AAR EAG Shoothouse 18-21Apr2015 Alliance OH PD

[Pat ROGERS]

EAG Conducted a Shoot House Class at the Alliance OH PD Training Facility.
This class immediately preceded the CQB Operations Course and the Continuing Education Course.

We have been coming to Alliance since 2008, and it remains one of the most capable facilities that have ever worked at.

This was an OPEN Enrollment class, and was populated by Cops, Firefighters, mil, contractors and some above average earth people.
Students came from MI; CA; IA; VA; MA; OH; MS; TX: AZ.



WX
T1- Clear, 59-70
T2- Cloudy, rain, 50-62
T3-Cloudy, rain, 50-60
T4- Cludy, windy, 50-60
WX RelatedIf you are traveling to attend a class, you are Spending a lot of $$$.
Weather has a tendency to change rapidly. You need to be smart about clothes.
Just because the sun is shining where you live, does not mean it will be at the range location, nor does it mean that the WX will stay constant.
Proper clothing will allow you to function.
Improper clothing will not.
In Police work, we call this a Clue…

Guns and Gear
As this is not a shooting course, no issues were noted.The Night MonsterThe Night Monster is alive and well, and it exists to bite people in the ass.
Most people dislike the dark. Not necessarily because it is dark, but because they fear what lurks in the dark.
Predators lurk in the dark, ready to pounce and devour the ill prepared.
We lose are situational awareness in the dark, and if we lose SA, our likelihood of winning the fight.
We can extend our low light situational awareness but introducing light- either in the IR or visible light spectrum.
We require white weapon mounted lights on the carbines, and recommend them on their pistols.
The use of a viable WML provides sufficient illumination to acquire, identify and process a threat.
We strongly believe that the base level for a carbine mounted light is 500 lumens.
However, no matter how bright the light, if it is not used properly, it becomes less than useful.
Searching by pointing the rifle at the deck can cause you to fail to see a threat.
Running the light to and fro rapidly can cause you to fail to see a threat.

Other light consideration.
Within the context of hunting people, having a strobe function is –at best-questionable.
Having a weapon mounted light that defaults to strobe is much less than useful.
Having a multi function switch on a WML contributes to confusion and directs your attention away from your primary need- to win the fight…

Pressure on/off switches are cute but have drawbacks if you want to keep your light on for more than a few seconds.

But Wait Pat, the manufacturer says all you have to do to keep it steady on it to rotate the tail cap.

True Dat.

It works well in a vacuum, but less so when you are attempting to do it and distracts you from your priority.
And, it can rotate to the off position under recoil.
All of these happened on one night…

We preach Slow. However, at night, people want to move faster (possibly the “I want to get it over with syndrome”). People are uncomfortable in this environment, and want to end it sooner than later…
Square Range Training Scars Most people only ever shoot on the square range. There are of course many reasons for it, to include teaching very basic skills, cost of range facilities, location of facilities, available trainers, time, money and such.

Most people, no matter what they say/ believe, are more enamored with shooting, then with fighting and that can be a major problem
For many- trainers and students alike- are unable/ unwilling to enter into the ring, for a lot of weak reasons.
This results in a relaxation of standards, particularly in mindset.
From making ready, to engagement and post engagement actions, people pay scant attention to doing anything but actually pressing the trigger.

And that Friends, is only one part of the equation.

As an example, during one night drill an experienced shooter and his partner threw a bunch of rounds downrange at threat targets before they took them down.
They neglected to tac reload and entered another room where one shooter got off a single round before the carbine ran dry.
He transitioned to the pistol (Yes!) but it failed to fire. Turns out he installed a new trigger in his carry gun, but had not test fired it.
He then holstered the pistol and stood facing the target, doing nothing.
His partner- after solving his problem, came to the first shooters aid.
Whereupon He Ran His Carbine Dry.

Fail sometimes comes in bucketful’s…

You are Not Alone
This is a concept that many have difficulty in accepting. This is parallel to the concept of You Are Not Superman.A Two Man Team means that there are two of you, acting as a team. The purpose of a team is to act together.
It is not that one guy does all of the work, and the other follows and polices up the brass.
Each shooter has responsibilities. Problems occur when you decide you are going to do everything..
Smooth/ JerkySmooth is the goal. Smooth equals control. We can ascertain a lot when we watch how a student, and if they are stutter stepping or if they are nerbling it is because they are not in control, or they have been exposed to certain TTP’s form the 80”s… ,SafetySafety drives the train. If we are not safe, people can get dead or hurt.
Shooting behind another: It should be obvious that shooting behind someone is dangerous.
Issues occur when shooters are in echelon and attempting to engage the same target.
The second shooter may not be directly behind the first, but the angle may be such that it presents a danger.
Everything may be good to go, but if one or the other spazz’s out, someone will get shot.

Mechanical safety: The mechanical safety is a secondary safety, and subordinate to the mind.
In MP-5 days, the shitty ergonomics of the selector caused people caused people to leave the selector on Fire.
We are using much better guns, and should be behind that now.
The mechanical safety should be ON when moving and not shooting.
Period.
I know there are some trainers who still teach that dangerous TTP. I know because I regularly get them in class.
If you do that in my class, we well excommunicate you.

The essence of the shoot house is control.
If you are not in control, you are unable to function.
Period.Paul Gardner was in this class (again), and if you don’t know him you should.
Paul is a serious hard dude and redefines the word handicapped. He is also a rock solid shooter.

Midway through the course he jokingly complained that his partner was hogging all of the targets.
Taking a que, Doc Spears stapled all of the reactive targets to the walls, preventing them to not react to hits.
When this was revealed to him during the back brief (when he fell on his sword for poor marksmanship) his expression was priceless…

This was another great class. Though larger than normal, the cooperation and competence of the students allowed us to complete the class successfully, and we thoroughly enjoyed this class!

The Team Wendy crew stopped by for a visit on T4. They are great guys working for a great company and making a gtreat helmet.
And their Exfil ballistic helmet is available…



AAR's are a great way to pass on information to others.
We believe that the student’s comments are extremely valuable, and it helps others make decisions on guns, gear and training.

Thanks To Donna who keeps the train on the track,

I am fortunate to be able to work with some very competent folks.
Assembling the Band for these classes-Doc Spears, Steve Fisher, Mike S, Chappy, Bill Peterson –and Joe Weyer. Kevin Brown, Dave Laubert from Alliance PD greatly enhances the training as well as gives us multiple layers of redundancy in all aspects of this training.
This would not have happened without you all!

Thanks again to Alliance PD and those great people who work at that great place!

All of those idiots who dislike cops should understand that there are a few PD’s and SO’s that not only allow Open Enrollment training, but actively encourage it

You really should take advantage of opportunities like this.
We start a CQB course tomorrow, followed by a CEC course here as well.

And we’ll be doing another Shoot House Course in Alliance 12-15 June.

EAG has been extremely fortunate in a great many ways.
One of those is that some very good companies support our students.
This support ensures that everyone leaves with something, and some leave with more than that.



Please take the time to send a *Thank You* note to these guys.
It is greatly appreciated!


TangoDownwww.tangodown.com
Jeffc@tangodown.com
==========================
Larue Tacticalwww.laruetactical.com
Mark@laruetactical.com
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Bravo Companywww.bravocompanyusa.cominfo@bravocompanyusa.com
==========================
SLiP 2000www.slip2000.com
greg@slip2000.com
==========================
Viking Tacticswww.vikingtactics.com
lamb@vikingtactics.com
==========================
Magpulwww.magpul.com
drake@magpul.com
==========================
Asym Precisionwww.asym-ammo.com
chencustom@gmail.com
==========================
Blue Force Gearwww.blueforcegear.com
Stephen@blueforcegear.com
==========================
Surefirewww.surefire.comhttp://www.surefire.com/cust_feedback
============================
ITWwww.itwmilitaryproducts.com
sales@itwmilitaryproducts.com
==================================
Austere Provisionswww.austereprovisions.com
Mike@austereprovisions.com
============================
Jones Tacticalwww.jonestactical.comrjones@jonestactical.com
===========================
Camelbakwww.camelbak.com
MHutchinson@camelbak.com
============================
TacStrikewww.tacstrike.com
rtackett@tackstrike.com
==================================

Panteao Productionswww.panteaoproductions.com
Fernando@panteaoproductions.com
===================================

Raven Concealmentwww.ravenconcealment.com
===================================

Peters Custom Holsters

www.peterscustomholsters.com

 

[Pat ROGERS]

It all begins on the cones.
Lecture, plus cones, plus dry runs equals competence...

 

[Pat ROGERS]

Mecca- Alliance OH PD Training Facility

 

[Pat ROGERS]

Kris and Betsy get prepared for a Low Light run on T1

 

[Pat ROGERS]

This is the North South Hallway, and is appx 40yds long.
We believe strongly that a 500 lumen light is at the lower end of what is needed on WML.
Two shooters illuminate using two 500 Lumen EAG Fury lights

 

[Pat ROGERS]

We require that each student have a Personal Identification light and a GITD name tape>
Additionally, we provide each with a Roster Tag for shoulder and helmet.
This is for safety as well as identification for individuals.

At night, it is hard to differentiated individuals.

They are available from Spartan Village or Practical Tactical

 

[baronfitz]

This was my third class with EAG, and first dedicated shoot house course. I’ve done a few one-off runs through both live fire and sim-rated shoot houses in the course of other training, but only enough to know that I had a serious hole in my skill-set, which led me to sign up for this course.

WX: I experienced all four seasons over the week. Pat already detailed all the conditions, so I won’t rehash them. White boys like yours truly benefit from sunscreen, especially after being indoors all winter. It was pretty obvious who used it and who didn’t at the end of T1. Layers were very helpful during T2-T4, especially at night when it was rainy and windy.

Gear: I’m very fortunate to live within 15 minutes of F3 Tactical in Chantilly. I sourced just about all my gear from them. The Velocity Scarab PC was very light, comfortable, and capable. I highly recommend it. The Team Wendy Exfil Ballistic helmet was also top notch, and was very light and comfortable. Based on my experience with running ear pro under the helmet, I’m planning a transition to the IFC SARAs to mount the ear pro on the helmet itself.

Weaponry: My Defensive Edge/BCM 14.5 rifle ran with no issues. It’s been run much harder elsewhere with no issues, so this was hardly surprising. The slightly shorter length, KMR rail, and BFH LW profile barrel made it a breeze to manipulate in the house. The BattleComp 1.5 made it very smooth, if a little blasty to anyone beside me. Of note, there were a fairly high number of folks running cans this time around (I’d estimate between 5-8). I think I need to get one. It makes a big difference in the house.

I was also the lucky winner of the bucketfuls of fail that Pat mentioned earlier. A few days prior, I had changed out a fair amount of internals on my G17, since the OEM trigger was very heavy (almost 8 lbs), and since I was pressed for time, I function checked and called it good before driving to OH. Unfortunately, one of the mods included a 4lb striker spring that didn’t have enough juice to ignite the primer, which led to that horrifying click when you’re expecting a bang (and the more horrifying realization that I had carried this paperweight for several days like this). My partner brought along an OEM striker spring the next morning that fixed the failure to fire issue, but the gun was still suffering from frequent failures to extract (from the new Apex Failure Resistant Extractor I’d installed…talk about irony), so I ran my alternate G17 with stock internals.

I had modified the internals of several other pistols, and scrupulously verified them with live fire each time before use, and all have worked 100%, so I extrapolated that I could get away without testing this time. Anybody who works with datasets will tell you that extrapolation is no bueno. I’m sure nobody here would dream of taking a shortcut like I did, but I’m telling the ugly tale in hopes that maybe it will help discourage others from considering it. We can’t live long enough to make all the mistakes ourselves. (In case you’re wondering, the pistol is running great now with an OEM striker spring and OEM extractor back in it. The new trigger is a big improvement.)

Takeaways (in no particular order):

1. I need to run some transition drills where my blaster is dead to get me in the habit of getting the carbine back in the fight rather than running out of program and standing there if the blaster fails.

2. Clicky switches on weapon lights are the way to go. If your light is dependent on constant pressure for actuation, part of your brain will have to be devoted to actuating the light instead of processing the room and its occupants. I had good results with the Surefire rail mounted switch that includes both pressure and clicky switches for the M600 Ultra scout. On a related note, the Arisaka Defense keymod offset scout mount sucked in the light tight to the 2:00 position on the KMR rail and creates a very solid and snag free mounting solution. Highly recommended.

3. The ability to break down rooms and hallways into the three basic shapes is invaluable. I intend to keep practicing these on my own time.

4. Both my partner and I had a tendency to get amped up and go Leroy Jenkins. We found that taking a pause and reminding ourselves to breathe before breaching a door helped keep things calm. Keeping things calm helped make solving the next room much easier and we didn’t make as many preventable mistakes.

5. Keep your gun up, especially at night. Light does you no good pointed at the ground in front of you.

6. Manage your ammo. My partner and I only ran out of ammo that one time. After that, we scrupulously tac reloaded.

7. Offset, offset, offset. As the class progressed and we felt less overloaded, my partner and I paid better attention to offset, and took fewer rounds to neutralize threats. The majority of the targets were well serviced in the lower jaw and stomach by the class, so we weren’t the only ones.

Another significant benefit to classes like this is the people. It was a pleasure to meet many of the instructors and students for the first time, and always good to see some old friends as well. I definitely plan on doing the class again to reinforce what was taught, and see new aspects of the information in a different light. I always come away from classes like this with a little more hope for our country with such people in it.

Thanks to Pat, Doc Spears, Steve Fisher, Mike S, Chappy, and Bill Peterson for the top notch instruction. You’re some scary dudes, and I’m proud to have worked with you. Thanks also to Joe Weyer and the Alliance PD for making the range and house available… I’ve been in a few other houses here and there, and this one is by far the nicest I’ve seen. Until next time!

 

[ffemt11b]

I also attended the EAG shoothouse class, and it was quite the learning experience. This was my first shoothouse instruction besides the mediocre experiences I've had in the Army.

I worked with Ed, for this class, we worked great together, but I'm sure his back hurts from carrying me at times in the class, but for the two guys left over when everyone picked their teams I think we did pretty well.

WX: as mentioned above it was Ohio, I left VA in shorts and T-shirt, didn't check the weather prior to leaving, and wished I had brought more snivel gear T2- T4.

Gear: I used the same Mayflower PC I've been using for years, and an ACH No complaints. However, I do see a helmet with Iron Forged Concepts SARAs in my future.

Weapons: I used my EAG upper that Dave Laubert had shaved the FSB and installed a DD rail and an AAC Brakeout. I had a couple malfunctions with it on the night run of T3, still don't know what that was about, it seems to be working again. I will be sending it back to Dave to install a Keymod rail shortly I believe. My M&P 9 with RMR and x300U performed flawlessly except that one time I didn't put a round in the chamber on the same night run my rifle was giving me issues, but that's on me. Like the poster above me said about cans, I should have brought mine. A previous incident involving a minor fender bender and the Maryland State Police and NFA items discouraged me from bringing NFA items, even if totally legal.

Takeaways:

1) I managed to over run my head lights frequently. The instructors would give MAJOR hints about something like a box drill would be needed, I would then burst into the room and begin blasting away as fast as I could at ONE target and ignore the other target until the first one fell. FAIL.

2) There are really only three types of shapes in a house, and now that I know what I'm looking at, I'm seeing it in my everyday life.

3)Offset, it's real, just deal with it.

4) SLOW DOWN, just slow down, think through what you are doing before you do it, make a plan and then execute. "Shot.... Shoot" I need to SLOW Down and think about what I'm doing

5) Tac loads I had an issue with my rifle on T3, transitioned to pistol, shot the target, and when I tac loaded my pistol I had an extra round in my spare mag, so it wouldn't seat, in my frustration I managed to load the pistol but I didn't chamber a fresh round. So when my rifle failed me again in the next room and I transitioned to my blaster.... click.... FAIL.

6) Stop Charging targets. I have a "Stick the kills from very far" yet I see the need to charge forward and close the distance between me and the target. It's unnecessary and can be unnecessarily dangerous.

7) I should have taken more time off work to stay for CQB and CEC.

I want to thank Joe Weyer, and Chief Griffiths, the range facility in Alliance is awesome. Also a huge thanks to Pat, Doc Spears, Steve Fisher, Mike S, Chappy, and Bill Peterson for the instruction, patience, and for dealing with me.

I definitely hope to train up there in the shoothouse again soon.

Thanks Again to everyone who was there and involved.

 

[Andy]

what are the three shapes in a house?

 

[Joe Halloran]

L, T, 4 way

 

[Chappy]

Those are the 3 shapes in the world. Master the fundementals of reducing those 3 shapes, you can rule the planet.

 

[Guz45]

Can you give an example how to attack one of the shapes one or two man. I think I understand but would like some feedback.

 

[Matt Landfair]

There are things that are best demonstrated in person. To describe in text could give a reader the wrong idea and create training scars or worse- teach a technique incorrectly/unsafely. This also could be going into an SOP/OPSEC realm.