Guerrilla Approach Carbine Marksmanship

[victran]

20160529 Winchester Canyon Gun Club - Santa Barbra, CA 0830-1730

Instructor: Aaron Burraga, 8 year veteran of 1st Special Forces Group. Communications Sergeant (18E)

Introduction: I've been shooting AR15s for about 5 years. Have yet to take carbine training as serious as pistol skills and craft. Very well versed in weapons manipulation, malfunction clearances, overall functionality, and knowledgeable in how the platform functions. Average time spent behind the carbine is about 3-6 times a year to check zero and stow the carbine away. The lack of actual carbine training that fit my schedule this year was severely lacking, Aaron was offering this course at a discount so I called up a bud down in the area and told him to join me.

Prelude: drove 4 hours to Santa Barbra, checked in at my AirBnB room rental and checked weapons.

Begin class: Drove out to Winchester Canyon Gun Club and arrived at 0815. Set carbine, ammo and gear on the benches and awaited Aaron to collect our waivers.

Class size was about 24 students to one instructor with 2 RSO's. The experience level of the class ranged from new novice shooters to advanced experienced shooters. At least one active LE and multiple military veterans.

Introduction of students followed by safety rules and medical evacuation plan layout. Aaron did not talk much about his background but talked more on how the class is structured and his approach to teaching the class. Crawl-Walk-Run. He wanted the students to embrace an understanding of the fundamentals of shooting, no gimmicks or crazy dynamic stuff as he described as "the norm of the industry." Definitely respect someone who dives straight into business than personal fulfillment.

Range Time: Aaron handed out skills and tests sheet to each of us to gauge how we do throughout the class. Then Aaron demonstrated proper mechanics of how to be comfortable in the prone position. Breathing, sights, trigger press, reset. Ultimately achieving 'natural point of aim' in the end.

Target out at 50 meters and we all fired 10 rounds into our designated targets and went downrange to see how we did. My carbine was set up for a 50m zero but I had not fired it for a number of months to confirm zero, let alone the difference of it going from different elevations for the class. I scored an 86 onto a B8 target and asked Aaron if we should be concerned about proper zeroing and if I would need to adjust accordingly. Aaron told me not to get too wrapped up on chasing the zero for this class, that my deviations is mostly human error as I shot mostly to the left of the X.

Next we had the targets out at 100m, shot out to 100m and this is when I decided to try to remember my hold-overs on the fly. I put the dot on the top portion of the black and squeezed my ten shots. We went down range to check our targets and my shots were all hitting high and off target. It did not click with me until we took our next skills test.

The next skills test was set at 100m, at the prone, fire ten rounds at a B8 target with a par time of 30 seconds and engage the designated steel reduced C-Zone with ten rounds with a 7 second par time. Here, I held the dot at the bottom of the B8, confusing my hold over instead of actually just putting the dot dead onto the target. The result was only 3-5 rounds onto the B8 white portion of the circle and I put the dot on the head of the steel target and got 7/10 hits with a par time of 15 seconds, I had believed that the par time were the same and took my time on the steel. Failed the test big time. Overall, Aaron wanted us to use a lot mental work and focus on our zero process and 100m tests. He describes it as making yourself exhausted from such focus.

Up Close: Now we had clean USPSA targets, set up at the 7m line, we were now working at close distance. First we began with how to achieve a comfortable stance. How to grip the carbine and work the safety and trigger. Aaron's approach resonated from Pat Mac and Frank Proctor, in which I also follow, the safety should be manipulated whenever the eyes are connected to the the sights of the weapon. Aaron adds another step into the matter where trigger finger should rest onto the trigger as the safety is disengaged, ready to break the shot.

Body posture and grip came along and just about everyone in the class is familiar with a modern athletic shooting stance. The over aggressive hunch and squared to target stance was ridiculed as much as an over aggressive shooting stance with the support arm locked out. Straight lines do not necessarily created complete control. Aaron also addressed over gripping a weapon. An example being that the heart rate spikes up as a person overly aggressively grips a weapon, inducing more body tremors throughout the weapon and ruining the sight and deliberate press of the trigger.

Next, Aaron demonstrated mechanical offset; hold the dot at the top portion of the A zone to achieve a center mass shot instead of dead hold and achieve a low gut shot. Regardless of zero, this taught the very basic understanding of hold overs. We first started with A zone hits then moved onto head shots. Again, hold over at the top of the head zone box to achieve an A zone hit onto the head box.

Next, Aaron showed us speed and mechanics drill; 1x2x1. He described it to be more "economical" than the 22422 drill because it only required two targets and four rounds to practice sights, trigger press and follow through. Pretty straight forward, know the hold over as we were still shooting at 7m, we went through 28-30 rounds (some people had standard capacity magazines) of this drill each.

After each drill rotation and evolution, Aaron would pause the class and point out the mistakes that he noticed and corrected down the line of students. A lot of students were caught point shooting as they wanted to increase the speed and tempo of the cadence of fire. Also, a big emphasis was put before the drill on safety lever manipulation.

From the low ready on the command to fire, raise carbine and fire a single round at the steel 50m away. What Aaron is looking for is proper sight and trigger press connection. Ensure us from point shooting for speed and that we do not rush our trigger past what we can or cannot do. Keeping us honest really. My problems were rushing the shot and Aaron did not like me taking a pause before pressing the shot out. I only achieved 2 out of 5 hits.

We broke down for a 30 minute lunch and went back to the 7m line. The next drill was to push further target transitions with a speed bump included. Three targets right next to each other with a single no-shoot target obscuring the middle target's A zone. Again, put everything we had done earlier and implement speed to it. Four shooters at a time with the four target setups and my first string, I did not account for mechanical offset and tagged the no shoot. Rookie mistake.

Drawing down: We ended the day with 50m steel engagements by using blue barrels as an obstacle to move and shoot around them. This was where the class began to break down and call it a day. We were over an hour past our projected time of closing. With four targets set down range and each student practicing two rounds from each side from a magazine full of ammo, it was difficult to determine accurate hits. Most students, myself included, began trying each other's carbines.

When a majority of students finished firing, we broke everything down and started to pack up. Took our class photo and went along our way.

After Thoughts: Like a majority of classes, there are a few things to critique about, the biggest is simply the very size of the class with the size of the facility we were training at.

• 1 instructor to 24 students. This is a mixed experience level class, several students with different levels of proficiency. Many students were on the same page with one another and Aaron, while I noticed a significant few not on the same page or having trouble addressing questions for Aaron. A good number of students I also noticed, were inpatient on waiting to get a question to Aaron as well. This is not entirely Aaron's fault, simply the size of the class hindered most of the novice shooters from effectively progressing.

• The facility itself, parking was pretty stacked line by line on top of the hill. So unless you were parked at the end of the line, you would be able to get out (I parked at the base of the hill and tossed all my kit and ammo in my ruck and humped it up the slope). The medical evacuation vehicle was blocked when two more vehicles arrived and parked behind it. Not entirely an issue in part of the class but again, class size and risk management because incidents can happen.

• The class advertised that we would also work on reloads, equipment management, and malfunctions. None of which were addressed and the time a reload was mentioned was when Aaron noticed how I cleared a repeated stovepipe malfunction by ripping the magazine (filled with weak Tula ammo) with the same hand holding a fresh magazine. Other than that, we did not go over those three topics as advertised. Granted, a majority of students ran belts and small chest rigs (I was THAT GUY with a plate carrier because I do not have a chest rig) but how they indexed their magazines for a reload was problematic for some novice students.

• Lots of down time between shooting rotations. For the first half of the class when we were shooting prone, I found myself and many students waiting around for our turn to be tested. If the class was smaller, then I would imagine there would be less down time between drills and more time for other needs. We ended over an hour later than expected.

The biggest take away I gained from the class is definitely gauging where my level of marksmanship is at. Admittedly before, my emphasis on carbine training revolved around close distance shooting with an focus on CQB, primarily shooting past 100m without a time limit. Emphasis on carbine marksmanship and owning up to every shot you take, definitely puts you at a different type focus plane. Hitting steel with relative easy effort at 50m sounds easy in theory, but add the par time in, is another story. Aaron and the experienced guys definitely make it look easy.

Gear: Of course, we gotta talk about what I brought to the class and what the students and instructors were running.

Aaron was rocking an Arsenal Democracy carbine with a Leupold Devo optic and a VTAC padded sling. Support equipment was just a spare carbine mag pouch.

I was running my AR with an MRO. Support equipment was a Ronin Tactical Senshi Belt with two pistol pouches, a soft carbine pouch backed by a ITW FastMag, medical pull out pouch with RATS tourniquet, Safariland offset drop with 7TS for my Beretta (which I later forgot to stow at the first part of the class when I kitted up with the belt, I had to hump the slope from my car so everything was on ready to go). I ran with the plate carrier for the second half of the class. Velocity Systems LWPC with Mayflower 5.56 placard with medical and support pouches. Mechanix Gear gloves, my ALG EMR got really hot after a few fast cadences through a few mags on a few drills.

Majority of the class had custom ARs but I noticed a significant number of BCM and Spikes complete uppers. Lots of Aimpoint T1, T2, and PROs. At least four students, including myself, had Trijicon MRO. At least three Eotech 512s. Three students ran irons only, with one having a detachable carry handle. A good number of students ran magnified optics. One student rocked the class the whole time with an AR10 (shot the best too). One Bushnell TRS25 was there and died during the first shots, student had a spare upper to use. One student was using an Adams Arms piston upper, paired with bad ammo and the gun took a shit when a loose spent primer drifted into the trigger group. Throughout the later part of the class, I noticed him motoring the gun to rack the charging handle. One student in particular was running a featureless AR15 (example), but lacked an ambidextrous safety so he had to actuate the safety with his left hand and then grip the gun and then engage the targets. That particular student did really, really well despite that limitation.

Closing: Aaron is a great instructor, the curriculum was solid for the consumers it was presented to. I thoroughly enjoyed being pushed on my focus. Admittedly, I did not want to settle for a basic level 1 class, but I could not join a level 2 class. Purely egotism on my part but humbled me to address where I ultimately failed at several times over during the class and took note of my failure points. I would recommend this class to more people but advise them to have patience if they wind up in a large class such as the one I was in. I am interested in taking Aaron's higher level courses and he hints at multiple day courses in the future once he finishes his videos with Panteo Productions in September. The trip over to Santa Barbra to train with him was definitely worthwhile.