Latest Progressive Carbine Class

Tactical Shooting in the Rain

​This weekend we attended a full-day Progressive Carbine Class taught by Scott Germain of Center Mass Weapons Training and Jon Green of the Massachusetts Gun Owners Action League (GOAL). This class was a follow-on to a similar class that we took with them a little over a year ago.
 
The carbine class was a hands-on, fast paced, live fire course for shooters that know the fundamentals of carbine shooting and want to improve their tactical skills. The training started with the combat mindset, then covered topics that included properly zeroing your firearm at 50 yards, compensating for “height over bore”, proper prone/sitting/kneeling/standing shooting positions, proper sling use, malfunction remediation, reloading techniques, shooting while moving, shooting under stress, “9-hole” and barricade drills, strong and weak side shooting, and speed shooting with accuracy.

​For most people the most challenging exercise was shooting the “9-hole” from 100 yards since it forces you to shoot through small openings in a barricade from very odd angles. To make it even harder, since your carbine is not in the normal vertical position (in many cases it is tilted more than 90 degrees), you have to compensate for the fact that the bullet’s path to the target is not a straight line – but a parabolic trajectory. Because of this you really have to think about where to aim.

​Another great drill was shooting 10 rounds into a 12” target from 100 yards in the prone position, then running to the 75 yard line and shooting 10 rounds into a different 12” target from the seated position, then running up to the 50 yard position and shooting 10 rounds into another 12” target from the kneeling position, and finally running to the 25 yard line and shooting 10 rounds into another 12” target from the standing position, The combination of the running (which increases your heart rate and makes it harder to acquire the target and aim), the different positions (which changes your geometry with the firearm and your optical point of view) , the different distances (which require you to adjust your aim point) and the different elevations of the targets made it challenging to keep good shot groups. 

Even though it was raining 6 of the 8 hours that we were on the range, the instruction was great and it was a fun day.
 
You can find out more about Center Mass Weapons Training at:
 
     http://www.centermassweaponstraining.com/
 
You can find out more about the Massachusetts Gun Owners Action League (GOAL) at:
 
     http://www.goal.org/