Mark Davis
Newbie
The class was held at Prado Olympic Shooting Park, which was built and used in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. It is a large facility with numerous bays and different areas for skeet, trap, pistol, etc. Our group was located on a 50 yard outdoor range, immediately adjacent to a large covered area which provided shade during breaks.
The instructor was Mike Panone, who was active USMC, Army SOF-D, an instructor for the Federal Air Marshalls, and is well known in the shooting community.
Over the past few years I’ve taken several handgun, shotgun and combative courses from various instructors. However I have not had any “tactical” rifle training since I was an infantryman in the Marine Corps in 1980’s. I know that things have changed significantly since then, so I was eager to learn from someone with Mike’s extensive real-world experience.
My rifle consisted of an early S&W MP15 upper receiver and BCG mounted on a Doublestar lower with CMMG parts and Geissele trigger. It is a “featureless” California-legal rifle with a Monsterman grip and ambi safety. I used a Vickers adjustable sling and my mags were California legal pre-ban 20 round alumimum USGI with original springs and followers, and a few 10 round mags of assorted origin. My optic was a Burris MTAC 1-4x illuminated reticle in a Burris PERP mount. Ammo was a mix of 5.56mm 62 gr green tip and 55 gr Armscorp FMJ. I didn’t keep an accurate count but I think I shot around 500 rounds.
I got there a little early and lugged my gear to the line. The first thing I noticed was the amount of gun handling by students. Most of the courses I’ve previously attended started with an extensive safety briefing before the guns were even uncased. Not so here. Guys were prepping rifles and dry firing.
The class was scheduled to start at 0830, but didn’t get started until about 0900. Mike strolled up and gave the shortest safety briefing I’ve ever heard. He quickly went over the 4 safety rules and reminded us that the rifle was a lethal instrument designed to extinguish human life. We were expected to handle it accordingly.
Based on my previous experience, I expected to sign numerous waivers, receive an orientation and long safety briefing, and a have brief intro from each class member. Not the case at this course. After Mike finished his quick safety briefing he sent us down range to set up targets. No waivers and no intros.
It should be noted that this class occurred on a Sunday. The previous day Mike had taught a pistol class at the same location. Many of the students at the Carbine class had also attended the pistol class the previous day. It is possible the Saturday class started with intros and a longer safety briefing and orientation.
We started with checking zero at 50 yards. Mike did not explain why he prefers this zero. It was a hot range from the start, with students expected to keep their weapons loaded. In between courses of fire, rifles were on safe and slung.
There were approximately 15 shooters, and I quickly realized the instructor/student ratio was not ideal. I was located at the far end of the line and Mike seldom walked to the end of the where I was located. Between courses of fire I got in the habit of quickly walking to the middle of the line to where Mike was located so I could hear him talking to the small knot of students invariably gathered around him.
A couple of new shooters were taking a long time to find their zero, so Mike eventually gave a quick demonstration of natural point of aim, respiratory pause, follow through, and trigger squeeze. I was familiar with these fundamentals, but I was interested to see how Mike used his 30 round magazine as a monopod while in the prone position. I also noted that when Mike is adjusting NPOA elevation, he recommends moving the stock up and down in the shoulder, rather than moving the body closer or further way from the forward elbow, as taught in the USMC in the 80’s.
We moved on to learning our optical offsets at close range. Mike has an innovative drill for this that really forces you to think. Mike explained that knowing your offset between line of sight and bullet trajectory is critical for close range surgical shooting. He explained that in his career he had been expected to put a bullet into an eyeball at close range.
We moved onto to working on support side shooting and transitioning from strong to support. I would have liked a description from Mike about which circumstances require support side shooting, but like much of the class, it was assumed that students already understood the basics.
Later in the day Mike had us work on transitioning from standing to kneeling, and then to prone. Unfortunately there was little instruction on how to set up a good position. We did some man-on-man drills on steel targets which required me to swap out my ammo from green tip to FMJ. Fortunately I still had some 55 gr FMJ left in my ammo box. The man-on-man drills were fun, and it was clear that a lot of the class were advanced shooters. At least one was Army and many of the others were active LEO from local agencies. I discovered that I have plenty of room for improvement.
Many of the drills were based on firing 30 rounds, which made life tough for the small group of shooters using California-legal 10 round mags. I was a little disappointed there wasn’t any discussion about reloading technique. Again, shooters were assumed to know the basics already.
Mike heavily emphasizes the use of the safety. The safety is engaged before the rifle is dismounted from the shoulder, and is also engaged for reloads. Mike discussed why he strongly favors this approach, and described an ND he observed in Iraq that occurred when this rule wasn’t followed.
Late in the day Mike discussed malfunctions, and described the three classification. He demonstrated how to fix the most difficult “significant” malfunction – the bolt override double feed. He demonstrated this several times, then had us create the malfunction and clear it numerous times. Here is video of his discussion about malfunctions (not my video but from the same class I attended)
It was during this phase that I got some personal attention from Mike. He observed me trying to keep my muzzle out of the dirt while working on the doublefeed, and told me that the gun will run fine even if the muzzle becomes slightly blocked. He stated the barrel has to be choked with dirt almost to the gas port before it becomes a problem. He demonstrated with his rifle – grinding the muzzle into the dirt.
One of the shooters had a mag stuck in the rifle at this point, and Mike diagnosed the problem and used the opportunity to discuss the problem of overdriving a magazine into the rifle. In this case it was a Gen 1 PMAG and the shooter had pushed it too far into the magazine well, probably while the bolt was retracted. This is why he doesn’t recommend slamming the mag into the rifle when the bolt is to the rear.
Mike segued into a discussion of his preferred magazines (USGI 30 rounders), loaded to full capacity (30+1). He also talked about the overall excellent reliability of the AR platform with DI gas system.
About 1600 hrs we wrapped up. I would have like to gone a little longer but I’ve heard elsewhere that Mike thinks long days are counterproductive for the learning process. We had a short informal graduation ceremony. Certificates and Velcro patches were passed out. Mike’s patch has heavy symbolism and it was a nice touch.
This is good class for someone who already has a carbine class under their belt. It was advertised as basic but it was not an intro class. There was a new shooter next to me on the line and he really struggled trying to keep up. I had my own challenges, and wished that I’d had another class beforehand to tune up.
Mike has an incredible amount of knowledge about firearms, shooting and gun fighting. The student/instructor ratio could have been better, but I was able to partially remediate this issue by walking over to Mike’s location and listening in to whatever he was discussing. I’ll definitely attend more of Mike’s classes if the opportunity presents itself.
The instructor was Mike Panone, who was active USMC, Army SOF-D, an instructor for the Federal Air Marshalls, and is well known in the shooting community.
Over the past few years I’ve taken several handgun, shotgun and combative courses from various instructors. However I have not had any “tactical” rifle training since I was an infantryman in the Marine Corps in 1980’s. I know that things have changed significantly since then, so I was eager to learn from someone with Mike’s extensive real-world experience.
My rifle consisted of an early S&W MP15 upper receiver and BCG mounted on a Doublestar lower with CMMG parts and Geissele trigger. It is a “featureless” California-legal rifle with a Monsterman grip and ambi safety. I used a Vickers adjustable sling and my mags were California legal pre-ban 20 round alumimum USGI with original springs and followers, and a few 10 round mags of assorted origin. My optic was a Burris MTAC 1-4x illuminated reticle in a Burris PERP mount. Ammo was a mix of 5.56mm 62 gr green tip and 55 gr Armscorp FMJ. I didn’t keep an accurate count but I think I shot around 500 rounds.
I got there a little early and lugged my gear to the line. The first thing I noticed was the amount of gun handling by students. Most of the courses I’ve previously attended started with an extensive safety briefing before the guns were even uncased. Not so here. Guys were prepping rifles and dry firing.
The class was scheduled to start at 0830, but didn’t get started until about 0900. Mike strolled up and gave the shortest safety briefing I’ve ever heard. He quickly went over the 4 safety rules and reminded us that the rifle was a lethal instrument designed to extinguish human life. We were expected to handle it accordingly.
Based on my previous experience, I expected to sign numerous waivers, receive an orientation and long safety briefing, and a have brief intro from each class member. Not the case at this course. After Mike finished his quick safety briefing he sent us down range to set up targets. No waivers and no intros.
It should be noted that this class occurred on a Sunday. The previous day Mike had taught a pistol class at the same location. Many of the students at the Carbine class had also attended the pistol class the previous day. It is possible the Saturday class started with intros and a longer safety briefing and orientation.
We started with checking zero at 50 yards. Mike did not explain why he prefers this zero. It was a hot range from the start, with students expected to keep their weapons loaded. In between courses of fire, rifles were on safe and slung.
There were approximately 15 shooters, and I quickly realized the instructor/student ratio was not ideal. I was located at the far end of the line and Mike seldom walked to the end of the where I was located. Between courses of fire I got in the habit of quickly walking to the middle of the line to where Mike was located so I could hear him talking to the small knot of students invariably gathered around him.
A couple of new shooters were taking a long time to find their zero, so Mike eventually gave a quick demonstration of natural point of aim, respiratory pause, follow through, and trigger squeeze. I was familiar with these fundamentals, but I was interested to see how Mike used his 30 round magazine as a monopod while in the prone position. I also noted that when Mike is adjusting NPOA elevation, he recommends moving the stock up and down in the shoulder, rather than moving the body closer or further way from the forward elbow, as taught in the USMC in the 80’s.
We moved on to learning our optical offsets at close range. Mike has an innovative drill for this that really forces you to think. Mike explained that knowing your offset between line of sight and bullet trajectory is critical for close range surgical shooting. He explained that in his career he had been expected to put a bullet into an eyeball at close range.
We moved onto to working on support side shooting and transitioning from strong to support. I would have liked a description from Mike about which circumstances require support side shooting, but like much of the class, it was assumed that students already understood the basics.
Later in the day Mike had us work on transitioning from standing to kneeling, and then to prone. Unfortunately there was little instruction on how to set up a good position. We did some man-on-man drills on steel targets which required me to swap out my ammo from green tip to FMJ. Fortunately I still had some 55 gr FMJ left in my ammo box. The man-on-man drills were fun, and it was clear that a lot of the class were advanced shooters. At least one was Army and many of the others were active LEO from local agencies. I discovered that I have plenty of room for improvement.
Many of the drills were based on firing 30 rounds, which made life tough for the small group of shooters using California-legal 10 round mags. I was a little disappointed there wasn’t any discussion about reloading technique. Again, shooters were assumed to know the basics already.
Mike heavily emphasizes the use of the safety. The safety is engaged before the rifle is dismounted from the shoulder, and is also engaged for reloads. Mike discussed why he strongly favors this approach, and described an ND he observed in Iraq that occurred when this rule wasn’t followed.
Late in the day Mike discussed malfunctions, and described the three classification. He demonstrated how to fix the most difficult “significant” malfunction – the bolt override double feed. He demonstrated this several times, then had us create the malfunction and clear it numerous times. Here is video of his discussion about malfunctions (not my video but from the same class I attended)
It was during this phase that I got some personal attention from Mike. He observed me trying to keep my muzzle out of the dirt while working on the doublefeed, and told me that the gun will run fine even if the muzzle becomes slightly blocked. He stated the barrel has to be choked with dirt almost to the gas port before it becomes a problem. He demonstrated with his rifle – grinding the muzzle into the dirt.
One of the shooters had a mag stuck in the rifle at this point, and Mike diagnosed the problem and used the opportunity to discuss the problem of overdriving a magazine into the rifle. In this case it was a Gen 1 PMAG and the shooter had pushed it too far into the magazine well, probably while the bolt was retracted. This is why he doesn’t recommend slamming the mag into the rifle when the bolt is to the rear.
Mike segued into a discussion of his preferred magazines (USGI 30 rounders), loaded to full capacity (30+1). He also talked about the overall excellent reliability of the AR platform with DI gas system.
About 1600 hrs we wrapped up. I would have like to gone a little longer but I’ve heard elsewhere that Mike thinks long days are counterproductive for the learning process. We had a short informal graduation ceremony. Certificates and Velcro patches were passed out. Mike’s patch has heavy symbolism and it was a nice touch.
This is good class for someone who already has a carbine class under their belt. It was advertised as basic but it was not an intro class. There was a new shooter next to me on the line and he really struggled trying to keep up. I had my own challenges, and wished that I’d had another class beforehand to tune up.
Mike has an incredible amount of knowledge about firearms, shooting and gun fighting. The student/instructor ratio could have been better, but I was able to partially remediate this issue by walking over to Mike’s location and listening in to whatever he was discussing. I’ll definitely attend more of Mike’s classes if the opportunity presents itself.