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dustyvarmint
10-01-2014, 07:00 PM
The following is my AAR from a recent 1-Day Patrol Rifle course held by Performance On Demand Shooting

1) Provider: Performance On Demand Shooting
2) Owner: Adrian, Mike, Pete
3) Phone / Web: 608-512-8061 / http://www.podshooting.com/
4) E-mail: info@podshooting.com
5) When: September 26, 2014
6) Where: Dane County Law Enforcement Training Center, Waunakee, WI
7) Accommodations: N/A
8) Gear used: Sling Dynamics Convert 2-1- point sling, DPMS Oracle 5.56 rifle, UTG Circle-Dot optic, Mako 5.56 magazine pouches, Magpul magazines, Bison Designs belt, shooter produced reloads.
9) Cost: $110.
10) Did weather adversely affect training: No
11) Instructors’ Competence: Instructors’ skills and ability to apply them greatly exceeded my own, of course.
12) Instructors’ Ethics: Excellent
13) Safely Conducted: Yes
14) Condition of Equipment: Excellent
15) Food: N/A
16) Number of overall firearms’ related training classes for myself: 6
17) Certificate issued: Yes
18) Training time: 8 hours
19) Written training plan: Yes Followed: Yes
20) Instructor to student ratio: 3/10
21) Round count: 234
22) Recommended: Highly
23) General comments: In my own words the overall course included short-range timed drills, an un-timed and timed 400 aggregate from 25-100 yards, at least one timed/accuracy drill adapted for the course, some steel shooting, mag changes and a culminating drill/stage from 65-110 yards on steel from 4 positions including a mag change. The combination of required precision on-paper shooting mixed in with some less-precision steel shooting helped to hold attention and interest in the later part of the day. Target selections were very appropriate for the drills covered. One of the better explanations of malfunction clearing I’ve ever seen was given, but we didn’t have time to drill them. A good ballistics’ explanation was also given and reasons for various zero distances were discussed. See POD Shooting’s website for a complete outline of the class.

There was a wide range of student experience from never-shot-the-rifle-before to prior-class-plus experience. Break and lunch time management was excellent which I appreciated very much. Since this is the 2nd POD course I’ve taken I’ll say that something I really like is that the courses, so far, haven’t been specifically geared towards LE, competition, or self-defense. They have been about (gasp!) Performance On Demand Shooting. The Dane County Law Enforcement Training Center has a body armor requirement, but, fortunately, POD was able to obtain a waiver.

The DPMS Oracle performed flawlessly as did the rest of my equipment. I was very happy with the accuracy performance of the Xtreme 55 gr FMJs out to 100+ yards in the 1:9 twist Oracle. The UTG optic exceeded my expectations out to 100+ yards. The AR is not my favorite rifle/firearm by any means (iron-sighted lever action 30-30 is) so it and its associated equipment are of the economy price-point type. For example my sling is paracorded to the rifle and I still use stock hand guards. Fitting in to the class environment with those equipment choices was not an issue.

The class was relatively local and the cost was very reasonable. The instructors are articulate, are responsive to communications, communicate well when doing so, and present a professional business front. Overall, I am/was very pleased with the 1-Day Patrol Rifle course.

Badger
10-03-2014, 10:17 AM
Performance On Demand Shooting 1 day Patrol Rifle

Dane County Law Enforcement Training Center



This was an open enrollment class that we held last Friday. It was a mix of cops, military and civilians. Some came prepared and ready to rock and to some this was their first formal training. I can’t knock the guys that have never been to any training but it does slow a class down.



Equipment wise we also ran the gamut on rifle brands. We had several DPMS, 3 BCM rifles and some true Colt M4’s with the AF EOD guys and an unknown or 2. We had one officer from a local agency running his department rifle and he is still fighting an uphill battle. The department won’t allow red dot sights or personal rifles and the rifles are all zeroed by the 2 “armorers.” I really thought we were beyond these issues but I guess not. We saw very few malfunctions throughout the day and both were related to dry guns. One on a brand-new BCM that was bone dry and one from a Colt that was so dry it sounded like it had gravel in the receiver. Both shooters had received their initial training in the military and were not used to the amount of oil we were suggesting. A quick lube and both ran great the rest of the day.



Optics/sighting systems – We had 3 shooters running iron sights. Two were from local agencies and one civilian. The civilian had showed up with an optic from Vector Optics. It required allen wrenches to make adjustments and within the first 3 groups it was quickly determined it was going to slow the class down significantly to work with it. It was removed and he ran his back up irons the rest of the day. There were several T1’s, the AF guys had Comp M4S sights and one guy was running a Vortex 1-4 scope. Dustyvarmint ran his UTG very well and had no issues.



The class was a fairly low round count class. Our goal was around 300-350 but some of the zeroing issues we ran into in the morning made that not possible. We started with a safety brief and ballistics discussion and then jumped right into zeroing. Due to a couple students starting with new sights and guns we started at the 25-yard line and then moved back to the 50 and eventually the 100-yard line. While I still run a 50 yard zero I have found that confirming my hits at 100 allows me to fine-tune my windage. Zeroing took several times longer than expected but moving on without a good zero is kind of pointless. For those that got their zero locked in early, they practiced shooting groups as others got dialed in.



We moved into some positional shooting next and talked and shot our way through standing, kneeling, sitting and prone. I continue to see huge problems with sitting. Not sure why but it seems to be the worst shooting position for most. Due to our extended zeroing run the positional shoot took us to lunch.



After lunch we spent time running through reloads and working on some closer in drills. We asked people to really push themselves on driving to get on target faster and more accurately. Some of this was well outside the comfort zone for a number of the students. They had never been asked to push their gun or ability to that level. As the time standards got shorter you could see some people losing focus and mentally stop shooting the drill. We had to repeatedly explain that the par time is an ancillary goal to finishing the drill. In the future I think removing the end buzzer might be necessary with newer shooters so they stay in the drill until they are done. I haven’t seen people give up mentally like this before so it is something new for me.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y3/mike53818/PODCarbine-16_zps9483afee.jpeg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y3/mike53818/PODCarbine-7_zps87f103cc.jpeg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y3/mike53818/PODCarbine-12_zps6469b78b.jpeg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y3/mike53818/PODCarbine-4_zpse4abe414.jpeg

We moved back to the 75-yard line for some barricade work and different supported positions on steel B/C targets. Steel is great to work with as long as it is balanced with accuracy standards too. If you only work with B/C steel your accuracy will suffer. For working these positions it made it very easy to call hits and get people to work on getting stable.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y3/mike53818/10606144_286223458238882_4099678230201695063_n_zps 8d6fb2cb.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y3/mike53818/10653731_286223531572208_8946776219000668238_n_zps 523df949.jpg
Due to the extended zeroing in the morning we only had time to talk through our malfunctions section. This was disappointing but there simply isn’t enough time in an 8-hour day to hit everything as completely as we would like. The discussion covered the basic phase 1 and phase 2 but also delved into some of the more complex malfunctions that people have never seen cleared, like stuck case and charging handle impingement malfunctions.



We ended the day with a culminating drill that incorporated most of what had been covered for the day.



Overall the class went well and we were thrilled to see improvement out of everyone.

Al T.
10-05-2014, 07:45 AM
Great AAR's! :)

Is that the famous "First Bleeder" I see?


I really thought we were beyond these issues but I guess not.

Myth and legend are still a disruptive force in my world as well......