Last night, I was privileged yet again to train with Green Ops, this time at their defensive carbine clinic at the NRA range. This was in the 6-10:30PM format, albeit we really went to more like 11PM this time around.
Since I like giving some context to where I'm coming from: I've previously taken a carbine class, so unlike my other Green Ops adventures, I wasn't starting from absolute scratch on this one. I would say I have a fair amount of range-based trigger time behind all sorts of carbines as well. So let's put that somewhere ahead of "rank beginner" and rather a lot behind "expert".
Instructors were Brett and Andy. That was a little surprising - they usually run three, but I guess the rest of them were busy/deployed. The two NRA range officers, however, also knew their shit and were happy to give advice as required.
Gear-wise, I was running a stock Tavor with Mepro RDS, Magpul mags of varying sorts, and a Blackhawk Omega Cross-Draw vest (no pistol). Sling was a plain-jane Blue Force Gear Vickers sling. I'm not going to claim this was a particularly great setup, and I could write a whole post on just trying to run-and-gun with a Tavor (answer: possible, but not as easy). Still, it's what I had and it worked alright for my purposes.
The rest of the class was rocking ARs, sans one other guy with a Tavor. Lots of PA and Holosun optics. No failures that I was aware of - I guess those Chinese optics are getting to "mostly reliable" now, which is nice. The only equipment failure I saw in the class was the other Tavor guy launching his ASR-mount suppressor down range during zero'ing. Not sure what happened there, but given how rough Tavors are with suppressors, that might not have been the worst thing anyways.
Most of the shooting was at the 10-25yd mark. I would say that if I have any single critique of the class, this was probably it. There was a lot of aiming at small targets, and, yeah, I could probably tag stuff at 50-100 if needed, but I kinda feel like if you're going with a carbine, you should at least be practicing 50yd shots in a class. To be fair, this was also brought on by the choice of venue, but the class could have been tweaked to deal more effectively with this. Always room for improvement, I suppose
We went through like 150-200rds of ammo, probably on the lesser side of that. We had two relays of people.
First thing we did was sit in a classroom and go over some "how to shoot a rifle" basics. No surprises there. They are a little more aggressive using the safety than I prefer, but I think the NRA range officers were driving that a bit (like, in real life... unless I'm actually going to move, I'm not bother with the safety).
There was then a justifiable-use-of-force presentation. This was well-done, but felt slightly odd in a carbine class (vs a handgun/shotgun) class. If I've made the choice to use a carbine/MSR to defend myself, chances are pretty damn good that this is the most dire situation imaginable. I guess I would have preferred we either skipped this or shortened it quite a bit in favor of more range time. Other people seemed to find it more of a revelation, so maybe I'm just jaded and/or suffer from BGOS.
Anyways, off to the range! First task was the standard "go prone at 25yds and test your zero so we can make sure you're shooting straight". No problem; my Tavor was zeroed at 50 and I had no issues tagging the target where I needed. Other people were not quite as on point, which I can sympathize with, but no one was so off that they needed to rezero. There was a quick discussion of why 25yd zeros suck for 5.56. (They're not wrong, which is why all of mine at 36 or 50.)
This would be the first and last time we went prone in the class. I think you've got to skip something in these shorter format classes, and prone wasn't the worst thing to skip.
The next couple drills were one then two shots of "10yds, shoot the square, lol height over bore". I understand HoB just fine, so after a couple shots to figure that out on my Tavor, I did just fine. I thought it was an interesting place to start the drills from, but it did seem to flow from the zero'ing exercise, and it's a pretty vital thing to know about.
Next drill was reloading: start with one in the chamber and an empty mag, fire one, reload, and then fire a second time. Reloading on a Tavor is just not as fast as an AR, but I didn't feel super-slow about it. If anything, I think I would have critiqued my vest as the major factor slowing my reloads (my mags were all primary side, which isn't all that great if you're using your support hand). Only way to learn about your gear is to use it hard!
I'm a little fuzzy about this, but I think the next two drills were or some variation of kneeling-and-then-standing. I don't shoot kneeling a lot, but I was wearing knee pads, so this was pretty easy for me since I could just drop without having to slow my "fall".
After that, it was time for barricade shooting. We practiced standing and kneeling on both right and left sides of the barrier. Green Ops teaches you to use your off-shoulder but NOT off-hands when going weak-side on a barricade, and you just choke up near the mag-well with your support hand. This is really unnatural, but to their credit, people were all making it work pretty well by the time we were done. I think it's something you should want to practice, to say the least.
And, yes, I did that with my Tavor, and, no, I did not eat any brass, thank G-d for that case deflector. My backup gun was an AUG A3 NATO with a TA01NSN, and I am not sure I would have wanted to try that drill with it.
Final exam was an el-presidente variant with three targets - shoot each of them twice, reload, shoot them again twice each. My time on this was not particularly notable, but I also didn't expect to break any records on the Tavor. One or two people in the class did it in sub-10, which is pretty good.
I feel like I have been overly critical in a couple places, so let me conclude with the fact that I greatly enjoyed the class, and look forward to taking it again. I suspect the proper carbine class that's eight hours long covers some of the material we missed (and if they ever do it on a Sunday, I'd go). I learned some new stuff, though, and that's about all I can ask for.
Since I like giving some context to where I'm coming from: I've previously taken a carbine class, so unlike my other Green Ops adventures, I wasn't starting from absolute scratch on this one. I would say I have a fair amount of range-based trigger time behind all sorts of carbines as well. So let's put that somewhere ahead of "rank beginner" and rather a lot behind "expert".
Instructors were Brett and Andy. That was a little surprising - they usually run three, but I guess the rest of them were busy/deployed. The two NRA range officers, however, also knew their shit and were happy to give advice as required.
Gear-wise, I was running a stock Tavor with Mepro RDS, Magpul mags of varying sorts, and a Blackhawk Omega Cross-Draw vest (no pistol). Sling was a plain-jane Blue Force Gear Vickers sling. I'm not going to claim this was a particularly great setup, and I could write a whole post on just trying to run-and-gun with a Tavor (answer: possible, but not as easy). Still, it's what I had and it worked alright for my purposes.
The rest of the class was rocking ARs, sans one other guy with a Tavor. Lots of PA and Holosun optics. No failures that I was aware of - I guess those Chinese optics are getting to "mostly reliable" now, which is nice. The only equipment failure I saw in the class was the other Tavor guy launching his ASR-mount suppressor down range during zero'ing. Not sure what happened there, but given how rough Tavors are with suppressors, that might not have been the worst thing anyways.
Most of the shooting was at the 10-25yd mark. I would say that if I have any single critique of the class, this was probably it. There was a lot of aiming at small targets, and, yeah, I could probably tag stuff at 50-100 if needed, but I kinda feel like if you're going with a carbine, you should at least be practicing 50yd shots in a class. To be fair, this was also brought on by the choice of venue, but the class could have been tweaked to deal more effectively with this. Always room for improvement, I suppose
We went through like 150-200rds of ammo, probably on the lesser side of that. We had two relays of people.
First thing we did was sit in a classroom and go over some "how to shoot a rifle" basics. No surprises there. They are a little more aggressive using the safety than I prefer, but I think the NRA range officers were driving that a bit (like, in real life... unless I'm actually going to move, I'm not bother with the safety).
There was then a justifiable-use-of-force presentation. This was well-done, but felt slightly odd in a carbine class (vs a handgun/shotgun) class. If I've made the choice to use a carbine/MSR to defend myself, chances are pretty damn good that this is the most dire situation imaginable. I guess I would have preferred we either skipped this or shortened it quite a bit in favor of more range time. Other people seemed to find it more of a revelation, so maybe I'm just jaded and/or suffer from BGOS.
Anyways, off to the range! First task was the standard "go prone at 25yds and test your zero so we can make sure you're shooting straight". No problem; my Tavor was zeroed at 50 and I had no issues tagging the target where I needed. Other people were not quite as on point, which I can sympathize with, but no one was so off that they needed to rezero. There was a quick discussion of why 25yd zeros suck for 5.56. (They're not wrong, which is why all of mine at 36 or 50.)
This would be the first and last time we went prone in the class. I think you've got to skip something in these shorter format classes, and prone wasn't the worst thing to skip.
The next couple drills were one then two shots of "10yds, shoot the square, lol height over bore". I understand HoB just fine, so after a couple shots to figure that out on my Tavor, I did just fine. I thought it was an interesting place to start the drills from, but it did seem to flow from the zero'ing exercise, and it's a pretty vital thing to know about.
Next drill was reloading: start with one in the chamber and an empty mag, fire one, reload, and then fire a second time. Reloading on a Tavor is just not as fast as an AR, but I didn't feel super-slow about it. If anything, I think I would have critiqued my vest as the major factor slowing my reloads (my mags were all primary side, which isn't all that great if you're using your support hand). Only way to learn about your gear is to use it hard!
I'm a little fuzzy about this, but I think the next two drills were or some variation of kneeling-and-then-standing. I don't shoot kneeling a lot, but I was wearing knee pads, so this was pretty easy for me since I could just drop without having to slow my "fall".
After that, it was time for barricade shooting. We practiced standing and kneeling on both right and left sides of the barrier. Green Ops teaches you to use your off-shoulder but NOT off-hands when going weak-side on a barricade, and you just choke up near the mag-well with your support hand. This is really unnatural, but to their credit, people were all making it work pretty well by the time we were done. I think it's something you should want to practice, to say the least.
And, yes, I did that with my Tavor, and, no, I did not eat any brass, thank G-d for that case deflector. My backup gun was an AUG A3 NATO with a TA01NSN, and I am not sure I would have wanted to try that drill with it.
Final exam was an el-presidente variant with three targets - shoot each of them twice, reload, shoot them again twice each. My time on this was not particularly notable, but I also didn't expect to break any records on the Tavor. One or two people in the class did it in sub-10, which is pretty good.
I feel like I have been overly critical in a couple places, so let me conclude with the fact that I greatly enjoyed the class, and look forward to taking it again. I suspect the proper carbine class that's eight hours long covers some of the material we missed (and if they ever do it on a Sunday, I'd go). I learned some new stuff, though, and that's about all I can ask for.