I recently visited scenic Hickman County, TN and took Personal Responsibility's "Low Light Carbine" from Ron Fielder. For those that don't know, Ron is a retired Nashville Metro officer as well as a Gunsite instructor. More interesting, Ron was a SWAT guy, a Canine officer, and criminal intelligence guy so he literally spent a lot of his long LE career hunting bad guys. More details on his background can be found at: http://www.prifirearmstraining.com
The course is essentially a one-day class for those with previous carbine training. The class had a mix of 14 shooters, from SWAT guys who had previously trained with Ron to the concerned citizens. The assumption was that you already knew how to run the carbine. The course quickly showed you how well you could run the carbine. There were very few drills per se, the focus was on solving shooting problem with the carbine.
The course began with a quick safety lecture and then a series of reminders about properly running the carbine. We were reminded about how to properly manipulate the carbine, the use of the safety, and proper fighting stance. None of this was extensive because you were supposed to show up with a zeroed carbine and know how to use it.
There were some warmups drills to start the day and evaluate where the students were skill-wise. We shot a modified Navy drill at 50 yds and then moved up close for head shots from 3-15 yards. The targets were the PDT’s designed by David Blinder so the head zone was very small so it was a very good check of your ability to apply sight offset. After that, we worked body shots and a head shot at 25 yds.
Since everyone seemed to be shooting well, the barricades came out. We had some quick reminders about cover v. concealment and making sure the muzzle clears cover. Switching shoulders was discussed. Ron advised that it was a viable option but few people would put the time in to be able to hit and manipulate the weapon on their support side. We then shot failure drills and head shots from behind cover. (The targets were still the PDT's so a head shot was a very precise shot) Again, everyone seemed to do well so we did some limited movement from cover to cover with a teammate engaging while you moved.
After this, we were briefed on the daylight simulator that we would run. The main point of the exercise was to force you to locate and engage small, unobtrusive targets in a woodland environment. There was no running and gunning here. It was step, scan, step, scan, etc. at a very deliberate pace. The targets were ½ size pepper poppers who possessed the uncanny ability to disappear. It seemed like great preparation for a very slow and deliberate search of a suspect who had fled into the woods. It also made sure that you know how to visually search in rays vs. bands.
While pairs of guys were running the simulator, the rest of the class worked drills on the Unpredictor. The video link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqKEwDWyGLc . The Unpredictor is the neatest target system I’ve seen in a long time. It is a completely computer controlled robotic system. The system presents 8” plates that require a different number of hits to neutralize. The number of hits are randomized so the problem might be to engage 3 targets with 7 rds. The kicker is that the number of hits per plate are randomly spread so on plate might take four rounds, one take 2 rounds, and the other take 1 round to neutralize.
After these two exercises were done. We went back to paper targets and worked on sight/bore offset with the gun rotated 90 degrees left and right and then a little shooting while moving forward.
The final daylight drill was Ron’s homemade charger system. To make things interesting, the targets used were balloons so the motion of the charger imparted motion on to them, making them move in a very erratic fashion – like someone’s head. The charger was manually operated so it moved forward at a very enthusiastic pace. Did I mention that it made the balloons move? Did I mention that there were two balloons, one, a hostage that ought not be shot?
Once we were able to hit them while coming straight at us, we worked on the most difficult shot, a quartering shot on a mover. This was a really vexing problem given the incredibly small window one had to make the shot. It was one of the few instances where ambushing the target was almost required as opposed to simply tracking it.
By this time, the afternoon was late and the sun would soon be down. We had a discussion of flashlights for combative use. The general guidelines were at least 200 lumens, although 500 is still good and more is better when outdoors. Recommended brands for weapon mounted lights were limited to Surefire or Streamlight with Elzeeta added to that list for handhelds. Simplicity was emphasized with a simple on/off arrangement being best. The value of strobing was discussed and Ron’s take was that it was useful in a team application but of limited utility when solo. The issues of shooting moving targets with a strobing light were also discussed and those who had done it, reported the strobe to be a liability. Proper searching with a WML was discussed and Ron had some very good observations about how one should use the entire light to search, not just the hot spot.
Before the sun was completely gone, we learned to use our handheld lights with our carbines. We were encouraged to find at least two ways that worked for us. Once we had practices this a bit, we transitioned to the use of our WML’s.
Once it was dark, the shooting problems looked suspiciously like the day problems except we were providing our own illumination and everything got very difficult. There were some very solid shooters in the class and everyone seemed to struggle with the suboptimal lighting conditions. I was amazed at how practically invisible a black pepper popper would be at 50-60 yards distance.
Working cover with WML’s was a real challenge as well. Almost everyone but me had their light mounted somewhere other than 12:00. This meant that when shooting off of cover, there were positions that didn’t allow the WML to be used. Guys had to learn to brace the rifle and use a handheld light in the support hand to provide illumination. It was suboptimal.
We took a break and when we resumed Ron had his better half down range, approximately 50 yards away. We took turns illuminating her (not with WML’s) and trying to identify the objects in her hands. It was really shocking to realize that without magnification and in low-light, it was virtually impossible to identify what was in her hands. Had it not been a blue gun, it would have been even harder. Short of the suspect providing muzzle flashes, positively identifying a threat a night will require closing with the threat – whether you want to or not.
The night exercise included another woodland simulator. Very much like the daylight simulator but in a different part of the woods. Again, it was a slow deliberate search that required you to move slowly and scan carefully.
While guys were running the simulator, we were shooting the Unpredictor. Blessedly, we didn’t have to hit a 4” circle at 50+ yards to conclude the Unpredictor drill. I really don’t think it would have gone well. Once everyone had completed the simulator, square range drills, and Unpredictor, we gathered around the Charger. We shot it as a charger and then worked quartering shots.
By this point in time it was 9:00 and we had been at it for 11 hours. We debriefed and concluded the class.
MY THOUGHTS
I took a lot away from this class. I think I probably learned more in this one class than any of the other carbine classes I’ve taken. There were simply nuggets strewn everywhere. My main takeaway was that fighting at night is not a matter of throwing a light on your rifle and just carrying on. After watching the shooting that went on in the daylight, and there was some fine shooting, it was disheartening to see how much performance was reduced. It’s one thing to fire a few square range drills in the dark, it’s an entirely different exercise to “solve problems” at night.
Other takeaways for me included this: when I try to shoot precise shots with my Aimpoint, I tend to close my non-dominant eye. At night, in suboptimal lighting conditions, this would not work – at all. Using just the eye looking through the tube did not allow me to even see the target. It was only when I kept both eyes open and used all of the light and visual information available to me that I could actually hit.
As I’ve heard preached before, solving problems with the firearm requires a lot more deliberateness than competition might ever suggest. For instance, when you know that once you fire a shot, you will be unable to see or deliver effective fire until you move and reacquire the target and red dot, you shoot very, very carefully. Taking an extra 0.10 to 0.25 to guarantee a hit becomes really important.
I was reminded that what is perceived as acceptable performance on a square, well-lit range is utterly inadequate once conditions degrade. In order to solve problems effectively at night you have to be able to shoot really, really freaking good during the day.
What is and is not an effective hit also changes. For instance, the target used in the simulator was a half size pepper popper. In theory it’s 28” tall and has an 8” circle for it’s chest. If you are searching effectively, you only see the first 1” or so. Suddenly you are not trying to hit an 8” circle but a small sliver of available target. Running cool guy AR drills and dumping a lot of rounds at full-value targets 7 yards away does not prepare you for this.
It is very hard to criticize and probably unfair to criticize this class. There was a certain bit of standing around and waiting for your turn but that should really be expected. Ron and his staff did a fine job of managing that downtime. Some folks will whine that the round count was low compared to some cool-guy classes but the round count showed me what can be accomplished by a masterful instructor without dumping a small fortune into the berm.
While not a criticism, folks should be prepared for the range. If you like your shooting school to have manicured lawns, well painted props, and flush toilets nearby, you will not be happy. Ron’s range is accessed by a two track road through the Tennessee woods. The road is totally accessible by a normal sedan, you just have ignore the faint sound of banjos playing in the distance. Ron is the master of replicating complex shooting problems that are normally created by props costing tens of thousands of dollars but by using a lot of redneck McGyvering. I don’t offer that as a put down – the man is a (cheap) genius that really delivers incredible value.
Ron mentioned that he is no longer teaching Tennessee CCW classes and will be featured more specialized classes like this one. I plan on attending as many as I can. He’s had a price increase so his one-day classes are a bank breaking $175 (that is sarcasm). For that utterly incredible price, it is worth driving a bit further to make it to the wilds of Hickman County, TN. . My final thought is this: I really think the class should be renamed "So You Think You Can Shoot?" because everyone got their egos pounded and eyes opened once the lights went off.
(My previous carbine training includes: Gunsite 223, Thunder Ranch Urban Rifle 1 & 2, Pat Rogers/EAG 3-Day carbine, Louis Awerbuck/Yavapai 3-day carbine, Paul Howe/CSAT Pistol/Rifle Instructor, and Rogers Shooting School Short Range Rifle Program)
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