Mini AAR: Basic Carbine

My last carbine course was in October of 2012. Since that time, I've focused on pistol classes since my pistol skills were severely lacking compared to my accuracy with a carbine. I feel like I'm at a good balance between the two now, so this weekend I went back and took a two day basic carbine class as a refresher. The lead instructor for this class is a SWAT team commander and trainer. I've worked with him privately many times over the last year and a half and I really like his style. He's laid back and funny, but when it's time to work he's all business. This was the first "formal" class with him though. The class was great, and te training and instruction were right on par with what we had done privately.



TD1 - cold and raining in the 60s

TD2 - sunny and 70s



Gear:

11.5" BCM SBR w/Eotech XPS and Magpul single point sling

Brokos Battle Belt

My Glock 19 carry pistol



Overall impressions:

• My accuracy didn't drop off even though it's been a long time since I've done anything with a carbine. In fact, I think it's gotten better. I attribute this to the many pistol classes. This made me happy, since I consciously stopped doing work with my carbine to focus on pistol. My reloads were still fast and on point, buy my malfunction fixes need a lot of work. I mind f@cked myself a few times, so I'll need to start working on that again.
  
  
  


• The class included a wide range of students: a shooter with an AR right out of the box, IDPA shooters, LEO, former military, and a couple of regular guys. Everyone kept asking if I was LEO or military/former military. I get asked that a lot, I assume it's because I shave my head or my build. They seemed surprised that I work for a bank. :dunno:
  
  
  


• I've now taken two classes in a row with rain. I really don't like the phrase "we ain't trainin' unless it's rainin". That's crap. Give me 65 degrees and sunny.
  
  
  


• We had a few gear failures. One KAC carbine wouldn't drop pmags. The student had to switch to metal mags. That same student's gear was all top of the line. It's a shame that after lubing the BCG on the line, I had to help him because he was inserting it backwards into the upper receiver. There was also an Eotech 516 that seemed to crap the bed every other drill. I was surprised to see quite a few of the older model Eotechs. I guess because they are relatively inexpensive now. All newer model Eotechs and Aimpoints were fine.
  
  
  


• Due to the overall competency level of the students, we progressed very quickly. In fact, we were done with the typical day one plan right after lunch. We moved into day two drills for the rest of the day until the rain really started coming down. At that point we moved back under a shelter and practiced 200y offhand shots at 12"x12" steel plate. I never thought about doing that with an unmagnified red dot, but we all did it. After we all hit it standing, we went prone to finish out our mags.
  
  
  


• The instructors rewrote the plan for day two, and we focused on drills and movement for the entire day. We even incorporated transitions to pistol, which no one was expecting coming into the class. I'm glad I brought pistol ammo just in case. Day two morphed into an intermediate class.
  
  
  


• My gear worked as expected with no issues, even my Eotech. ;)
  
  
  


• The instructors nicknamed me "Dragonboy" due to the fireball from the combination of SBR and Battlecomp. They got an awesome picture of me shooting from urban prone under a barrier, with the flame enveloping the entire underside. Once they email it to me I'll post it.
  
  
  


• The instructors messed with me and another student, adding additional stress to the drills. For example, during a reload drill one walked up behind me and held onto my mag pouch so that I couldn't remove my primary magazine. After two tugs, I switched to the secondary magazine, it pulled free, I reloaded, and continued on with the drill. They would also push against us or stand right up next to us. I appreciated what they were doing, and it felt good that they had the confidence in us to do that.

I would really like to see people take these classes in what they would normally wear (especially civilians). If I take a pistol class, weather permitting, I'm in shorts or pants and a t-shirt with my holster and one mag pouch and then I stuff additional mags in my pockets. That's what I wear every day, so that's how I'm going to train. In my last advanced pistol class a guy had seven magazine pouches around his waist, knee pads, and body armor. He's not LEO or military. He does technology work at a hotel. As one instructor said "If you are going to dress like an operator, you better damn well shoot like an operator". I realize that carbine classes are a bit different as most civilians don't walk around with an AR. In this class I wore my battle belt with jeans and a t-shirt. Chances are that if I have an AR on me, SHTF so throwing on a battle belt wouldn't be out of the ordinary. However, I just don't think it's necessary to play dress up and go all GIJoe, especially if that's not how you dress every day.