AAR: Green Ops - Defensive Carbine Clinic

[shooter220]

17 Apr 2016, NRA Range

Part 1 of 5 – Some caveats (and stuff about me for context):
I have about 30 years of shooting “experience” – but with the exception of time in high school as a Police Explorer (and pistol team member) most of it has been plinking, skeet, or hunting. About 2 years ago I started taking handgun MUCH more seriously. But rifle was still generally a benchrest drill for me.
The Green Ops course was my first formal training with a rifle, and first “real” training class in general.
While I don’t generally use my real name online, for anybody there I was in the 2nd relay, 2nd from the right in a Brew-Thru t-shirt with goatee and buzz cut.
The Course:
Let’s start with the “emotional” sides. I feel like I connected very well to the instructors in terms of how they give feedback and how I receive it. Nobody ever took a dump on my head, despite me BUNGLING a couple iterations of at least one drill. I left extremely motivated to work on how I train and shoot with the carbine too. In my opinion, these guys are a great team. They may not get to observe every trigger pull, but they observe each shooter closely a fairly high percentage of the time. In my experience, they provided personal feedback to EVERY PERSON on EVERY DRILL. That is invaluable, and certainly more feedback and coaching that I was expecting based on the length of the course and the cost.
I will add that when we first geared up but hadn’t started shooting I was watching the instructors (and some of the other students) and thought I had bitten off more than I could chew. I never felt like that again though, based on both their constructive criticism and positive feedback.
Classroom:
So we started with a very good use of force discussion, as well as safety and medical. Use of force was a detailed breakdown of the elements of justifiable use of force. Safety was in depth, medical was more brief – it was explained that in the event of a medical incident the NRA RSOs would take over, but we also identified a primary and secondary person in the classroom for those roles for back-up.
Moving to the range:
We started with a zero confirmation. I put one round in the bullseye, which means I pulled it high (sight-in was at 25 yards, and I was supposed to be zeroed for 50), and had four rounds low and right. If we were shooting further I would have worried about making adjustments, but I was fine leaving my sights where they were.
After sighting in – we broke up into two relays. As a relatively inexperienced shooter in this context, I was ecstatic to be in the second relay to watch the first relay, make sure I understood the instructions, and then hear incremental coaching and feedback along the way.
I have a decent write-up of the drills as I remember them, if people want to see it (and the Green-Ops guys don’t mind me sharing). With them included, this review becomes several pages in a word document.

[shooter220]

Part 2 of 5 – What the Course is NOT:
This course is MANY things, but it is not:
• Shooting 101. It is assumed that you have a rifle, you are familiar with your rifle and anything you have bolted onto it, and are versed in the basic manipulations of your rifle and other gear. This makes perfect sense because of the huge array of gear choices available (and present!). They did give personalized feedback that was based on your gear though, which was very helpful.
• A “deep-dive” on any one topic. It is a 4-ish hour clinic. We actually ran long (THANK YOU to the NRA). Think of it like a survey course in college. This wasn’t about going deep on the history of the Romanov family. More like an introduction to Russian history where you learned that the Romanovs were important. It was enough to whet my appetite in the areas I clearly need to learn more and get more training.
• Boring. Really, I had a blast. The most memorable line was, “If you don’t know what a typical athletic stance looks like, ask the guy next to you whose mom DID sign the contact sports waiver.” Mike, I apologize if I butchered your line, but it was funny.
• For people who don’t WANT to learn. I don’t know how it worked for folks with more training than me. But for me, there was a lot of feedback to process, and I tried to retain as much as I could and integrate it into the next evolution. Sometimes I tried to do too much, but we were fed feedback in chunks that you could digest. As they say, “We aren’t here just to get our guns warm.”

[shooter220]

Part 3 of 5 – Lessons Learned:
• Equipment and configuration matters. I made a bunch of changes during the course including:
Which side of my stock my QD swivel is plugged in to.
Which way the mags are oriented on my belt. I need to test this to make sure that I am not going to screw up my pistol mechanics, but it “felt” better for me to have “bullets backward” – to “beer-can” the reload. For handgun I practice bullets forward.
Where I keep the weapon slung – I started going with more slack and mobility, less “retention.”
• I like my sling, but I don’t love it. It may be “good enough” though. We will have to see.
• My carbine ran well – when I didn’t screw it up by not seating a mag right. AFTER I accidentally dumped the mag at the end of a drill (I disclosed my rookie status right?).
• I shot my optic loose. The last two drills it was rattling a small amount – but not so much that I felt compelled to go to my back-ups because I was still making hits (and as the drills got more complex, the targets got bigger - thankfully).
• My limitation on shooting a carbine fast is VERY different than shooting a handgun fast. What it means to track a sight is very different with a red dot on a nearly 10 pound rifle than a much lighter handgun with iron sights. Trigger manipulation is also significantly different.

[shooter220]

Part 5 of 5 – My Equipment (and some editorializing):
• Adams Arms Blem Carbine – performed as I hoped, it was barely broken in prior to this class
o Magpul Add-Ons:
 CTR Stock- Like it.
 MOE grip – like it, but I still got the middle finger rash from “the gap”
 MOE M-Lok fore-end – I am less fond of it, it may be too bulky
 M-Lok VFG – jury is out, I am probably going to move my sling mount, backwards, and the VFG forwards.
o Sling – Magpul MS-1 in Stealth Gray using QD swivels, with one socket installed high on the foreend, and the rear swivel inserted on the starboard side of the telestock. This makes the rifle hang less vertical (because of my beer gut) but shoulder much better.
o Primary Arms Micro Red Dot Sight in a cheapy-mount (worked well, but now I want to save for an aimpoint)
o Magpul MBUS Pro Front (never needed)
o Matech BUIS rear (never needed)
• Magazines: Magpul MOE 30 Rounders
• Belt: Wilderness Frequent Flyer w/ CompTac Kydex Magazine pouches (x2)

[Mr Pink]

Great review and very detailed. I look forward to part 4.

[shooter220]

I didn't take any notes ON the drills, just on stuff to fix, so this may not be 100%...

1. Up drill – single shot: Low-ready to fire position, fire 1 round, “recover” – as in – scan, safe the weapon, come back to low-ready. The target is a single 3x5 card at 15 yards. (10 rounds?) From here on out, every drill ends with the recover operation of scanning, getting the weapon on safe, and returning to low ready.
2. Up drill – two shots: Low ready to fire position, fire 2 rounds. The target is a single 3x5 card at 15 yards. (20 rounds?)
3. 1-Reload-1: Low ready to fire position, with one round the chamber and an empty magazine. Engage the target, do a bolt-lock reload, and fire another round. The target is a single 3x5 card at 15 yards. (Lost track of round count). This was the drill that had the longest relays. We also integrated administrative/tactical reloads into the exercise to reset the drill back to a single round in the weapon.
4. Transition between targets drill – 2-2 (I think, it could have been 1-1). Low ready position, engage first target, move eyes/head, THEN weapon to the second target. The target is two 3x5 cards at 15 yards – with about a foot between them.
5. Transition to kneeling – engage first target, move to kneeling, engage second target. The target is two 3x5 cards at 15 yards – with about a foot between them.
6. I hope I don’t blow this explanation like I did some mag changes, because there was a lot going on in the drill, but we started behind cover, with the targets turned so shooter was looking at the edge. At the buzzer (targets turn to face), lean out from cover to identify targets. Targets had numbers and shapes on them (multiples of each) the instructor then said what we were supposed to shoot at (calling a single number or shape). If it was on one target, that target was a shoot target. If it was on both targets that meant you had two targets to engage in the same time. We did this through three stations:

Standing
Kneeling
Transition Standing to kneeling

1. We finished with El Presidente – Three targets, spaced a few feet apart (range about 17 yards?). 6 rounds in the weapon (5+1), and 6 rounds in the back-up magazine. Engage each target, 2 rounds per. Reload from empty, engage each target 2 rounds per. On the timer. As a rookie I shoot a 10.6, with a TERRIBLE reload. But it was better than it would have been 4 hours earlier.