After Action Report Vickers AK Class 4-5 Aug 07

[VA_Dinger]

I’m glad the class went well and very sorry that my work prevented me from attending.

It makes me very proud that Vickers Tactical pulled off three hugely successful AK classes this year. Larry & D.P. have taught many of us just how well the AK can perform when in the hands of a trained shooter. They certainly changed my opinion about them, enough so that I’m purchasing or having three more built as we speak.

This is now a standard Vickers Tactical class so we will be holding at least two at South Hill every year. Plus you can host one yourself if have the range for it. Just watch the Vickers Tactical website & M4C for the 2008 classes. They will get posted as soon as we sit down and work out some dates.

I cannot get over Bulldog’s haircut.

Last time we shot together he had a high & tight that would have passed muster on the beaches of Tarawa.

Now he has a Jerry Garcia pony tail.

Templar- thanks for taking so many photos and getting them posted up while I was working. You are a good man and I owe you one.

- The Vickers Tactical / Backyard Outfitters / Woolrich Elite special offer order forms for this class (plus the 1911 class) are being sent out today.

[TOrrock]

You sure did Heavy Metal, I remember now. Same issues that Bulldog was having too I think.

The Vickers gloves saved my hands from several nasty cuts and allowed me to even use the forend of the Sturmgewehr, they rock.

I still think you should have called in sick Dinger......

[Slinger646]

Well, This is what I took away from my first professional training class:

- The internet has polluted what I think training will be like, I built this super sweet railed AK with EOTech's and gee-gaws out the ass. It went TU on the 5th shot....out of spec FCG, but I think it was M4 juju seeping in to the AK.

- If you make an AK into an M4, the M4 problems come with it.....see above.

- I also thought you needed the best ninja gear money can buy, so I bought some. In reality all I needed was a dump pouch to hold 2 extra rifle mags.

- You have to have your crap together; I got hit for a bunch of OT the weeks before the class and my prep suffered.

- Underarmor is a must, especially if you are full size or sweat like a politician.

- Blue Jeans are to be avoided like the plague.

- An AK is not an M4, it cant handle the pimping out. Its WW2 Technology.

- Once you have been screwed by poor instructors, its almost impossible to become un-screwed.

- Its amazing how much a bullseye over an IDPA can tighten you up

- Lula's, Camelbaks, and Dump Pouches rawk

- You need NO ninja gear to be top shooter in this class.

- Stg44s RaWk

- My fundamentals have gone to pot, but I know this and it can be fixed.

- Shooting on the move sucks, but improved greatly after only a few drills.

- Pre-hydrate with water the night before a summer class.

- Sweat rags are worth their stinky weight in gold.

- You can ring 9x12 steel at 200yd with an AK easily.

- Slings are just carrying straps on an AK. Single points blow donkey balls

- Knowing the instructors actually care about your training and give you honest criticizing and honest praise helps a lot. There is no BS or smoke blowing here. I f'ed up and they busted my balls. I did good and they let me and everyone else know.

- Im not really a man of means, I've been saving up for 2 years to take some professional training. I couldn't have chosen a better class. I came away with sharper fundamentals, and a knowledge of how to run my favorite and preferred rifle, and I also know what I need to work on in the future, The instructors were a great bunch of laid back guys who didn't make me feel like a friggin' no0b. Im sure I'll take other classes in the future, but I don't think many will compare to a Vickers Class.

Thats about it for now...

[subzero]

I cannot get over Bulldog’s haircut.

No kidding. I didn't recognize him! The cowboy hat did not help in that regard.

Good to see John with a proper handgun (a Glock 19) instead of that 1911 that was giving him fits a couple of months ago.

I think I recognize one other gentleman (the guy with the VEPR and the G34) from the first low light class up in Ohio. It seems like once you take one Vickers class, you gotta take more!

I don't know if I've ever seen such a diverse array of handguns at a class. That must have been fun.

I was hoping to come out and crash the first day and smoke and joke a bit, but schedule prevented it.

[rgrwilcox]

Great class, it was great meeting and shooting with all of you!

Here are my (now edited) notes..

AK Specific Knowledge:
If your primary weapon is not an AK...then keep your AK basic...no fancy sights or slings or even new safety lever. Reason being is that if you pick up an AK somewhere, odds are that it will not be tricked out with a tac light and optic. it will probably not even have a tac-sling, just a carrying strap. If the AK IS your primary weapon, then have at it...but exercise some common sense. Remember that when you make an AK in to an AR you bring AR problems to your AK.
Leave sights zeroed for 100 Yards POA/POI once a zero is achieved. AK is a 200 yard weapon…no need to mess with sights. AK is 50% as accurate as an AR…good for head shots to 50 meters and body shots to 200…real world practical use.
Check all your AK mags to make sure they seat and lock in properly.
Malfunctions are easy to fix on the AK.
1. Ensure mag is seated properly with support hand
2. Trap buttstock in 'third hand' of armpit and retract bolt to rear and hold
3. Feel and look in to the ejection port
4. drop the old mag
5. shake the weapon to possibly remove any brass
6. rack the bolt three times
7. reload and get back in to the fight

The AK is a great rifle for "joe average" It is pretty hard to break, does not require extensive special treatment.

The safety on an AK is a copy of a Remington model 8. It is not exactly ergonomic, but with some practice it is definitely not a problem. Find a technique that works for you and practice it.

The AK is, as a rule of thumb, about half as accurate as an AR...the gun, ammo, shooter, sights combination should be able to deliver headshots at 50 yards. That being said...you can fight with it up to 200 yards with it no problem.

General Combat Shooting Knowledge:
If you are shooting in your comfort zone, you are wasting your time.
If there are two things you must practice every single time you go to the range it is some kind of accuracy/bullseye drills/trigger control and shooting on the move.
ALL shooting skill is built from handgun trigger control…there are many difficult aspects to shooting a pistol, the most difficult of which is trigger control. If a shooter can master handgun trigger control, then he can master trigger control on any weapon.
When shooting prone put your magazine on ground, make a tripod of elbow elbow and magazine.
Sitting, Kneeling, Standing: sitting is not very useful in the real world, it is just used as a middle ground between standing and prone…stability in our world equals contact with the ground…no bone on bone contact...we did drills where we had about a minute to fire ten rounds, then 45 sec, then 30 etc , losing time as we moved forward and gained stability in our positions.
When shooting on the move, you must absorb the shock with your lower body...your body should be like a tank, with the legs acting as the undercarriage and the upper body steady like the turret. You must alter the way you walk when shooting and moving...just walking like you have for your whole life is not as accurate.
The engagement sequence is the same for all weapons...you ID the threat and make the decision to shoot...as you mount the weapon you disengage any mechanical safeties, once you acquire your sight picture you continue to press the trigger until the threat is eliminated...you are always prepared to make the next shot...once the threat is eliminated you lower the weapon out of your field of view in order to break your focus or "mental field of view" on the threat and scan and assess looking for more threats...think of the engagement sequence like a traffic light..you go from red to green quickly (engagement) but there is a yellow between the green and red...you disengage slowly. The flat range is not a perfect simulation of the real world, so shooters must keep that in mind and treat each drill as engaging a real lethal threat...if you are one of those guys who is so obsessed with range safety that you immediately slap the safety back on after every drill and point your muzzle at the dirt in order to be safe, you are creating bad habits that are anything but safe in the real world....don't be "so safe you are unsafe"

Trigger control, specifically handgun trigger control is the foundation for all shooting. A pistol is the most difficult firearm to shoot accurately for several reasons...the most difficult one to overcome is trigger control. If you can control the trigger on your pistol, shooting other guns should be easier. The most difficult thing to overcome on the pistol is 'El Snatcho' virus...or snatching the trigger. Once you have purged El Snatcho from your earthly soul...you are on your way to mastering trigger control. Also, a shooter has to be able to go from rifle trigger control to pistol trigger control when transitioning...

If you are left eye dominant...then try shooting left handed rifle and right handed pistol. There are some advantages to this when transitioning (though I don't remember what they are specifically...someone remind me please)

Your armpit is your 'third hand' that you can use to capture the buttstock of your rifle when changing magazines or correcting malfunctions.

"fast" can be a dirty word...smoothness and efficiency are far more important than raw speed...if you are smooth and efficient, you will be fast
We did handgun drills because “I can not in good conscience have you shooting your handgun in my class if you have the trigger jerk from hell.” Or something like that
Accuracy Drills emphasizing threat engagement sequence. Larry talked about how it is human nature to want to immediately put the safety on and lower the weapon to severly depressed position (like my soldiers LOVE to do) on a flat range because it is safer. However, that is so safe it is unsafe….it is safer on the range, but definitely more dangerous in the real world to train like that. The flat range can not ever completely replicate the real world, it is an artificial environment…we must be cogniscent of how we train on the flat range…not letting safety practices on the flat range create practices in us that could get us killed in the real world. You must follow through, then search and assess.
Transitions: always induce malfunctions or empty mags when doing transition training….there is no need to attempt to put the weapon on safe if you train this way. Support hand moves the rifle to the support side, strong hand goes immediately to the pistol. Priority one is getting the handgun up and in to the fight. Transition 25m and in…25 to 50 is the grey area…there are other factors…ie when moving to a building with no cover, then transition….when standing behind some cover, get your primary weapon back in to the fight.
Drills:

“one shot and follow through for a second….two shots and follow through for a third…three shots and follow through for a fourth….five shots and follow through for a sixth.”

Walkback Drill 50, 75 and 100 yards, you get two chances to hit the steel plate…each shot must be from the low ready and the shooter must manipulate the safety…

Empty Case on front sight trigger control dry fire drill for handgun. Just like military dime/washer drill…while shooting pretend there is a case on your front sight. If the case drops, then the shooter must do 5 remedial perfect dry presses.

Buddy ball and dummy drill. Again, if the shooter succumbs to “el snatcho” and slaps the trigger, he owes 5 perfect presses dry before continuing. This opens the psychological pathways that el snatcho has inhabited…only through appeasing the darkest parts of the geico caveman brain can we vanquish el snatcho.

200 yard steel from standing, kneeling and prone

Hackathorn box drill and el presidente with transition are great evaluations / skill builders.

Turns: turns are a building block to turning while moving

Moving turns: We lined up on the side of the range in a single file parallel to the berm. Larry said “walk” and we walked across the range in a patrol walk, on the beep or gunfire, we stopped and turned and engaged the target.

Again, great class...thanks to all who made it happen!

[Bulldog1967]

I cannot get over Bulldog’s haircut.

Last time we shot together he had a high & tight that would have passed muster on the beaches of Tarawa.

Now he has a Jerry Garcia pony tail.

I'm in disguise. No one will ever expect the Fabio-looking guy to be packing heat!

Larry said several times when I messed up "Must be the pony tail"....

[Bulldog1967]

The Vickers gloves saved my hands from several nasty cuts and allowed me to even use the forend of the Sturmgewehr, they rock.

I need some of those dammit!

[Heavy Metal]

You sure did Heavy Metal, I remember now. Same issues that Bulldog was having too I think.

The Vickers gloves saved my hands from several nasty cuts and allowed me to even use the forend of the Sturmgewehr, they rock.

I still think you should have called in sick Dinger......

I had minimal poa/poi issues, I had memorized my close range hold-over and pretty much put the rounds where they needed to go. I knew I had to aim way over up close.

My issues were cheek weld, cheek weld and cheek weld in that order.

I think I am going to be able to keep the surefire rail and get my cheek weld back but the eothingy will find a hone on an AR. It is unsat for an AK, it just starts out too high.

You can mount an EoTech on an AR without a riser but an Aimpoint has to have a riser. Aimpoint minus riser+snap on cheekpiece from Magpul for the CTR should = Cheekweld + Sight picture.

[Larry Vickers]

Gents

AK#3 was a good (and sweat soaked) group of students

RGRWilcox- excellent summary - everybody read and heed

last but not least I must admit shooting my Sturmgewehr definately gives me wood - a cooler (figuratively speaking) gun does not exist in my opinion

Thanx alot and look forward to seeing you guys again

Larry Vickers

www.vickerstactical.com

[Robb Jensen]

- The internet has polluted what I think training will be like, I built this super sweet railed AK with EOTech's and gee-gaws out the ass. It went TU on the 5th shot....out of spec FCG, but I think it was M4 juju seeping in to the AK.

- An AK is not an M4, it cant handle the pimping out. Its WW2 Technology.

I disagree with both statements. If you use quality components and properly assemble it will work just fine (Use blue Loc-tite on the Ultimak and Aimpoint and it'll stay on the gun).

That said on my Arsenal SLR-106FR I use an Ultimak optics rail with an Aimpoint C3, a S.W.I.F.T safety, Gordon Technologies FCG, a Red Star plate (replaces the Shepards hook), a Primary Weapons mag latch extension, a Vickers CAG sling and a Ergo grip. It runs 100% now, mine was an early 106 with teething problems..........after a trip back to Arsenal it now runs like an AK should and will even cycle 50gr HP .223 rounds.