WARRIOR TALK NEWS

Patterning Chaos

Learn the pattern, practice the pattern, integrate the pattern, become the pattern, discard the pattern. If you don’t, you risk failure when Chaos comes.

CR Williams

The Fight.

Havoc. Confusion. Distraction. The Fog of your very own, intensely personal WAR. SHTF. Pain and fear and anger. Adrenaline dumping to the bloodstream. Tunnel vision and auditory exclusion and tricks on your perception and thinking and memory. All of that and it feels like more.

Chaos, let’s call it. Entropy focused in time and space, entropy squared where you’re at and when you’re there. The three laws of thermodynamics rolling into a point and hitting you square in the head and heart, driving into your world at a time and place of the bad guy’s choosing and, as much as he can make it, under his control.

Your mission if that happens, whether you want to accept it or not, is to manage that sudden Chaos enough to be the one that goes home when the fight is over and your life has returned to its normal and invisibly-entropic state. Your mission is to not just survive, but to regain and impose order through the Chaos, enough order so that the bad guy’s plan suffers its own sudden and unexpected entropic onset and collapses on him.

Put more plainly, you want to win the fight you didn’t know was coming and you want to win it decisively.

How do you do that? By planning and preparation and practice and training. Everybody knows that.

Everybody also knows that the fight is fluid, the fight is chaotic, and you can’t predict when the fight will come or how the fight will develop and happen. You won’t know where, you won’t know when, you won’t know who, you won’t know how many, you won’t know…

By definition, you can’t really expect the unexpected. That’s why it’s called ‘the unexpected’ in the first place, right?

So how do you prepare for something you won’t know about?

Here is a paradox of preparing for the fight: To be able to handle Chaos, you have to learn about Order. To deal with what is fluid, you must first build a foundation of and on that which is solid.

You have to learn the Patterns. You simply will not fight as well without them as you will if you have learned them well enough to discard them. And that is another paradox of the fight: To have the best chance of winning decisively, you must yourself fight without a pattern, and you can’t do that without first learning what those patterns are.

If Combat Is Chaos, though, why do we have to learn Patterns? Why can’t we learn a bunch of techniques (some of which are themselves Patterns, mind you) and then apply them ‘on the fly’ as needed?

Patterns teach us concepts and principles that stretch over, organize, and direct us and the techniques we learn. Roger Phillips’ ‘Drawstroke Continuum’ for example. The pattern we learn is the drawstroke to a range of places, planes, orientations, and directions. The concepts and principles we learn include such things as driving the gun to the target, extending the gun only as far as is safe (from a snatch attempt), and staying under the master eye or visual center throughout. Even learning a basic to-the-front X-count drawstroke, you learn those things sometimes without knowing you are learning those things. All I remember doing before my first PSP course was a normal drawstroke, but once Roger had explained things and we started running, it became a crude but serviceable multi-directional, multi-level, multi-range variable draw that accommodated itself to whatever direction Roger had us running to. I didn’t learn a different drawstroke for each specific direction, I learned the Pattern well enough to get the Principles and Concepts integrated and then dropped it (keeping the Principles and Concepts) when it didn’t go to exactly the direction and level I needed to go to. You can, and will, do the same if you will only apply yourself to that kind of focused training.

This Pattern learned...

 

...provides the concepts and principles that allow you to discard it on demand:

 

Patterns give us automatic responses that start us acting while we’re still surprised. There is a saying about finding yourself in a survival situation that goes something like: “Do SOMETHING even if it’s wrong!” The idea is to start yourself moving and acting in order to keep yourself from stopping either because you panic and freeze or because you over-think the situation and hesitate to do anything that’s not near-perfect. The same principle can apply to the much smaller time-scales involved in a fight for life. Patterns integrated and made automatic can get us moving when the tendency might be to stop until our mind processes the input of the attack. The repetitive practice of the pattern gives our subconscious, the ‘monkey brain’ that takes over in those moments, a familiar thing. You know what to do without being conscious of it, and as you’re getting caught up consciously, you’re taking action, even if it’s not perfect. That gives you a chance to get ‘on course’ while it throws off the attacker’s planning about how things will go. You catch up, you get ahead, you win. Without learning the pattern, the risk is increased that you freeze while you’re assessing things. You fall further behind and you lose. Better to have the ‘automatic’ built in somewhere.

The Patterns we learn are sometimes all we need to Win. There are many cases where just the first move, or the setup for the first move, whether that’s drawing the weapon but not using it to the first automatic block/deflection/evasion and counterstrike, will change the attacker’s mind about continuing. Starting the pattern you have learned and made automatic starts your mind and spirit on their way to ‘fighting’ mode as well. The physical reflects on the mental which alters the physical again, and on and on. By assuming the ‘attitude’ that a particular Pattern forces on you, you may tell the attacker that you’re more of a risk than others and make them decide to break away. You go home unharmed. That’s a Win.

Patterns are the basis of the improvisation that we need in the fight. There are a limited number of chords and notes in music, but look at the music that is generated from that. There are only three primary colors that, mixed together various ways, produce all the hues and tones we see and use. The human body only moves in certain ways over certain ranges, and the most efficient ways to move are limited, but that has not limited the sports and the martial arts that have been developed to use those movements over those ranges. The patterns we learn in the beginning are what we will use in the near-continuous adaptation to the specific threat and the specific fight we may or will face—and I can all but guarantee that we will have to adapt, to modify and add and subtract from and combine those basic patterns to meet the demands of the moment. Broad similarities? Surely so. But even fighting the same opponent in the same place, something is always different, something will always demand at least some variation and adaptation to the demands of the instant. If it happens in controlled environments—the ring, the Octagon, the dojo—how much more likely is it to happen in the parking lot at 8pm?

Patterns, then, are important, and not just something to grit your teeth and bear until the instructor gets to the really neat stuff. Because…and trust me on this one…you won’t do the really neat stuff nearly as well unless you’ve given more than a cursory nod and some lip service to the fundamental concepts and principles that Patterns teach you. And unless you can do the fundamentals and the basics well and almost forgetfully when you’re on the range shooting straight up and straight ahead, you risk not being able to do them in the drugstore parking lot at 8:30 in the evening when you’re caught between two cars and the guy on your left with the big knife.

Musashi might have put it this way: Study the Way, make the Way part of you, become the Way, forget the Way and be what you really were in the beginning. I say it this way: Learn the Patterns, integrate the Patterns, make the Patterns natural, forget the Patterns, and so become more comfortable in Chaos. Either way you put it, if you do this—and it doesn’t take as much effort and time as you may think to—you will still end up being able to defend yourself and destroy your enemies far better and more quickly than you could before.

And that’s the bottom line to all of this, isn’t it?

Be safe out there. And if you can’t be safe, be dangerous.

Important things to take to a gun class

By Dr. John Meade

Director of Tactical Medicine

Suarez International

 

There are a variety of things that you should remember when you are planning to attend a gun class. Some are items to take, and some are actions to take. Both are vitally important.

Second gun--You certainly don't want to miss the class if your gun breaks during the first hour. If it is a pistol class, be sure the spare fits your holster.

Spare gun parts--As with the need for a full second gun, you are wise to carry a few spare parts for your gun(s). Sometimes a simple spring replacement is all that is needed to get the primary weapon back up & running.

Tools--At least bring a multi-tool, so that you can use whatever parts you brought. Also a cleaning rod, to dislodge stuck cases.

Simple cleaning supplies-While you don't need to detail strip your gun, you at least might want to clean off the mud and apply some lube occasionally.

Extra batteries--For optics, hearing protection, flashlights, etc.

Shooting glasses & baseball cap--to protect from flying brass & richochets.

Hearing protection--Electronic ear muffs are the standard now. You want to be able to hear range commands, learn more, and be safer than with old-fashioned plugs or muffs.

Ammo--Bring at least 50% more than the published class minimum. You will shortchange your training if you have to limit the number of rounds you shoot, compared with your classmates.

Mag loader--A LULA or similar device will save your thumbs. Loading as many mags as you can before the class will allow you to concentrate on discussions, rather than constantly having to run back to reload mags.

Duct tape--Do I really have to explain this?

Clothes for class--Layers, because you are sure to get warm during activity.

Clothes for night--Spend some time with the other students. Make some great new friends.

Garbage bags--Good for bagging up your dirty clothes and boots after the class.

Baby wipes & clothes for the drive home--Make the drive home just a little more bearable!

Rain jacket and pants--SI classes run, rain or shine.

Insect repellent, sunscreen, Band-Aids, Ace bandage--Improve your overall experience by avoiding those little annoyances.

Camera--To record the fun!

Folding chair--For a little comfort during breaks.

Food--Put a cooler in the car with a few snacks (granola bars, fruit), and something for lunch (peanut butter & jelly). You will be expending a lot of energy. Your engine cannot function without fuel.

Water--Heat exhaustion is an insidious problem. Even in temperatures that don't seem horribly hot, you will lose water at a very rapid rate. I recommend you bring 2-3 gallons of water with you, if the temp is moderate. If it is really hot, bring 5! Drink much more water than you think you need. One of the first symptoms of dehydration is headache. Don't wait until you are thirsty; if you wait, you will already be dehydrated. You should be urinating at least every couple of hours. The urine should be clear in color; if it is dark, you are getting dehydrated. At a recent class in ~85 degree weather, I drank about 1 liter per hour, and still was not over-hydrated. If you are someone who is not acclimated to the heat (office worker, from cooler climates, or it is early in the summer), you should drink even more!

Shemagh or other cooling method--A shemagh or large bandanna can be soaked in cool water and wrapped around your neck. It will cool the blood going to your head, and the evaporation of the water removes excess body heat. Some people also wet their caps, or their shirts, for additional evaporative cooling.

Don't overlook these things, and end up having to quit a class you have already spent time & money to take. Just a little attention to these matters will enable you to have fun, and learn what you intended to learn from your class.

For state of the art training, come train with me and the other Suarez International staff.

http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com/traumamedicineforccw.aspx

Dr. John Meade is Director of Tactical Medicine for Suarez International (www.suarezinternational.com), and a board-certified Emergency Physician. He is a reserve police officer on a multi-jurisdictional SWAT team, an EMS medical director and an NRA certified instructor. He may be contacted on WarriorTalk, or his website at www.statdoc.com .

The Fighting Rifle and it's essentials…..

by Don Robison

Suarez International Staff Instructor

The concept of quality gear isn’t new and there are always those looking to just get by or who for whatever reason are afraid of technology; when you’re talking about a piece of life saving equipment just getting by and not maximizing the resources available is the wrong approach. 

The fighting rifle; there has been a lot written about the fighting rifle. What it is, what isn’t, what it should be, what it shouldn’t be. Here is my take on all of those opinions. A fighting rifle is the rifle you have right now; it’s the rifle you train with. It’s not the uber cool rifle you don’t have. What are the attributes of a fighting rifle for me? A fighting rifle must be as simple as you need it to be and as light as you prefer, but most importantly reliable. This is usually the point where the AR guys start pontificating about how light their rifle is and the AK guys do the same about the reliability of their rifle. Guess what; none of that matters if you don’t own the knowledge and skill to get the most out of your chosen platform. Me, I don’t care which one I use, but I do gravitate towards the AR platform because I have the most time and training with it. That said, I own both train with both and keep both as simple as I need them to be. The essentials of a fighting rifle for me are obviously the rifle (a quality rifle), reliable well-built magazines, simple two point sling, quality red dot sight and back up iron sight, and a quality light of at least 60-80 lumens., but more importantly than all of those things is the knowledge to get the most out of my equipment. Let’s talk about each of those components individually.

The rifle; quality costs money. In the AR platform affordable quality is defined in no particular order Bravo Company, Daniel Defense, LMT and Colt. Bushmaster, DPMS, and Olympic Arms, regardless of what your local gun shop guy says is not “just as good”. Most of them probably have never seen a quality built rifle. Much to the chagrin of some people; quality also costs in the AK platform. Quality is defined as Rifle Dynamics, Red Jacket and Krebs. Century is not “just as good”. Does this mean that if you have a DPMS or Century that it can’t be reliable, functional or is total junk? No, what it means is that the law of averages is stacked in your favor if you have a weapon from a manufacturer known to build to a standard of quality.

Magazines; quality GI magazines with anti-tilt followers and PMags are currently the order of the day in the AR platform. U.S. Palm, Circle10 and surplus metal magazines can’t be beat in the AK platform. Tapco has no place in either rifle.

Slings; there are a lot of sling preferences. There are also a lot of slings being used because some cool guy uses it and is marketing it; not because it’s the best sling for the average user. My preferences in order non-adjustable two point sling, adjustable two point, single point.

Optics; Aimpoint for red dot sights, there are others, but none are as rugged or have the battery life of the Aimpoint sights. I will say the Trijicon adjustable RMR looks promising for a rifle mounted optic, but the jury is still out. In my opinion not enough of them have been mounted and run hard on rifles yet. For magnified optics; my choices are Trijicon ACOG, Leupold on the high end and Burris for a lower cost quality optic.

Backup Iron Sight; Don't forget to add a BUIS. I prefer a fixed BUIS like the Daniel Defense or LaRue, but there are several quality folding sights from Troy, Knights Armament etc. Fixed or folding is a personal preference, but my rule of thumb is magnified optics get a folding BUIS non-magnified optics get a fixed BUIS. On the AK it’s hard to beat a Rifle Dynamics modified rear sight.

Lights; Surefire period. There are other manufacturers out there, but none with the quality and customer service equal to Surefire.

Now, let’s talk about stripping things off the rifle if I need to make choices.  Choices are never easy and are always situational dependent.  Given my list of essentials if I had to start getting rid of things on my rifle, here is what I would get rid of in order and the reason why.

1.  Sling; A sling is handy as well as needed for classes and to practice a “proper” transition to the handgun. However, at handgun transition distances I can engage with the pistol one handed with the rifle in the non-dominant hand if needed.

2. Weapon Mounted Light; I ran a rifle for a lot of years without one, I can do it again if needed, but since I don’t have three hands I would prefer a light mounted to my rifle.

3. Red Dot Sight; We ran rifles for a lot of years before the advent of the red dot sight, but given the technology advances it would be the last piece of gear I would strip off my rifle. It’s been said that a red dot is like cheating; I’ll take every bit of help I can get.

What I’m left with is a quality rifle using quality magazines with iron sights, a totally useful and functional package, but why would I limit myself if I don’t need to limit myself?  I challenge you to look at your gear and not figure out what you can do without, but instead, look at it and see what you can improve. This isn’t to say if you have all “the right gear” all is good; it's to say that quality, well thought out gear will make your training progress to a higher level quicker because you’re not fighting your equipment.

Long Gun Point Shooting Progressions - After Action Report

This weekend I attended Roger Phillips' Long Gun Point Shooting Progressions class. This is one that I've been wanting to take for a long time, ever since Roger first announced it. When he finally put it on the schedule for some place closer than Las Vegas, I jumped at the chance.

I brought a lot of gear to this class. My primary fighting rifle is an Arsenal SLR-107F with an Ultimak mounted Aimpoint Micro. As a backup, and in case there was anything I wanted to try with an iron sighted rifle, I also brought my SGL-21. Both rifles were fed with the excellent US PALM AK30 magazines. I recently finished putting together an AR as a training and teaching gun, and I figured this class might be a good opportunity to get some practice in with it, so I brought it along too. It's got a Bravo Company midlength lightweight upper on a Palmetto State Armory lower. I'm currently running an EOTech on it and feeding it with PMAGs. Finally, because the class is Long Gun Point Shooting Progressions, I also decided to bring my 870. When I was last playing with this gun at Alex Nieuwland's SI Shotgun Gunfighting class, I was a bit frustrated with the length of the stock, so when I decided to bring it to this class, I replaced the standard stock with a Choate Youth/Body Armor stock/pistol grip combo. On the pistol side of things I brought a pair of Glock 17s, one of which just had an RMR installed on the slide by TSD. 

To support all this ordinance I brought a couple different setups. For the rifles I brought my usual sneaky bag, which would work equally well for the AR and AK. I also brought along an Insurgent Chest Rig. In my own life, I don't foresee a whole lot of circumstances where I'd use a chest rig, but other people's situations may differ. Part of being an instructor is being able to look beyond your own context and experience to those of your students. So I brought the chest rig to get some experience so I could do a better job teaching my students who are in situations where chest rigs or mag carriers mounted on body armor make sense. To go with the rig, I brought along left and right handed Dale Fricke mag pouches to go on each hip. The belt mounted mag pouches are the primary source of ammunition, which can be refilled with a mag from the chest rig or the rifle can be reloaded from the chest rig directly. I've heard good things about this setup from others and found it very suited to ambidextrous shooting during dry practice prior to class. I ran an EMDOM dump pouch on the belt as a receptacle for spent magazines. 

For the shotgun, I've got an old Hawkepack rifle fighting bag with three sets of elastic loops for shotgun shells velcroed inside. The top two sets hold birdshot/buckshot while the bottom holds slugs. I usually load up the loops then dump the remainder of the box of birdshot into the bottom of the pouch for extras. It's particularly nice that the the seven round capacity of each set of elastic loops happens to match the capacity of my 870. 

The Sneakybags and shotgun bag work fine with my normal CCW holsters, but the combination of a CCW holster and a chest rig is not permitted at SI classes. For the chest rig, I decided to just use the rightmost pocket to hold my pistol. I was a bit nervous about having a Glock in there with the trigger covered only by the fabric of the chest rig, so I stuck a Gideon Elite kydex holster in there and secured it with a zip tie through the drain grommet. 

Now, with all this relatively new gear, I'm breaking one of my own rules: don't bring new or untested gear to a class. The AR has only been through two range sessions and some dry work. One of the Glocks and 870 have only seen one range session since they got the RMR and Choate stock, respectively. I've only used the chest rig during dry practice. However, I decided to bring them anyway, because I figured that if I started paying more attention to trying to get my gear to run than what Roger was teaching, I could always switch back to an AK, sneakybag, and an iron sighted Glock, all of which are reliable and I know how to use quite well.

Several of us kicked things off on Friday night by getting together for dinner. The group included SI instructors John Meade and Rick Klopp. As usual, the fellowship was excellent. 

Saturday

We had a total of 13 people in the class, including several SI staff instructors (Rick Klopp, John Meade, CR Williams (Richard), and myself). There were quite a few familiar faces in the class, including many of the regular attendees at SI classes in the southeast. There was even a student from one of my CRG classes, and it was quite welcome to see one of my former students going on to further instruction like this. The majority of the rifles in the class were AKs, but there was a strong minority of ARs (including two SBRs with suppressors). There was a pretty even split between iron sighted guns and those with optics. I was able to evaluate the various guns as they sat on the rifle rack, which seemed like the height of luxury for someone used to carrying a rifle all day in Gabe's classes. It did make my golf bag worth of long guns easier to deal with though.

Roger started off with his usual extensive safety lecture. In addition to going over the safety rules, he also designated individuals to attend to the wounded, call 911, etc. in the event of an accident. We had two doctors (including John) and one EMT (Rick Klopp) in the class, so were fairly well set for medical experience.

Going on, Roger talked about the context of the skills we would be learning. Sighted fire techniques are an optimal skillset, for use in optimal situations (ones where you have the advantage and start off in a good position on the reactionary curve). Point shooting skills are for suboptimal situations, where you are behind the curve and don't have all the advantages of an optimal situation. 

Our first subject was mounting the rifle. Roger analogized it to drawing a pistol, In a gunfight, the draw is the thing you're most likely to screw up, and the mount is much the same. It sets the basis for everything that follows. He demonstrated the mount, stressing the importance of eliminating unnecessary movement. Direct, linear motions are most efficient, while little bobbles or circular motions of the muzzle generally signal some sort less than optimal mount. A good mount is of paramount importance for point shooting, but it will also improve your sighted shooting as well. With sighted shooting, a good mount means the sights will be right there when you mount the gun, versus having to hunt around to get them aligned. One element he emphasized was the need to leave space between the stock and the shoulder, then bring the rifle back to the pocket, to avoid snagging on gear. I had some experience with this problem myself in the Shotgun Gunfighitng class a few months ago, when the combination of a GoreTex jacket and a shotgun with a long stock and a grippy rubber butt pad caused me some trouble. He also talked about working the mount in slow motion, to discover small problems, at full speed, and doing overspeed training.

We began our work on the range doing dry practice mounting the gun. We started from slung, then worked our way through Sul, patrol ready, high ready, port arms, contact ready, and close contact ready. I've had experience with most of these, but the one that was fairly new to me was high ready (stock at the hip, gun angled upward with the muzzle at eye level). Roger really likes this position (probably a result of lots of bird and clay target shooting experience).

One thing he pointed out that I hadn't really appreciated before is the relationship between the ready position and the shooting position. We'd be doing a lot of shooting from positions other than the full shoulder mount in this class, but not all shooting positions flow logically from all ready positions. If you're in Sul with the stock of the rifle on your shoulder, for example, it doesn't make much sense to drop the stock down to waist level and shoot from the hip. On the other hand, if you're in patrol ready and face a close range, high urgency threat, shooting from the hip makes sense.

We shot an initial group offhand from 25 yards, using the sights. Most folks did well here, they had the sighted fire skillset down. Then we moved in and shot another group from seven yards. Roger used these groups to demonstrate sight offset (the fact that the sights on AKs and ARs are substantially higher than the barrel, meaning the gun will shoot below the line of the sights up close). He had us shoot another group holding over the target point to compensate for sight offset.

That was the last time we'd focus on the sights all day. We began the point shooting part of the program with some shots using Type 2 focus (same relationship between the sights and your eyes as sighted fire, but focusing on the target rather than the front sight). We did this at fifteen yards, and most folks had groups as good or better than their 25 yard sighted shots. I had a decent group, but they were about four inches to the left of where I was aiming. I'd shot right on in the sighted fire drills, so I know it wasn't that the sights were off. Roger was initially mystified, but I had a guess what was going on. I'd shot the first group with both eyes open. When I shot another closing my non-dominant eye, the group was dead on. Something about the way my eyes work causes this issue.

The next topic was the caveman EOTech (credit for the name goes to SI instructor Randy Harris). Basically, you superimpose the front sight tower of an AK or AR on the target and as long as the target is bigger than the sight tower, your odds of hitting are pretty good. Initially, Roger had us shoot this at fifteen yards, which may have been a bit over-ambitious. My group was quite high at this range (around chin level when I was aiming at the chest). I'd never really shot caveman EOTech this far out, and I was using the same sight picture I used inside of seven yards, which clearly wasn't working. I wasn't the only one with issues. Roger brought us back in to seven yards and had us shoot again, with much better results. Then he gradually moved us back to fifteen, allowing us to adjust to the greater distance more gradually.

Finally, we moved to shooting over the top of the gun. This was getting into territory I hadn't really done much with, but I found it pretty similar to shooting over the gun with a pistol. However, with four points of contact, it was much easier to get good hits at a given distance with a rifle. We started in nice and close, at three yards, then move gradually back to beyond ten.

With that, we broke for lunch. Even before lunch, Roger placed a lot of emphasis on proper hydration. The weather could have been much worse, but it was still a pretty warm day and we were sweating quite a bit. I sucked down lots of liquids and I still probably wasn't drinking enough.

After lunch I switched from my AK to my AR. We did a few more drills shooting over the top of the gun. We followed that up by lowering the gun a couple of inches, putting the stock about halfway between the armpit and top of the shoulder, rather than at the top of the shoulder the way we want it. This simulates a failure to get a good mount. If you have to get to your sights and the gun ends up this low, you'll either have to adjust the gun or try to cram your face down onto the stock. If you have a good point shooting skillset, however, it may degrade your accuracy a bit, but you can still shoot just fine. Again, we started at three yards and gradually moved back to about seven. At this point, Roger gave his combat accuracy lecture, drawing on some of John's knowledge of anatomy to explain what some of the lower torso and shoulder hits we were getting would do.

Next, we dropped the gun even further, down to the close contact ready position (also known as underarm assault). Roger introduced the combat crouch here. The combat crouch is pretty widely misunderstood. It gets a lot of grief from modern technique shooters who don't realize it's really intended as a movement platform, rather than a static shooting stance. In a way, I found dropping into a combat crouch more natural with a long gun in the underarm assault or hip positions than I do with a pistol. 

Our last step in below the line of sight shooting was to drop the gun all the way to the hip. Some folks carrying their pistols in appendix found that the best place for the stock was on top of their holsters (not only is the Archangel a great carry holster, it's also a rifle recoil absorber!). One thing that surprised me was just how well the hip position handles recoil. You can really rip shots off fast this way. Again, we started from three yards and stepped back to about seven. I was quite impressed with how far out you could take some of these way below line of sight techniques with a long gun.

We moved on to pistol transitions. The transition itself was the standard S.I. one where you throw the rifle on your back, which most of the students had previous experience with. We started out with dry rifles and live pistols and did the drill that way several times. Then Roger had us load 2-3 rounds, shoot the rifle dry (and you want to make sure it's dry before transitioning, no tossing a loaded rifle on your back) then transitioned to pistol.

Next up were transfers. We started out with the usual transfer drill: shoot two from the strong side shoulder, do a partial transfer and shoot two, full transfer and shoot two, partial transfer back to the primary shoulder and shoot two, lather, rinse, repeat. Next we did the same thing shooting from underarm assault. This got a bit interesting because from the support side my AR tended to pelt my chest and strong side arm with brass. I didn't quite do the hot brass dance, but I did to the hot brass wiggle to get some cases off my strong side arm.

Roger introduced the bayonet transfer. It's called this not because you have to have a bayonet attached to your rife, but because you thrust the rifle forward much like you would to stab someone with a bayonet. From underarm assault you drive the rifle forward towards your focal point on the target. As you do so, you press off a round. It's important to do this as you're driving the rifle forward, not when it gets to full extension, because as it gets to it's limit of extension it's going to wobble and that will throw off your shot. From the fully extended position, you use your support hand on the magazine to haul the rifle back to your support side shoulder. If you do this quickly enough, inertial alone will keep the rifle steady in your support hand and you can start the hand transfer before the rifle hits your support side shoulder. This is difficult, but done properly, this is very quick and gets a round into a close-up target. Roger has certainly mastered this technique, but I think he's still working on the best way to teach it to people. He solicited our feedback on how to teach this and I think that his ability to get this across to students is only going to increase.

Last up was "Katrina baton twirling". These are methods for going from a strong side Sul or port arms to address targets on the opposite side. Going from Sul uses the same 'golf swing' technique that we teach for addressing threats to one side in the Rifle Gunfighting classes. From port arms it's a little different because you're going over the top, but the principle is similar. In both cases, the secret is that for most of the swing you're really controlling the rifle with your support hand on the magazine. People try to do too much with their primary hand and end up fouling things up.

We each had to demonstrate this dry, one at a time with Roger standing right next to us to be sure that we could do this safely without muzzling the next person on the line. Once he was satisfied with everyone's performance, we did it dry as a group in each relay, then went live with it.

This concluded our first very full day of class. We packed up all our stuff and headed back to the hotel. We had time for a shower (and for me to get a start on this writeup), then met for dinner at a local Mexican place. The fellowship was excellent as usual. As the evening wore on most of the students drifted away and Roger, Rick, John and I ended up having a nice discussion among the instructors.

Sunday

We reconvened at 8 o'clock the next morning. As with Roger's pistol PSP classes, the second day would involve less shooting, but a lot more movement. CR Williams wasn't felling well and felt that he wasn't up to shooting. He (wisely) decided to sit out the drills this morning. 

The day began with an extensive lecture by Roger about dynamic movement. He talked about the combat crouch and it's relationship with the body's natural fight or flight response. There was extensive discussion and demonstration of the takeoff continuum. For a long time SI taught the Pekiti takeoff, and later supplemented/supplanted it with the enhanced Pekiti, which Roger discovered and Gabe helped codify. Then Sonny came along with the Russian takeoff, which provided another approach to the same problem. Roger's latest contributions are the takeoff continuum and the two-footed takeoff. "Continuum" seems to be Roger's favorite word. In this case, he took the different techniques and reconceptualized them as particular parts of a broad range of takeoff footwork. The traditional Pekiti takeoff is at one end of the continuum, getting all of it's drive force from the rear leg. The enhanced Pekiti is at the other end, getting it's drive force from the front leg. In between is what Roger calls the two-footed takeoff, which gets drive power from both legs. This can be 50%/50%, 60%/40%, or whatever combination of force on each leg the situation dictates. What's appropriate depends on the amount of telegraphing that's acceptable, whether or not you're already moving (the Pekiti works best for changing direction rapidly on the move), your level of athleticism, and the quality of the footing.

Our first drill of the day was experimenting with the effect of mounting the gun versus floating it during dynamic movement. If you mount the gun solidly, it transfers more of the jarring from each footfall to the gun, bouncing the muzzle up and down. If you float the gun, leaving an inch or so between the stock and your shoulder, your arms act as shock absorbers, leading to less bounce with each step. We tried each method dry while charging straight in towards the target to see the difference, then went live and did the same as we practiced practiced floating the gun. There really is quite a bit of difference, and floating the gun makes it possible to move much more rapidly while still maintaining an acceptable degree of accuracy. 

The next drill was the parallel tracking drill. We did an enhanced Pekiti, then moved forward towards the target on a line parallel to the original line of force. Compared to charging right in, this allows you to close rapidly with the adversary while making it a bit harder for them to hit you. It also allows you to flank the enemy rather than colliding with them if they're still standing when you get there. Still, in the balance of hitting and not getting hit, this is pretty far towards the hitting side (which is sometimes appropriate). Rather than shooting all at once, or even dividing into relays, we did this drill two at a time. Students shot at the targets on the extreme right and left sides of the range, giving a wide separation between them. Furthermore, the students on the right side did their parallel track to the left of the target and vice versa. This meant that the students moved a bit closer to each other, but their fire was angled away.

During this drill, one student had a rather odd malfunction in his AR. A case failed to eject, but instead of stovepiping, it spun around 180 degrees and the bolt shoved it into the chamber backwards. Without a rim available for the extractor to get a grip on, there was no easy way to clear it. He knocked it out with a rod, and it might have been possible to clear the case by mortaring the gun (pounding the buttstock on the ground while pulling back on the charging handle), but there was no quick or easy way to get the gun back operational.

 

Next up were the forward oblique angles (the 1 o'clock and 11 o'clock). We ran the drill first at three yards, then at ten yards, to get a feel for how range dictates the technique you use. At three yards, you can shoot from the hip or underarm assault and get good hits, at ten you need a solid shoulder mount. At three you can move very rapidly, while at ten it requires a more measured pace. 

At this point we broke for lunch. During lunch, Roger sold some swag (t-shirts, his book, and his DVDs, which I recommend highly). He also gave the SI instructors in attendance a chance to pitch their upcoming classes and did a pitch for Steve Barron's Applegate Combat Point Shooting System class. 

After lunch, I swapped back to my AR and a sneakybag (I'd been using my AK and a chest rig that morning). 

The next drill was incorporating the Katrina baton twirling into a GOTX drill. We did this drill one at a time. The student started walking along the firing line from right to left, necessitating a shoulder transition before we started shooting (everyone in the class was right handed). When we reached the first target, we reacted as if it were a threat and got off the X in the direction we were already headed, using one of the baton twirling techniques to get the gun on target. As we ran down the line we let off a round or two into each target. The first time through we ran this from Sul, making the golf swing technique appropriate. The second time started in port arms, so we went over the top. During my second run at this drill I got a click instead of a bang on my second shot. Because one of my goals was learning how to run the rifle (my first AR malfunction, yay!) I decided to fix the gun rather than performing the more tactically appropriate transition to pistol. I slapped the bottom of the magazine and sure enough, it rose about half an inch. I worked the charging handle (making me really glad I had the medium BCM Gunfighter handle, since it's easer to run with the rifle on your left shoulder than the stock one) and resumed firing.

Richard had been sitting in the shade nursing bottles of water all day, but he was looking even worse than he did this morning. He reported feeling nauseous and was very lethargic. The consensus of our medical team (John Meade, another student with an M.D., and EMT Rick Klopp) was that he needed to go to the hospital. As Rick was about to take him, another group of people showed up wanting to use the range and as host, Rick had to deal with them. While he was doing this, Richard started dry heaving his guts out. Rick too him to the hospital. When Rick returned towards the end of class, he said that the diagnosis was dehydration and low sodium level (not surprising since he'd been sweating a lot and hadn't eaten anything since lunch the previous day).

Back to long gun point shooting, next up were the rear oblique angles (5 and 7 o'clock). Unlike with pistols, we don't really have the option of doing a transfer or going one handed, you just have to try to shoot back over your shoulder. However, you can make this much easier by sacrificing the perfect mount. Yesterday we shot with the stock below the usual mounting position, but here we move it outward, either bracing it against the bicep, or floating the gun without any stock support entirely (eminently doable with relatively light recoiling calibers like the .223 and 7.62x39). In combination with this it's often easier to cant the gun to the side (to the left when shooting from the right side) and point shoot by aligning down the barrel. We ran this drill two at a time, with the student on the right going to the 7 o'clock, the one on the left going to the 5 o'clock, and Roger in the middle playing traffic cop to make sure there wasn't any interference between the two shooters. We did the drill at a walking pace first, then stepped up the speed.

For our next drill, we began by walking toward the target, then on command we did the bayonet thrust shot and got off the X to the right or left (one time each way). A proper bayonet shot really requires you to be going from the underarm assault position to get enough of a linear movement to stabilize the rifle, so this drill only works well if you start out in a ready position where it's natural to go to underarm assault, like patrol ready or high ready. It really doesn't make much sense if you're starting in Sul with the butt already up on your shoulder. I did much better the second time when I started in patrol ready.

Finally, for our last drill, to put it all together, we did the zig-zag drill. You start out at contact distance with the target and get off the X to a rear oblique, then move back and forth getting gradually further, firing at the target as you move. If you're careful to move more laterally than pack, you can get through two mags before getting out to fifteen yards where Roger called your run to a halt. This drill test the ability to safely change movement directions, shoulder transfers, and the ability to vary shooting position and pace depending on the range. I've done this before with a pistol in the PSP class, so I was able to burn through two full mags before Roger called a halt. My AR was literally smoking as some of the lube burned off from the heat (this would be a greet drill for one of the Surefire 100 round mags). 

We wrapped things up with the presentation of certificates and a group picture. Afterwards, some of us shot around a bit. Roger invited us to play with shotguns some, since we no longer had to worry about tearing up the targets, but nobody seemed to interested, so my 870 remained unshot for the weekend. I did have a chance to shoot a Caracal pistol, a new design from the United Arab Emirates that one of the students brought (he knows the importer). It was interesting, very Glocklike, but with kind of a funky backstrap and longer trigger reset. I also let Rick Klopp shoot my new RMRed Glock.

With that we reluctantly broke up and went our separate ways.

Conclusions

As expected, this was a great class. It was definitely up to Roger's usual high standard. I've taken PSP, APSP, and now Long Gun PSP and my only regret is that there aren't any more PSP classes out there for me to take. I guess I'll have to be content with redoing or helping Roger out with existing classes.

There was some discussion both in the class, and when the instructors were chatting after dinner on Saturday night, about what sort of experience students should have before taking this class. Most of this focused around whether students need to have taken Roger's Point Shooting Progressions class before taking the Long Gun PSP class. I don't know if it's absolutely vital, but I definitely think that students who have taken PSP will get more out of this class than those who haven't. PSP includes a lot of explanation of the underlying concepts that Roger doesn't cover again in this class. He tells you what you need to do to point shoot with a rifle, but doesn't get into the the background of why nearly as much. If you haven't taken PSP, you really need to at least read Roger's Point Shooting Progressions book before coming to get some of the conceptual background.

Even more than PSP, I really think a student needs to have taken a SI rifle class. At the very least the basic level Fighting Rifle Skills class, but better yet the intermediate Rifle Gunfighting (or it's weapon specific equivalents, Kalashnikov Rifle Gunfighting or AR15/M4 Rifle Gunfighting). Long Gun PSP covers only a narrow subset of rifle gunfighting, but it delves very deeply into that subset. The other rifle classes are much broader, covering topics like reloads, malfunction clearance, after action drills, and position shooting that this class doesn't. This is the first SI rifle class where I never needed my knee pads (heck, I wore shorts the second day, which I would never do in any of the other rifle classes). The deep look at rifle point shooting is really great, but you also need the broader material in order to be a well rounded rifle gunfighter.

I was generally pleased with my gear in this class. I didn't get to shoot the shotgun, but all three rifles ran fine. During the afternoon of the first day, I did notice the AR was a bit reluctant to go back into battery after I did a chamber check. I added a bit of oil, and slathered some more on that evening and the problem went away. Lest Don Robison accuse me of slandering the AR, I should hasten to add that this only occurred when chamber checking and never affected my shooting. The only actual malfunction I suffered was entirely operator induced (got to remember to check that the mag is seated).

The support gear all ran well. The sneakybag performed like a champ, as always. I don't especially love the chest rig, but it worked fine. I really do like the combination of the EMDOM dump pouch and the Dale Fricke mag carrier on the belt. The mag pouch on the right side for left-hand reloads is pretty slick too. I think my next set of rifle support gear may be a HSGI MOLLE belt with some taco mag carriers and a dump pouch in a similar configuration. 

I talked about CR Williams' dehydration troubles in this writeup (and did so by name with his permission) not to be critical of him in any way, but because this serves as such an important lesson. Indeed, Richard's decision not to do any shooting on Sunday should garner considerable praise. He was cognizant of his condition and made the difficult, but wise decision that he wasn't in any shape to be doing dynamic shooting drills.

This was not a particularly hot class, compared to some SI classes. The high temperature was in the mid '80s both days an it was not excessively humid. The fact that we had a student go down with dehydration in such relatively moderate conditions should give everyone pause. Proper hydration is not just for 'extreme' temperatures.

Read Roger's article on hot weather training. Read John Meade's thread on dehydration. Follow their advice! As someone who grew up in Arizona doing a lot of stuff outdoors, I can attest from personal experience that they've got it right. If you haven't been drinking a lot even before the class starts, you're not drinking enough. If you don't feel like you're drinking too much, you're not drinking enough. If you aren't pissing every hour, you're not drinking enough. If you're piss isn't clear, you're not drinking enough! To this last point, some will say "but my piss is always yellow!" Well, that means you're walking around in a constant state of mild dehydration. As long as you're spending your time in air conditioned buildings and not exerting yourself much, you can get away with this, but if you spend a day or two outside in warm weather, doing physically demanding stuff, it will bite you in the ass!

I learned a lot in this class (and not just about dehydration). When I took Advanced AK and Kalashnikov Force on Force from Gabe last June, I felt there was a bit of a disconnect. In the Advance AK class, we did all of our live fire from a high shoulder mount. We did to caveman EOTech point shooting, but it was all from the shoulder. In the rifle FoF class, we often ended up shooting from underarm assault or the hip (with Gabe's encouragement). This class has really filled in that disconnect and provided some below the line of sight rifle shooting skills for those high urgency, close range situations. Roger really does a great job covering both the major techniques, like below line of sight shooting, and the small subtleties, like choosing your shooting position based on where the stock is in your ready position. This is really a great class and is a welcome addition to my stock of rifle gunfighting knowledge. Anyone who has taken the full SI rifle curriculum (Fighting Rifle Skills, Rifle Gunfighting, Advanced Rifle Gunfighting, Rifle Force on Force, and now Long Gun Point Shooting Progressions) and truly mastered these skills would be a dangerous man with a rifle indeed. As usual, Roger's teaching was superb. I would highly recommend Long Gun Point Shooting Progressions, along with everything else Roger teaches.

Fighting in Structures - Part 3: How CQB Fits Into the SI Curriculum

Chris Upchurch – Suarez International Staff Instructor

Suarez International’s CQB: Fighting in Structures class is a bit different from most classes we teach. It involves no live fire and, at most venues, no force on force either. While there are some physical aspects to it, this is much more of a mental skill. As Gabe puts it, CQB is more like chess than MMA. 

Because CQB is a non-shooting class, we don’t have any prerequisites for it. There’s no safety reason to require any previous experience or advanced gunhandling skills. That said, to get the most out of it, you need to develop certain shooting skills to go with your CQB skillset. 

The shooting skills that go into CQB draw on a variety of SI classes. Perhaps foremost are our point shooting classes. During CQB you’ll make heavy use of the retention continuum and non-standard shooting positions. Full extension with a hard focus on the sights is going to be the exception rather than the rule. Point Shooting Gunfight Skills, Point Shooting Progressions, and Advanced Point Shooting Progressions teach the fundamentals of point shooting and shooting below the line of sight, and progressively bring these skills to a very high level.

As mentioned in the previous article in this series, SI’s CQB tactics incorporate the same sort of shooting during dynamic movement that we teach in many of our classes. The bedrock class for this is Close Range Gunfighting, but we develop these skills further in Extreme Close Range Gunfighting, Point Shooting Progressions and Advanced Point Shooting Progressions. If you’re using a long gun for home defense, our Rifle Gunfighting class (and it’s AK and AR specific bretheren) Shotgun Gunfighting, and Long Gun Point Shooting Progressions can give you the skills for point shooting and shooting during dynamic movement using these platforms.

Finally, there is no substitute for actual, hands on experience. Short of getting into a gunfight, a force on force class is the best way to gain this experience. Our force on force classes give you a chance to practice point shooting during dynamic movement against real live adversaries, and do a great job preparing you for a CQB confrontation. In tight quarters, CQB can quickly turn into a hands-on confrontation, so the skills taught in our 0-5 feet class are useful as well.

Now, you certainly don’t have to take all of these classes before coming to CQB. Indeed, you don’t have to take any of them beforehand. If you have taken some of these classes, when you take CQB you’ll see how useful those skills are. If you take CQB first, then some of these other classes, you’ll see how these skills allow you to put what you learned in CQB into practice. The more you build up these skills, the more effective you’ll become.

Sign up for Suarez International's CQB classes.

The Evolution of a Gunfighter Part II

- Suarez International Staff Instructor Jon Payne

I have been asked many times, “What classes should I take next"? If you’re reading this there is a good chance you’ve gone through all the steps to acquire a handgun, obtained your CHL (if needed), bought quality concealment gear, and you’re ready to take a basic course such as Defensive Pistol Skills (DPS).

DPS is where it all begins. DPS introduces you to the fundamentals of marksmanship, basic weapon manipulation/gun handling skills, and immediate action. DPS also cultivates the Fighting Spirit or Warrior Mindset. By completing DPS you now have the same skills that are taught to police cadets and members of the military that are issued a sidearm. You should have confidence in your sidearm and your abilities to keep it in the fight. DPS is what I call a very good start. With a solid foothold with your fundamentals you’re ready to start learning. So what’s next?

Close Range Gunfighting (CRG) is Suarez International’s flagship course and an intermediate class. In order to attend this class you have to know how to run your pistol well. You have to know how to keep your pistol in the fight. You also are expected to hit what you’re aiming at. What you learn in CRG is how to draw, shoot, reload; perform immediate action, and a 360 degree after-action assessment while on the move. You also get exposure to contact distance shooting and bi-lateral shooting. Students that complete DPS and CRG through Suarez International have been introduced to more gunfighting information than is taught anywhere else and if you think DPS and CRG cover everything you need to know, they only scratch the tip of the ice berg. It’s time to leave the paper and square range behind.

Force on Force Gunfighting (FOF) destroys the square range mentality.  There is not much adrenaline pumping through you when you’re shooting a two dimensional piece of paper. No matter how life like you make your target it doesn’t move like a human and it doesn’t shoot back.  There is no time to think about technique with a bad guy coming at you with a rubber knife or airsoft pistol blazing!  FOF is a simulation, but it’s as close as you can get to being in a gunfight without getting injured or killed.

In FOF you take everything you have learned in DPS and CRG and put it to the test against a live opponent. There are rules to FOF and you have to stick to the script, especially if you’re the bad guy. You have to be a good training partner and put your ego aside. In FOF you know you’re going to be in a gunfight, hence a script to insert the element of control and artificial surprise. Even though a gunfighter has taken great strides training from DPS through FOF there is still more to learn. Again, you’ll hear me ask, “Can you fight”?

 

 

 

In the real world sometimes you have to fight to get to your gun. 0-5 Feet Pistol Gunfighting is an advanced class and is all about “The Fight”. 0-5 takes everything you learned thus far and integrates combatives. This is a course that covers movement, dry drills, live drills, and FOF. In 0-5 we teach you how to fight inside the “hole” and even how to own it! Gunfighting is a martial art and we examine all angles of the fight from the right side to the left side, even from your back. 0-5 is about winning, even when the odds seem against you there is always a way to improve your position and fight.

Our goal at Suarez International is to make you a complete fighter.  When it comes to being a complete fighter there are no always answers.  You have to remember, unless it's a pro-active gunfight, you don't dictate what the fight will be.  You have to know about as many of the facets of the fight as you can.  When it comes to useful information, tips, or tricks; I for one don’t care who invented what.  If it works I’ll use it. One of our Tier 1 Staff Instructors Randy Harris put it out in plain speech. It really doesn’t matter what you did 10 years ago or even last week. What matters is what you can right now at this moment.

All of the courses I have explained in this article will give you an awesome array of tools to save your life and the lives of your loved ones. The problem is if you don’t do your work before, after, and between training with SI you’re wasting your time. Taking courses from SI, getting training DVDs, and working your drills keeps you sharp. Take responsibility for your safety, improve your fitness, enjoy every day God has blessed you with. When the day comes to put your skills to the test you won’t have to ask yourself, “Can I fight”?

A Picture Worth 1000 Words - That I Know Will Be Very Controversial

 

New 5.45x39 12.5" Barrel - $200
Texas Weapons Systems Top Cover - $140
ACOG TA33 - $1100
Hornady V-max ammo - $34.00 

Hitting an IPSC Steel at 500 yards with an AK-74 - Priceless

 

*For everything else there is One Source Tactical 

Red Dot Evolution - Glock 19 CCW Pistol

By Uli Gebhard

Suarez International Staff Instructor California

Back in 1999 I bought a Bushmaster AR-15 with a 16” A2 upper, just a couple of weeks prior to the California Assault Weapons Ban restricting the access to this type of firearm.

One of my friends did the same and we took the rifles out to sight them in. I used the factory iron sights on mine and got good hits out to 200 meters. He tinkered around with a cheap cantilever mount for his red dot and ended up spending more time torqueing down the mount and red dot than sending rounds downrange. Nonetheless, when the red dot worked and was properly zeroed, it allowed getting on target very quickly. This was an intriguing upgrade.

I ordered a very basics red dot sight together with a see-through mount for the carry handle and shooting my little AR became cheating in style.

The combination proved itself a couple of weeks later when I went through an Urban Rifle Course with this combination – Even though the red dot was nowhere near the quality of an EOTECH or Aimpoint. It was the only red dot in that class and allowed me to be significantly faster on Target than everyone else.
Having the see-through mount paid off in the same course when the red dot temporarily went out. When the dot vanished during a timed course of fire, I dropped my eye level down 25 millimeters (OK – one inch), acquired my irons and still got the hits, albeit a little slower that time around.

There are three lessons that I learned that day:
· Red dot sights improve the time to the first shot on close to medium range targets.
· Having backup iron sights is a must.
· Training with both sighting systems is equally important.
I’ll get back to these points in a bit.

Red dots have long since been used in competition pistol shooting, but several years ago these units required mounts that bolted to the dustcover or frame of the pistol. The sights themselves were 1” or 30mm tubes – the size of one of these small soda cans that one used to get with an inflight meal. The bulk of the red dot mounted on the gun made it prohibitive to use this pistol for anything but competition, where shooters could use IPSC-style open top carriers.

Some also attempted to bring them into the realm of tactical pistol applications. I remember the picture of a well-known instructor toting a 1911-style pistol fitted with an aimpoint on an external mount. He was featured in an article about tactical weapon use. This combination would allow faster target acquisition for sure, however, my first thought back then was which holster he was using and what the merit of this kind of setup would be for a lowly civilian who would never be able to conceal this pistol.

Let’s fast-forward to today. Quality red dot systems have improved quite a bit in the last decade. These improvements came in form of longer run times, smaller sizes, increased robustness against recoil and mounting systems that allow co-witnessing the iron sights –in other words you see the irons and the red dot at the same time and focus on the red dot as long as it’s up and running.

Early in 2010 I saw posts on Warriortalk.com about mounting small red dot sights to the slide of a pistol. The ideas looked promising. First pictures emerged of a Glock with an Aimpoint H-1 mounted to the rear of the slide. Test results from this approach proved fast target acquisition, reliable operation of the pistol, enhanced long-range accuracy and – that this setup was too bulky to be truly feasible for CCW use. But it was a start.

In July 2010 I helped teaching an AK-course in Prescott and later filmed the Lever Action Gunfighting DVD with Gabe Suarez. He had the prototype of a pistol with a Trijicon RMR mounted in a specially milled recess in the slide. In addition to the optical sight, the pistol also had suppressor sights installed – combined with the lowered profile of the RMR they were tall enough to co-witness them through the optics. The aiming point sat a bit higher in the window, but the irons were clearly visible.

Profile Comparison - the camera focused on the slide hence the out-of-focus dot

The sight picture was crisp and hitting targets out to 50 meters was easy. Later I got the chance to shoot a Glock 17 with an RMR installed in a similar fashion. Gabe pointed to a steel silhouette 100 meters away and handed me the pistol with the comment “hit it!”

“100+ yards with a handgun – yeah-right!” was pretty much my first thought. I centered the dot about shoulder level and pressed the shot off. A clear “PING!” rang from the steel a split-second later. That was easy! The key to the successful shot was that the dot is much smaller than the iron sights and that the full target remains visible. I planted a couple more shots on the steel before handing the pistol back.
Several other instructors shot the RMR-Glock with similar ease before it went back into its holster. No, it had not traveled to the range in a custom-fit pelican case – this was a CCW gun that had come in its owner’s appendix carry holster.

Shooting this pistol was cheating in style – just as it has been with my rifle-mounted red dot. In close quarters I did not even have to go for the dot – the aiming window bracketing the target was sufficient to get combat-accurate hits in the torso area while moving aggressively off the “X”.
With increasing distance and more time available to get the first shot off, it was easy to acquire the red dot. I did not have to bring my focus back to the sights since the focal plane of the dot is far enough forward. The only adjustment I had to make was to lower the position of the pistol a bit to allow for the slightly higher position of the dot above the top of the slide.
The suppressor sights are a suitable back-up in case the optics go down – a well thought-through system all-in-all!

Three weeks ago I was finally in a situation to upgrade my Glock 19 with an RMR. The slide went out to TSD. The turn-around was so fast that when I called in to add a new appendix holster to the order, the slide was already on its way back.

Glock 19 modified by TSD for an RMR and factory stock

Ten days after mailing it out, I had the modified slide back in my busy hands, with a battery-powered RMR mounted in a precision-cut slot and suppressor sights in place of the original factory sights. Folks, my daytime job is mechanical engineering in a company that makes its own tools and dies for powder metal compacting. This being the long version of saying that I am used to working with tight tolerances better than ±.001”. The way the slot in the slide is fitted to the front radius of the RMR sight housing is top-notch work!

The cutout in the slide matches the curve of the RMR perfectly!

Time to run dry practice drills! I had to adjust my grip on the slide to rack it. Nothing major, just a little further forward than with the factory pistol to stay clear of the RMR's aiming wingow. As mentioned before, I also needed to lower the pistol slightly to allow for the higher position of the aiming dot. This came natural after a couple of repetitions.
In a low-light setting the RMR provides much better aiming than night sights: there is just one dot to go for, less obtrusive than the night sights and easier to work with since the focal plane of the RMR is forward of the shooter.
I’m planning on running the pistol through a lot more dry-practice to make sure that the lower position is second nature, live-fire it extensively and then making it my primary self-defense gun.
As far as carrying is concerned, I used a Kydex belt holster for the initial drills and did not notice any disadvantages compared to the standard Glock 19. The sight is so small that it does not add any significant bulk to the gun and does not increase the tendency to print. The only point to consider is that the suppressor sights are tall and will require a holster with an appropriate channel for the front sight.

Glock 19 RMR and Cold Steel Recon-1: a nice self-defense combo

With family visiting and lots of things planned together, I have not yet had the time to take the RMR Glock out for a live-fire test. I should be able to get to this phase early next week and post a range report as soon as possible.

“By the Skin in my Teeth”

By  Frosty26

I laid in my bunk in the “North Compound” of our PPD training facility exhausted physically from a 12 hour day of grueling PPD drills, but excited mentally, reflecting on the whirlwind of events that had transpired in the last few months. After returning home from various cess pools around the globe including 3 tours in Iraq and jumping feet first into the PPD game, I thought for sure my first assignment would be right back in the sand box, but surprisingly I had received orders for south of the border as a replacement for a PPD Team member who had had come down with an appendicitis and whose return was not certain. The area that I was heading was rife with cartel violence. The previous week there had been six kidnappings, all of them ending with the principal murdered. This particular assignment involved the detail protection of an international businessman. I was to fly out in the morning. My bags were packed and my passport in order. I tried to close my eyes for a few hours of sleep, it never happened and one minute before the alarm was to go off at 4am, I raised up and started gearing up.

The flight was uneventful and I landed around Noon. I was met by our advance team leader at the airport and we took the short 15 minute ride to home base. Upon arriving I was introduced to the detail and briefed. Afterwards I headed to the armory to gear up, taking a G19 and 5 mags and a sweet little MP-7 PDW with a custom under the sport coat sling and 3 mag bandoleer…Nice and urban. The Principal was set to arrive from a International flight in 4 hours, we then used the remaining time to plan our routes and get the vehicles ready to roll. We headed out in a standard 3 vehicle convoy 2 hours before wheels down. The main security team sealed a loose perimeter and the advance team which I was on went to meet the principal at the gate. He was escorted by two of his Personal BG’s, 2 guys that looked like they ate a moose for breakfast and enjoyed it. We moved briskly from the gate to the vehicles and in under 20 minutes were back on the road, choosing route C due to some congestion on the Routes A and B. I had what is called the “hot seat” position which is at the right flank of the principal, besides me we had the driver and 2 other shooters in the Tahoe.

Our destination was the Business residence of the Principal, some 45 miles from the Airport. The ride was uneventful, except for the Principals cell phone calls that entertained us ..in the span of 40 minutes, he managed to fire 2 people, threaten somebody with a lawsuit, talk dirty to a young Albanian Lady and tell his wife and kids he loved them…ahh the life of the rich!!! Pulling into the gated residence I was taken back at the opulence of this place, according to the Principal, it had been a former Cartel Boss’s “Summer Home” before he snatched it in a foreclosure auction. We got the principal inside and settled and I got started on a roll call and position assignments so we could relieve the advance team. After a brief team turnover, where we got briefed on the principals itinerary and approved visitor list, the advance team departed for a 12 hour turnover. That evening I spent with out TL, planning our A-B-C routes for tomorrows stops, it was going to be a busy day.
　
That night was uneventful, except for a wild cat knocking over a flower pot around 3am. I had to chuckle to myself as I watched the pesky critter trot off into the bush, a laser from one of my guy’s weapons tracking on it’s shoulder the whole way.The principal first meeting was around 9am, so we were set to depart the house shortly before 7:45am. With the vehicles gassed up and triple checked, we departed the front gate on time. Our first destination was 32 minutes away, to keep things interesting, our TL opted for a figure 8 to check for tails. 7 minutes later, after being satisfied of no tails, we proceeded on route B just to keep our driver on his toes. I told all the guys to check their ear/mic radio sets for volume, after everybody was good, I clicked the unit on my hip to tie in our advance team’s net. I felt my cell buzz at approximately 8:34am and knew it was my Advance team.. “Frosty” I whispered into the phone “Area Secure-Green” the voice replied. “Comms are up”. I gave a quick knod to our TL and we got set to do our”Two Minute Shuffle”. This is something we drilled on time and time again..getting the principal out of the vehicle and inside the secured location in under 2 minutes..our record was 1 minute 27 seconds. If we broke that, our TL had to buy the whole team a new Stryder knife.

Before the vehicle rolled to a stop, I had my door open and was ready to do 1:25. As I exited, the entrance to the office building was clear, I had 2 females at the end of the street, 20 yds away and 1 elderly man across the street. “Frosty counts 3 downtown““Roger-3 outside” I heard our DM check off on the net. “Uptown is clear” I hear our inside man check off. Once all the men were in place outside the vehicle, we knocked on the door for the principal to exit. As he had been trained, he exited quickly and once we had a semi circle formed, we started moving with purpose toward the entrance. We hit the elevators and were in the meeting in 1:17..looks like a new Stryder was in my future!

The meeting lasted about one hour, I occupied my time making rounds to the various post, I wandered outside to our vehicle element to BS with our driver, himself a former Marine, fresh from A-Stan. As we were chatting about the best way to spice up a Pork MRE, I noticed that the traffic today on the street was minimal, glancing back over my shoulder, I saw 2 guys appear from a side alley about 100 yards up the street. They were walking our way. “Frosty has 2 males inbound from the south” I whispered in my mic. “Gotcha Frost” our DM checked off. From the roof...I now was reassured that a scope reticle was on them. As they got closer, they walked across the street and entered a small café. I saw they took a seat by the window and started sipping coffee. With my back to the café I talked into my mic, “Whatta you see?” “Not much, one of them has been on the phone since they sat down and they got eyes on the vehicles” our DM replied. My spider senses tingling, I clicked over to TL’s channel. “We need to go exit 2..we got a couple of lookers out here.” “Roger that” our TL Chris replied. Exit 2 was the back alley on the north east side of the building. “Vehicles moving” I said. I slapped our driver on the back ..”Exit 2 bro ASAP.” Without a hitch, we were moving around the building and setting up.

Ten minutes later, our Principal arrived and we were off. As we turned out of the alley I glanced up the street toward to café and spotted the same two guys..both were on their phones eyeballing us the whole way. “Looks like we are popular” I said. Chris looked at my eye direction and glanced back..”Yep” I could see the gears turning in my TL’s head..Chris was smart, ten years my senior, he had been in the PSD game 7 years and before that he worked for the State Dept in Diplomatic Protection and had proved his mettle more than once. “Echo Victor” he spoke into the mic. “Go for Echo”..“I need you to peel off and make a circle of that block, we got two white males outside the café that seem interested in us, give me a sitrep when you get eyes on.” Five minutes passed and our radio came to life. “Able Victor” “Go for Able”..”Yeah they are definitely interested, they had moved to their vehicle and were still on the phone when we rolled by, we got plates.” “Outstanding” “Able out”.

The plates came back on a rental car to no surprise to us. After a little digging and few favors we found our our little visitors were of Albanian descent and had a nasty history of hijacking and kidnapping VIP’s. Since it did not take a lot of foot work to discover these guy’s and their game, we knew they were low level players, but still dangerous all the same. After a team de-briefing on our new Albanian friends, including handing out photos of these idiots, me and Chris sat down with the principal and gave him the great news. Needless to say he got nervous fast, but we had agreed it is better for him to know, after all, wouldn’t you want to know if somebody wanted to kidnap/kill/hijack you?

The following week our Principal had one last social event gala to attend before jumping the pond. Me and Chris agreed the prep and execution of this event had to be flawless due to the increased risk. After looking at the layout for this shin-dig, I concluded that the best thing would be for our principal to cancel due to health issues…he disagreed, so we set out on a plan to get him thru this thing alive. The night of the gala, I personally carried our principals body armor to him and made sure it fit sung. He disliked it because it added 10 lbs to his frame, but I told him “Better fat than dead”. Once we got to the gala, I had never seen so many Millionaires under one roof, the opulence and pomp of this thing rivaled a Roman feast. As Zebra 1 (Principal’s call sign) made his rounds, glad handing the fat cats, I scanned the room, looking for our Albanian friends, to no avail. About 2 hours into this thing, our principal had downed near a gallon of scotch and was nearing shit face status. Chris decided it was time to end this party and called it over the net. We started moving Zebra 1 toward the rear exit to save face. As we turned a corner nearing the exit, I saw the Albanian.
　　
He was dressed in food service garb and had dyed his hair blonde and was wearing glasses..if I had not been close enough to see his eyes, I would not have recognized him. At the moment I made him, he was about 7 feet from me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chris and Ian cover up Zebra 1 and make a quick turn into a kitchen door. I quickly scanned around looking for #2 Albanian, but did not see him. I covered the 7 feet in 1 big leap, meeting him as hard as I could with my shoulder and we both went to the floor. I knew he had something in his right hand, but could not make it out. The guy was much smaller than me, but was strong and was not giving up easily. I could hear the commotion going on around me, women screaming and people in general panic. After getting his arms controlled, my knee found his kidneys and liver,my goal was to drive my knee through his backbone. My plan was to wait on the Calvary and get this guy restrained...this guy had other plans. Without blinking, this guy pulled a Mike Tyson and started biting at me, snapping like a pit bull, spitting some type of Albanian curse words in between. After about a minute of grab assing on the floor, Ian arrived and started helping me get this moron restrained. I saw Ian pull what looked like a tazer baton out of moron's right hand, and then suddenly a sharp pain shot thru my arm. I looked down to see this idiot had bitten me and was trying to tear flesh by wrenching his head side to side like a wild dog. I was infuriated. I saw red. Without thinking, I came across with a right hook, knocking his front incisors cleanly out and knocking him unconscious.

Ian quickly slapped flex cuffs on him and frisked him, finding a map, a small Seecamp .32 and cheap Chinese made knife. Ian chuckled to himself. ”This dumb ass bloke planned to taze somebody” holding up the 10” baton. "Guess he wanted his cargo intact" As I was getting myself together I glanced down at my arm and winced at the nasty gash. I thought about the stitches and shots I had in my future and that pissed me off more, so I swiftly kicked the unconscious moron in the gut as payback. I happened to look down on the ground and noticed the morons teeth, one of them looked funny, so I looked closer and busted out laughing..there in this dude’s teeth was a piece of my arm flesh. Quickly I picked it up and showed Ian..’Looks like we made it out by the skin in my teeth” I proceeded to Laugh my ass off and almost piss myself as Ian did the same with that big bellowing British Laugh.

(Autors Note: This story is dedicated to Ian and his beautiful Wife and Daughter, Elle and Petra. Ian was killed next to me in a ambush in Iraq in 2008 on Convoy Escort...a Former decorated Royal Marine, he was my best friend and a Professional Soldier. I like to think he is up there right now, still laughing his ass off. Go Easy Bro.)

Fighting in Structures - Part 2: CQB Skills for Home Defense

Chris Upchurch – Suarez International Staff Instructor

In Part 1 of this series, we talked about how many people are under the false impression that CQB is just for SWAT team members and the military. In reality, these skills are vital to anyone who owns a firearm for self-defense, particularly for the bedrock purpose of home defense. Unfortunately, many firearms instructors seem to be under this same false impression. Often their CQB classes are limited to law enforcement and military only. Even when they’re open to the common citizen, the techniques and tactics they teach are often predicated on military or SWAT tactics. Learning how to clear a room as part of a team of five guys wearing body armor and armed with automatic weapons and flashbangs doesn’t have a whole lot of practical application when something goes bump in your living room in the middle of the night. 

More realistically, citizens are not going to have the full panoply of tactical gear, just a pistol, or if you’re at home perhaps a rifle or shotgun. We’re probably going to be operating alone, though in the best case scenario we might have the help of a friend or family member. The tactics and techniques we train with need to reflect this. 

The corner is the basic building block of all CQB problems. Everything else: hallway intersections, doors, windows, stairs, even furniture, are just combinations of corners. Learning how to take a corner is the most basic, fundamental skill in CQB.  Dealing with a corner can be divided into two distinct phases. The first of these is the angular search, sometimes called “slicing the pie”. The goal of the angular search is to spot the enemy without him spotting you. You want to lead with your eyeball and gun muzzle, exposing as little of the rest of yourself as possible. That eyeball is looking for any sign of the adversary: a protruding elbow or toe, a bit of clothing, even a shadow. 

At a certain point, you’re going to have to decide to commit to moving into the space beyond the corner. Either you’ve seen some sign of an adversary, and moving out any further is going to allow him to spot you, or you can’t move out any further without exposing yourself to some other unknown area (the other side of a doorway, for example). This is where our CQB tactics really diverge from the SWAT/military context. We don’t have the advantage in terms of numbers and firepower that they do, so we need to use speed, surprise, and aggressiveness to lower our risk as much as possible. At SI we’ve found that the same dynamic movement and shooting on the move fundamentals that we teach for street confrontations are great for taking corners (if anything, they work even better in CQB than they do on the street).

The same principles that work for a single corner can also be used to deal with other architectural problems. Doors and intersections are pairs of adjacent corners. Having two corners in such close proximity does add some additional issues, but the fundamentals are the same. Balconies are vertical corners and stairs, windows and furniture are combinations of vertical and horizontal corners. Things become more complex when you start putting these obstacles together to form complex problems. Clearing corner is relatively easy, clearing a door (two corners) is hard, clearing a door, while trying not to expose yourself to another door just down the hall is even harder. These complex problems are where having more than one person available becomes really important. We may not be a part of a five-man entry team, but having even a single, trained partner can make many problems much easier. It’s best if you’ve trained and practiced CQB tactics together, but that’s not always possible. However, if they’re a good shooter, even without any CQB experience, they can still be used to cover potential threat areas while you deal with a corner, doorway, or intersection. 

If you look back at the various scenarios described in Part 1 of this series, on common denominator for many of them is that they happen at night. Low light skills are a vital part of the CQB skillset. This includes learning how to use tactical flashlights and weapon mounted lights, but it extends considerably beyond that. Most of us are not paid to search darkened warehouses for a living. The most likely venue for low light CQB is in our own homes, where there’s usually enough ambient light to discern that there’s someone there (if not necessarily enough to identify them). Moreover, we have the option of preparing the battlefield beforehand, by leaving certain lights on at night, installing night-lights, etc. It’s important to learn how to operate in this kind of environment, using ambient light when possible and using lights when appropriate.

These are the fundamental CQB skills. Armed with the skills to tackle corners, complex problems, some basic team tactics, and low light, you will be far better prepared to meet a home invader, or to deal with any other deadly force confrontation inside a structure.

Coming up in Part 3 of this series, we'll discuss how CQB fits with the rest of the SI curriculum.

Sign up for Suarez International's CQB classes.

Discuss CQB Skills for Home Defense on Warriortalk. 

The Sling - More Than A Carry Method

 

Since the first musketeer decided to cut a length of leather to carry his “smoke stick”, fighting men have added slings to their rifles in one form or another.  Some slings are so silly-complicated that they need to ship out with a special DVD.  Other slings so simple that they consist of an old bootlace tied by an African bushman to his worn G3.  Whether complex or caveman simple, the sling has many uses.

The sling exists primarily to carry the weapon in non-contact situations.  Look through any news stand gun magazine and you'll invariably see, either in an article or an ad, a photo of some guy “wearing” a long gun. I say "wearing" because he will probably be using some sort of multi-strap like device harnessing the rifle to his body.

If the issue is simply to do away with the Fudd rifle rack while standing around looking cool at the range, any sling will do.  But if the matter involves moving through rough country, running, or really needing a hand-free situation, it will get considerably more complex…or actually, it will get simpler. 

If you are in a conflict area, the rifle will be in your hands.  Some units have gone as far as to eschew slings altogether to compel their men to keep the weapon in hand at all times.  While this is not the best policy, it does kill the lazy sling carry habit.  If you need to run without the rifle in your hands, to climb, to secure a prisoner, or anything requiring the use of both hands, you will want the rifle on your back and not hanging in front of you like an additional appendage, banging into everything in sight.  Thus your sling, whatever it is, should allow you to sling to the back. 

The sling must also be simple and stay out of the way.

The rifle must be deployable without the need to “strap in”, and without a long length of nylon loop floating around to catch on everything. It must allow for a quick and dynamic transition to pistol. 

With this last requirement, I suggest taking a look at our DVD programs depicting the over the back transition method. 

There have been far more clever methods devised and in sue for quite a while, but I would submit that a non-clever, but stress-proof method, not requiring perfect timing or extremes in dexterity, that provides for a high probability of success is a far better choice than an alternative that looks cooler.

But that discussion is for another time. 

One other thing the sling can do, in some cases, is as an aid to marksmanship. 

Sling use goes back to the early part of the 20^th century.  While my research was not clear on who produced the first shooting sling, many sources point to the Boyt Harness Company and the Rock Island Arsenal.  Theirs was the famous 1907 pattern shooting sling often seen on 1903 Springfields and M1 Garands. What these slings did, and still do on the right rifles, is to lock the weapon tightly to the shooter’s upper body, and allow him to relax in position enhancing bone support while reducing muscle tension. The sling is made up in two parts, the longer part in essence creating a loop through which the shooter put his up[per arm, sand cinching down, locked him into the rifle.  The rear length of sling was there for carry and irrelevant for any actual shooting. That sling works great, but takes time to loop up.  Hardly practical in situations where time is of the essence.  

Eventually, the leather sling was usurped by the cotton webbing sling, and later nylon sling, probably to reduce weight and cost.  These later slings were of one piece and did not have the capability for a front loop.  Crafty shooters devised ways to do what they had seen others do with the older 1907 designs and worked up the “hasty sling” in which the shooter simply loops his arm through the sling tightly.  Unlike the 1907 system, this later method puts opposing pressures on the handguard, barrel, and action, which unless the rifle has been free floated, will invariably cause the point of impact to shift. 

 

 

The 1907 slings, and its various system copies such as the CW sling, and Ching Sling, do not do this, as they create pressure between your arm and the fore end only (at least if used correctly).  So unless your rifle is free floated, stay away from the “hasty sling” method, and opt for the 1907 style slings. 

The nice part is that the 1907 system can be used on your light assault rifles with a gain in accuracy, without the annoying impact drift caused by improper sling use.  Any sling can suffice here as long as it has a forward loop, adjustable for the individual, that can secure the upper arm to the handguard. 

One argument against sling use is that there is often not enough time in field shooting to “sling up”.  With the traditional 1907 system that is true, but the newer derivatives are much faster. Nonetheless, if one has a rest to use, such as a vertical surface, it will be much quicker than slinging up, but with a little ingenuity, you can still use the sling in these situations. 

 

 
So grab your assault rifle, and see what you can do with your sling.  Make sure the pressure is ONLY between your arm and the handguard, and then get out into the field and see how this simple device can improve your shooting. 

I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

The sling Gabe is using in the pictures

Assault Rifle Training Schools 

Your Sights Are Training Wheels

Your Sights Are Training Wheels By Randy Harris - Suarez International Tier One Instructor I am a sighted fire shooter. No doubt. And I am a point shooter. I simply shoot however I need to in order to hit the target as quickly as I can no matter what the target or how far the target. But some see it as an all or nothing, either/or proposition. If you read the internet or gun magazines any at all you are bound to run into a discussion where one side argues that only sighted fire is effective because point shooting is too inaccurate and the other argues that sighted fire is for games and that only unsighted fire is fast enough in a reactive situation. Frankly those discussions bore me. The participants seem to be more interested in defending their "gun religion" than actually becoming a better more complete shooter. The truth is somewhere in between, and this is how I see it. First thing right off the bat we need to look at is context. When I discuss this I am referring to the use of a pistol in a lethal force situation where one or more individuals are trying to harm another. The distance will typically be anywhere from 2 feet to 20 yards. The distance will largely dictate on one end how precise a shot I need to make and on the other end dictate how fast a shot I need to make. An assailant at 3 yards is a much bigger target (spatial perception wise) and a much greater threat than a target at 20 yards. Therefore I will need to shoot faster here due to the increased threat and less time to deal with the problem. But as a fortunate by product of that close proximity I can shoot fast and still score hits on the target with relative ease. On the other hand if I am shooting at someone 20 yards distant I will need to slow down the process so as to be able to make a more precise shot. Fortunately for me the distance is such that he is not as great a threat and I will have time to make that precise shot...hopefully. The "point shooting only" crowd will tell you that since it always happens up close there is no point in learning to use the sights. And the "sighted fire only" crowd will tell you that distance is your friend and that the superior accuracy gained by using the sights is a better thing to rely on. So who is right? They BOTH are. If I am attacked by someone reaching for a pistol at 3 yards I need to be worried about getting out from in front of him and getting my gun out quickly and hitting him more so than I need to worry about getting a picture perfect sight picture before I press the trigger. On the other hand if I am engaging a target 20 yards distant I need to hopefully get behind cover (if available), slow down, and get a precise sight picture before I press off the shots because misses will not profit me. There is a balance to this. As for me, I use the sights all the time....as training wheels. What do I mean? I teach people to shoot first by setting the context for how the situation will likely occur. After all you can only solve a problem if you understand the problem. Distance will likely be short so I do not start them out shooting bullseyes at 50 yards. I have them shoot a man shaped silhouette at about 4 yards. But I use a small circle in the center to represent an aiming point. I then teach them about how their body works under stress and how your body wants to work to avoid tension. So if our body wants to do "A". in the situation, but we are going to teach it to fight that and do "B." does that sound like efficient use of our time? Especially when our body won't do it under stress anyway? Of course not. So if we will naturally drop our weight and curl our shoulders forward then why would we teach "combat " shooting from an upright stance with the gun in front of our face? And if our arms do not naturally extend with our thumbs straight up in the air why do we teach them to orient their arms that way? So once we have a grasp of what we are most likely to be doing then we start to build our platform around that. I first teach them to grip the pistol in a manner to not only allow them to point it as naturally as pointing a finger, but also in a manner that reduces felt recoil during firing. I teach them how to draw and extend the pistol in an efficient directional motion that drives it straight at the target no matter what position they are in and no matter where the target is in orientation to them. I also teach them to look for the sights. You see, the sights on a pistol are pretty much permanently located in one place. They are on top of the barrel or slide at front and rear of the pistol and one of them sits right above the muzzle. The front sight could be termed a "muzzle reference indicator" because wherever it is, the muzzle is there too.   Imprinting the draw stroke through repetition and seeing the sights appear on the target over and over again gives neural feedback and builds confidence. They continually drive the gun to the same place and the pattern of always finding the sights lined up there superimposed on the target builds confidence that whether they can see the sights or not, the draw stroke is delivering them to the same place every time. Then I have them stop looking through the sights and just look over the top of the gun. They will still be looking at the target spot, but with their eye not behind the gun looking through the rear sight but looking over it. They continue to draw and present, but now each time we drop our head behind the sights after we extend to see just how close we are to where we were wanting it to go. Often we are right where we wanted it to be because the gun does not know nor does it care whether you were looking at the sights, it just puts a hole where the muzzle was pointed. That bullethole's location is directly proportional to whether you pointed the muzzle correctly. This is the foundation of shooting well and shooting well on the move. If we cannot drive the gun to the target so the muzzle is pointing at the spot we are focused on while we are standing still, then how will we do it when we move? The key though was using the precision of the sights to begin to convince our brain that we were doing it right. The bulk of this mental conditioning can be done without even shooting. If the sights are in line with the barrel, and the sights are pointed at the target spot/focal point when we present the gun to the target then by logic the barrel is now pointed at the target. It does not take long for the students to become familiar with and confident in this. They get to a point where they can bring their head up off the gun and see more of what is going on not just the target and know that the gun will end up pointed at whatever they choose because the draw stroke delivers it where they want it. My dry fire routine is as much or more about driving the gun to the target correctly as it is about pressing the trigger smoothly. Now as we progress we look for less and less feedback from the sights. That allows us to make hits faster. We are not taking the time to look for a perfect sight picture. We know the perfect sight picture is there but we do not have to prove it to ourselves by looking for it. We know from experience that the muzzle is getting driven where we need it to go...whether we see it or not. What this leaves us with is a faster presentation and the ability to not get tunnel vision on the sights. Keeping your head up and being aware of the surroundings and running the gun in your peripheral vision is a key to survival. We are no longer GUN focused but fight focused. We are looking at our adversary not hunting the sights. Why? Because we used the sights appropriately in training until we had internalized the fact that if we project the gun the way our muscle and bone structure works best and that lines the sights up, then we only have to look at the sights if we CHOOSE to in an effort to verify that our work was done properly. Jeff Cooper even said the sights are not used to aim the gun but to verify the gun was aimed correctly.....hmmm.... interesting. Of course if we are engaging targets at farther distances we will need more than just faith in our draw stroke to insure hits. My rule of thumb is this. If I am looking at the silhouette of the gun superimposed on the target and the target looks bigger than the gun I do not need the sights. That is if I present the gun to the target and I can still see target surrounding the gun, then I am close enough that looking for the sights will only slow me down. BUT... If I look over the gun at the target and the target (or target area if I'm trying to hit something like a specific spot) is smaller than the gun, then I NEED to use the sights. This little maxim will help you read distance and learn to determine how fast to shoot and how precise to operate the trigger. So I absolutely am a sighted fire shooter. If I hit what I am aiming at my sights were in fact aligned properly...whether I saw them or not. So what if I told you I could teach you to shoot accurately without looking at the sights? After all , we use some sightless airsoft guns in the Force on Force class and after a brief draw stroke tutorial most everyone is making sighted fire quality hits even with sightless guns. So how is THAT possible? Some would believe it and some would not. But regardless I do this regularly and with great success . How ? By first teaching you to look for the sights. By doing that I am letting you use the training wheels until we build your confidence to the point you no longer need them . Sights are training wheels. You use them until you no longer need them and then after that..... just use them when you NEED them.

For upcoming opportunities to come learn to  use your sights as training wheels.....

http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com/may14-152011-extremecloserangegunfighting-crestviewfl.aspx

http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com/may2111-closerangegunfighting-chattanoogatn.aspx

http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com/may28-292011-ar15-m4gunfighting-chattanoogatn.aspx

http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com/june4-52011-forceonforcegunfighting-chickamaugaga.aspx

http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com/june25-262011-fightingrifleskills-jacksonvillefl.aspx

http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com/july23-242011-zerotofivefeet-pistolgunfighting-pierpontoh.aspx

http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com/july30-312011-defensivepistolskills-chattanoogatn.aspx

http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com/august13-142011-kalashnikovriflegunfighting-louisvilleky.aspx

http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com/august27-282011-riflegunfighting-crestviewfl.aspx

http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com/september10-112011-closerangegunfighting-jacksonvillefl.aspx

http://www.suarezinternationalstore.com/october15-162011-forceonforcegunfighting-columbiasc.aspx

 

Fighting In Structures - Part 1: Why learn CQB skills?

Chris Upchurch – Suarez International Staff Instructor

To some, Close Quarters Battle (CQB) seems like a very high speed-low drag skillset. Something more suited to SWAT teams and the military than the common citizen interested in self-defense. This could not be further from the truth. One of the biggest reasons people buy firearms is for home defense. Knowing how to fight in this environment and to use your home’s ‘terrain’ to your advantage is vital.

Consider the following scenarios:

You are awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of breaking glass, followed by the alarm going off. You grab a long gun, take a covered position with the muzzle pointing at the door, and call 911. The intruder will either leave, be apprehended by the police, or walk right into your ambush. This sort of thing is what many firearms trainers advise, and it really is the best case scenario when it comes to home defense. Unfortunately it’s not always possible. If we change just one small detail, the whole scenario changes dramatically. . . . 

You are awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of breaking glass, followed by the alarm going off and screaming from your child’s room. In this case, bunkering up in your bedroom really isn’t an option. I don’t know of any parent who would leave their children to the tender mercies of an intruder until the police arrive. You’re going to go out there and protect them. However, you don’t just want to blindly charge in there. Dying a valiant but foolish death is not going to help. This is where CQB skills come in: the ability to move through your house quickly, while exposing yourself to as little risk as possible along the way.

Let’s consider another possibility: you are awakened by a crash from your living room. No alarm, no other sounds of an intruder, just the sound of something falling down. Did the dog knock something over? Did the hook holding up a picture frame give way? Or is there someone in your house? Some firearms instructors would advise the same sort of response as the first scenario: bunker up and call the cops. But are you really going to call 911 on such ambiguous evidence? Even if you’re willing to do so, call enough times to report a possible intruder and your 911 response times will start going up (just ask the little old lady who reports prowlers every month). So, if you’re not going to call 911 without more evidence, what will you do? Simply rolling over and going back to sleep could be disastrous if this really is an intruder. On the other hand, if you bunker up and wait you may be in for a long, sleepless night. The best (or the least worst) option in this situation is to go out and gather some more information. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to go get in a gunfight with the intruder. As soon as you find a tangible sign that there’s an intruder, whether it’s the door he kicked in to gain entry or the intruder himself, you can always withdraw to a position of strength and call the cops. Even so, when you go investigate a bump in the night, you have to be ready for a violent confrontation. With the proper CQB building clearing skills, you can look for signs of an intruder while lessening your risk. 
 
Not all CQB scenarios start in the middle of the night with you asleep in bed, of course. Perhaps the most common situation is coming home and finding the door sitting wide open. Sometimes, the signs of trouble will be unambiguous; the door has been kicked in, or a window broken. In those cases, it’s probably best to back off and call the police. In other cases, the signs of an intruder may not be so clear. Did someone enter your house or did you just fail to close the door completely when you left this morning? Much like the bump in the night example above, this is a gray zone. Not enough evidence of an intruder to call the police, but too much to just relax. Again, the proper CQB skillset can help you clear your house as safely as possible.

While I’ve mostly concentrated on the home, it’s not the only place where CQB skills are important. You may be somewhere else: at the mall when an active shooter starts gunning people down or at a hotel when a Mumbai style attack occurs. You want to get your family away from the threat and out of the building as quickly as possible, but joining the panicked crowd and blundering into the attackers field of fire would be very dangerous. Solid CQB skills can help you move quickly out of the danger zone while minimizing the risk to you and your family. 

If you intend to use a firearm for self-defense, particularly home defense, CQB is a critical part of your skill set.

Coming up next in Part 2 of this series, we’ll talk about what CQB skills you need for home defense.

 

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