AAR: Rifles Only Precision Rifle 1 & 2

[TheBelly]

Bottom line up front: worth every minute of time, every penny spent, and every drop of sweat.

heres the syllabus:




If you want to learn how they teach these things, then go take the course!

[TheBelly]

The daily load out for class. I used most of these items every day of training.


From left to right, top to bottom, the items are:


larue rifle, magazines, LMT rifle (with bipod and sling)


shooting mat, wet weather top and bottoms, brown bag to hold extra ammo, backpack, shemagh, water bottle


cleaning kit, rear bag, play book, kestrel, surefire ear pro, 2x hard ear pro, big black marker, red/blue flashlight, notebook, gloves


battle belt (stripped down to minimum), borka torque tool kit, kobalt tools for bigger things.


EQUIPMENT NOTES:

muzzle device timing needs to be as close to perfect as possible. The physics will be 'off' and you will not be able to drive the rifle correctly.

***The Larue PredatAR died on day one. It would not hold a group smaller than 3", regardless of who the shooter was. The ammo was not to blame, as I was shooting sub-half MOA with other rifles. I'm talking with Larue to figure out why this rifle won't shoot acceptable groups.***

ETA: the LaRue rifle has been figured out. It now shoots very well.

Every other piece of gear was necessary and used daily, if not every hour.

[TheBelly]

The course:

PR 1&2 is meant to be a fundamentals class on the art and science of long range shooting. The focus is on learning and drilling on the fundamentals of the gun, the shooter, the environment, and the target. This combined class was 5 days long that covered all of the topics on the above syllabus.

the instructors are former spec ops types that have operational knowledge and experience with bad places and doing this for real. They are also very highly respected in the field of precision rifle instruction.

[islandermyk]

very cool!
5 days of LR shooting talks and trigger time... man... just hearing that... there is a lot of info gathering, ooowwwee...

Sounds like a blast!

[TheBelly]

The Other Students:

There were seven students. I will refer to them as #1-#7. I was shooter #2.

Their professions were:

ATF Sniper
Me
Police Officer (competitive Long Range Shooter)
Police Officer (competitive Long Range Shooter)
SWAT Sniper
SWAT Sniper
SWAT Sniper

For reasons that should go without saying, I'm purposely not stating anything more specific than that.

Their equipment was:

GA Precision with USO glass
Larue with Bushnell glass, then Surgeon in a AI Chassis with Steiner glass (the Larue died)
R700 in a Maners Chassis with USO glass
Stiller in a AI Chassis with USO glass
R700 in a McRees Chassis with Vortex glass
R700 in HS Precision stock and Nightforce glass
DPMS AR with Leupold glass, then AIAW with S&B glass (the DPMS died)

[TheBelly]

My Lessons Learned:

Dry-Fire your ass off. I was told that if I broke a firing pin, I would get it replaced at no cost to me. For every shot that I took, I dry-fired approximately 50 times. That means that over the course of the five days, and approximately 500 rounds, I dry fired roughly 25k times. Think of that... 50 dry-fires for every real bullet fired.

Breathe Normal. As soon as I held my breath, I started shaking. The Army teaches that there is a normal pause/lull at the bottom of the breathing cycle, and that you should hold there and then take the shot. This caused my eyes to wobble, and my brain compensated for it. By the time I actually started to SEE the wobble, it was too late. It took a couple breathing cycles to re-oxygenate my eyes to the point where I had a good clear sight picture again. This took a LOT of practice to understand that I need to pull the trigger back at the exact same time I'm done exhaling. That makes it consistent, but it takes practice.

DOPE for distance. By firing at distance, you sub-consciously train your brain about time in flight. Think of a QB throwing a football to a receiver. You have to know how fast to throw, how far to throw (and at what arc), and then to throw it where the target is GOING to be vs. where it is right now. This helps when you start adding movers into the equation. When things are moving, everyone has a different reaction time, so if I tell you that I hold 1.5 mils for a particular mover, then that's base off of MY reaction time. I have fast reactions, so I can lead maybe 0.5 mils whereas someone with a slower reaction time needs a full 2 mils for lead. This is interesting during the competition they had on Training Day (TD) 5. I held my normal 0.5, and one of the SWAT guys was consistently hitting behind the target. His reaction was slower than mine.

I read Mick-Boy's primer about training classes. I followed it to the letter. That made me not start at the back of the pack. That made me not waste ammo (at $1/trigger squeeze).

Don't be afraid to challenge yourself, and ask the instructors to help. I cleaned a very hard stage (Broke Scope Drill combined with movers, UKD targets with unknown size so you can't mil them out), so I asked the instructors to turn it up a notch for me. The result is a video that I will not post on youtube, facebook, etc., but needless to say I learned that I needed to concentrate more on the tasks at hand. The biggest target was the mover, and it was a 10" plate at 400yards. Besides, a good instructor will help you turn the intensity up by doing it FOR you. The other really hard thing I had to understand was to shoot a target that I knew was there, but I wasn't able to see. This training environment is the ONLY time I'd think about attempting this. Three steel IPSC-shaped targets right next to each other from (what I found out later) was 600yards away. I was to shoot the middle target....from the ground (where you could only see the target on the right), support side, off a squatting barricade. Eff. My. Life.

Get to your position fast, then execute the fundamentals. The final drill was an 8-stage competition. The last stage of the competition was a timed obstacle course before a shooting exercise. I was very fast to my positions, but I forgot to execute the fundamentals. I did not execute the pre-/post-shot checklist by resetting the DOPE on my scope. This meant that I shot a big-ole-goose egg at the final stage of the final competition. I made an effing rookie mistake, and it cost me the entire match. It was a cheap lesson, though, given the consequences of real life deployed environment shooting.

Know where to accept the risk in your shooting. I saw an opportunity target and shot at it, hit it, and moved on. Only later (when I was REALLY thinking about it) did I realize that I didn't REALLY have a good sight picture on the target. I saw a LOT of target taking up a LOT of my reticle, therefore I could be less precise. In that case, I needed to hold a 1.6mil hold-under, but the target swallowed up about 3mils of target, so I just got it close and squeezed one off. I accepted that risk in that environment because I could. It was shortly after this that I got punished for 'gaming' it and not concentrating on the fundamentals enough, hence the non-postable video. I accepted the risk of not getting precise shots off for speed. Speed was the grade, but not the intent. On that stage, I won. Ultimately, I reinforced bad behavior, so I really lost. Shame on me... seriously.

[TheBelly]

this is what one of the drills looked like. The mover moved in between those three ipsc papers on the left side. You'll see a small square just to the right of the ipsc paper, and that was the moving target. Ht the target, not the paper.

I cleared this stage in 34 seconds. 5 targets at distances from 200-550 yards. The targets were small. The mover was a 10" plate, I believe. Everything else was MOA or smaller.

[TheBelly]

Also, I had a wardrobe malfunction.

[Mick-Boy]

Belly that is a freaking *fantastic* AAR. Sounds like you've got enough new lessons to chew on for a good long while.

I need to spend more time behind a rifle....

[TheBelly]

heres what a REaL precision rifle can do. (The instructor is holding a nickel.)