.
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