On 5-7 Nov I took the Practical Rifle class at Southern Exposure by Randy Cain. From Randy's web site:
This course is best suited to lightweight, fast handling bolt action rifles with iron sights or low power scopes. Lever rifles are also permitted. The format explores practical marksmanship at practical distances under field conditions. Problems are addressed from near contact distance out to 400 yards maximum. It is not a "long range" shooting course.The course is suitable for the person who wishes to utilize the rifle as a defensive tool as well as the hunter in the sporting field. We begin with curriculum including: safety, marksmanship, position shooting, sling work, and a working knowledge of practical ballistics. Once established, our focus turns to learning to fight with a "common, ordinary deer rifle." We incorporate tactical drills which are more traditionally encountered in 'tactical rifle' or 'urban carbine' type courses for magazine fed rifles. This exercise will give the student a superior level of gunhandling and manipulations skills. It's challenging, and it's a lot of fun! (It's also one of my favorite classes to teach.) A 3-day course.
Ammunition Requirement: 500 Rounds.
The Southern Exposure range maxes out at 200yd, so we never hit the 400 yard maximum.
Before I go on, a little about me. I've taken a small handful pistol classes, including Randy Cain's 3-day Handgun 101 and the Roger's Shooting School Intermediate class, but I've never had any instruction with a rifle. I feel like I'm close to being what I would call "competent" with a pistol, and I'd like to start the path to achieving the same with a bolt rifle. I thought Randy's PR class would be a good first class, partly because it sounded like it would cover the fundamentals while also exposing me to some tactical drills, but mostly because I trust Randy and he said it was a good first rifle class.Also, the logistics and timing worked for me.
I took no pictures, there was a lot going on. I also didn't take the kind of notes that would let me reconstruct the class, so my chronology might be way off below. If you want the perspective of someone with a lot more training experience than me, Rob Sloyer has an article in this month's SWAT magazine about this class. This is my AAR - there are many like it, but this one is mine.
Right from the start, it was easy to see that there was a wide array of skill levels in the class. One dude was getting OK groups in slow fire, but they tightened up considerably when he was pushing for speed.One dude was fumbling quite a bit - I would go so far as to label him "that guy," except he was 69 years old and suffering from various orthopedic issues. There was another guy, a 72-year-old, who didn't fumble at all, though he didn't get into and out of positions with quite the spring that the 26-year-old forest ranger fire-fighter did...but I tell you what, I'd pick that 72-year-old for my side in a gun fight over most - he was quick and accurate and consistent, once he was in position...and he was shooting a 30-06 just to make us younguns feel like girly men.
I took the class with my Remington 700 LTR in 308Win. I put a third (fourth, actually) hole in the stock for a ching sling. The stud stripped that hole, though, so I ran the second half of the second day with a piece of leather hanging from what was now a carry strap instead of a shooting sling. The morning of the third day, the owner at Southern Exposure helped me with some Bubba Gunsmithing and that stud is in there to stay now.
Other rifles varied. There were 8 people in the class, let's see if I can remember their guns: there was one other R700, 4 Model 70's, (including an authentic pre-64 in 30-06,) a Savage in 223, and a Ruger Scout. Man, on the first day that Scout looked good with it's magazine - the rest of line had top-loaders. By the end of Day 1, though, it was obvious that magazines make for quick reloads as long as you have topped-up mags. We had a lot of 50-round sessions of fast-and-furious carbine-type drills, and the top-loaders had a much easier time getting ready for the next drill - once the Scout ran dry, the shooter had to sling his rifle to top up mags before he could come back online. Eye-opening, though obviously the mag has the edge for a single long drill...
Day 1 started out as it should - with the Safety Speech. Southern Exposure actually has the Four Rules engraved in stone and put on a pedestal. After that we went to the 50yd line to get rough zero's and for Randy to see where everyone's skill was at. No one had One Ragged Hole, but you could immediately see who had done this before. (I was not in that category...) We spent a while prone (no sling) getting the lecture about natural point of aim, and practicing it. Five rounds at a time, and we'd review and tape targets between strings. I learned a lot about taking it slow, and not settling for "good enough" NPA. After a while, Randy went through the other positions: various forms of sitting, squatting, braced kneel, and off-hand. We shot a few groups with each position, Randy coaching all the time.
Then we started doing "carbine" drills. At distances from 7-25yd, we'd line up and Randy would call them out. "Two to the head!" "Failure drill!" "Body, head, body, body!" Randy usually left enough time between the drills for us to top off our top-loaders and replace what we'd shot...but sometimes we'd be in the middle of reloading when "One to the head!" and we'd close the bolt, fire the shot, and top off again, trying to remember if we had 2 or 3 rounds to go before we were full. We also did some shooting on the move. Extremely fun, and educational - there was a lot of gun manipulation in the class. Everything you'd do during a hunt or whatever, you got a lot of practice loading, unloading, reloading, slinging, unslinging, making it safe, making it hot, carrying it around. At least for me, I was really glad to have all those reps under Randy's watchful eye.
Day 2 started out with more prone zeroing at 100yd. Randy then introduced the Ching sling. A couple of folks - the 72-year-old guy and the guy with the Savage 223, had carry straps which, according to Randy, can't really be used to help your shooting at all. The guy with the Scout had a Safari Ching sling. The rest of us had regular Ching slings made by Andy Langlois - though mine seemed to be made of leather that was much less finished than everyone else's, where everyone's sling was stiff and didn't stretch at all, mine was floppy and stretched a little bit. I'm not sure which one I prefer, actually...
Anyway, we shot at 100, prone without sling, then we learned to use the Ching sling. Then we went through all the positions, using the sling. (Well, no sling for off-hand.) We also did some more carbine drills, including a scramble drill where we took one shot at steel from prone at one location, ran to another location and took a shot from sitting, etc. For time. Fun!Randy also taught us various carry positions, and ran a demo to show how fast you can get off an aimed shot from African carry. We also did a night shoot. We laid prone as the sun set so we could see how our scopes would do as the light got dimmer. Randy then taught us some flashlight techniques after dark, and we did some of that. We also got to see who's powder was flashiest, and how well the flash hider worked on that Ruger Scout. Just to lay to rest any questions you may have about my maturity level, I'll say it: this portion of the class was quite illuminating.
Day 3 started out at 200yd. (Actually, we may have gone to 200 on day 2, I can't remember.) Anyway, when we went to 200, the Ching sling really made the difference. Randy explained a little about using support, and we shot off our packs or bunched up our mats to make supports or whatever. We explored positions at 200 for a while, then we learned various ways to "dump" the rifle and transition to pistol. Then we did some more "carbine" drills at 25yd to warm up for more advanced drills, including Rolling Thunder and other synchronized shooting stuff. We closed the class with an explanation of how to clean the rifle.
............
Again, I'm sure I missed a bunch of stuff, but hopefully this gets the picture across. Randy has an infectious passion for this kind of riflemanship, and I'm more excited now about getting competent with a bolt gun than I ever was before. In fact, I've decided to dedicate the LTR for longer-range precision rifle stuff, and acquire myself a rifle more suited to the kind of practical manipulations that this class really explored. The LTR did fine, but my scope got in the way of reloads and bolt work, there was unnecessary weight on there, and the stock seems to be designed more for use with a bipod than for assuming random positions in the field. So...I've got a Model 70 Featherweight inbound, along with a Vortex Razor HD 1-5x24. Hopefully this will make for a much "handier" package than my LTR. I'm not sure about that, but I'm very sure about this: Randy's PR class is going to cost me a whole lot of money in the months and years ahead.
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Originally Posted by Argus
