Vickers/Hackathorn Low Light Level I -- May 2008 AAR

[Blake]

Excellent AAR. I was hoping to make one of these courses next year, after I return from my lovely trip to the middle east, but it sounds like that won't be a possibility. Hopefully I can just continue to get some Low Light stuff from Larry's other courses. Thanks again.

[John_Wayne777]

Could you elaborate on this a little bit more? I'm interested in knowing what problems you or others ran into with magnifiers.

Thanks.

That's a summation of the opinions expressed by Mr. Vickers and Mr. Hackathorn about magnifiers. Personally I've never messed with them much and to the best of my knowledge there was only one person with a magnifier in this class. I wasn't taking careful mental notes during that part of the course, but perhaps one of the guys who spent their time furiously scribbling on a notepad will be able to flesh that out some.

[VA_Dinger]

There are more Ken/Larry classes being planned for 2009. Maybe not this exact class though. This is a hard class, both on Ken & Larry as well as the students.

(Possible) 2009: Hackathorn/Vickers Advanced 3-Day Pistol/Carbine Class w/ daylight shoot house. I would also expect to see a low light section similar to what gets taught in the advanced level classes now (2-4 hour depending on the class & weather).

[Jay Cunningham]

Great AAR, thanks for the effort.

A Hackathorn/Vickers Advanced 3-Day Pistol/Carbine Class would be killer.

[NCPatrolAR]

(Possible) 2009: Hackathorn/Vickers Advanced 3-Day Pistol/Carbine Class w/ daylight shoot house. I would also expect to see a low light section similar to what gets taught in the advanced level classes now (2-4 hour depending on the class & weather).

I'm there.

[The Dumb Gun Collector]

Just got home after a long-ass drive back to Georgia!!

This was an awesome class. I am sad to hear that it might not be offered in the future. It really is hard to say where else you could get this kind of training. I really enjoyed every part of it (although I had to break-out early and miss the third-day stuff).


Here are some pics. Obviously, since it was either raining or dark for most of the class, opportunities to take photographs were limited...





In this one you can almost hear Larry thinking, "Did Paul check Greg's credentials before he came here??"




Here is Ken setting up the shoot-house for later. Also, you can almost hear him thinking, "Did Paul check Greg's credentials before he came here??"



Some day-time warm up drills for shooting on the move/pistol transition. The class had almost as many instructors and assistants as students. That is called getting your money's worth (not to mention, it is hard to hide all the stupid things you are doing).





Larry's current class rig. A 416 upper, of course!



Larry's uber-simple light rig. I guess when you know what you are doing you don't have to hide behind your gear. (For example, I have the equivalent of a WWII search light on my AR).



Of course, this AK rig with ULTRA-MINIMALIST light rig put all of us tactical posers to shame!!!

Top things I learned...

1. Two boys having sex is just wrong.
2. I apparantly should be transported most places in a "short bus."
3. I have the skills of a Navy Seal. I was elated to hear this until I found out that was not a compliment from a retired Delta dude.
4. Hogan has some sort of goat.
5. I should "Simma down now."

I will post some serious thoughts after I get some Fr%&^ sleep.

[dhrith]

"Originally Posted by 8mmMauser View Post
Could you elaborate on this a little bit more? I'm interested in knowing what problems you or others ran into with magnifiers."

"Thanks.
That's a summation of the opinions expressed by Mr. Vickers and Mr. Hackathorn about magnifiers. Personally I've never messed with them much and to the best of my knowledge there was only one person with a magnifier in this class. I wasn't taking careful mental notes during that part of the course, but perhaps one of the guys who spent their time furiously scribbling on a notepad will be able to flesh that out some."



I don't think there's a per se specific single reason like the third lock down nut always comes loose. It's just a continuation of the "trying to make the system do all things, at the expense of the one thing it absolutely should do without question." It adds weight, further mounting parts to fail, mechanical pivoting parts to fail. more parts to snag, for a sometimes possibility to see farther. This might help you out one of the ten times you apply your weapon while ****ing you over with 2 more 3 impediments out of that same ten.
Basically guys trying to make their sbr's/m4s they use every day clearing houses into sniper rifles for that one guy a week out laying an ied at 600 yds. I don't think anyone but each individual person can accurately answer their mission application. But unless were running through the sand box, these classes are as close as we're going to get to defining what we think our mission/needs are going to be. I truly think for most people this answer is going to be clearing my house or property, now do I truly need a magnifier? What I find most funny is when people find out the question they are asking isn't the one they thought they needed to ask, or the answer they get wasn't the one they were expecting. Each person needs to find this out for themselves. Luckily people like Larry and Ken are sometimes here along the way to help us shine a little light on both the "question" and the "answer." And failing that,.....give us a kick in the right direction. ;p If I misinterpreted this I'm sure someone will be along shortly...;p

I myself have been asking a lot of these questions along the way referencing my gear, and what I need, ....not necessarily want. This partly explains why I came down in the manner I did. For starters I brought 3 rifles because I couldn't pick before I left which I wanted to shoot and what philosophy I wanted to use for the training, more on this later. First, AR was in progress, red dot but no irons and low on ammo, no light yet. That got axed before I even got there... not driving by Ohio super tactical fully stocked super store with everything a guy could need and having time to walk through and grab it off the shelf. Second, AK had no red dot, more accurately no proper mount for the red dot on the AR, did have irons of course. Had TONS of leftover 762 ammo from the AK class, sighted in and runs like a top. DID NOT however have my carbine lighting issue worked out and decided before class which turned out to be a bit of a snafu due to my "ASSumption I'd have time between day 1, day class portion and night portion to hit town during dinner and get something figured out. Big **** up on my part. On a good note, word on the street is LaRue is trying to contact me to market my new AK light mount. ;p Third, was my Galil, which was pretty cherry, not sighted in, no red dot, no light, some ammo. Again, I'll come back to this later. As for gear, I've been thinking lately how we all like to dress the hardcore part, but truthfully I'm not active duty anymore, I'm not LE, and I don't contract in the sand box. SO for me to dress up that way is kind of unrealistic, not truthful to myself and a downright disservice to paying all this money to train in a manner that I most likely won't be utilizing in real life. Oh don't get me wrong, I threw a vest, shingles, dump pouch, hydration vest, blah, blah,blah in the truck. But, we've all seen the pictures of the "Swat" guys all kit'd out in gear and armor with a nice full pouch of mags sitting right on top of his pistol locking it in completely oblivious to it because, HE DIDN'T TRAIN THAT WAY. This also works in the exact opposite direction. SO, I decided I was going to go the unsuspecting local who gets in the shit storm with no notice and has to throw some shit in a bag and make due and see how far I could run with that ball, a la katrina, tornado, blizzard, regional power outage. Let me tell ya' in case you're considering it but worried about under performing.
Worked like a charm, and I think it paid off in spades. Hell, there have been times I've had issues with the base of an AK mag getting caught on the shingle stitching and being a pain in the ass to extract and load, especially under stress. Say it won't happen to you eh? load bullets down? well I'm pretty sure I've had the backside locking latch catch too. Run AR mags, nothing to catch? Try tugging em out at an angle cuzz you're all amp'd up and under stress. Again, not with a shoulder bag, ;p hand went in, hand came out with a mag. No rocking, cocking it, tugging blah blah blah. This will also take some consideration though just like anything else. I had about 10Lbs or so in mine, some spare mags, GPS, binoc's, and truthfully probably should have had more like 20, a meal,drink, and small med kit. I had what I believe to have been about 1.5" unpadded strap and think even with my 21" neck anything over 10ish needs a wider strap or padding for using though out the whole day. Compartmentalization would of course be good for organization and speed, I just grabbed a junker bag I had laying around the house with one main center and two small ones on each end. Carried it about 10o'clock, pistol on a paddle at 4o'clock, spare pistol mags on a paddle at 8o'clock. This is where I think Raven concealment is gonna be the shizznit, first order of business is gonna be a custom mag holder for 2 rifle mags and 2 pistol mags for my left side shingled two by two. Quicker accessibility and better load distribution. Gear customized to the mission/user instead of compromising with what might commercially available/configurable. Truly think these guys can go far with this especially after talking to them and getting an impression of their attitude and how they want to work with you and get you a product that is for YOUR use, not everyones' else's use and also their attention to detail in all facets design, manufacture, etc. The modularity and reconfigurability is pretty crazy awesome too. Hell I think at one point Ken showed us his rig they made up and it had two mags, a small j-frame backup, a little lunch box towards the back and a small thermos towards the front seeing as, well.... he had so much real estate. ;p He blamed it on age, .....but i noticed Larry carries his outside of the waistband too, shrug. ;p
Well, on to lights, HAhaHAhAHHAA well, I carried this one a bit too far. I figured the odds of a regular joe having the whizzbang 2000 with 1.5gigawatts of lighting wasn't as likely as joe farmer having a maglight laying around so i grabbed that and actually thought it might be passable/functional. It wasn't even close. Not even in the same ****ing universe as close. I also threw a chicom with a cree bulb in it in there that I'd guess was putting out 40-50? lumens. Enough for movement, but not proper target identification. I was waaaaaaay too chicken to pull out any of the "d" lights to see how bright they were, c'mon a guy can only take so much ribbing. ;p As someone quantified earlier I'd say the optimum lumens is about 80, second night that's what I had and it rocked went out and bought a G2 at lowe's of all places. Might get away with 65 and up to 100 but you'll likely be risking the ends of not enough and too much. Keep in mind this was for the hand held or a pistol light-most likely to be used in that 3-15 yard range, your carbine has the longer range so i'd definitely be willing, no let me re-phrase that, desirous of getting in the 100-200 lumens range so I can ID targets in that 15 to let's say 35-40 yard range under the belief I would be using that for outdoor application not indoors so much. Why you ask?, just a feeling/personal belief. Everything I lose from the carbine's power, I gain in the pistols ease of application in working corners etc in a house. On my AK I had a TL-3 and think it had what's listed as 175 lumens and thought that was pretty darn good, OH and keep in mind this was with original iron sights. No red dot, no xs big dot, no filed gap. Thats probably enough on lights. Sling was a vickers, nuff said. Ammo ak/wolf day1/2. Runs like a champ on it, no malfs, no malfs ak class last year either, dabbed a little lube on day 2,.. i think...;p Broke out the Galil for the 3rd day, all I can say is WOW, ****ing rocks, think the ak's gonna get pissy the rest of the year spending time in the safe. Accurate as ****, runs smooth, bullet proof like the ak, 35 rd mags. Was built up for my by a guy on http://www.theakforum.net/ (Apologies if linking is against a rule.) Great ak site btw. System like that with a light and a micro if I can figure out how to solidly mount one is gonna rock I believe.
Ranges were great, day 1 regular club house ranges for initial practice/warming up first day several range flavors. Various flashlight techniques demonstrated and practiced, working with a partner/s(day2). in the house(day2) we used whatever flashlight technique we fell into without getting hung up on one or the other, this for the moment was likely a good thing since we were chewing on so much by this time. Important thing, you need one inside gun, and one outside gun. Day 2, shoot house was awesome, loaned out to us graciously with an adjoining 100yd range for warming up/transitions/failure drills. One thing I found fascinating in retrospect in analyzing my runs through the night, is how we would do things different at night as opposed to in the day. In the day, I don't think I missed a room door body block, at night I'm pretty sure I missed all but maaaaybe one. Basically my world shrunk to the circle of light, even though i had JUST walked through the door and knew what it represented. This is the only time I remember myself blatantly tunneling. Biggest mistake I remember by everyone at night was not achieving their corners of domination. With crafty target positioning, this killed more than one person because they didn't get to a position to see the bad guy. Trigger snatching was RAMPANT. Myself included. I know where it came from and I'm f'ing stupid for picking it up, and now will pay the price to train it back out. Basically I haven't practiced for shit in 3 years, maybe few thousand last year, and literally few hundred this year. On a square range I can lock up fairly tight being barrel chested and get away with it. Like a short bus olympian that was as far as I looked. In real life target/shooter movement, darkness, holding/manipulating a flashlight etc, and you can't get away with stupid shit like that. I had no issues with anyone's muzzle or finger control and felt safe the whole time even though there was probably a couple guys commenting about how nervous they were (in general/amp'd up) and what i believe them thinking they might not be up to the task. Everyone fubar'd the movement here and there, but safety was always good from what I saw. Oh another thing I developed at night, but don't remember having in the day was this propensity to target focus rearward when exiting a room instead of forward. Third day was back to the rifle ranges for some casual practice, shoot offs and meeting raven. All in all a freaking awesome opportunity and privilege.

As for the class ending, i wouldn't blow it up for more then it is. Realistic issues not bad student reasons. I'll clear any further comments with Larry before I post 'em. That's all for now anyways, I'm tired.

[John_Wayne777]

Final thoughts/miscellaneous stuff:

- My personal gear choices

Sights - I was running a plain black Warren Tactical rear sight for my M&P with a Bowie/Ameriglo front sight. This arrangement turned out to be very useful. It was easy to find the front dot, put it on an almost invisible target, and make good shots. The real impediment to my shooting in the dark (aside from the occasional appearance of El Snatcho) was the muzzle flash of my ammo. The Blazer Brass ammo put out a pretty nasty white flash that made it harder to see the target.

The only odd thing I noticed about this sight arrangement was my propensity to occasionally shoot high by not properly aligning the sights before I broke my shot. This resulted in a few hits high on the target just outside the A zone...still good hits in real life, but a reminder to slow down and take the extra hundredth of a second to put the sights in the right orientation.

Sling - The Vickers 2 point sling is the last sling you'll ever need.

Magazines - PMAGs are awesome. I didn't experience a single malfunction during this course....and whereas a mag related malfunction cost me a drill during the November course, this time my switch to PMAGs allowed me to win a couple of drills....which resulted in bringing home another PMAG as a prize. You can never have too many magazines.

Aimpoint - Mine is only a CompC, but it's still an Aimpoint. It rocks.

Surefire G2 - I decided to run a Surefire G2 instead of my Surefire 950 series weapon light partly because I saw LAV use his with great success and partly because I didn't want to have the ARMS throw lever mount drop my 950 off my weapon in the middle of a drill again. It worked very well. The only downside was that without the VFG I had on my weapon previously to accommodate the tape switch of the 950, I wasn't able to get as much leverage on the front of the weapon as I wanted.

M&P - It ran flawlessly.

Locktite - I didn't use any on my gear this time around....and it showed. The Surefire carbine rail system I have (which I bought for a song) relies on two allen screws up front to push the top half of the rail against the bottom half of the rail. If these screws work their way out you can end up with the top rail piece moving back and forth freely. The rails won't fall off the weapon or come apart, but it's still not a good thing to have going on.

I also noticed that the screws that hold the mounting hardware to the body of my X200B were coming loose as well. Those apparently don't come locked down from the factory so they are going to need to be given a little Lock-tite love.

Privi-Partisan M193 - It ran well in my carbine and didn't have any more appreciable muzzle flash than my XM193. I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't give me any issues. My experience with it thusfar (most of my carbine shooting was done with the PP ammo) seems to indicate that it is pretty good stuff.

Changes to my gear as a result of this class - The only change I'm going to make (aside from using more Lock-tite, of course) will probably be the addition of a stubby VFG just to help me get more leverage on the front of the weapon so I can pull it back tighter into the shoulder. You don't need one to do that, but the hand position I need to run the light on my carbine doesn't lend itself to a really aggressive pull by the support hand. A stubby VFG might help that.

- SWAG

Thanks to Magpul who graciously gave every student at this class a free PMAG.

[VA_Dinger]

It's nice to see another AK was run in the class. That makes at least 4-5 guys between the three classes.

[Larry Vickers]

Another low light #1 completed - things went well dispite the weather

I will try and hit a few high points;

1) most guns ran fine keeping in mind this is not a high round count class

2) neither Ken nor I are really wild about the magnifers for red dots; my advice is save your money and buy an S&B short dot - after you price out the optics and mounts it is not that much more; or better yet have an Aimpoint and an S&B on good throw lever mounts and switch as needed - pricey ;the best always is

3) we are only planning 1 more low light class ; level 2 in November. After careful consideration with all factors weighed we feel it is time to close it down - sorry

4) thanx a million to Magpul, 10-8 performance, TangoDown, nad G&R Tatcial for the prizes donated ; we really appriciate the support

be safe

LAV