boss281
Ultimate Member
Summary
This After Action Report (AAR) covers a customized “Competitive Shooting Skills-Carbine” course I took on October 4, 2017 through Dynamic Defense Concepts, hosted by co-owner Trevor Scheuneman at Bollinger Gunsmithing in Taneytown, Maryland. I was the sole attendee (see below) and other than setup and take down time, the course lasted a solid 6 hours with frequent hydration and food breaks.
Firearms Background
I retired from the workforce in the fall of 2016 after serving 4 years in the US Navy Reserve and 30 years in federal service. Shooting has been a part of my life since my father, a Master Sergeant in the Army and fire arms instructor, put a 22 rifle in my hands at the range in Fort Meade when I was 8 years old. I competed, I hunted, I plinked, I served…it’s a fairly mixed variety of experiences. While I dabbled with sidearms and shotguns after discharge, the rifle in hand, especially the now familiar Colt M16 pattern and the Colt 9mm SMG (we had our hands on early prototypes back in the day!), just felt right, and a rifle has been with me in one form or another since the mid-60s. What started with bolt actions in early life led to semi-automatic rifles after discharge. Range time the last two decades has been occasional but steady, with no competitions or shooting beyond the bench. I haven’t hunted since my late teens.
With retirement comes time on your hands (that’s another story) and I started spending time working the 5.56 rifles at 50 and 100 yards, zeroing my old Nikon scopes, and learning that my eyesight had deteriorated to a point that I needed a special prescription setup to effectively use iron sights at all (which I have yet to order, but currently have a prescription set for seeing distance clearly). I joined the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore in Marriotsville MD due to the size of the range and relative proximity to my home--about a 35-minute drive with early morning commuter traffic. But, you can only shoot tack drivers so much before getting a little bored, and before long I got the competitive itch again. Instead of my historical interest in distance shooting, I decided to research then compete with “run and gun” type exercises.
Getting Signed Up
My original plan was to take the Reactive Gunfighting-Rifle Basic and Advanced two-day weekend class with Dynamic Defense Concepts scheduled for July 2017, which was held at Bollinger Gunsmithing in Taneytown, Maryland. The range and armorer/sales shop are built on a large acreage farm. The goal was to use my Windham Weaponry SRC 5.56 in these two classes to refamiliarize myself with dynamic shooting concepts, reinforce safety, expose accumulated bad habits and correct them, and learn drills that would be useful for training to compete in PCC divisions in USPSA and IDPA using my 9mm Colt 6450 and 6951 carbines.
Like many firearms based training organizations, a wide range of training services and experiences are available from DDC, including sidearm, carbine, competition shooting, HQL and private time with the staff. I signed up for the 2-day class, paid my fee and waited. About a week before the class started, my better half informed me I had double booked the class over a family event. It’s not worth regurgitating the discussion that followed, but, well, I lost. One of DDC’s owners, Trevor Scheuneman (who teaches the course), understood my predicament and indicated it wasn’t a problem to reschedule. He suggested I attend instead a fall class on 9/30-10/1.
Well, that didn’t work out quite the way I expected, either. It seems the spring and summer courses are the sweet spot that fill quickly, as about two weeks before the course Trevor informed me that I was the sole attendee signed up at that point, and we started floating options on whether to proceed. For me, my goal was to develop a steady hand firing under PCC rules in IDPA and IPSC/USPSA competitions, and even steadier hand with my 5.56s as the muzzle climb was a bit much when off the bench. Trevor listened to my expectations, and created a custom hybrid short course about 6 hours in length. I’d get an abbreviated introduction for reactive rifle using the 5.56, and would spend a good part of the day focused on USPSA style course shooting with the 9mm.
The Experience
I arrived a bit early, say 9:40am, and ran into Trevor setting up targets. After brief introductions, he continued to put the finishing touches on a seemingly random set of steel and paper targets, while I quickly unloaded my equipment and set up. For gear I brought the following:
I used cheap Federal 62g FMJ for the 5.56, and Winchester 124g NATO for the 9mm (a “dirty” round, but it’s dead accurate out to 50 yards). I went through about 300 rounds of 5.56, and 280 rounds of 9mm.
To summarize the day, we checked zero and discussed, then practiced, many topics and tasks as outlined in the original reactive rifle course description: safety, mindset, rifle anatomy/function, sight-in, iron vs. optical sights, gear and accessory placement, stance, recoil management, trigger control, changing magazines, clearing malfunctions, shooting from cover, and shooting on the move. This customized course was fast paced, used considerable mental and physical energy, and frankly felt just a bit like sipping from the fire hose. But Trevor had a good sense of when my mind was starting to fog, as he backed me up, grounded me on principles, and let me go through the movements again until I got it right. Exhausting as it was, it was exhilarating to go from an awkward start to accurate shooting quickly on the move by the end of the day. Things happen for a reason, and I think for me, as a first formal training class in many years, the experience ended up being the right thing for me to do, and with an instructor wired for my personality, mindset and goals.
I learned a lot in this class, and I’m going to start with my perspective of the outcomes from the day, more or less in the order they crossed my radar and sunk home: mental focus, trigger control, speed in movement, speed in shooting, accuracy, and physical fitness. I’ll also add in proper equipment choices, and I suppose knowing the rules of USPSA/IDPA as a final area of learning. It was a lot to absorb in six hours of outdoor “class time” and putting those concepts into practice, and as already mentioned, by the end I was physically exhausted, but you know, in that good way. Yet, tired as I was, I was hungry for more, just not that day! It felt like I had opened a book, read the inside jacket, then perused the table of contents, quickly scanned the chapters, was ready to read the book, but I was too tired and put it down for another day. The day was as humbling as it was exciting.
Mental Focus and Trigger Discipline
These two concepts, especially in the context of safety, were hammered home throughout the day, and I found myself surprised to lapse a few times. Running a course set up for either the 5.56 or 9mm, especially, took incredible mental discipline, and walking the course and setting up a game plan really helped, but not always. Sometimes you get in there and realize on the fly the plan needed to change. I used magazines with various amounts of ammo loaded to get used to quick magazine changes. I distinctly remember me yelling out in frustration when I was on the ground on my side, shooting underneath an obstacle with the 9mm and hearing “click!” I needed to reload and didn’t have gravity to drop the magazine. In all my years, I’ve never had to drop a mag lying on my strong side, and I just stopped. Trevor yelled back at me “Well, don’t just lie there, get a new magazine!” Well, now I have a plan on how to do that, you know? You can’t stop working the problem, watching the angles, dropping focus. Top Gunning a course really makes a difference.
Mental focus began to erode a bit over time, but Trevor would bring me back into it when he saw me struggling. Call it building the muscle and mind memory matrix. During the morning carbine training, I was solid, but during USPSA course training the second half of the day, I found that moving sideways around obstacles and even backwards surprisingly lost focus on trigger management. Moving forward? I was fine, because I had focused on that earlier. But upon hearing several times “You missed that same target again!” I had to move quickly back to an earlier part of the course, and my focus on keeping the muzzle forward resulted in moving my trigger finger inside the trigger guard. Humbling. But Trevor very patiently pointed out that if trigger discipline eroded near the end, it also meant my focus was off. So, focus on focus, and keep building on that—muscle memory again.
Trevor’s keen eye and his own focus on my weak points were welcome criticisms, and his communication style came across constructively and didn’t make me feel like a total idiot. Trust me, it all sank in: guess who set up deck chairs all around the back yard the next day, running drills just focused on movement and trigger management? Yeah, that experience really made an impression, so much I dreamed of it for several nights.
Speed and Accuracy
Speed in movement, speed in shooting and accuracy all worked together, and Trevor really made it a point to demonstrate each principle, grounded in safety and focus, and worked various angles so I could “solve the problem” from different approaches. At first I worked very slowly, then picked up speed in shooting quickly (sending 2 or 3 rounds into a target, moving to the next, etc.), speed in movement came a bit later, and I really started drilling the targets well on the move (with occasional strays) towards the end. In fact, it all pretty much came together during the last hour, and even with the dreaded DQ, I was getting close to being somewhat competitive score-wise.
Accuracy was an unexpected problem for me with the 5.56, and I’m going to dive into equipment a bit. Because both rifles are old school Colt patterns with short handguards, we couldn’t work on the new-to-me forward facing shooting stance with weak side arm extending straight out almost to the muzzle—I had to compensate with the shorter length handguard using a bent arm, and this was especially difficult with the 5.56 SRC as setup. That 3-gun Nikon scope weighed a ton, and even in Trevor’s hands, the rifle was difficult to stabilize with a modified bent arm grip (although his groups at 70 yards were still tight). On the other hand, I found that with a bit of coaching on the front facing stance, using his rifle was very easy on the arms and left shoulder, and I was much more accurate. When I came home, I ditched the Nikon and put on a lightweight Vortex Strikefire II, wandered the yard pointing at various “targets”, and that single change really improved my steadiness. The lesson here: what was manageable on the bench with the Nikon didn’t translate to a Carbine class. The lightweight Colt on the other hand, even with a modified bent arm grip using the short-style handguard, was much easier to use with the lightweight optic and my accuracy was significantly better.
Physical Fitness
Ha! Oh boy. I’m a bit embarrassed to talk about physical fitness. Trevor was probably 185lbs to my 160lbs and I’m guessing somewhere in the 26-35 year old range, but the “kid” just didn’t run out of steam. I have stayed active and fit throughout my 59 years and am still fairly lean, but I was pretty tired by the end of the 6th hours and had zero energy left. The weather was perfect at 79 degrees and clear, and it was important to stay hydrated and fueled by lunch and snacks as this was a very physical session. Moving from a standing to kneeling or prone (on stomach or side) and then upright again really tests your stamina! Lessons learned here are improving shoulder strength for managing the stability of the rifle platform under fire, and aerobic capacity, to effectively run multiple drills without running out of gas. If you can, get used to running short sprints well ahead of the course to get a feel for what’s coming. I was thankful to have brought plenty of water, sandwiches and granola bars to munch on (I think DDC provides these with the full two-day course).
Equipment
I tend to be a minimalist and go with what I know. My rifles are all as received from the factory, and the optics were based on some preliminary research. The Nikon Strikeforce 1000, intended for 3 gun competitions, in my opinion is just not suited for Reactive Rifle, and would expect most red dots (like the Strikefire mentioned above) to be much lighter and more than adequate for placing accurate groups at 50 to 100 yards with the 5.56, and acceptable shot placement at shorter distances while moving between hides. As the day progressed, I got used to it, but using Trevor’s setup easily demonstrated I was working from a disadvantage. On the other hand, the C-More on the 9mm is a much better optic system for competition for sure (thanks to some MDS member’s advice), and I’ll stick with that for now—no complaints at all.
Using the two-point adjustable sling was a surprising pain to use, but it never occurred to me to really practice using this tool (my own experience with simple two-point duty slings was to carry the rifle over my shoulder muzzle up or down, and off the body in hand when on patrol). Trevor, on the other hand, had a single point sling and pointed out the appropriateness for reactive carbine courses, and I ended up taking off the sling and hand carrying the rifle throughout the day. That said, I will likely get a single point sling for further reactive rifle training as it relieves you of having to carry it muzzle down while at rest listening to instruction in between shooting drills. For the 9mm carbine and competitive shooting, a sling is just not necessary. Period.
The battle belt and attached magazine pouches were a mix. The 5.56 pouches came with the now standard bungee retainers, which I quickly learned to hate and just undid them to release the tension and keep them out of the way—the three 30 round magazines stayed put just fine. Nonetheless, I have since ordered a 3-magazine pouch that has a cover flap that can be velcro’d out of the way for easy access to the magazines. My triple 9mm carrier, unfortunately, used a PALS-based attachment system, and on the battle belt there was too much slack when attached and it just moved around too much for use in competition. Frankly, I think this particular magazine pouch setup is intended for a chest rig that uses PALS webbing. Instead of wasting time futzing with it, I ended up ditching the belt setup and putting magazines in my cargo pants pockets for the day. The belt itself, however, a model from Condor, was surprisingly comfortable and with proper magazine pouches and practice I suspect it a good carrier, especially with the available harness to help manage weight. Going forward, I think I will use the battle belt with proper magazine pouches for 30 round magazines, and try it out for USPSA competitions using alternate magazine pouches more appropriate for 9mm magazines. I’ll just have to experiment more on the latter.
The Instructor
Finally, the instruction. Trevor is well suited for the training at hand. He has infinite patience, a very positive communication style that allows constructive criticism where needed, and can walk the walk after talking the talk. While I can’t yet communicate how a specific course curriculum was covered, after minimal discussion he was able to create a customized approach to reactive rifle and competition shooting skills for the carbine that met my needs and goals perfectly. And I mean perfectly. The experience as I indicated earlier was fulfilling, exhilarating and appropriately exhausting. Not many people can teach a wide range of principles and concepts in a relatively short time frame, break it down into palatable components, and know when to move on to the next item when the current one is sufficiently mastered.
In terms of future training expectations, I aim to iron out my equipment problems and practice using the supportive gear, exercise a bit more intently to focus on shoulder strength and aerobic capacity, practice a number of concepts on my home property using dry fire techniques, get my butt off the bench at the range and spend more time standing and improving steadiness using a modified shooting stance, and then get more private time. Finally, I need to memorize a bit better the IDPA and USPSA range commands that will be coming from the safety officer hovering behind my back. My guess is I’ll both request a short 4 hour training session follow-up, and then wait for the next 2 day reactive rifle course to become available. I’ll be there.
Thank you, Trevor, for a day I will remember!
Important Links
Dynamic Defense Concepts (www.ddctraining.net)
Dynamic Defense Concepts Training Curriculum (http://www.ddctraining.net/Courses.asp)
Bollinger Gunsmithing (http://www.bollingergunsmithing.com/)
Windham Weaponry SRC 5.56 (https://www.windhamweaponry.com/firearms/rifles/223-556-caliber-rifle/src/)
Colt 6951 Carbine 9mm (www.colt.com/Portals/0/Specs/2016/AR6951.pdf)
This After Action Report (AAR) covers a customized “Competitive Shooting Skills-Carbine” course I took on October 4, 2017 through Dynamic Defense Concepts, hosted by co-owner Trevor Scheuneman at Bollinger Gunsmithing in Taneytown, Maryland. I was the sole attendee (see below) and other than setup and take down time, the course lasted a solid 6 hours with frequent hydration and food breaks.
Firearms Background
I retired from the workforce in the fall of 2016 after serving 4 years in the US Navy Reserve and 30 years in federal service. Shooting has been a part of my life since my father, a Master Sergeant in the Army and fire arms instructor, put a 22 rifle in my hands at the range in Fort Meade when I was 8 years old. I competed, I hunted, I plinked, I served…it’s a fairly mixed variety of experiences. While I dabbled with sidearms and shotguns after discharge, the rifle in hand, especially the now familiar Colt M16 pattern and the Colt 9mm SMG (we had our hands on early prototypes back in the day!), just felt right, and a rifle has been with me in one form or another since the mid-60s. What started with bolt actions in early life led to semi-automatic rifles after discharge. Range time the last two decades has been occasional but steady, with no competitions or shooting beyond the bench. I haven’t hunted since my late teens.
With retirement comes time on your hands (that’s another story) and I started spending time working the 5.56 rifles at 50 and 100 yards, zeroing my old Nikon scopes, and learning that my eyesight had deteriorated to a point that I needed a special prescription setup to effectively use iron sights at all (which I have yet to order, but currently have a prescription set for seeing distance clearly). I joined the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore in Marriotsville MD due to the size of the range and relative proximity to my home--about a 35-minute drive with early morning commuter traffic. But, you can only shoot tack drivers so much before getting a little bored, and before long I got the competitive itch again. Instead of my historical interest in distance shooting, I decided to research then compete with “run and gun” type exercises.
Getting Signed Up
My original plan was to take the Reactive Gunfighting-Rifle Basic and Advanced two-day weekend class with Dynamic Defense Concepts scheduled for July 2017, which was held at Bollinger Gunsmithing in Taneytown, Maryland. The range and armorer/sales shop are built on a large acreage farm. The goal was to use my Windham Weaponry SRC 5.56 in these two classes to refamiliarize myself with dynamic shooting concepts, reinforce safety, expose accumulated bad habits and correct them, and learn drills that would be useful for training to compete in PCC divisions in USPSA and IDPA using my 9mm Colt 6450 and 6951 carbines.
Like many firearms based training organizations, a wide range of training services and experiences are available from DDC, including sidearm, carbine, competition shooting, HQL and private time with the staff. I signed up for the 2-day class, paid my fee and waited. About a week before the class started, my better half informed me I had double booked the class over a family event. It’s not worth regurgitating the discussion that followed, but, well, I lost. One of DDC’s owners, Trevor Scheuneman (who teaches the course), understood my predicament and indicated it wasn’t a problem to reschedule. He suggested I attend instead a fall class on 9/30-10/1.
Well, that didn’t work out quite the way I expected, either. It seems the spring and summer courses are the sweet spot that fill quickly, as about two weeks before the course Trevor informed me that I was the sole attendee signed up at that point, and we started floating options on whether to proceed. For me, my goal was to develop a steady hand firing under PCC rules in IDPA and IPSC/USPSA competitions, and even steadier hand with my 5.56s as the muzzle climb was a bit much when off the bench. Trevor listened to my expectations, and created a custom hybrid short course about 6 hours in length. I’d get an abbreviated introduction for reactive rifle using the 5.56, and would spend a good part of the day focused on USPSA style course shooting with the 9mm.
The Experience
I arrived a bit early, say 9:40am, and ran into Trevor setting up targets. After brief introductions, he continued to put the finishing touches on a seemingly random set of steel and paper targets, while I quickly unloaded my equipment and set up. For gear I brought the following:
- Windham Weaponry SRC 5.56 with Nikon Blackforce 1000 scope (optic for 3 gun comps) and 30 round Magpul magazines
- Colt 6951 9mm Carbine with C-More Tactical Railway red dot and Colt 32 round magazines
- Viking Tactics 2 point adjustable slings
- Condor Battle Belt with magazine pouches for 5.56 and 9mm extended length magazines
- Blackhawk Knee Pads
I used cheap Federal 62g FMJ for the 5.56, and Winchester 124g NATO for the 9mm (a “dirty” round, but it’s dead accurate out to 50 yards). I went through about 300 rounds of 5.56, and 280 rounds of 9mm.
To summarize the day, we checked zero and discussed, then practiced, many topics and tasks as outlined in the original reactive rifle course description: safety, mindset, rifle anatomy/function, sight-in, iron vs. optical sights, gear and accessory placement, stance, recoil management, trigger control, changing magazines, clearing malfunctions, shooting from cover, and shooting on the move. This customized course was fast paced, used considerable mental and physical energy, and frankly felt just a bit like sipping from the fire hose. But Trevor had a good sense of when my mind was starting to fog, as he backed me up, grounded me on principles, and let me go through the movements again until I got it right. Exhausting as it was, it was exhilarating to go from an awkward start to accurate shooting quickly on the move by the end of the day. Things happen for a reason, and I think for me, as a first formal training class in many years, the experience ended up being the right thing for me to do, and with an instructor wired for my personality, mindset and goals.
I learned a lot in this class, and I’m going to start with my perspective of the outcomes from the day, more or less in the order they crossed my radar and sunk home: mental focus, trigger control, speed in movement, speed in shooting, accuracy, and physical fitness. I’ll also add in proper equipment choices, and I suppose knowing the rules of USPSA/IDPA as a final area of learning. It was a lot to absorb in six hours of outdoor “class time” and putting those concepts into practice, and as already mentioned, by the end I was physically exhausted, but you know, in that good way. Yet, tired as I was, I was hungry for more, just not that day! It felt like I had opened a book, read the inside jacket, then perused the table of contents, quickly scanned the chapters, was ready to read the book, but I was too tired and put it down for another day. The day was as humbling as it was exciting.
Mental Focus and Trigger Discipline
These two concepts, especially in the context of safety, were hammered home throughout the day, and I found myself surprised to lapse a few times. Running a course set up for either the 5.56 or 9mm, especially, took incredible mental discipline, and walking the course and setting up a game plan really helped, but not always. Sometimes you get in there and realize on the fly the plan needed to change. I used magazines with various amounts of ammo loaded to get used to quick magazine changes. I distinctly remember me yelling out in frustration when I was on the ground on my side, shooting underneath an obstacle with the 9mm and hearing “click!” I needed to reload and didn’t have gravity to drop the magazine. In all my years, I’ve never had to drop a mag lying on my strong side, and I just stopped. Trevor yelled back at me “Well, don’t just lie there, get a new magazine!” Well, now I have a plan on how to do that, you know? You can’t stop working the problem, watching the angles, dropping focus. Top Gunning a course really makes a difference.
Mental focus began to erode a bit over time, but Trevor would bring me back into it when he saw me struggling. Call it building the muscle and mind memory matrix. During the morning carbine training, I was solid, but during USPSA course training the second half of the day, I found that moving sideways around obstacles and even backwards surprisingly lost focus on trigger management. Moving forward? I was fine, because I had focused on that earlier. But upon hearing several times “You missed that same target again!” I had to move quickly back to an earlier part of the course, and my focus on keeping the muzzle forward resulted in moving my trigger finger inside the trigger guard. Humbling. But Trevor very patiently pointed out that if trigger discipline eroded near the end, it also meant my focus was off. So, focus on focus, and keep building on that—muscle memory again.
Trevor’s keen eye and his own focus on my weak points were welcome criticisms, and his communication style came across constructively and didn’t make me feel like a total idiot. Trust me, it all sank in: guess who set up deck chairs all around the back yard the next day, running drills just focused on movement and trigger management? Yeah, that experience really made an impression, so much I dreamed of it for several nights.
Speed and Accuracy
Speed in movement, speed in shooting and accuracy all worked together, and Trevor really made it a point to demonstrate each principle, grounded in safety and focus, and worked various angles so I could “solve the problem” from different approaches. At first I worked very slowly, then picked up speed in shooting quickly (sending 2 or 3 rounds into a target, moving to the next, etc.), speed in movement came a bit later, and I really started drilling the targets well on the move (with occasional strays) towards the end. In fact, it all pretty much came together during the last hour, and even with the dreaded DQ, I was getting close to being somewhat competitive score-wise.
Accuracy was an unexpected problem for me with the 5.56, and I’m going to dive into equipment a bit. Because both rifles are old school Colt patterns with short handguards, we couldn’t work on the new-to-me forward facing shooting stance with weak side arm extending straight out almost to the muzzle—I had to compensate with the shorter length handguard using a bent arm, and this was especially difficult with the 5.56 SRC as setup. That 3-gun Nikon scope weighed a ton, and even in Trevor’s hands, the rifle was difficult to stabilize with a modified bent arm grip (although his groups at 70 yards were still tight). On the other hand, I found that with a bit of coaching on the front facing stance, using his rifle was very easy on the arms and left shoulder, and I was much more accurate. When I came home, I ditched the Nikon and put on a lightweight Vortex Strikefire II, wandered the yard pointing at various “targets”, and that single change really improved my steadiness. The lesson here: what was manageable on the bench with the Nikon didn’t translate to a Carbine class. The lightweight Colt on the other hand, even with a modified bent arm grip using the short-style handguard, was much easier to use with the lightweight optic and my accuracy was significantly better.
Physical Fitness
Ha! Oh boy. I’m a bit embarrassed to talk about physical fitness. Trevor was probably 185lbs to my 160lbs and I’m guessing somewhere in the 26-35 year old range, but the “kid” just didn’t run out of steam. I have stayed active and fit throughout my 59 years and am still fairly lean, but I was pretty tired by the end of the 6th hours and had zero energy left. The weather was perfect at 79 degrees and clear, and it was important to stay hydrated and fueled by lunch and snacks as this was a very physical session. Moving from a standing to kneeling or prone (on stomach or side) and then upright again really tests your stamina! Lessons learned here are improving shoulder strength for managing the stability of the rifle platform under fire, and aerobic capacity, to effectively run multiple drills without running out of gas. If you can, get used to running short sprints well ahead of the course to get a feel for what’s coming. I was thankful to have brought plenty of water, sandwiches and granola bars to munch on (I think DDC provides these with the full two-day course).
Equipment
I tend to be a minimalist and go with what I know. My rifles are all as received from the factory, and the optics were based on some preliminary research. The Nikon Strikeforce 1000, intended for 3 gun competitions, in my opinion is just not suited for Reactive Rifle, and would expect most red dots (like the Strikefire mentioned above) to be much lighter and more than adequate for placing accurate groups at 50 to 100 yards with the 5.56, and acceptable shot placement at shorter distances while moving between hides. As the day progressed, I got used to it, but using Trevor’s setup easily demonstrated I was working from a disadvantage. On the other hand, the C-More on the 9mm is a much better optic system for competition for sure (thanks to some MDS member’s advice), and I’ll stick with that for now—no complaints at all.
Using the two-point adjustable sling was a surprising pain to use, but it never occurred to me to really practice using this tool (my own experience with simple two-point duty slings was to carry the rifle over my shoulder muzzle up or down, and off the body in hand when on patrol). Trevor, on the other hand, had a single point sling and pointed out the appropriateness for reactive carbine courses, and I ended up taking off the sling and hand carrying the rifle throughout the day. That said, I will likely get a single point sling for further reactive rifle training as it relieves you of having to carry it muzzle down while at rest listening to instruction in between shooting drills. For the 9mm carbine and competitive shooting, a sling is just not necessary. Period.
The battle belt and attached magazine pouches were a mix. The 5.56 pouches came with the now standard bungee retainers, which I quickly learned to hate and just undid them to release the tension and keep them out of the way—the three 30 round magazines stayed put just fine. Nonetheless, I have since ordered a 3-magazine pouch that has a cover flap that can be velcro’d out of the way for easy access to the magazines. My triple 9mm carrier, unfortunately, used a PALS-based attachment system, and on the battle belt there was too much slack when attached and it just moved around too much for use in competition. Frankly, I think this particular magazine pouch setup is intended for a chest rig that uses PALS webbing. Instead of wasting time futzing with it, I ended up ditching the belt setup and putting magazines in my cargo pants pockets for the day. The belt itself, however, a model from Condor, was surprisingly comfortable and with proper magazine pouches and practice I suspect it a good carrier, especially with the available harness to help manage weight. Going forward, I think I will use the battle belt with proper magazine pouches for 30 round magazines, and try it out for USPSA competitions using alternate magazine pouches more appropriate for 9mm magazines. I’ll just have to experiment more on the latter.
The Instructor
Finally, the instruction. Trevor is well suited for the training at hand. He has infinite patience, a very positive communication style that allows constructive criticism where needed, and can walk the walk after talking the talk. While I can’t yet communicate how a specific course curriculum was covered, after minimal discussion he was able to create a customized approach to reactive rifle and competition shooting skills for the carbine that met my needs and goals perfectly. And I mean perfectly. The experience as I indicated earlier was fulfilling, exhilarating and appropriately exhausting. Not many people can teach a wide range of principles and concepts in a relatively short time frame, break it down into palatable components, and know when to move on to the next item when the current one is sufficiently mastered.
In terms of future training expectations, I aim to iron out my equipment problems and practice using the supportive gear, exercise a bit more intently to focus on shoulder strength and aerobic capacity, practice a number of concepts on my home property using dry fire techniques, get my butt off the bench at the range and spend more time standing and improving steadiness using a modified shooting stance, and then get more private time. Finally, I need to memorize a bit better the IDPA and USPSA range commands that will be coming from the safety officer hovering behind my back. My guess is I’ll both request a short 4 hour training session follow-up, and then wait for the next 2 day reactive rifle course to become available. I’ll be there.
Thank you, Trevor, for a day I will remember!
Important Links
Dynamic Defense Concepts (www.ddctraining.net)
Dynamic Defense Concepts Training Curriculum (http://www.ddctraining.net/Courses.asp)
Bollinger Gunsmithing (http://www.bollingergunsmithing.com/)
Windham Weaponry SRC 5.56 (https://www.windhamweaponry.com/firearms/rifles/223-556-caliber-rifle/src/)
Colt 6951 Carbine 9mm (www.colt.com/Portals/0/Specs/2016/AR6951.pdf)