In a word, awesome! Ben is a talented and entertaing instructor, very aproachable yet with good control over the proceedings. This particular class was held at Pitcairn-Monroeville Sportsman just outside Pittsburg PA, a very nice facility. The class met up at 7:45AM and ran till about 4PM. After a quick overview of the extensive facilities we proceeded through the gate and to our training area which was a seperate range "cell" enclosed on all sides by berms. It was maybe 50x50 yards in size but all the training was conducted from about 25 yards on in.
After the obligatory saftey brief we started with some dry instruction of basic and more advanced reload techniques and a good deal of training on various postitions, the standard standing, kneeling, sitting, and prone postitions but also including a few I'd never seen before such as the "broke back" prone. The latter involves resting the the chest on the ground while still kneeling, it's intended to be used when poking around small, low cover such as the wheel well of a car.
Live fire started with an examination of the point of aim vs point of impact offset at various ranges. While I knew about this phenomenon, caused by the line of sight being above the line of the bore, I was a bit suprised to see how significant this was at point blank distance. We then continued with shooting from the various instructed positions which advanced to rapidly changing to and from and firing from one to another. This proved a little taxing for me but proper training always should push you mentally and physically. What with my knees and back, if I could do it anyone can.
An interesting drill involved using a standing partners leg as a brace in the seated position while both fired at the same target and also while traversing to other targets. It was a lot of fun to bring that level of firepower on target. There would be several instances of team based drills throughout the day and I found these sections to be especially fun! Then came the moving while shooting drills and having no experience with such I enjoyed them immensely. I particularly enjoyed a drill involving charging fast up to the target and engaging at point blank.
As the day went on the layered nature of the instruction became aparrent, culminating in the final two drills. The first involve lining up at short range from the target at on side of the lane. Across the line was a partner. The drill was to fire 5 shots on target and to turn and with "MOVING-MOVE" communication rapidly cross your partner to the other side of the line, turn to the target, and engage 5 more times. This was repeated several time till a cease fire order was given.
The final drill incorporated everything that came before and was a three man bounding fire exercise. Three people started behind one set of barrels, fired on the taget downrange and took turns advancing to the next set of barrels all while providing covering fire. It was absolutely exhilarating!
Now the thing that made all this safe was the extensive instruction of muzzle awareness during the the positional training and carried throughout the day, muzzles were always pointed either downrange or down at the ground at a near vertical angle. In fact one of the biggest things I took away from this class was my aversion to keeping long guns loaded with a round in the chamber. By using and moving, even frantically, with a hot weapon I learned first hand that it can be done safely with the proper precautions.
Beyond that I was really happy with the way I performed, my muzzle awareness was good, my reloads were smooth and fast and while my accuracy was not amazing I was able to get the rounds where they needed to be and quickly too. I was quite happy with my accuracy on the move, at one point I involuntarily hooted when I nailed a small circle target on command while walking backward.
In all I was beyond pleased with the class, I actually am confident in my ability to competently employ my rifle in a bad situation now.
As far as gear goes: Ben is a big beliver in the minimalist approach and to not train with anything you won't be using in an actual "oh shit!" sudden situation. In fact he used nothing beyond a belt and holster, mags were carried in pockets. For my part I used Blue Force Gear belt mounted elastic pouches, one double pistol mag pouch, two single rifle mag pouches, a small foldable/tuckable dump pouch, small belt mounted medkit and pistol holster.
I found this arrangement to be entirely satisfactory for the class needs. I never felt over encumbered and in fact I had no awareness of the various belt pouches till I had need of them. And as always the Daniel Defense saw me through in fine fashion with two small caveats.
First being I removed the Magpul BAD lever as it caused me to drop the bolt unintended during the drills a few times and generally got in the way under stress. Second being Lancer mags are cool looking and work well BUT will cause stoppages if loaded via stripper clips. My Magpuls worked fine with the stripper clips.
Beyond that though my rifle got extremely dirty, it rained a bit at times, with mud, pebbles, dirt/sand/dust all getting on and in the gun yet after I had the mag issue sorted I didn't have any problems with the rifle itself. I frickn' love that gun!
So yeah I had a great day, lotsa fun and I came away with so much. I highly, highly recommend OnSight for training. I will definitely be doing this again next time there is a class in PA.
After the obligatory saftey brief we started with some dry instruction of basic and more advanced reload techniques and a good deal of training on various postitions, the standard standing, kneeling, sitting, and prone postitions but also including a few I'd never seen before such as the "broke back" prone. The latter involves resting the the chest on the ground while still kneeling, it's intended to be used when poking around small, low cover such as the wheel well of a car.
Live fire started with an examination of the point of aim vs point of impact offset at various ranges. While I knew about this phenomenon, caused by the line of sight being above the line of the bore, I was a bit suprised to see how significant this was at point blank distance. We then continued with shooting from the various instructed positions which advanced to rapidly changing to and from and firing from one to another. This proved a little taxing for me but proper training always should push you mentally and physically. What with my knees and back, if I could do it anyone can.
An interesting drill involved using a standing partners leg as a brace in the seated position while both fired at the same target and also while traversing to other targets. It was a lot of fun to bring that level of firepower on target. There would be several instances of team based drills throughout the day and I found these sections to be especially fun! Then came the moving while shooting drills and having no experience with such I enjoyed them immensely. I particularly enjoyed a drill involving charging fast up to the target and engaging at point blank.
As the day went on the layered nature of the instruction became aparrent, culminating in the final two drills. The first involve lining up at short range from the target at on side of the lane. Across the line was a partner. The drill was to fire 5 shots on target and to turn and with "MOVING-MOVE" communication rapidly cross your partner to the other side of the line, turn to the target, and engage 5 more times. This was repeated several time till a cease fire order was given.
The final drill incorporated everything that came before and was a three man bounding fire exercise. Three people started behind one set of barrels, fired on the taget downrange and took turns advancing to the next set of barrels all while providing covering fire. It was absolutely exhilarating!
Now the thing that made all this safe was the extensive instruction of muzzle awareness during the the positional training and carried throughout the day, muzzles were always pointed either downrange or down at the ground at a near vertical angle. In fact one of the biggest things I took away from this class was my aversion to keeping long guns loaded with a round in the chamber. By using and moving, even frantically, with a hot weapon I learned first hand that it can be done safely with the proper precautions.
Beyond that I was really happy with the way I performed, my muzzle awareness was good, my reloads were smooth and fast and while my accuracy was not amazing I was able to get the rounds where they needed to be and quickly too. I was quite happy with my accuracy on the move, at one point I involuntarily hooted when I nailed a small circle target on command while walking backward.
In all I was beyond pleased with the class, I actually am confident in my ability to competently employ my rifle in a bad situation now.
As far as gear goes: Ben is a big beliver in the minimalist approach and to not train with anything you won't be using in an actual "oh shit!" sudden situation. In fact he used nothing beyond a belt and holster, mags were carried in pockets. For my part I used Blue Force Gear belt mounted elastic pouches, one double pistol mag pouch, two single rifle mag pouches, a small foldable/tuckable dump pouch, small belt mounted medkit and pistol holster.
I found this arrangement to be entirely satisfactory for the class needs. I never felt over encumbered and in fact I had no awareness of the various belt pouches till I had need of them. And as always the Daniel Defense saw me through in fine fashion with two small caveats.
First being I removed the Magpul BAD lever as it caused me to drop the bolt unintended during the drills a few times and generally got in the way under stress. Second being Lancer mags are cool looking and work well BUT will cause stoppages if loaded via stripper clips. My Magpuls worked fine with the stripper clips.
Beyond that though my rifle got extremely dirty, it rained a bit at times, with mud, pebbles, dirt/sand/dust all getting on and in the gun yet after I had the mag issue sorted I didn't have any problems with the rifle itself. I frickn' love that gun!
So yeah I had a great day, lotsa fun and I came away with so much. I highly, highly recommend OnSight for training. I will definitely be doing this again next time there is a class in PA.
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