Official AAR: Sean M/F2S Epic Carbine Course of Win and Bacon

[Jay Cunningham]

Unfortunately due to work obligations I wasn't able to make as much of an appearance as I'd have liked to, but I got to meet everybody and watch Jack and Sean do their thing and life was good. And I got Donna hugs, which go a long way.

I saw safe gun handlers who were seriously listening to the instructors. Jack and Sean seemed very comfortable on Day 2 (when I was there) and everyone was having a good time.

No complaints!

Thanks to Jack, Sean, and Tom Jones for allowing us to exploit your good nature. Thanks to Tim and Sam for your pathological altruism. Thanks to Ashton for the lube and for further advancing your own suspicious agenda. Thanks to Donna for being slender and blonde. Thanks to me for having nice hair and generally being awesome.

Let's do it again!!

[Toonces]

Other than the thank you’s, I’m not going to repeat a complete rundown for the class, since that has already been well covered.

Sean and Jack, thank you for putting up with a first-time training newb who had no idea about most everything. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for not charging what you rightfully could as a service to P-F.com.

Jay, thank you for improving a beautiful facility that just happens to be a great place to host a carbine class.

Aray, thank you for the Berserker Blue lube. As Sean mentioned numerous times, it’s the best lube on the planet.

TCinVA and Sam, thanks for your “facilitation”. The extra sets of knowledgeable eyes allowed us to cover more material, making the most of a compressed time frame.

Tom & Rich, thank you for dinner and the mag carrier.

To all the other attendees, thank you for being a great bunch of people to be around and shoot with.

Having never attended any formal training class before, I learned a lot. It was like trying to drink from a fire hose, but I had a great time. I know I’m a better shooter now than before, and I know I’ll be attending more training once the debt to my wife for watching two kids for three days is repaid. I now have a good set of basic skills to work on at home, so I won’t be the clueless guy at the next class. I’ll also have a set of electronic ear muffs and at least two mag carriers, to avoid making a public spectacle of myself again.


Jack, if KAC does want some precision manufacturing consulting, contact me. I’ll work relatively cheap…in the beginning.

[Failure2Stop]

I really enjoyed being on the range with Sean, hopefully he will do this type of thing again, as I would absolutely repeat if given the opportunity. Next time will only be better.

Eta: it is kinda funny being the "fundamentals" guy, given my usual class layout, but it is oddly refreshing.

From Tapatalk:
Jack Leuba
Knight's Armament Company: Military/Govt Product Liaison
F2S Consulting: Director of Shooting Stuff

[Aray]

I was glad to have the chance to meet some of the members and to meet Little Dude. The whole "Not our pew pew" conversation was priceless.

Thanks again to Sean, Donna and Jack for making the trip.

I'm happy to have been a small part of this event.

Ashton

[Odin Bravo One]

It was great to see a turn out of guys who really wanted to learn, and take an opportunity like this to increase their proficiency. The switched on, safe gun handling was a refreshing change from most open-enrollment type courses I have either been a student, or instructor. I really appreciated everyone's attention to safety. This was a really dialed in group, which allowed for us to cover most everything.

Unfortunately, two days is just not enough time, and keeping the round count close to what we billed, while still hitting the high points in such a compressed time frame can be difficult. Fortunately, we were able to cover most of what Jack and I had discussed. It was great to watch Jack work, and while I wish I had more time to observe and learn, I found myself trying to adjust my schedule, round counts, and drills to be a bit more challening.

For those who have emailed, or sent PM's, I hope to get a few minutes to respond over the weekend.

Thanks for all of the help from Tim, Jay, Ash, and Sam. They made working the course easy, providing all of the range support and reconfigurations, target maint., etc. Without it, we would not have been able to cover nearly what we did.

Thanks to everyone who attended. Hopefully everyone got something out of it, and felt it was worth their time and effort to attend. I'll look at possibly doing a repeat once I have a little more time where I can do a weekend away, and not have it be a monumental amount of time taken from something or someone else.

Finally, thanks to my family who cowboy'd up, and endured yet another chapter in the crazy adventure I call "Shit these people put up with".

[eyemahm]

A top ten of surprising revelations from the weekend:

1) 9mm ball works
2) Green tip is devastating at close range
3) The sitting position is fundamental, and not much more
4) "Snackbar" lovers do not get body shots
5) Eyeballs are the window to the soul, not sternums
6) Get an aimpoint
7) AOWB is a thing
8) Concealed means concealed, except when it gets uncomfortable and you want to move it behind the waist
9) Keep getting pitchers every 10 minutes until someone passes out and then every 8 minutes after that, no matter what Thornton says
10) Know your movie quotes

Even though getting there was no cake walk and the way home wasn't much better, we had no regrets.

We went from being unpracticed and uncomfortable with our rifles to feeling like they're a part of us.

Word can't do justice to the lessons learned, people met, and good times had.

Special thanks to Sean, Jack, Tom Jones, Jay, Ashton, TC and Rich.

-dove & eyemahm

[cricket]

Gents,

This was a -fantastic-, unique opportunity.

* If anyone had any doubts, Sean and Jack are scary good. Smart, approachable, true teachers. They did not hold back on their knowledge. Several of us also benefited tremendously from Jay's coaching - also scary effective. It is incredible to watch these guys working with a class, even in a relaxed setting.

* Students ranged from “gun professionals” to theoretical physicists and everything in between. Huge variety of experience levels and ages, and the instructors were able to improve everybody *significantly*, and safely, while making it look easy.

* If you ever get the chance, do not hesitate to spend any amount of time with these guys, and these type of events. I definitely feel like I owe everyone involved a LOT.

Cricket

[Jay Cunningham]

[jc000]

Finally finding time to add my $.02. While I, too, was caught off-guard by the perplexing lack of bacon and the irony of my first pistol-forum.com event being a carbine class, this weekend was a gigantic win all around.

I have always been impressed with Jack's input on this forum (and others) over the years – very knowledgeable, very no-nonsense, and very willing to share information with (often significantly!) less-knowledageble folks. As a result, I really wanted to train with F2S Consulting and was sorry to see that there seemed to be limited opportunities to do so.

So to that end, being able to train with Jack for free, and within reasonable driving distance was truly a gift. Adding another instructor of the caliber of Sean, along with a intelligent group of fellow students, an excellent and spacious facility, and some cool freebies from CCC and Berserker Blue? I don't think it's unreasonable to consider this event a once-in-a-lifetime training opportunity.

There is probably not much to add about the curriculum outside what has been said already. A good deal of foundational knowledge was the focus, but with some seriously high-level insights courtesy of our instructors. I appreciated how there was not even the slightest tinge of "BTDT" in their instruction and anecdotes even though that is very clearly the case for both Jack and Sean. Their willingness to participate in this type of event correlates directly to their interest in helping people be safer and more capable, and really set a positive tone for the entire weekend.

Sean's pass / fail qualifier was tough and helped reinforce that this was about identifying areas for improvement and not about a pat on the back for showing up.

Having shot quite a bit of pistol before this course, I thought my performance would be significantly better than it ended up being. It was frustrating, but there were small victories and "a-ha" moments I experienced over the course that were very rewarding. Jack and Sean's curriculum allowed me to pretty clearly identify things for me to work on, and I'm looking forward to measuring my progress over time.

I'd recommend to all and happily do this again. Thanks again to Sean and Jack, and thanks to TCinVA, Aray, Jay, Tom Jones, Rich (CCC), and Sam (who I'm guessing was the guy with a vest running around putting up targets on Day 1!) for all your contributions to make this possible. And thanks p-f.com for the great opportunity. I believe this must be one of the most knowledgable gun communities on the web, and I look forward to the forum's continued and positive growth.

[Jay Cunningham]

Nobody remembers the bacon appetizers on Friday night?