MacCool

I just did Day 1 of this three-day Combative Carbine 2 course with Jeff Gonzales of Trident Concepts. Very, very interesting. It is a LOT of shooting, very fast-paced. I learned a LOT and could definitely feel improvement by the end of the 10 hour day.

15 shooters. We started with setting the guns up with a 50 yard battle zero, then moved to a variety of shots and shot strings between 5 yards and 50 yards, including a variety of malfunction drills and transitions to pistol. Everything outside of the 4 inch T-zone of the head or the 8 inch kill zone of the chest is a miss. On the graded evolutions a shot in the white is a DQ. Then he got out the timer. Very competitive, very intense. It was a blast!

Those of you guys with carbines...you have to seriously consider taking a similar high-level training course. I can't begin to describe how immensely valuable it is relative to understanding weapon maintenance, safe handling and developing a skill set that utilizes the AR15/M4 for what it was meant to do. I've been shooting this platform for many, many years. Monthly SWAT exercises, SWAT shooting drills and twice-a-year SO qualifications for more than 15 years, but what I learned today and expect to learn over the next two days will take me way beyond that. This particular course is a graded course, and I'm skeptical that I'm even going to pass (those 50 yard two-to-the-chest-and-one-to-the-head shots are kicking my ***) but the learning experience is fantastic.