Recondo2117
Amateur
AAR for Modern Day Sniper 5 Day Precision Rifleman Course
Venue: Rifles Only, Kingsville TX
When: Dec 1st – Dec 5th
Weapon Systems: M40A6, M110, and MK13.
Ammo: M118LR (175 Grain SMK) and Mk 248 Mod 1 (220 Grain SMK)
Equipment: Kestrel, Eye pro, ear pro, Crye JPC, Ops Core, PVS 27, note taking gear, warming layers, laser range finder, sand bag, tripod w/ HOG Saddle.
Weather: 50’s-70’s during the day, 30’s to 50’s at night. Mostly sunny throughout the week.
Instructors: (Phil Velyo and Caylen Wojcik) Modern Day Sniper; (Jacob Bynum and Lindy Sisk) Rifles Only
BLUF: Phenomenal course, incredibly professional instructors and a POI that covers everything for setting up and employing a precision rifle out to 1000 meters. If you have the time and money, I would not hesitate to take a Modern Day Sniper Course.
Initial thoughts prior to the course: I am not a Scout Sniper. I have served as a Reconnaissance Marine for 7 years, but other than firing three rounds out of a M107 SASR on a fam fire, I have never pulled the trigger on a Marine Corps precision rifle. I have never tried a PRS match, nor do I own a modern precision rifle. I have shot several USPSA and two gun matches in the last few years and am an avid pistol and carbine shooter on my own time and dime.
Day 1: Day one consisted of initial class room time going over what it meant to be a volunteer, what to expect from the course, range expectations, and safety. From there we moved to the 100 yard line and fired 5 rounds freestyle from the prone while being observed by Caylen and Phil in order to create a baseline. These 5 rounds were my first 5 rounds out of a USMC precision rifle. I didn’t realize how important it is to square your body to the weapon and was canted off ~15 degrees from the barrel even though I thought I was straight.
We moved back to the classroom and discussed where the weak points were in the classes fundamentals and body positions. We had a class on setting up the rifles and optics to us as individual shooters with an emphasis on the fact that the rifle can be a team weapon so multicolored witness marks allow for multiple shooters to adjust the optics and chassis to their personal liking. The classes included the elements of a good position, common factors to all shooting, natural point of aim, neutral bipod loading, trigger control, and others. There was a class on the circle of components that heavily focused on having solid, reliable ammo, optics, and rifles in order to allow the only variable between days to be you, the individual shooter.
From there we moved back to the 100 yard line and conducted zeroing, chronograph of the rifles, and a drill called the 22 dot drill. This drill is the Modern Day sniper preferred warm up and covers everything from your cold bore shot to setting up your body position under time, and even includes firing with the support side. I think is shot ~10/22 on this drill and missed at least two of the time hacks. We moved back to the classroom and had one or two more classes before finishing the day with a 10 round drill from the “mouse trap” which requires shooters to negotiate a wooden jungle gym with their rifles and take shots from uncomfortable or strange positions. I did poorly on this drill 4/8 hits and failed to make to time hack costing me 2 more shots.
Day 2: This day started with zeroing and chronographing the M110 SASS. Having three rifles each definitely added a layer of complexity to the class as we were often humping two rifles to the different yard lines along with all of our other shooting components. This made it even more crucial to pay attention to detail as there were several times I failed to zero out my turrets between evolutions and would end up applying double dope and missing wildly.
By lunch time we had moved into the classroom for a class on the variable of long range shooting. This covered what we can control or account for, what we cannot control (wind), and what exists outside of the “noise” of shooting between 400-1000 yards. (Spin Drift, Coriolis effect, and aerodynamic jump). We had a several hour long class on how precision optics are made, tested, and what makes one optic better or worse than another. My biggest take aways were the things to do upon getting a new optic out of the box and also realizing that eye relief changes as you adjust your magnification in and out. A huge point that was stressed to comedic affect is that the side dial is not called the parallax adjustment dial, it is the side focus dial.
Day 3: We started by validating trajectories on the SASS and then had and outside class on the 4DOF calculator before building Dope Cards for the 40’s and the SASS. Since the wind had kicked up a bit we got another outdoor class on wind calls and spent some time shooting in the prone in order to see how the wind was affecting projectiles in flight. We went through a course of fire with the 40’s that would end up being shot again on Day 5 with the MK13’s for score. This involved 5 targets of known distance and challenged you to get first round impacts. At some point during the day we spent some time with the M110’s on a 400 yard moving target. At this point we still had the Gen II mil dot reticle on them and I had great success from the prone. We retrograded and had a working dinner while we set up for night vision shooting with the M40A6’s using a PVS-27. After a zero where we recorded the adjustment and a removal and reinstallation of the PVS-27 to ensure a return to zero we spent some time on the tower shooting out to ~500 yards. Caylen had a BE Meyers MAWL zeroed on top of his spotting scope and it did two things for us. First the IR illumination allowed you to distinctly see the target instead of the square shadow in front of the berm. Secondly it allows you to actually see a “trace” but in this instance it is the rear of the bullet reflecting IR light back into your optic and it appears like a tracer going down range. We discussed the benefits and issues of this set up, the major issue being your IR signature.
To finish the day, we reshot the known distance course of fire in buddy pairs at night with a time limit for score. I did terribly, partially due to my lack of attention to detail and turning my turret the wrong way in the dark, effectively returning my rifle to zero between the 200 and 300 target instead of applying the proper elevation.
Day 4: Between day 3 and 4, the firewatch removed all of the Nightforce 5-25’s off of the MK13’s and installed them on the M110’s. This was the first day we started shooting in full kit. We had a morning class on positional shooting, shooting in armor, and on the TMR3 reticle. After the M110 SASS’s we re-zeroed, we conducted a 100 meter positional shoot that involved running back and forth ~30 meters to recover your ammo between each shot. I enjoyed the positional topics because it focused on what you could get away with at what distances. For instance, I spent a lot of time putting a sand bag, tripod, and establishing a position to engage a target at 200 yards, and after I shot Phil had me do it again with the chassis simply resting on the barricade with no additional support to show me that depending on the range, target size, and time available, you need to be ready to shoot in a less stable option and can still get your hits. We engaged targets and known distance and the mover from different positions and this is where the TMR 3 reticle and I did not get along. With the added movement to the optic of a non-prone position, I was having a very hard time selecting an elevation line, selecting a windage/mover speed dot, and then quickly finding that aiming point again after the recoil for a follow up shot. After about half of the day, I started to dial my elevation into the turret and would merely hold along the windage line like I would with a Gen II Mil Dot. This worked slightly better, but I still had an issue with finding a repeatable aiming point. The 0.2 mil stadia lines are so fine that you have to be fairly magnified in order to reference them. Once a mover is applied, you’re trying to juggle several things and once and I would regularly apply the wrong hold even after figuring out what the holds needed to be. This can and needs to be fixed with training on my part.
I, along with several other shooters in the class, executed my course of fire by lazing each target, building a hasty range card, the engaged each target from left to right. While I made time, it was slow going and I was regularly re-checking my range card, dope card, and turrets. Caylin showed us after the fact how he would conduct this course of fire and it involved lazing a target, applying the dope, and engaging that target before moving on to another. This made far more sense to me and was less of a rangism and more of how a target may present itself on the battlefield.
We had another working dinner where Caylin and Phil covered Max Point Blank, how to determine the proper dope for it with the 4DOF and Danger Space before giving us the expectations for the graded event the next day.
Day 5: This held the culminating event of the course. Up until today we had not touched the MK13 other than to remove the optic and place it on the SASS for the previous day. First thing that morning, we were each given 20 rounds of 300 Win Mag and 45 minutes to set up the rifle, bore sight, zero, and Chronograph our rifles for score. Every round over 15 was a deduction of five points. Every shooter was done in 35 minutes or less, even with only having two chronographs.
Next we set up our data in the 4DOF calculator and moved to the tower in order to confirm the data at distance. I was in Phil’s group with three other shooters and was experiencing some very squirrelly results. While every other shooter was +/- 0.2 mils off from their data to the actual bullet performance at 550 meters, I needed to come up 0.4 mils. Phil found this odd, but we moved out to 650 meters. Again, every other shooter was very close with their rifle to data, but even with adding the original 0.4 mils to my new data, I needed to add another 0.4 mils. Phil had me go out to 750 meters and sure enough, I was now adding 1.6 mils on top of my 4DOF data for that distance. At this point I was starting to have serious doubts and was questioning my fundamentals instead of trusting that I was doing everything right and that the bullet was telling me something about my weapon system.
Apparently there is a known issue with the MK13 and the surefire suppressor combo and I happen to have a pair that we not getting along. Phil ran me to the 100-meter line, we conducted another quick zero without the suppressor and re-chronographed the rifle. All of this took less than 10 minutes and we were back on the tower. At the tower, I changed my 4DOF Data for the new muzzle velocity and Phil took me from 550 meters to 820 meters with first round impacts on everything except the 820-meter target. There I simply had a bad wind call, but was spot on with the elevation.
With the class having validated our trajectories, we moved into the class room for a working lunch to make our rifle dope cards. After lunch, we moved back to the tower and conducted a known distance course of fire. This held the same scoring we had used throughout the week of 3 points for a first round impact with a possible extra point for a follow up shot. If the first round missed, the second round impact gave 2 points, still with a possibility of a point for a follow up shot. If the first two rounds missed, then you could still squeeze one point out of the third round impact. Once the KD course of fire was completed, we spilt into two groups, one group worked positional movers with Phil while the other group went one at a time to run through the Unknown distance course of fire. We finished the day up with a conversation on rifle caliber selection depending on application.
Day 6: The final day we conducted a PRS style course of fire led by Jacob Bynum. It consisted of 5 stations and covered everything from 2 inch targets at 60 meters, 10 inch movers at 400, and stationary targets from prone, roof tops, helicopter bays, and more. It also required roughly 2000 meters of running in kit carrying the rifle and was a great confirmation of the skills we had learned throughout the week.
After the match we talked about personal rifle set ups and selections, further conversation on ammo selection, final class scores, and exchanged contact information before taking the rifles back out and working on shooters choice of drills for the remainder of the day.
Final thoughts: I feel like I drank from a fire hose for the entire week. Having no real baseline prior to the course was good because I did not have many bad habits to break, but bad because I felt like I needed to play catch up. Phil and Caylen are absolutely amazing instructors. I went to the course expecting to be treated like a PIG from my class mates and possibly even the instructors. I was completely and totally wrong, and was given the opportunity to learn in an environment where I could ask questions and make mistakes without feeling like I was going to be dropped or punished. Phil and Caylen are both incredibly professional instructors who know their material well and will never hesitate to demonstrate a course of fire or a technique. They miss sometimes, but it is incredible to watch and listen as they describe their thought process and fire a follow up shot that results in a hit before my mind has even processed the miss. Jacob and Lindy are also incredible teachers who have been shooting precision rifles since before I was born. It was a pleasure to learn under these men and I would highly recommend anyone who is into long range shooting/PRS, hunting, or someone who just wants to become a better shooter attend a Modern Day Sniper or Rifles Only course.
Venue: Rifles Only, Kingsville TX
When: Dec 1st – Dec 5th
Weapon Systems: M40A6, M110, and MK13.
Ammo: M118LR (175 Grain SMK) and Mk 248 Mod 1 (220 Grain SMK)
Equipment: Kestrel, Eye pro, ear pro, Crye JPC, Ops Core, PVS 27, note taking gear, warming layers, laser range finder, sand bag, tripod w/ HOG Saddle.
Weather: 50’s-70’s during the day, 30’s to 50’s at night. Mostly sunny throughout the week.
Instructors: (Phil Velyo and Caylen Wojcik) Modern Day Sniper; (Jacob Bynum and Lindy Sisk) Rifles Only
BLUF: Phenomenal course, incredibly professional instructors and a POI that covers everything for setting up and employing a precision rifle out to 1000 meters. If you have the time and money, I would not hesitate to take a Modern Day Sniper Course.
Initial thoughts prior to the course: I am not a Scout Sniper. I have served as a Reconnaissance Marine for 7 years, but other than firing three rounds out of a M107 SASR on a fam fire, I have never pulled the trigger on a Marine Corps precision rifle. I have never tried a PRS match, nor do I own a modern precision rifle. I have shot several USPSA and two gun matches in the last few years and am an avid pistol and carbine shooter on my own time and dime.
Day 1: Day one consisted of initial class room time going over what it meant to be a volunteer, what to expect from the course, range expectations, and safety. From there we moved to the 100 yard line and fired 5 rounds freestyle from the prone while being observed by Caylen and Phil in order to create a baseline. These 5 rounds were my first 5 rounds out of a USMC precision rifle. I didn’t realize how important it is to square your body to the weapon and was canted off ~15 degrees from the barrel even though I thought I was straight.
We moved back to the classroom and discussed where the weak points were in the classes fundamentals and body positions. We had a class on setting up the rifles and optics to us as individual shooters with an emphasis on the fact that the rifle can be a team weapon so multicolored witness marks allow for multiple shooters to adjust the optics and chassis to their personal liking. The classes included the elements of a good position, common factors to all shooting, natural point of aim, neutral bipod loading, trigger control, and others. There was a class on the circle of components that heavily focused on having solid, reliable ammo, optics, and rifles in order to allow the only variable between days to be you, the individual shooter.
From there we moved back to the 100 yard line and conducted zeroing, chronograph of the rifles, and a drill called the 22 dot drill. This drill is the Modern Day sniper preferred warm up and covers everything from your cold bore shot to setting up your body position under time, and even includes firing with the support side. I think is shot ~10/22 on this drill and missed at least two of the time hacks. We moved back to the classroom and had one or two more classes before finishing the day with a 10 round drill from the “mouse trap” which requires shooters to negotiate a wooden jungle gym with their rifles and take shots from uncomfortable or strange positions. I did poorly on this drill 4/8 hits and failed to make to time hack costing me 2 more shots.
Day 2: This day started with zeroing and chronographing the M110 SASS. Having three rifles each definitely added a layer of complexity to the class as we were often humping two rifles to the different yard lines along with all of our other shooting components. This made it even more crucial to pay attention to detail as there were several times I failed to zero out my turrets between evolutions and would end up applying double dope and missing wildly.
By lunch time we had moved into the classroom for a class on the variable of long range shooting. This covered what we can control or account for, what we cannot control (wind), and what exists outside of the “noise” of shooting between 400-1000 yards. (Spin Drift, Coriolis effect, and aerodynamic jump). We had a several hour long class on how precision optics are made, tested, and what makes one optic better or worse than another. My biggest take aways were the things to do upon getting a new optic out of the box and also realizing that eye relief changes as you adjust your magnification in and out. A huge point that was stressed to comedic affect is that the side dial is not called the parallax adjustment dial, it is the side focus dial.
Day 3: We started by validating trajectories on the SASS and then had and outside class on the 4DOF calculator before building Dope Cards for the 40’s and the SASS. Since the wind had kicked up a bit we got another outdoor class on wind calls and spent some time shooting in the prone in order to see how the wind was affecting projectiles in flight. We went through a course of fire with the 40’s that would end up being shot again on Day 5 with the MK13’s for score. This involved 5 targets of known distance and challenged you to get first round impacts. At some point during the day we spent some time with the M110’s on a 400 yard moving target. At this point we still had the Gen II mil dot reticle on them and I had great success from the prone. We retrograded and had a working dinner while we set up for night vision shooting with the M40A6’s using a PVS-27. After a zero where we recorded the adjustment and a removal and reinstallation of the PVS-27 to ensure a return to zero we spent some time on the tower shooting out to ~500 yards. Caylen had a BE Meyers MAWL zeroed on top of his spotting scope and it did two things for us. First the IR illumination allowed you to distinctly see the target instead of the square shadow in front of the berm. Secondly it allows you to actually see a “trace” but in this instance it is the rear of the bullet reflecting IR light back into your optic and it appears like a tracer going down range. We discussed the benefits and issues of this set up, the major issue being your IR signature.
To finish the day, we reshot the known distance course of fire in buddy pairs at night with a time limit for score. I did terribly, partially due to my lack of attention to detail and turning my turret the wrong way in the dark, effectively returning my rifle to zero between the 200 and 300 target instead of applying the proper elevation.
Day 4: Between day 3 and 4, the firewatch removed all of the Nightforce 5-25’s off of the MK13’s and installed them on the M110’s. This was the first day we started shooting in full kit. We had a morning class on positional shooting, shooting in armor, and on the TMR3 reticle. After the M110 SASS’s we re-zeroed, we conducted a 100 meter positional shoot that involved running back and forth ~30 meters to recover your ammo between each shot. I enjoyed the positional topics because it focused on what you could get away with at what distances. For instance, I spent a lot of time putting a sand bag, tripod, and establishing a position to engage a target at 200 yards, and after I shot Phil had me do it again with the chassis simply resting on the barricade with no additional support to show me that depending on the range, target size, and time available, you need to be ready to shoot in a less stable option and can still get your hits. We engaged targets and known distance and the mover from different positions and this is where the TMR 3 reticle and I did not get along. With the added movement to the optic of a non-prone position, I was having a very hard time selecting an elevation line, selecting a windage/mover speed dot, and then quickly finding that aiming point again after the recoil for a follow up shot. After about half of the day, I started to dial my elevation into the turret and would merely hold along the windage line like I would with a Gen II Mil Dot. This worked slightly better, but I still had an issue with finding a repeatable aiming point. The 0.2 mil stadia lines are so fine that you have to be fairly magnified in order to reference them. Once a mover is applied, you’re trying to juggle several things and once and I would regularly apply the wrong hold even after figuring out what the holds needed to be. This can and needs to be fixed with training on my part.
I, along with several other shooters in the class, executed my course of fire by lazing each target, building a hasty range card, the engaged each target from left to right. While I made time, it was slow going and I was regularly re-checking my range card, dope card, and turrets. Caylin showed us after the fact how he would conduct this course of fire and it involved lazing a target, applying the dope, and engaging that target before moving on to another. This made far more sense to me and was less of a rangism and more of how a target may present itself on the battlefield.
We had another working dinner where Caylin and Phil covered Max Point Blank, how to determine the proper dope for it with the 4DOF and Danger Space before giving us the expectations for the graded event the next day.
Day 5: This held the culminating event of the course. Up until today we had not touched the MK13 other than to remove the optic and place it on the SASS for the previous day. First thing that morning, we were each given 20 rounds of 300 Win Mag and 45 minutes to set up the rifle, bore sight, zero, and Chronograph our rifles for score. Every round over 15 was a deduction of five points. Every shooter was done in 35 minutes or less, even with only having two chronographs.
Next we set up our data in the 4DOF calculator and moved to the tower in order to confirm the data at distance. I was in Phil’s group with three other shooters and was experiencing some very squirrelly results. While every other shooter was +/- 0.2 mils off from their data to the actual bullet performance at 550 meters, I needed to come up 0.4 mils. Phil found this odd, but we moved out to 650 meters. Again, every other shooter was very close with their rifle to data, but even with adding the original 0.4 mils to my new data, I needed to add another 0.4 mils. Phil had me go out to 750 meters and sure enough, I was now adding 1.6 mils on top of my 4DOF data for that distance. At this point I was starting to have serious doubts and was questioning my fundamentals instead of trusting that I was doing everything right and that the bullet was telling me something about my weapon system.
Apparently there is a known issue with the MK13 and the surefire suppressor combo and I happen to have a pair that we not getting along. Phil ran me to the 100-meter line, we conducted another quick zero without the suppressor and re-chronographed the rifle. All of this took less than 10 minutes and we were back on the tower. At the tower, I changed my 4DOF Data for the new muzzle velocity and Phil took me from 550 meters to 820 meters with first round impacts on everything except the 820-meter target. There I simply had a bad wind call, but was spot on with the elevation.
With the class having validated our trajectories, we moved into the class room for a working lunch to make our rifle dope cards. After lunch, we moved back to the tower and conducted a known distance course of fire. This held the same scoring we had used throughout the week of 3 points for a first round impact with a possible extra point for a follow up shot. If the first round missed, the second round impact gave 2 points, still with a possibility of a point for a follow up shot. If the first two rounds missed, then you could still squeeze one point out of the third round impact. Once the KD course of fire was completed, we spilt into two groups, one group worked positional movers with Phil while the other group went one at a time to run through the Unknown distance course of fire. We finished the day up with a conversation on rifle caliber selection depending on application.
Day 6: The final day we conducted a PRS style course of fire led by Jacob Bynum. It consisted of 5 stations and covered everything from 2 inch targets at 60 meters, 10 inch movers at 400, and stationary targets from prone, roof tops, helicopter bays, and more. It also required roughly 2000 meters of running in kit carrying the rifle and was a great confirmation of the skills we had learned throughout the week.
After the match we talked about personal rifle set ups and selections, further conversation on ammo selection, final class scores, and exchanged contact information before taking the rifles back out and working on shooters choice of drills for the remainder of the day.
Final thoughts: I feel like I drank from a fire hose for the entire week. Having no real baseline prior to the course was good because I did not have many bad habits to break, but bad because I felt like I needed to play catch up. Phil and Caylen are absolutely amazing instructors. I went to the course expecting to be treated like a PIG from my class mates and possibly even the instructors. I was completely and totally wrong, and was given the opportunity to learn in an environment where I could ask questions and make mistakes without feeling like I was going to be dropped or punished. Phil and Caylen are both incredibly professional instructors who know their material well and will never hesitate to demonstrate a course of fire or a technique. They miss sometimes, but it is incredible to watch and listen as they describe their thought process and fire a follow up shot that results in a hit before my mind has even processed the miss. Jacob and Lindy are also incredible teachers who have been shooting precision rifles since before I was born. It was a pleasure to learn under these men and I would highly recommend anyone who is into long range shooting/PRS, hunting, or someone who just wants to become a better shooter attend a Modern Day Sniper or Rifles Only course.