AAR - Vickers Tactical Advanced Pistol / Carbine Class - July 16-18, 2010

[30 cal slut]

Great class! Enjoyed every minute of it (even the hot weather).

Larry has proved again to be quite a treasure trove of knowledge and skills.

Good to see old friends and meet new ones. Some good shooters in this class!

[30 cal slut]

And I might add ...

USTC is just insane. Unbelievable facilities.

Hope to get an AAR and some pics up in a day or two.

[m4fun]

Vickers Tactical Advanced Pistol / Carbine Class - AAR – July 16-18, 2010 – Moyock, NC.

This was an advanced class and you could tell by the overall skill levels present. Facility was the US Training Center in Moyock, NC. This class has to of been the most high speed class I have attended yet both in focus of training and the folks who attended. I would go further in saying we did not have anything close to “that guy” or any Model-1 rifles in the class.

Thanks Larry and Paul!

Day 1 – All pistol. Mostly Glock except for one M&P and one “antique” 1911. Temps were in the humid upper 90s – A HOT one!

We started with some assessment drills. Covered the #1 key to accuracy of trigger squeeze and its evil enemy, el snatcheroo. Everyone was pretty dialed-in. Ball and dummy drills, regular, hot, and timed hot.
Time drills always add some stress to the normally static training. Trigger reset drills followed next. More accuracy drills followed.

Team drills – emphases on team drills having folks do their best to win/not let teammates down. Team standing side by side and going down the line of firing x number of shots then tapping the next person to go. Time added for missed shots. Team “Bon Scott” and “TEAM AMERICA” I think took most of those. The “window lickers” didn’t do so well.

Good time with barriers here both from kneeling and standing. Also included more team drills on barriers.

Need some of the attendees to jump in here since I was more or less brain fried that day.

Day 2 – Mostly Carbine.

Started with discussions of different techniques of zero’s and for most of what we have here in the US a 100meter zero fits well, but in the current theatres overseas a 200meter shot is common enough that it would be a better zero. We proceeded to zero. Different shooting positions at different distances.

Throughout the class LAV and all discussed the unbiased pros and cons of the different carbines, accessories, comp versus flash suppressors, etc. Pretty much all discussed throughout the class. Always a staple of a good LAV class. No sooner had Larry discussed his lack of trust for match triggers I had a Timey drop-in go down.

To paraphrase Larry - in some ways you learn more of what doesn’t work in these classes as opposed to stuff that is new.

Discussed pros of the red-dots and Aimpoint ruled the day. One Leupold 1x4 and my Trijicon TRG24 were the only exceptions(although a couple Eotechs made surprise appearances much later)

Focus on accuracy and firing as fast as you can keep it on target.

Lots of focus on transitions. Had a good drill/shootout with GermanSynergy that ended with a tie where you started with 2 rounds in your rifle and you had to empty your rifle on your target, transition to your pistol and put another 2 shots on target. We kept tying at down to 9 secs.
Shooting on the move completed the day with team competitions – early dinner as lightning storms were fast approaching.

Some barrier shooting and even the same team drills as the prior day, but obviously with carbines.

Night shooting

Use of night sights, white light and lasers. Everyone had night sights with the exception of Dinger! Discussed the different types and flash light carry. Compared different carbine and pistol muzzle flash suppressors. My G19C gave a nice show. Carbine flash suppressors did very well especially compared to the 1 compensator.

We conducted both pistol and carbine flash, identify, engage and move drills.

Day 3 – More Shooting on the move!
Started the day by integrating most everything with shooting on the move, transitions, box and figure 8 drills. Finished morning by covering clearing stoppages for both pistol and carbine. Carbine clearing included the infamous prom-night clearing. A really good drill with the pistol was setting up the misfeed/double feed and clearing it with your eyes closed to simulate clearing in the dark. LAV reiterated the KISS principle for clearing malfunctions and how malfunction drills are better conducted with dummy rounds.

After lunch we got to partake in some of the benefits of US Training center and play with the movers! Pistol on the mover concentrating on the leading edge and not stopping to fire but continuing to follow through.

A team competition ensued by timing the teams engaging 4 shots on the mover and metal plates at the end of the mover tracks, approximately 15m away. Time was cumulative. Team Kim Jong Il beat team Pig-Farmers!

After a break we conducted the same orientation with carbine – red-dots truly shine here! Heavy Metal was firing irons and speed difference was quite obvious. When he tried someone else’s Aimpoint, big improvement! Team comp took place again but not sure who took that one. What was fun is when .30Slut hit a paint can and gave us some minor fireworks.

More fun with the mover was firing in pairs on the back of LAV’s truck. True eye opener at many levels.
This was done with LAV going forward and backward across the range. We first did passes at a static target. Next firing at the mover moving in line and parallel with the truck. Finally firing at the mover moving the opposite direction as the truck. Truly messed up and as LAV mentioned, good territory for a visible laser.

Again - excellent class with some very good folks - was great training with all of you!

[VA_Dinger]

This was one awesome class.

Photos will be coming along shortly.



www.vickerstactical.com



Grey Group Training:
www.greygrouptraining.com

[GermanSynergy]

M4FUN,
Great writeup. This was simply an outstanding class, with some very switched on shooters. Everyone was running good kit/weapons, and I didn't see any Model 1 Sales, Olympic Arms or Hesse carbines.

For those that have never been to USTC (aka Blackwater), I suggest you check it out. The training facilities are world class, and the training that can be conducted there is unrivalled.

Thanks to Larry, Paul and the class for making this an incredibly rewarding training session. I look forward to training with y'all again soon!

[Heavy Metal]

and I didn't see any Model 1 Sales, Olympic Arms or Hesse carbines.

That brown molycoat hides stop-signs and Nessard(proto-Model One Sales) barrels quite well.

I did have my good training rifle(used it for night fire) with me and a giant parts kit just in case it shit the bed hard. I apologise to my teammates if my self-imposed handicap of Irons only hurt our scores. Still, team Bon Scott rocked hard proving the importance of a cool name for a team.

That brown rifle is my truck gun, it is made from left-overs parts from previous ventures. The lower was Oly that I got for it being a pre-ban, the Upper was a $15 blemished, pitted, mis-anodized factory third I got about 15 years or more ago. It does, however have a good LPK and a good MP BCG in it along with a good set of furniture and a mil spec reciever extension.

The barrel was an abmoination from a 1991 Nesard kit (Model One and another company split from them. They were also Sendra.) that originally had roll pins retaining the front site and the barrel and chamber came from Nesard coated also on the inside with parkerizing. I shot it out of course.

I learned more dicking with that rifle and a Century A1 than I ever learned as an Armorer. It was severely over-gassed. I had to use every trick in my book to get it to run right.

Dremeling, polishing and cutting. Taper reamers for the FSB and valve grinding compound in the chamber. Playing with springs and buffers. A PRI Fatboy gas tube.

Only one stoppage in the past three thousand rounds and it was at this class, a mis-feed from a suspect aluminum mag. No problems with any of my 10 lancers or my three other AL mags.

I have only had to do a transition twice ever when I was not trying to induce it. Once was when Larry was watching a certain dumbass at the AK class a couple of years ago go live without a mag in the rifle and the other was Saturday during the box drill. I have noticed both times I have dropped the 'F-Bomb'.

So I got to run Brown hard with cheap Brown Bear ammo and it held up well. Since it is an A1 upper, I am going to take Sluts advice and put a tritum front sight on it. I am also ordering a light mount kit for the MOE handguard.

I finally got to shoot at a moving target. That was a load of fun. The shooting off the back of a moving truck at a moving target was humbling to say the least.

A very solid bunch of shooters and a great bunch of guys. I had a blast.

[GermanSynergy]

Here's a video of yours truly & 30Calslut pounding the steel while mobile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KkOL...layer_embedded

[C45P312]

Here's a video of yours truly & 30Calslut pounding the steel while mobile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KkOL...layer_embedded

That was pretty sweet looking. What whats the premise behind that drill?

[GermanSynergy]

That was pretty sweet looking. What whats the premise behind that drill?

The purpose of this drill was to illustrate the difficulty in making hits from a moving vehicle. Larry turned up the heat when the steel began moving horizontally, while we moved in the opposite direction in the bed of the truck. I went thru this drill 3 times, and exhausted about 400 rds of 5.56 doing so.

[Heavy Metal]

To show how hard it is to hit a moving target from a vehicle.

Guys, we have a dedicated AAR thread now:

https://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=58467