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Thread: Fieldcraft Survival Gunfighter Carbine 1: December 20, 2020

  1. #1

    Fieldcraft Survival Gunfighter Carbine 1: December 20, 2020

    Fieldcraft Survival Gunfighter Carbine Class, Level 1. Eagle Lake, Texas @ The Ranch.
    Instructors: Sean Little (SL), AI: Will and Paul Gardner (I am not sure if Paul was officially there as an AI but he's so knowledgeable that he essentially served as one).
    Cost: $375
    Duration: One day, 9 AM- 2 PM (class actually ended 4:30 pm)

    Course Description (from their website): The Gun Fighter Carbine 1 Course is designed to teach you the fundamentals of Gun Fighting in defense of your life. It is designed to teach the intermediate shooter how to move, shoot while moving, fight off the "X", and replicate stress to evaluate your technical gun fighting skills. We will refine the fundamentals and work on further building each shooters ability. This course is for intermediate shooters that understand basic marksmanship and possess safe gun-handling skills, alone and around others. This is not a beginner’s course, if the instructors consider you unsafe or unfit for the course you may be asked to leave at your expense. This is for your safety and the safety of the class. Attending our Fundamentals class or one similar prior is highly suggested.

    Bottom Line: The class is a good class for beginners but did not meet several of its stated objectives. Because of that, I would not recommend this class to intermediate shooters as it was advertised. The instructors were clearly knowledgeable and very nice. Facilities were excellent as always at The Ranch. Objectives that were not met included:

    This was advertised as an intermediate level course. It is not. It is more a beginner’s class. Of course, my opinion is very subjective, since one person’s “basic” may be another person’s “intermediate.”
    Fighting off the “X” was not covered unless I had a brain lapse and totally missed it.
    We did not perform any stress drills/evaluation.

    My background: As a civilian with no military or LE experience, I have attended 34 classes ranging from combatives, force on force, legal, to firearms. Most of my classes have been pistol focused. I could not find very much on FCS class reviews, especially on this forum so I wanted to share my experience.

    Students: There were 18 students- 17 male, one female. Some were veterans of either USMC, Navy, or Air Force. Most were civilians and had no LE or military experience. At least a third had very little carbine experience based on the way they were handling their weapons or had them tricked out.

    Primary instructor was Sean Little, who served 12 years as a Marine and scout sniper, Capitol police officer, worked for HK, and is now a firearm instructor. Sean has his own company Vapor tactical (About | Vapor Trail Tactical, LLC (vttactical.com)) but also instructs for Fieldcraft Survival (FCS). FCS apparently has 18 different instructors they contract to teach their curriculum, although you would not know that from their website. I just wish companies were more transparent about who taught their classes. I am fine if it is not your main people, just let me know ahead of time and be upfront about it. Nevertheless, Sean was quite skilled in teaching and obviously knew his stuff. He demonstrated everything. The AI was Will, an active LEO in Austin who was also very skilled. Together, they traversed the line to make sure everyone was safe and gave advice when needed. Paul Gardner also served as an assistant instructor, taking care of the noobies on the right side of the line.


    General Course Schedule


    9 AM- everyone registered on these fancy tablets attesting that we did not have COVID positive test or symptoms. Introductions and discussions followed regarding safety, ready positions, slings, and why.

    10 AM- went down range and had more discussion on slings (single, two-point, three-point), a little on optics (Sean uses a Trijicon LPVO 1-4X), stance, and more on ready positions.

    10:55- started shooting. We did CQB zeros. From five yards, we were to aim at the X (center of B8 equivalent) and you should be 2 inches or so below. If you were roughly in the black circle, then you were good to go. There was no lying prone and shooting 50-yard zeros. We also did high and low ready drills, box drills. I shot 70 rds for this portion.

    The fact that we did not start shooting until almost 2 hrs later was frustrating, as I think we could have covered all those topics in less time and shot sooner. What bothered me more was the CQB zero as there were some students next to me that clearly were not zeroed and I did not see any corrections made (or if corrections were made I did not see it happen). I understand that zeroing your rifle takes time but isn’t that the most important fundamental other than safety?

    At around 11:15 we had a student with a double feed and so shooting paused to discuss double feed causes and management. Different reload techniques (administrative, tactical, emergency) were also demonstrated. We took a break to replenish.

    Paul Gardner then shared his story about how he became paralyzed after being shot in combat. His lessons to us were:
    -Get a sight picture, even if it is imperfect before shooting.
    -Never assume that just because your threat falls that he or she is down and out. Confirm and ask yourself; Did I hit him? Does he need more? Is he down? Am I hit? Is everyone I care about safe?
    -Never reload looking down
    -Learn how to move off the X. Sometimes running offline is better than standing there and reloading.

    Paul’s story makes these lessons more impactful.

    12:00 Noon- drilled tactical and emergency reloads. All shooting so far was from the five-yard line, using VTAC targets. I liked how Sean would use either “Target” or “Threat” as a range command. Target meant to shoot the specified number of rounds. Threat meant that you should be ready to shoot, but safety should still be on and finger straight. This made the students pay more attention the specific command rather than automatically fire every time.

    1330- discussed cover and concealment and drilled it on steel 25 yards away behind two vertically stacked barrels. There were multiple lines with 3-4 students per line. We all dry fired first to work the mechanics of pieing off angles and shoulder transitions, then live-fired. Will showed us an alternative and effective method of shoulder transition.

    1400- class was technically over and one student had to leave. We took a group photo and most of us stayed longer because Sean and Will continued to teach (Thank you!). They demonstrated moving while shooting straight, lateral right to left and then lateral left to right. On the moving straight, one student was always behind the shooter as his/her handler, to make sure they were at the same pace as everyone else. We started from 25 yards out and shot at the VTAC paper targets rather than steel. On the lateral drills, we had to move right to left or vice versa behind multiple columns of barrels, again paper targets. Again, we all dryfired before live fire.

    1630- Class adjourned. Will phone recorded everyone to debrief (what you liked, what you did not like). It was hard to think of everything on the spot.

    Altogether, I shot 250 rounds.

    What I liked

    1. Sean, Will, and Paul were skilled, nice, and down to earth. They were strict when they needed to be but amiable when not shooting.
    2. Safety was maintained and I never felt endangered.
    3. I picked up a new way to shoulder transition.
    4. Had a good day practicing fundamentals.
    5. I liked the “Target” vs “Threat” range commands that forced us to discriminate
    6. Paul’s sharing of his combat life lessons
    7. My equipment worked well
    8. The slick registration on tablets. Although with everyone touching the same screen it was not exactly hygienic.


    What I did not like

    1. The lack of transparency on who was teaching the class. If you are going to outsource your teaching, then let me know. Now it is not like they said Instructor A was teaching and instructor B shows up.
    However, all their website and video footage shows a small cadre of instructors so as a consumer, that is what you expect.
    2. The CQB rough zero and how some students were clearly off.
    3. The lack of accuracy accountability. We did not mark off errant misses and we all shot at our neighbor’s targets on the box drills. After a few sessions, it was impossible to tell how accurate you were, especially with the shooting and moving drills. We basically used the same paper targets the entire class and they were all chewed up. We did not change targets even once. For a class that advertises “designed to teach you the fundamentals of Gun Fighting in defense of your life,” accuracy seemed to take a backseat.
    4. Discussion of topics that were important but spending too much time on talking. We did not shoot until TWO HOURS after start time. Am I being unreasonable? Perhaps. The upside is I saved more ammo.
    5. I wished there were more drills on malfunctions. But I can practice that at home
    6. Fighting off the X and stress drills to test your skills were in the course description but not covered. This was actually the part that I was looking forward to the most.

    Personally, I had a lot of expectations for this class going in. I have been following Fieldcraft Survival on social media for some time and was quite excited at attending one of their training classes. They seem to sell out very quickly, which would suggest either good marketing, good quality, or both. They have great social media content, slick advertising, and an enticing class description. With 34 classes over the span of eight years, I have attended classes that were great, good, okay, and poor. This class was okay.

  2. #2
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    Thanks for the thorough review!

  3. #3
    Very honest review. Thank you for that.

    Your last paragraph, to me, says it all. It seems to me that this company has just BURST onto the training scene in the last couple of years with a strong social media/online presence. I see so many people, probably newer gun owners, who LONG to train with Fieldcraft but have never even heard of Paul Howe, Mike Pannone, Pat Mac, KD4, Bill Rapier, Northern Red, etc. It's weird. I like their TQ IWB holster, but beyond that would much rather train with some of the above noted ex-mil guys than this crew. And I agree that it is a little disingenuous to not reveal who will be teaching the actual course (people have had the same complaint on this site about Centrifuge, THINKING they'll get Will Petty but instead getting some other staff instructor). That stuff needs to be out there up-front, IMO.

  4. #4
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    Just some thoughts as someone who has been on both sides.

    I have some pet peeves and not marking / replacing targets, is one of those, especially in the current ammo constrained environment. It is wasteful and the lack of quantifiable feedback turns live fire training into handling practice with noise.

    On another note, the last sentence may give some insight into why the class went the way it did.

    The Gun Fighter Carbine 1 Course is designed to teach you the fundamentals of Gun Fighting in defense of your life. It is designed to teach the intermediate shooter how to move, shoot while moving, fight off the "X", and replicate stress to evaluate your technical gun fighting skills. We will refine the fundamentals and work on further building each shooters ability.

    This course is for intermediate shooters that understand basic marksmanship and possess safe gun-handling skills, alone and around others. This is not a beginner’s course, if the instructors consider you unsafe or unfit for the course you may be asked to leave at your expense. This is for your safety and the safety of the class. Attending our Fundamentals class or one similar prior is highly suggested.
    From the OP's description it sounds like much of the class did not really have the prerequisite skills for the training POI. Zeroing carbines, while important is a level 1 task and this was supposed to be a level 2 class. Maybe FCS having calling a class with prerequisites a "level 1" class (i.e. fundamentals then level 1) may cause confusion.

    The "zero check" and warm ups at the start of classes also allow the instructors to get a feel for the competency of the students.

    Either way students signing up for classes they are not qualified for is a common issue in open enrollment. If it's only 1 or 2 students the AI can give then extra attention and they can drive on. However, if it is the majority of the class, the instructor(s) will often need to modify the POI to match the skills of the students or split the class into two groups based on competence level. However, splitting into two relays in a six hour class is problematic.

    This creates a couple issues for lead instructor. First is safety. If they were not competent enough to show up zeroed they are likely not competent enough to do stress / get off the X drills safely or they will do so with very poor results.

    Putting those students into stress get off the X drills when they are not ready can both set them up for a safety issue (which would be on the instructors) and it would be setting them up to fail which is both bad for the students and bad for business.

    The lead instructor is not the owner of FCS - making a decision to kick out paying students, barring actual safety violations is easy to say but harder to do in practice, at least in open enrollment classes. I'd think the lead would need to consult with the owner, and it would likely generate more negative reviews that trying to tone down the class to match the majority of the students.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by HCM View Post

    This creates a couple issues for lead instructor. First is safety. If they were not competent enough to show up zeroed they are likely not competent enough to do stress / get off the X drills safely or they will do so with very poor results.

    Putting those students into stress get off the X drills when they are not ready can both set them up for a safety issue (which would be on the instructors) and it would be setting them up to fail which is both bad for the students and bad for business.

    The lead instructor is not the owner of FCS - making a decision to kick out paying students, barring actual safety violations is easy to say but harder to do in practice, at least in open enrollment classes. I'd think the lead would need to consult with the owner, and it would likely generate more negative reviews that trying to tone down the class to match the majority of the students.
    Thank you for the insight from both sides. You are right, that safety is paramount and if the instructor did not feel it was safe for students to train in "get off the X" then of course that was the right call. I cannot imagine how stressful it is for an instructor to:
    1) be teaching someone's curriculum and not yours, esp not your own company
    2) be overseeing 18 adults who may have infantile mentality or lack of common sense, and who are handling firearms (not saying any of my classmates are like that, but an instructor doesn't know going in). Common sense does not come commonly.

    we all were novices at some time. I have trained in some complex maneuvers with less experienced shooters and the way that it was made safe, and still participatory, was to dry fire the hell of the exercise, and then only live fire when the instructor felt students were doing it safely. The instructor actually did do that for the moving and shooting drills and it felt completely safe after the dry runs.

    Also, I don't know why students are not screened more when they sign up for classes. I am not saying to exclude less experienced students, but to gauge their competency and then organize them accordingly in the class.
    For example, "if i was an instructor" (which I am not qualified and not claiming to), I would send out a survey to each student 2-3 weeks out asking questions like;
    1. Please list in chronological order the past two years, any firearm classes you have attended and with whom.
    2. Age, gender, disabilities or handicaps, right or left handed
    3. How would you rate your proficiency level? (Novice- Have to think about safety rules, can load/unload, fire at target and hit it mostly, shoot occasionally at indoor range. Intermediate- safety rules unconsciously practiced, good at drawing, decent recoil control, alternate positions, okay at shooting on move. Advanced- comfortable with target transitions, moving targets, rifle-pistol transitions. You can define this however you wish to focus on their skill level going in. Another way to ask this is - what do you think you already do well? and give them a list of skills that they can check off.
    4. What do you think you need to work on the most? Example: drawing from holster, concealment, speed, malfunction clearance.
    5. WHat is/are your goal in this class (1-3 goals)

    You might even ask students to send a video clip of key skills to assess (all dry of course).
    1) picking up a pistol and rifle and checking status
    2) load and unload firearm
    3) reloading pistol and or rifle (administrative, tactical, emergency)
    4) malfunction clearances
    5) shooting stance pistol and or rifle
    6) drawing from holster.

    With this information, I can REALLY get a good sense of my students, organize and modify the class curriculum if needed, and communicate to them any changes from course description based on student makeup. On class day, I can use this information to bypass certain skills or not delve too much if students are already proficient (from video). It would be so less stressful. Almost everyone has the IT know how to make these videos.

    I can also create a core series of videos of expectations, demonstrating safety, fundamental skills, etc and send my students a link before class so that they can learn remotely prior to showing up. This would save OODLES OF TIME.

    Of course, you will sometimes have the village idiot who does no preparation, and shows up wanting to be spoon fed. For these brilliant students, you whip them with ramen noodles and say some polite profanities (silently in your head).

    These are my thoughts from someone who has never taught firearms, and so I am vastly out of my lane. However, I have taught hundreds of physicians and trainees learn how to rebuild noses, lips, ears, eyelids, dissect tumors, avoid nerves, and other fun things. The more you prepare, the more you learn as a student. The more you prepare as a teacher, the more you prevent trouble and optimize learning for your students.

    Humbly submitted for consideration.

  6. #6
    The problem is you took a carbine course from a lifestyle brand.

    Wikipedia: A lifestyle brand is a brand that attempts to embody the values, aspirations, interests, attitudes, or opinions of a group or a culture for marketing purposes.

    I like Mike Glover's content and respect him immensely. But he's built his company through Instagram posts. Not from the word of mouth of his classes. He's farming the instruction out to others because he's busy growing the company - and fast, apparently.

    I don't know if your experience would have been different if Mike himself was teaching. Those 'warrior lifestyle' brands - I'll include Warrior Poet, Sheepdog Response, probably others - attract a less experienced student. I'm not surprised at all that the intermediate class was full of beginners. And yes, shame on Fieldcraft for not requiring some sort of prerequisite, but most other companies don't do that either. But most other companies that don't have a quarter million Instagram followers built over just a few short years.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Thn9mm View Post
    Thank you for the insight from both sides. You are right, that safety is paramount and if the instructor did not feel it was safe for students to train in "get off the X" then of course that was the right call. I cannot imagine how stressful it is for an instructor to:
    1) be teaching someone's curriculum and not yours, esp not your own company
    2) be overseeing 18 adults who may have infantile mentality or lack of common sense, and who are handling firearms (not saying any of my classmates are like that, but an instructor doesn't know going in). Common sense does not come commonly.

    we all were novices at some time. I have trained in some complex maneuvers with less experienced shooters and the way that it was made safe, and still participatory, was to dry fire the hell of the exercise, and then only live fire when the instructor felt students were doing it safely. The instructor actually did do that for the moving and shooting drills and it felt completely safe after the dry runs.

    Also, I don't know why students are not screened more when they sign up for classes. I am not saying to exclude less experienced students, but to gauge their competency and then organize them accordingly in the class.
    For example, "if i was an instructor" (which I am not qualified and not claiming to), I would send out a survey to each student 2-3 weeks out asking questions like;
    1. Please list in chronological order the past two years, any firearm classes you have attended and with whom.
    2. Age, gender, disabilities or handicaps, right or left handed
    3. How would you rate your proficiency level? (Novice- Have to think about safety rules, can load/unload, fire at target and hit it mostly, shoot occasionally at indoor range. Intermediate- safety rules unconsciously practiced, good at drawing, decent recoil control, alternate positions, okay at shooting on move. Advanced- comfortable with target transitions, moving targets, rifle-pistol transitions. You can define this however you wish to focus on their skill level going in. Another way to ask this is - what do you think you already do well? and give them a list of skills that they can check off.
    4. What do you think you need to work on the most? Example: drawing from holster, concealment, speed, malfunction clearance.
    5. WHat is/are your goal in this class (1-3 goals)

    You might even ask students to send a video clip of key skills to assess (all dry of course).
    1) picking up a pistol and rifle and checking status
    2) load and unload firearm
    3) reloading pistol and or rifle (administrative, tactical, emergency)
    4) malfunction clearances
    5) shooting stance pistol and or rifle
    6) drawing from holster.

    With this information, I can REALLY get a good sense of my students, organize and modify the class curriculum if needed, and communicate to them any changes from course description based on student makeup. On class day, I can use this information to bypass certain skills or not delve too much if students are already proficient (from video). It would be so less stressful. Almost everyone has the IT know how to make these videos.

    I can also create a core series of videos of expectations, demonstrating safety, fundamental skills, etc and send my students a link before class so that they can learn remotely prior to showing up. This would save OODLES OF TIME.

    Of course, you will sometimes have the village idiot who does no preparation, and shows up wanting to be spoon fed. For these brilliant students, you whip them with ramen noodles and say some polite profanities (silently in your head).

    These are my thoughts from someone who has never taught firearms, and so I am vastly out of my lane. However, I have taught hundreds of physicians and trainees learn how to rebuild noses, lips, ears, eyelids, dissect tumors, avoid nerves, and other fun things. The more you prepare, the more you learn as a student. The more you prepare as a teacher, the more you prevent trouble and optimize learning for your students.

    Humbly submitted for consideration.
    All that is great in a perfect world but as they say "ain't nobody got time for that." It would save class time but the admin burden would quickly become unworkable.

    I think BigD is on to something re: the students a "lifestyle" brand attracts.

    Teaching students who are either paid to learn or who are paying to learn because they need to learn for work (also my background as an instructor) is very different than open enrollment students from a lifestyle brand. As such I don't think it would have been much different if Mike Glover and Kevin Owens were instructing.

  8. #8
    So yeah yikes, and you shot steal with carbines (aka center fire rifle rounds) at 25 yards? Did they provide frangible ammo or require it? I mean even then best practice is no closer than 50 with rifle with frangible ammo.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by karmapolice View Post
    So yeah yikes, and you shot steal with carbines (aka center fire rifle rounds) at 25 yards? Did they provide frangible ammo or require it? I mean even then best practice is no closer than 50 with rifle with frangible ammo.
    So my agency requires 50 yards for .223 duty ammo on steel and 25 for frangible which is pretty standard for LE training. It’s a good general rule.

    However, there are some steel targets which manufacturers claim to be safe at closer distances due to the downward angle of the target. MGM for example has some targets (B/C zone) they claim are safe at 15 yards with 5.56.

    I believe they have a demo video shooting this target at 12 yards with 5.56 full auto.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by HCM View Post
    So my agency requires 50 yards for .223 duty ammo on steel and 25 for frangible which is pretty standard for LE training. It’s a good general rule.

    However, there are some steel targets which manufacturers claim to be safe at closer distances due to the downward angle of the target. MGM for example has some targets (B/C zone) they claim are safe at 15 yards with 5.56.

    I believe they have a demo video shooting this target at 12 yards with 5.56 full auto.

    Pretty sure the mother ship requirement is 100 yards with duty and 50 yards with frange for y'all, there may be manufactures that say that but one not a risk/liability I would not want to take with students in a private or agency class. Second it will wreck your steel quicker over time.

    From MGM's website "MGM 3/8″ AR550 targets can be shot with pistols from 15 yards or more. Closer range risks increased incidents of fragment bounce-back

    MGM strongly discourages shooting ANY steel at closer than 15 yards with handguns and from less than 100 yards with rifles. Details on various rifle ammunition and target types are addressed in the ‘Can I shoot my rifle at your targets‘ category below." and "* Depending on firearm and ammunition, following a visual check of targets after initial shots, the MGM TAC BCC-Zone target can be shot at 50 yards or more with a rifle.

    * For long range firearms using high velocity ammunition – over 2800 fps, non steel core, non bi-metal, non multi core bullets, MGM recommends shooting at distances reasonable for the rifle and ammunition, 200 yards or more. In this case, The MGM TAC BCCZone target can be shot at 100 yards or more.

    PLEASE NOTE: DO NOT SHOOT STEEL TARGETS WITH ‘XM-193’ AMMUNITION. SUCH AMMUNITION IS INTENDED TO PENETRATE STEEL AND WILL CAUSE SEVERE DAMAGE TO TARGETS, INCREASING THE LIKELYHOOD OF FAILURE AND PERSONAL INJURY. DAMAGE TO TARGETS RESULTING FROM THE USE OF ‘XM-193’ WILL NOT BE COVERED BY THE WARRANTY."

    I shoot at it as close as 50 yards sometimes but I know what ammo I am shooting and I'm typically alone when I'm doing it. Steel targets are cool and have a place but open enrollment or not class with a bunch of unknown ammo and people close shooting steel at 25 yards, I will pass.

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