Fight Club 7; July 15-17 2016

MattJames

Certified Derpologist
Staff member
Moderator
Fight Club 7 AAR
July 15-17, 2016

Primary Instructor- Roland; PressCheck Consulting
Assistant Instructor- Bill Blowers

Round Count
1500 Rile
1000 Pistol

Equipment
Hodge Defense AU Mod 1 Upper
-SF Scout M600
-PEQ-15

Glock 17 Gen 4 w/X300U

BCM Lower with LAW Folder Gen 3
Velocity Systems Scarab PC w/ Plates
AWS Assault Belt
-x2 HSGI Taco Pouch’s
-Eagle FB M4 Pouch
-Velocity Systems Dumper
- Mayflower Medical kit
-ALS Safariland G17/X300

*Special Thanks to Kevin Williams for helping me piece together Day 2 Night Portion… for some reason my mind wasn’t switched on and I spaced on a lot of the content due to the issues I had with my rifle on day two.

Day 1
This was a BIG class with over 25+ shooters being that it was an introduction too the MAWL system for these agency SWAT guys.

Roland started the day with a basic intro of his background and why that mattered with respect too NV and IR Lasers. He then launched in to a intro into Night Vision systems and IR lasers/illuminator’s as it pertains to rifles and why certain aspects matter for their practical use.

Enter the BE Meyer’s MAWL. Roland is not shy about pimping this piece of kit. If you are a LE SWAT guy or a Army SOF guy (hell even a GPF guy) this is the illuminator and laser unit that you want. The power and potential for future expansion and support is there, as the whole unit is easily reprogrammed to the end user requirements at the factory. Also the way it emit's IR light is game changing to say the least after seeing it in action, not to mention its obvious form factor and ergonomic improvements over legacy systems.

We then started a walk around were Roland showed us in practical and visual terms what we was referring in the lecture by demonstrating the short falls of NV/IR and some of the work-arounds and benefits to having more power on the Illum/Laser end.

After the lecture/walk-about on NV systems and IR Lasers/Iluminator’s we moved to the range facility were we commenced zero operations. Roland is HUGE on zero being something that shouldn’t be “good enough” but something that should be given its due time and effort.

There are two methods with various pro’s and con’s;

Zero to a specific distance and zero to infinity. Basically its zeroing to a “convergence” (zero to a distance) or zeroing to “parallel” (zero to infinity).

Now bare with me because I’m still wrapping my mind around the zeroing aspects due to their being a third, offset LOS (Line of Sight) along the laser vs. the POI (Point of Impact).

Zero to Convergence- Basically this involves taking the laser and just like your Day Optic Zero you are zeroing the laser to a specific distance. There are issues with this just like one has with zeroing to a specific distance with a Day Optic, but instead of a elevation shift as you increase or decrease distance with a DO there is both a windage shift left/right AND and elevation shift as you increase or decrease distance. This is good for a KISS solution for everyone, but when it comes to engagement distances for specific context’s it becomes less then ideal.

Zero to Parallel or Zero to Infinity-
This basically involves you zeroing to give yourself the most optimal POI for your system capabilities and give you the most optimal hit probability. Conversely it requires more thought on the shooter’s part. It involves measuring the Height over Bore of the optic laser emitters and the centre of the barrel. Then you are zeroing from 25, then to 50y to the distance of the windage offset OPPOSITE of the offset of the laser. The advantages here are many if you bother to look. This allows you to zero and hit out too the effective range of the rifle and your zero and/or your NV system with as minimal shift as you can expect without slaving yourself to a specific distance. The only marked disadvantage is that you have an offset aiming point (high and right for a right handed shooter with a MAWL for example) within 50 yards (typically you must aim high and right the right relative to the offset of your of a right oriented laster system on a twelve o’clock rail. This will be system specific to some degree, as the MAWL is the only system that allows for fitting according to the ergonomic requirements of the user and these measurements will change depending on what rail and which system is being used (PEQ15, LA-5, MAWL, PEQ-2, etc…).

Further Commentary by Roland himself-
“Zeroing to distance has but one single advantage. People used to zeroing to POA/POI can wrap their head around it, no matter how fucking stupid they are.

Parallel zero is nothing more than ensuring that your windage is aligned just like you would with an RDS zero.... but because the laser emitter is offset, the POA/POI will share the SAME offset.”

After Zeroing was concluded at 50y we shot at 100m to get a confirmed on steel our zero’s. Despite the large class size we had pretty much 100 percent hits on steel.

This ended Day 1 at 0300.

Day 2

Day 2 started at 1800-ish. We moved immediately in to a 300 point Aggregate Day shoot with pistol. This drill consisted of 25 yards bullseye with 10 minutes given for 10 shots, shooters choice, all on a B8 Bull. Scores were tallied and we moved to shooting 10 shots from the 10 yard line in 30, 20, 10 second increments, for a 400 point total score if you punched the X ring. I didn’t do terrible on my first run (with around a 350), but the run on day 3 was a wash.

Next we moved in too a VTAC Pistol Diagnostic Drill- x2 fifteen round magazines, Again, I fucked up and had the wrong round count on the head vs the centre. I could account this to utter fatigue, as I was on day 5 of a shoot-a-thon and was heavy in too the sleep debt, but this would a lie to cover my idiocy. Either way it went… OK in the sense my accuracy was decent, my reload was smooth and I met par time.

We then moved to shooting a Bianchi drill with 5 circular plates and one rectangle. Plates were shot Virginia count with a max par time (meaning you get one shot to hit each plate, no make ups, going from 10 yards out to 25 yard with increasing time hacks). I did fine at 10 yards, but it got increasingly less awesome at 15, 20, and 25 yards as expected.

This ended right about as dusk hit so we broke to jam mags and done NVG’s/Armor.

We then moved to the 10 yard line an printed some B8 bull’s standing on ready up drill to fine tune our holds for our parallel zero’s.

Then we moved to the 15 yards for pairs to the chest and pairs with x2 targets. Then Box drills on 2 targets. This was repeated in varied sequences for 10-25 yards and was vary individual to give guys a bit of guided self discovery. We were working both movement and increasing cadence of shots as we moved closer to the target under NVG’s/IR lasers, all the while taking note of our holds.

Thus began moving and shooting drill’s with lasers/NVG’s. This also had a dual purpose of teaching cadence with respect too distance to target, similar to the “gas pedal drills” that dialing what you know you can get away with in speed vs accuracy. Also to work on shot to shot recovery while watching a laser which is very mentally consuming for those who are not used to shooting in this manner at night.

After the movement drills we took a quick break to jam magazines and reload our kit. We then started from the 25y’s moving laterally from left to right (good for a right handed shooter). Again I found issues with my performance due to having a bit of task overload on my hands getting my mind wrapped around shooting a laser vs a RDS. I noticed both myself and a lot of the guys slowing down and trying to get the laser to steady on target then slapping the trigger like it owes us money. This similar to the guy at the range we all have seen who has a Crimson Trace laser to zero and can't seem to focus on his fundamentals while watching the laser like a cat.

The evening begun with some lateral shooting drills, both from the left and right starting engaging the steel array with one round required hit on a target to move to the next. At the end of the array completion you ran to the 10 yard chemlight and shot the bianchi plate racks under white light strong hand, either by flipping up your NVG’s, looking over them, or looking to one side to track the sights with one eye. Again, something that is very important for teams to figure out if they do not have RDS equipped pistol slides.

The the last drill for the evening was the Outside, Outside, Inside, Inside. Basically, 4 plates, two on the far outer edges and two in the centre. With one magazine you start on the far left, swing to the far right then the inside left and inside right, then move from the outside right and swing to the far left, etc… You keep that rhythm going with the objective being to swing your eyes and head aggressively to the next target and move the rifle accordingly. If you finish the drill on the inside you have to continue with your pistol until you reach on outside plate. Essentially an aggressive vision rhythm drill that requires some thought. I did not get to complete this drill as my rifle decided to have multiple malfunctions in less then 10 rounds so I called it and took it off the line.

Day 2 was a far amount of individual shooting which ate up a lot of time, that being said we didn’t get a lot of ground covered despite that and the large class size.

Day 3

Day 3 opened with another 300 point aggregate, in which my performance was much worse then previous. My dreaded recoil anticipation showed up yo play so my 25y B8 looked like Hellen Keller shot the damned thing. Performance was acceptable on the 10 yards strings.

Moved to the 10 yard VTAC drill. Manipulation was good, and I made the par time however my target reflected my recoil flinch/post ignition push.

We moved to the 100y line to work VTAC Barrier’s and a little Bang and Clang Discovery Learning (as Bill calls it) and how that effected both our LOS with the NVG’s (shoot through one hole, look through a different one for example) as well as what are limitations were in various alternative prone or kneeling and the laser position on the rifle.

Conversely this was also a teaching point for many of the guys who had SBR’s. With the cluster of light and laser being offset, not only did you need to take care not to rest your muzzle on the barricade, but also how you orient the rifle will change since your not aiming along the 12 o’clock with the Day Optic. Additionally, Roland took a minute to explain the importance of a rigid rail system and barrel nut when you start attaching items off the receiver that require a consistent zero. This is especially apparent as you cam in to the barricade or sling to get tension, you can literally move your laser entire target width’s off target at just a 100 yards. This illustrated the need for stiff rails with thick barrel nuts (such as the Gies Mk4 and 8 series rails, or even the ALG style rails or Mega Wedge for some examples).

After the barrier work we went back to the 10 yard line and ran the kings gambit of El Pres drills for most of the rest of the evening with Bill and Roland running the timers. Roland demonstrated and gave us a short shooting clinic on some tricks he picked up from Jerry Miculek on how to shoot drills like that fast. While they aren’t necessarily skills that would be applicable for tactical shooters who are trained too assess between sight pictures it does reinforce aggressive vision. Essentially it boils down to moving your eyes to the next target upon recoil of the last shot and shifting the gun to follow the eyes in that same space of time one would make a shot. Ideally it should sound like one string of 6 shots with no break in split times between target transitions and shot-to-shot. This isn’t really doable for tactical shooters in terms of the shooting method, but the lessons taken such as aggressively moving your eyes is very germane to shooting under NVG’s were you are living life under green screen and have only however many degree’s of FOV that you’re NVG’s afford you.

We performed a variety of El Pres variants under a variety of conditions and stipulations-
-Laser under NVG’s, with transition to pistol under NVG’s
-M4/Laser Reload M4
-M4 Day Optic white light, reload M4
-M4 Day Optic Under NV
-etc…

Personal notes on my performance-
I realised about half way through day 2 night portion that in 7.5 years as an Army Infantry guy I had NEVER done anything in the realm of SRM with my lasers. Never. Which is staggering and a bit disconcerting to say the least. Espcieally more ridiculous as they thought it was fine to then to have us run through a Live fire shoot house under NV shortly after in the training cycle. I found that much like the guy at the range with a new Crimson Trace laser, and having the added issue of turning on my laser switchology and decide between a single pump and hold (on) or double pump (constant on) I was focusing way too much on what I was doing, and getting fixated on the laser vs my fundamentals. This smoothed out considerably on day 3 but this coupled with my upper which was having a a lot of issues I was less then engaged on day 2 then I was day 3. On day 3 Roland let me run his spare gat and was back in business and even got to run a 1-6 Vortex HD II, which I was very pleased with all thing considered. So much so I purchased one and a Giessele mount two days later.

Conclusions-
Overall this was a much needed class for me as it’s frankly something I had never given a lot of thought too. This is likely due to the fact I haven’t had a lot of choices for NV systems in my military time. Specifically this is a great class for guys who are already pretty familiar with moving under NVG’s and want to “take it to the next level.” As I mentioned, I was a bit stunned to realize that I had not ever shot in this kind of context under NVG’s outside of a night shoot house, which was absurd considering we hadn’t done one iota of short range marksmanship or gun handling under NVG’s prior to that. If you are commander or a SWAT that has lasers and NV and is thinking about how to integrate them and work the marksmanship and employment side, as well as a lesson what too buy this is a must have introduction to fighting with a gun under green screen. My NV time as a Grunt essentially amounted to a few familiarisation fires on a qual range with targets with IR chem lights on them. It was a massive eye opener, which actually allowed me to better understand how to exploit these systems in the future.
 

jwramp

Bird's Eye View
Fantastic - thanks for taking the time to write about your experience. Any ideas on why you were having carbine drills on that drill that you mentioned? What sort of NVGs did you run?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

MattJames

Certified Derpologist
Staff member
Moderator
BNVS-15s with a Wilcox mount.

As far as your second question... I'm not sure if I follow?
 

jwramp

Bird's Eye View
[QUOTE="MattJames, post: 15265, member: 125" ] I did not get to complete this drill as my rifle decided to have multiple malfunctions in less then 10 rounds so I called it and took it off the line.[/QUOTE]

Just this here. Heard dudes raving about Hodges, so wondered what the issue was.
 
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