WARRIOR TALK NEWS

Trauma Care for the CCW Operator in Winchester, VA with Dr. John Meade

by Chris Upchurch, Suarez International Staff Instructor

Last weekend I came up to Winchester to help Dr. John Meade and Jack Rumbagh with the Trauma Care for the CCW Operator class. I took this class last October in Blairsville at Warrior Skills Camp, and I helped with the class in Crestview a few weeks ago. Since this was such a large class John invited me to come up and help. The reason I came (besides helping a brother out) is that this is exceedingly important lifesaving knowledge and learn something every time I come to one of these.

As mentioned earlier, this class was rather large, with 22 students. Many of them werre S.I. training junkies, who had trained with Jack before (often quite a few times). The class also included a group of Navy Corpsman from Marine Barracks, Washington D.C. (also known as 8th and I). In addition to the Corpsman, several students had medical experience, including a couple of nurses and at least one doctor.

Saturday

I’d been warned it was quite a long drive from Winchester out to the range Jack teaches at and John likes to start the festivities at 8 o’clock, so I left the hotel good and early. The day dawned overcast and shortly after I got there it started up with a sprinkling. The rain would continue throughout the day, alternating between a light drizzle and some fairly heavy rain. Despite rain gear, everyone was pretty damp by the end of the day.

We started promptly at 8 with the usual administrative business: passing out waivers and promising on video not to sue. With that out of the way John began his introductory lecture.

Fundamentally, this is a class that integrates tactics and medecine. Students would begin the class alternating between force on force drills and medical lecutre, and soon start integrating their medical knowledge with force on force, dry fire, and finally with live fire.

John talked about the history of tactical medecine, from the Civil War up until the present day. In particular, he discussed how developments in battlefield medecine (such as ambulances, field medics, hellicopter transport) have influenced the development of civilian EMS. A key point in this developmet came with the Battle of Mogadishu (the basis for the book and movie Black Hawk Down). After the battle, the Army created a committee to analyze what lessons could be learned medically. This led to the concept of Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC or tee-triple-cee). The fundamental idea behind TCCC is that the right intervention delivered at the wrong time is the wrong intervention. Treatment not only needs to be medically appropriate, but also tactically appropriate as well. TCCC divides treatment into the care under fire, tactical field care, and evacuation/definitive care phases. This class focuses mostly on the care under fire and tactical field care phases (with a bias towards the former).

Most first aid classes (particuarly those oriented towards CPR) use the menomnic A.B.C (for Airway, Breathing, Circulation). For penetrating trauma, this is the wrong order. Massive hemorrhage will kill much faster than a breathing problem (within 2 mintues for a severed femoral artery). For this sort of situation John prefers the acronym M.A.R.C.H., for Massive hemorrhage, Airway, Respiration, Circulation, and Hypothermia/Head injury.

We split the class into three groups. Two of these did a quick introduction to Force on Force with Jack and I, while the third learned about tourniquets from John. This is the third time I’ve been called on to teach the force on force component of TMCO, so I’ve got down fairly well. We started with the basic get off the X fundamentals, then moved on to some basic scenarios, including multiple good guys and bad guys. Thankfully, unlike the Crestview class, there were plenty of students to serve as opponents for each other in FoF, so I could let them beat up on each other, rather than getting pelted with little plastic pellets myself.

After lunch, John resumed the lecture, telling students about some tourniquets he doesn’t recommend: the TK–4 (and it’s predecessor the TK–3) and the SWAT-T. The problem with both of these is that they don’t really work. It’s almost impossible to get them tight enough to truly cut off blood flow to the injured extremity. John also showed off a ratcheting tourniquet that uses a mechanism very similar to the tie-down straps you can get at the hardware or automotive supply store (in fact, he recommends you just get one from the hardware store and cut it to length rather than paying five times as much for the one from the medical supply store).

He also talked about improvised tourniquets. WhenJohn asked students what they’d use to improvise a tourniquet the nigh universal reply was ‘a belt’. However, when asked to do so, nobody was able to get a belt tight enough to cut off circulation. Belts, particularly gun belts, are far too stiff to make a good tourniquet. There’s no way to tighten them down enough to cut off blood flow. Far better is something thinner and more flexible. John demonstrated using a triangular bandage, but almost any piece of cloth will do: a t-shirt, pant leg, scarf, etc. As long as you can tie it around the limb and insert a windlass and twist. John’s favorite windlass is a carabiner. He uses one to carry his keys (and convinced me to do the same). That way, just with what you’re wearing you can improvise a tourniquet if necessary (one that will actually work!).

With the lecture out of the way we stepped back out into the rain for more Force on Force. We taught the students the standard S.I. after action assessment, which includes a medical self check. In most classes we include the self-check, but generally assume that we came out of the gunfight fine. In this class, we assume the opposite: that there’s a problem that needs to be fixed with a tourniquet.

This time we integrated tourniquets into force on force scenarios, having the students apply a TQ to the limb they were hit in (or specifying a limb if they weren’t). We started off with simple one on one scenarios, gradually increasing the complexity by adding in additional good guys, cover, and other complications. Since we had three instructors on hand, the students rotated among John, Jack, and I.

We got back together and talked about some of the lessons learned. As usual with FoF, nobody spent a lot of time with a perfect sight picture. Lots of hits to the hands and arms. As Roger Phillips puts it, “the bullets go where the eyes go,” and people tend to look at the gun. This has some implications for one-handed and support hand shooting and gunhandling (something we’ll get into tomorrow), as well as being able to apply tourniquets one-handed. This led into a discussion of where to carry your tourniquet. You want to be able to access it with both hands, and from a variety of positions, including lying on the ground. In front near the centerline is best, and if you’re operating in a team environment, the position should be standardized.

John finished out the day with a discussion of the mindset necessary to deal with violence and with the medical issues like the ones we were training for in this class. With that we wrapped things up.

John, Jack, and I, along with several of the students, adjourned to a local watering hole (the Piccadilly Pub) for some excellent food and even better conversation. We stuck around until after 8 o’clock eating and talking. Fellowship with like minded folks is always one of the best parts of a class like this.

Sunday

Sunday morning dawned overcast again, but overall the weather was better than the day before. We only got a few light sprinkles, which was a welcome relief from the previous day’s rain.

We started off with some discussion of some first aid techniques that are inapplicable to penetrating trauma such as a gunshot wound. It’s gotten to the point that, if someone doesn’t have a pulse, the default response is CPR. This works well when their lack of a pulse is due a heart attack, electrocution, or drowning. When their heart has stopped because they’ve lost too much blood, it’s a different story. By performing CPR you’re just squeezing more blood out of the holes that caused the problem in the first place. What’s more, you’re tying yourself to a single location and performing a task that takes your attention almost completely away from the tactical situation. This just isn’t the right context for CPR.

In most first aid classes you’re taught not to try to move anyone with a traumatic injury, lest you exacerbate a (potentially hidden) spinal injury and paralyze them. If someone has just fallen off a roof or been in an auto accident, this is a legitimate consideration. If their trauma is a gunshot wound to the leg, however, it’s not going to magically affect their spine. Don’t be afraid to move gunshot wound victims to a better position, behind cover, etc. just because they have ‘trauma’.

With these out of the way, we split up into two groups. John drafted the Navy Corpsmen’s Chief Petty Officer (Housertl on Warriortalk) to talk about airway issues while John, Jack, and I covered splinting and patient movement. If you want to read about the airway stuff, take a look at the writeup from the TMCO class in Blairsville.

John started by talking about which injuries can benefit from a splint. You generally hear about splinting broken limbs or bad sprains, but splints are much more widely applicable than that. Splinting can also help with dislocations, muscle or tendon injuries, even bad bruises. Basically if it hurts when you move it, immobilizing it might be a good idea (“Doctor, it hurts when I do this!” “Then stop doing that.”).

He brought out the SAM splints and talked about how to use them. They’re basically a flexible sheet of aluminum sandwiched between two pieces of foam. You can mold them to any shape desired and when you put a bit of a curve into them they become quite strong. Because of their size they’re probably not an EDC item, but given their low cost and light weight it’s easy there’s no reason not to throw a couple into a larger medical kit.

Nevertheless, if a premade splint isn’t available there are lots of options. John talked about the requirements for a good splint (stiff, right length, not too heavy) and various methods for attaching them. There are many (tie using bandages, repurpose a tourniquet, etc.) but John favors duct tape. He sent the students off to collect improvised splints and had them splint up the dummy.

After removing the splints from the dummy, John talked about patient movement. Moving dead weight is a lot harder than it looks. People weigh quite a bit, and their lack of good handholds and tendency to flop around makes them harder to deal with than other objects of similar weight. This is something a lot of TV shows get wrong, and John mentioned watching a character on crime drama easily heave a dead body into a dumpster and contrasting it with how hard it was to get the dummy we were using out of the car.

John had everyone try to move the dummy a few feet. Lots of folks were surprised by how difficult this was. The dummy weighs about 165 pounds and, like the human body, it tends to flop about. Most folks tried just scooping up the dummy from under the armpits, which works, but not very well. John showed a technique where you can reach under a person’s armpits from behind and grab the opposite wrist in each hand. This provides a better hold and keeps the arms from flopping about. It’s still difficult and you’re probably not going to be hauling folks the length of a football field, but if they’re a few yards from cover, this can work.

After lunch, we split up again, with half the group going with John for some more tourniquet work and the other half coming with Jack and I for some weapon manipulation. As mentioned earlier, one of the most common places to get hit is the hands and arms. Given this, you need to be able to manipulate your pistol one-handed. We talked folks though the one-handed reload, as well as methods for getting the gun from one hand to the other.

Some folks were somewhat impeded by their equipment. If you’ve got very slick, low-profile sights like Novaks, they can make it difficult to rack the slide by hooking the rear sight on something. This is why I prefer rear sights with a fairly vertical front face, like the Warren Tactical or Heine Ledge models. Of course, if you’ve got a TSD gun with an RMR on it, the optic works just fine as a charging handle.

Finally, we moved over to the range for the live fire portion of the program. As usual we started with very simple draw and shoot drills, then proceeded to integrate the after action assessment and tourniquet use.

We split the class up into three groups. Two lined up on each side of the range to shoot some more dynamic drills while I took the Corpsmen and did a quick, lesson on how S.I. thinks folks should run the M9. This is a bit different that what the military may teach, but we think it’s considerably more effective in a fight. Basically, we run them like a Sig. Never leave them with the safety in the on position. Before holstering pull it down to decock then push it back up to the firing position. If a Glock with a 5.5 pound trigger is safe to holster without a manual safety, the Berretta, with a double action trigger pull of at least twice that does not need a manual safety.

With the pistol instruction out of the way, we did some work getting up off the ground while keeping the pistol on target. Unfortunately, we could not do this live because we had a very low berm in the area we were using, but doing it dry gets the basic concept across. After everyone rotated through getting up off the ground and the more dynamic drills John and Jack were running, we wrapped things up. John handed out the certificates and we all packed up and headed home.

Final Thoughts

As usual from John, this was a great class. This has been my third time seeing it taught and John continues to deliver a very high quality, well organized experience. The integration of the force on force and live fire with the medical stuff does a great job putting this into context and reinforcing the fundamental principles of TCCC.

We had a really great group of students in this class. Many had trained with Jack several times before, and it showed in the FoF and on the range. Despite having a large class we were able to get through things quickly and smoothly thanks to the very well squared away students. It was also nice to be able to put a face to quite a few folks that I’ve only met online on WarriorTalk.

This is truly an excellent class full of vital lifesaving information. Everyone who carries a gun for self defense, or even who just spends a lot of time on a gun range, needs this knowledge. We’ve got a bunch of these on the schedule all around the country. Sign up now! You won’t regret it!

Discuss this class on Warriortalk.

Buyer Beware: The Chopped S&W Model K-200

On Warrior Talk and on this blog, we typically only discuss good equipment. If we were to discuss all the junk that is out there, we would have little time left to do anything else. There is, however, a sub-category of revolver that everyone looking at used revolvers needs to be able to recognize: the chopped S&W Model K-200.

You need to know how to recognize these revolvers, because they may not be safe to fire due to incorrect caliber conversions. They are no longer manufactured, but there once you know what to look for, they are easy to spot. If you spot one at a gun show, you can have some fun trying to determine how much the seller is willing to lie to you for a couple of measly dollars.

Just to clarify: I think S&W makes the best revolvers available. The reason the chopped S&W Model K-200 is a bad gun has nothing to do with Smith and Wesson, and everything to do with greed and bad gunsmithing.

A Model K-200 is a double-action S&W K-frame revolver chambered for .38 S&W with a 200-grain bullet. They are similar to the Victory model, except for their caliber. Around 568,204 of these guns were made by S&W for British forces during 1940-1945 (see: Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson by Jim Supica and Richard Nahas).

The .38 S&W caliber was adopted by the British army after WWI, replacing its large-bore revolver caliber to make training new recruits easier (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.38-200). It is less powerful than the more common .38 Special caliber, and uses a shorter case that is wider at its base (more on that later).

In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with unaltered K-200 revolvers. Many have beautiful markings that speak of their martial history during WWII. If these guns could talk, they would maybe tell of daring RAF raids over occupied Europe, or perhaps boring guard duty some English harbor. As a weapon, they are about as useful as a Smith & Wesson Model 10.

So what is the problem? The problem is that some folks just can’t resist the temptation to make a quick buck by selling an improper product.

During the 50s and 60s, many K-200 revolvers were re-imported and improperly converted to snub-nosed .38 Special revolvers so they could be more easily sold. Nowadays, they are frequently seen in gun shows, gun stores, and seasoned warriors’ sock drawers. 

Here’s a good example:

 

Let’s look at what an unscrupulous gunsmith has done to this revolver:

• Chopped the 4, 5 or 6” barrel, removing the point where the front of the ejector rod locked up, and the original caliber designation on the side of the barrel.
• Soldered on a new front sight.
• Replaced the grips with imitation-stag grips made from the grips of another Victory revolver (S/N under grip did not match S/N on revolver).
• Removed the Black Magic (similar to Parkerizing) finish, and blued the revolver.
• Removed the lanyard loop and filled in the hole (see round spot in front of serial number). 
• Honed out charge holes to accept the longer .38 Special cases.

To properly convert these revolvers from .38 S&W to .38 Special, both the cylinder and barrel should have been replaced due to the different case and bullet dimensions between these calibers. This was almost never done. Instead, the charge holes were usually honed out to accept the longer .38 Special cases.

The close-up of the charge holes clearly show where the charge holes were originally cut to accept .38 S&W cases, and where the charge holes were subsequently honed out to accept the longer .38 Special cases. This means that .38 Special cartridge cases will fit in the charge holes length-wise, but are not supported by the cylinder wall. Charge holes like this are a dead give-away of an improperly converted revolver. Trying to use .38 Special ammunition results in split cases. Trying to use the ejector to eject these split cases can result in a bent the ejector rod. Even using this particular revolver with .38 S&W is questionable because of the missing lock-up point.

This revolver actually reveals its original caliber in the proof mark under the barrel: .38” by .767” are the case diameters of the .38 S&W case. Sometimes, the “new” caliber can be found stamped on the side of the barrel as part of the improper conversion.

The V serial prefix reveals that this revolver from 1942 is not even drop safe. In December 1944, a new style hammer block was introduced to make this model drop safe. These guns are designated by an “SV” serial prefix (see: Standard Catalog of S&W).

Net, a chopped Model K-200 used with .38 Special ammo may cause high pressure gas to escape from the rear of the cylinder due to split cases, is hard to reload due to the stuck split cases, and may not be drop safe. Know how to recognize them, avoid buying one, and don’t let anyone you care about use one for anything serious.

Guerrilla Sniper in Blakely, GA with Scott Vandiver

By Chris Upchurch, Suarez International Staff Instructor

Last weekend I was at the Guerrilla Sniper taught by S.I. Instructor Scott Vandiver in Blakely, GA. This was a really great class and I have to say I had a real blast.

I really enjoyed the Guerrilla Sniper class I took from Eric Pfleger last year in Ohio. When I heard Scott Vandiver would be brining this class to Georgia, I knew I wanted to get in on the action. He was generous enough to let Alex Nieuwland and I come down to assist, and to send some rounds downrange as well. He is far more knowledgeable than us about long range shooting, so our assistance was mostly along the lines of grunt work (putting up targets and the like) and keeping an eye on students, spotting for them, etc.

Gear

I made some pretty major changes to my gear after the previous GS class. My Savage Model 10FP shot well, but I had some eye relief issues and I definitely hit the limits of the Burris scope I was using. I decided that a new scope would provide the biggest bang for the buck and after some careful research I got the Leupold Mark 4 LR/T 3.5-10x40mm with the front focal tactical milling reticle and M5 turrets. That's a bit of a mouthful. To break it down: This is a 3.5-10 optic. The reticle is graduated in mils, but it uses hash marks instead of dots, which I think is considerably superior. Front focal plane means the reticle is always going to be the same size in relation to the target, regardless of zoom level, so you can use it to hold windage or elevation at any zoom level. Unlike most mil dot scopes, which have their adjustment in MOA (or fractions therof) this scope adjusts in 0.1 mil increments, so you can do everything in mils, there's no need to convert back and forth between different systems for scope adjustments and reticle holds.

Compared to the Burris Fullfield I used last year, this is just a huge improvement. The only way of reliably adjusting for range with that scope was the Ballistic Plex reticle, which only went out to 500 yards (although I kludged together a solution to get it out to 600) and had no markings to help hold for wind (Kentucky windage all the way). The Leupold has turrets that allow reliable, repeatable adjustments for elevation and windage and graduated reticle, allowing many more options for dealing with drop and wind. I really need to thank Eric Pfleger for letting me have a look through his similar scope at the GS course last year, and giving me some advice on what to get.

The other big problem I had at the previous class was with eye relief. I'd mounted the scope as far forward as possible, but I was still scrunching my neck back uncomfortably to get a good, shadow-free view through the scope. After the first day of class I went to Walmart and bought a recoil pad, not to reduce recoil, but for the extra 0.5-0.75 inches of eye relief it provided. Duct taping the recoil pad worked, but it looked pretty ghetto and I could still use a bit more eye relief. I was also a bit disappointed in general with the Savage's factory stock. It was not very sturdy (load up the bipod or the sling and the forend curved) and by the end of class the mounting screws had come loose enough for the action to rattle around in the stock a bit. I should note that my rifle is an older model, Savage's newer Accustock factory stocks are much nicer and higher quality.

The Savage is a nice rifle, but one of the disadvantages is that it doesn't have the same level of aftermarket support, including stocks, that the Remmington 700 does. After looking at quite a few options I decided on a Bell and Carlson Tactical Medalist A2 style stock. It's certainly not as good as a McMillan or Manners, and doesn't have the same level of adjustability you can get with those, but those cost quite a bit more and I decided I was better off investing my limited resources in the scope rather than the stock. It's also a rather big, benchrest-y stock, but I figured since my rifle has a 24-inch barrel with a fairly heavy profile, it wasn't going to be a svelte, lightweight GS rifle anyway. The upside is that the Bell and Carlson was available in custom length of pull for a very reasonable price. It's also built like a rock, with a full length aluminum bedding block and fiberglass construction, a tremendous upgrade from the crappy plastic factory stock.

Rounding out the rifle, I also added a TAB gear sling and an adapter for a Versapod bipod. The Versapod replaced a really crappy Chineese knockoff of the Harris bipod that had come with the rifle and broke at the GS class even though all I really used it for was to hold up the rifle when I wasn't shooting.

One upgrade that did not make the cut was a 20 MOA scope mount. After I put the Leupold on my rifle I found it didn't have enough adjustment to get me all the way to where my ballistics software said I had to be for 100 yard. It bottomed out around 2 mils short. I could work around this by combining this adjustment with holdover using the reticle, but it would have been nice to be able to get the crosshairs on target at that range. I bought a EGW picatinny rail scope mount with 20 MOA of built in adjustment. Problem was this mount was about a quarter inch higher than the Burris mounts I'd been using, enough to screw up my cheekweld (which was just perfect). This is where the adjustable cheekpiece of one of those higher dollar stocks would have come in handy. With my current stock setup, however, I decided that a great cheekweld was more important than an improvement that would only come into play at 900+ yards. So off it came and I went back to the old mounts.

Another big upgrade I made was to my ammunition. I shot the last GS class with Prvi Partizan 175 grain FMJBT Match ammo. I was actually quite pleased with it's accuracy, but I could not for the life of me find a source for the bullet's ballistic coefficient. I even tried emailing their customer service department, but received no response. I really wanted to come to the next class with a good computer generated ballistics chart as a starting point and for that I needed a reliable BC for my ammo. Looking around for high quality match ammo with a published BC, I decided to try the Hornady A-MAX ammunition. It was priced relatively reasonable (for match ammo) and has a good reputation. It shot very well though my rifle at the 200 yard range I have access to here in SC, so I decided to make that my primary ammo for this class. I also brought along some of my remaining Prvi for shooting up in close range drills and other applications where accuracy wasn't as paramount. 

I also made some upgrades in some of my ancillary optics. I bought a Leupold Mark 4 Spotting Scope with the Horus H-36 reticle to replace the little fixed 20 power spotter I'd picked up for $50 on ebay. Far more costly but much better optical quality and I figured the mil reticle would integrate nicely with my mil-mil scope. 

To mount this I got a nice new tripod from Precision Rifle Solutions. PRS's contribution is a very well made saddle for use as a shooting support, the tripod itself is made by SLIK. I got the medium tripod, which extends up to sitting height. I figured I'd rather have the smaller and lighter tripod. Rather than the rather basic ball mount that comes with the tripod I bought an Manfrotto 322RC2 joystick head (which can be attached to the SLIK tripod using a 3/8 to 1/4 adapter) which I figured would be better for use with the spotting scope. I also got a couple of extra quick change adapter plates for it so I could switch back and forth between the spotter, shooting rest, and an adapter for my rangefinder. Speaking of which, I also added a Leica 1600 laser rangefinder to my kit. 

For support gear, I brought a TSD Guerrilla Sniper bag, as well as a Eagle Industries ruck with a S.O. Tech rifle saddle attached. A TAB Gear shooting mat and rear bag completed the ensemble. I'd also picked up a Triad Wedge rear bag to try as well. For binoculars I'm still using the Burris pair that came free with my old scope. 

Alex Niewland brought his new Savage Model 10 Precision Carbine (he'd shot my Savage and like it so much, particularly the trigger, that he got one of this own). His rifle is set up much like mine with the same Leupold scope and Versapod bipod (he seems to like letting me do the research and try the gear, trying my stuff, then copying my setup). The biggest differences between his setup and mine are 4 inches less barrel length and the fact that his rifle has the Accustock, which is far more satisfactory than the stock mine came with, so he hasn't replaced it with an aftermarket stock.

Steyr Scout in the foreground with Scott's Accuracy International behind.

Mauser in .308 with a nice laminated stock.

The other rifles in the class were quite varied. Some students brought multiple rifles, others only one. These included a PSL, Steyr Scout, a pair of Mausers (in 8mm and .308), a FAL, an S&W M&P 15 AR, a Savage in .270 and a Remington 700 in .243. Scopes varied quite a bit as well, including a two power scout scope, 12x fixed magnification, a Weaver mildot variable, two German fixed 4x DMR scopes, and a pair of Burris Fullfield scopes similar to the one I used at the previous class. In addition, Scott had his own enormous collection of rifles with him. He had so many that even on the third day he was pulling out new guns I hadn't seen earlier in the class. 

Remington 700 in .243 with a Savage in .270 in the background.


Venue

The class was held at the American International Marksmanship Academy in Blakey, Georgia. This is an enormous facility that has sprung up there in the past year (and is still being built out). They have a 1000 yard range, a 2000 yard unknown distance range, several smaller ranges, more than a dozen pistol bays, skeet shooting, a breaching house, a drop zone, on site lodging (still under construction) and plans for more stuff that isn't even started yet. They're clearly spending some serious cash to construct a first class facility, and they're hoping for military and police contracts to provide a return on that investment.

I raved quite a bit about Thunder Valley Precision, the venue for Eric's class last year. This facility is every bit as good, but in different ways. One big difference is that this is divided up into different ranges, so we moved around quite a bit to take advantage of different facilities and keep out of the way of other activities that were going on there that same weekend (including a police sniper match, IPSC match, and a skeet shooting competition). This facility has some great potential and I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops and what sort of things S.I. can do there in the future.

Friday

We gathered at the range on Friday morning. The day was overcast and it would sprinkle on us on and off throughout the day, but nothing too serious. We kicked things off by signing a couple of waivers (one for the range and one for S.I.) and promising on video not to sue. Everyone introduced themselves (quite a varied group) and talked about the rifles and optics they brought to the class.

Scott went through the basics of the prone position and we did some preliminary dry work to make sure everyone was doing it right. In addition to the traditional prone position he also demonstrated the Hawkins, SBU prone and rollover prone positions. This led to some discussion about how rolling the rifle left or right affects the impact of the bullet relative to your crosshairs.

Traditionally, we start this kind of class out with some shooting at 100 yards to check zero and confirm that everyone has the fundamentals down. There had been a lot of rain lately and the 100 yard line on the range we were using was a big mud pit. The 200 yard line was up on a small berm so it had stayed much drier, so we began there. Because of this a lot of people ended up with a 200 yard zero (which is not necessarily a bad thing). Since my rifle was zeroed at 300, I dialed in my 200 yard hold under and confirmed that I was shooting dead on with that correction.

We did the zeroing on paper, but after everyone had their zero set up correctly Scott put out some steel to give us some more immediate feedback on how we were hitting. With these in place he ran through the sitting, kneeling, and standing positions, giving the students some trigger time in each. As usual, these were not the student's favorite positions. Nevertheless they are vital in circumstances where vegetation or micro terrain make prone unusable. If you can get more support, that's obviously better (and we saw a lot of ways to 'cheat' and support our rifles later in the class), but you still need to be able to shoot from these positions using only your own body for support.

While the students were shooting some of these positions, I brought out my AR. Alex and I are doing a private AR class so I wanted to get a little work in with that. Even with iron sights, banging steel at 200 was no problem.

After a pause for lunch, we stepped the range back to 300. This is my zero range, so I was able to just leave the at it's default setting. Everyone was able to get on target fairly easily. Scot really emphasized recording your dope at each range so you could refer to it later.

We continued stepping back in 100 yard increments, getting everyone on target at each range and recording dope for each range. At 500, I ran into a bit of an issue. The vegetation on the 400 yard berm in front of us was just high enough to obscure the targets from a prone position. I could have moved left or right to avoid the vegetation but I figured I could make this a learning experience. I had a taller bipod with me (one I normally use with a magazine fed rifle like an AK or AR so I can shoot it with a 30 round magazine inserted). I used that, at it's highest setting to get enough elevation to shoot over the weeds. This raised up the buttstock too high for my rear bag to work, so I put the stock on my rucksack (with the rear bag on top of it for elevation adjustments) and kind of lay with my chest on the bag to make the shot. This was a bit more difficult and considerably less comfortable than regular prone, but it was still very stable and I was able to make the hits.

Scott used this as a chance to explain using your partner as a shooting rest. You can sit with the spotter in front, resting his rifle on your shoulder. As long as you get your breathing properly in sync, it works pretty well. One element that he added that I hadn't seen before, but really liked, was that he put his rucksack on his lap and sort of hugged it to stabilize the torso and support the stock. This would also work well for shooting from any sort of sitting height support, like a low wall or window, tripod, shooting sticks, etc.

Using your partner as a shooting rest while standing.

We finished off the day by shooting at 600, where a guerrilla sniper is supposed to be able to deliver torso shots. This was the maximum distance that I'd been able to make a hit at the GS class last year, and I struggled quite a bit to achieve that much. This time hitting at this range was downright easy. I was even able to hit an 8" plate on the first try, which is roughly equivalent to a 600 yard headshot. Some of this change from the previous class may be due to better skills on my part, but I think a big chunk was thanks to better equipment, particularly the scope. Everyone managed to get on steel here as well, though some folks were having some more trouble than they were at closer ranges.

Friday Night

We adjourned for diner at a Mexican restaurant in town. Afterwards some of us returned to the range to do a bit of night shooting. Some students decided not to join us, but those that did were in for a treat. We started out shooting from the light of the headlights. This was actually pretty difficult. They shed so much light on the ground in front of the target it was hard to see the crosshairs on the much darker target and berm. 

We also took this opportunity to compare muzzle flash among different rifles and ammunition. Alex and I made an interesting case study, with identical rifles and ammo except for barrel length (20 vs 24 inches). Scott was pulling one rifle after another out of his trunk to show flash (including one with a suppressor). Oddly enough, the best flash suppression performance came from an M1A with the milspec flash hider (a long birdcage).

Scott wanted to illuminate the targets with some candles, to model how Soviet snipers shot Germans warming themselves around candles at Stalingrad but the wind was blowing too hard for them to stay lit. He ended up using a chemlight instead, which didn't really shed as much light. This was very difficult to shoot, since the fine wires of my crosshairs were almost invisible. Even the thicker wires at the outside of the reticle were difficult to see except for the one above silhouetted against the sky. I could just barely make out the ends on the left and right edges of the scope (your night vision is actually more sensitive in your peripheral vision than in the center). I took a shot using the top, left, and right posts to estimate where the crosshairs were and managed to get a hit. That's 250 yards without even being able to see the crosshairs! 

Some folks had illuminated reticles, which solves the crosshair visibility problem. However, it can introduce another. Even at the lowest settings the illuminated reticle on some scopes is bright enough to mask the target.

Scott also used this as an opportunity to break out some 5.56mm tracer rounds. They were pretty impressive (almost light blaster bolts from Star Wars). He managed to hit the steel at just the right angle to send a couple arcing off to the right. I need to get me some of these!

Next up Scott illuminated the targets directly with a battery powered light, which was downright simple by comparison. Shooting is easy when you can actually see the crosshairs and the target!

Finally, he put the light behind the targets, backlighting them. This made them kind of hard to see at standing height, but once you went prone, the vegetation blocked the light, making this a lot like the chemlight illuminated shot.

This night shooting was pretty cool. It's not something we did in Eric's class last year, nor has it been done in any other GS class to my knowledge. This was a really great bonus.

Saturday

Shooting windshield glass with an AK.

We started out on Saturday shooting some windshield glass. Windshield glass can affect the trajectory of the bullet, and not in the direction you would think. Shooting into a vehicle the bullet is deflected downward. This effect is less noticeable with high powered rifle rounds (too much speed and mass to be deflected much). The other interesting effect is cratering on the inside of the glass. Windshields are actually two sheets of glass laminated together. This keeps the windshield from coming apart when broken (keeping you in the vehicle during the sudden stop and keeping that deer you just ran into out). When shot, particularly with rifle rounds, a circle of the inner pane of glass around the bullet hole shatters into tiny chips and gets hurled into the passenger compartment in the wake of the bullet. Thus, even if you miss the driver, the shower of glass shards is probably going to ruin his day, especially if he isn't wearing any sort of eye protection.

Next up this morning were close range drills. A sniper rifle isn't the tool you want to use at 5 yards, but if it's what's in your hands, you need to be able to use it. We went through some point shooting, snap shooting and pistol transition drills.

Scott had some stepped barricades that allowed firing from heights from crouching down to a very low prone. Shooters with bolt guns were able to use the Hawkins position, but those with semi-auto had to use SBU prone in order to get low enough with their dangling magazines. Scott took this as an opportunity to have everyone shoot with their rifle rolled over, first at 45 degrees, then at 90 degrees and see how the bullet impact relates to your crosshairs.

Another addition to the class Scott added that hasn't been seen at previous GS classes was a moving target. He had a little cart with a steel plate mounted on a pole that he could pull back and forth with ropes and pulleys. We shot it at about 100 yards, with the target moving at walking pace. Scott explained two different methods for shooting movers: tracking and trapping. In tracking you swing along with the target and press the shot as you swing. Trapping you hold the rifle steady and press the shot as the front edge of the target crosses the crosshairs (at least at this distance and speed). We tried both methods and everyone was able to get on target at least half the time. Some folks went four for four on the mover.

The mover was pretty beat up by the time we were done with it.

Our last exercise before breaking for lunch took advantage of a cinderblock structure on the range. It's intended for military and LE to practice breaching (including explosive breaching), but we used it to practice shooting from cover. We used a couple of vertical I-beams to practice shooting around right and left hand cover, using the I-beam for support. It was interesting to see how foreign the idea of shooting from the support side shoulder was for most students. For the S.I. instructors present, it was really no big deal.

The breaching structure happened to have an exterior window, interior door, and another interior window that all lined up pointing downrange, so we took advantage of this to simulate a shot from deep inside the interior of a building. Despite seeing guys with their muzzles hanging out the window in the movies, this is how you really want to shoot from indoors. Throw in a pair of mostly drawn curtains and shoot through the gap between them and it would be almost impossible to detect the shooter.

We broke for lunch. Because there was a police sniper match going on at one of the other ranges, there was a food cart on the grounds where we could go for some chow. They had hot dogs with a delicious sauerkraut sweet relish. 

After lunch we moved back to the 1000 yard range where we were on Friday and started back up at 700. As with 600 yesterday, I found this pretty easy. I ran into some more trouble at 800. There were some weeds downrange obscuring the bottom half of the targets, so our visible aiming points were smaller than usual, and you kind of had to guess where the center of the target was vertically. This was also where I found my actual bullet flight started deviating noticeably from the computer generated range card I was using for my vertical holds. The wind also kicked up and started gusting quite a bit, which didn't make it any easier. Nevertheless I was eventually able to get on steel.

Scott, shooting his Accuracy International .308

I also got a chance to shoot Scott's Accuracy International .308 with a Horus reticle scope on it. The Horus scope is interesting, with the reticle pretty much eliminating the need to dial elevation or windage. I'm not sorry I bought the Leupold with the TMR reticle, but next time I buy a precision rifle optic I'm going to take a serious look at scopes with Horus reticles. As for the AI rifle, I should not have shot it . . . now I want one. The trigger is superb and the bolt closes as smoothly as a bank vault, it is clearly a fantastically well made piece of hardware (with a price to match).

The known distance range at 900 yards.

After all the trouble at 800, 900 was a piece of cake, relatively speaking. The wind died down and I was able to use my dope from 800 yards as a point of departure for the 900 yard holdover. 

Then we move out to 1000 yards, the limit of the range. One of my goals in coming to this class was to push my rifle and myself out to 1000 yards and get on steel. I was able to, but it was quite challenging. One of the things that made it particularly hard was the way the steel was set up. This range is set up for NRA highpower type shooting with target pits. The steel we were shooting was set up on the berm in front of the target pits, while the backstop berm was 40 yards beyond it. At closer ranges this isn't a problem, but at 1000 yards a .308 is dropping about 50" in that 40 yards. This means that if your elevation is good but you miss the steel left or right, the bullet impact on the backstop is going to be out of view, down behind the target pits. Similarly if you shoot over the target, your impact may be out of view or appear to be under the target. Wind was fairly light, but at this range minor variations had a substantial effect. I had also run out of adjustment on my scope, so I was both dialing and holding over using my reticle to get the necessary holdover to hit at this range. Another factor that may have increased the difficulty was that, according to my ballistics software, my load was going decelerating through the transonic range at this distance, potentially upsetting it's flight path. I was able to get a couple of hits, but I expended about 30 rounds getting them. 

Much like the difference between all the trouble I had at 600 at the GS class last year and the easy time I had this time around, I think a lot of this may come down to having the right equipment. I'm sure there are people who can make a .308 work at 1000 yards, but I'm not there yet. A different steel and berm setup and an optic with more adjustment would have made it easier for me to get on target. Nevertheless, this range is clearly getting towards the outer limits of the .308s ability to make accurate, repeatable hits. Having the right tool, like a .300 Win Mag or .338 Lapua, would make hitting at this distance as easy as hitting at 600 with a .308.

Alex, sitting behind the .50.

Some of the other folks were getting frustrated with their tools as well, so Scott broke out the .50 to give them an opportunity to shoot something a bit more suited to this sort of range. By the time Alex and I were done wrestling with the .308 at 1000 yards the rest of the students had headed home, but Scott let us shoot the .50. I settled in behind it and held exactly where Scott told me too and slowly pressed the trigger. Recoil was substantial, but not as bad as some would suggest. I was shooting at a steel IPSC target with a swinger in the center. I managed to drill it dead center, right in the swinger. That's a 5" target at 1000 yards! Doing that on the first shot really puts my difficulties making the .308 work at this range into perspective. Sometimes it can be done with less than optimal equiptment, but it's a lot easier with the right tools (having someone as experienced as Scott to call the wind and the appropriate hold helps too).

BOOM!

Sunday

Sunday morning came earlier than usual, thanks to the change to daylight saving time. Today we were on the unknown distance range. This is a 2000 yard range with several dozen targets scattered out at various ranges starting at about 300. 

The Unknown Distance range.  It's about 2000 yards out to the far treeline.

We began the day with some talk about gear (Scott had been saving this in case we got some really heavy rain and needed to get under cover). He talked about the various rifles, scopes, spotting scopes, rangefinders, bags, and other sundry gear. 

A fine collection of rifles during the gear discussion.  From left to right, Scotts Accuracy International .308, his 3-gun AR, Alex's Savage Model 10 Precision Carbine, a students 8mm Mauser with scout scope, and a Steyr Scout.

One thing that particularly interested me were the binoculars. I've been using a pair of Burris binocs that came free with a scope. They're quite serviceable (and considerably better than some el-cheapo pairs I've used in the past) but I've been thinking about upgrading. Scott had a pair of Leupolds with a TMR mil reticle in them. I'd been looking at this, since it matched my rifle reticle, but after playing with them I think I've decided against it. The binoculars are hard to hold steady enough to range with the reticle, and I don't think they'd really work as a substitute for a spotting scope with a reticle. The one thing it would be useful for is observing a target with the binoculars and talking someone with a mil rifle scope onto the target ("two mills left of the tree and three mils down" sort of thing). That's probably not worth the price premium that Leupold demands for the reticle. The glass, however, was visibly clearer than my binoculars, as were another pair of Leupolds I looked through, so I may be upgrading to one of their non-reticle models.

Since almost everyone had a laser rangefinder Scott had folks bring them out and pass them around for other students to play with. The thing that struck me here was the very wide variation in optical quality. My Leica was quite clear, with good quality glass. Alex's Bushnell was similar. Some of the others were very murky. Some manufacturers have clearly figured out that optical quality isn't something most of their prospective buyers check for, and are reducing their costs by using crappy optics. These might suffice against paper targets or brightly painted steel, but given a more realistic, harder to see target you might have a hard time seeing it to range properly. 

Scott, explaining mil ranging.

On that subject, we moved on to rangefinding, but not with lasers. Scott got everyone a mildot scope or spotter and had them calculate the distance to five different targets from 400 to 750 yards using the mil formula. We ranged them with a laser to confirm, then shot them rolling thunder style (Scott called out each student one after another and they had a few seconds to hit that target). 

During the first shot of this drill I messed up, or rather I discovered I'd messed up the previous afternoon. Normally I dial elevation and hold for wind using my reticle. Because I'd run out of scope adjustment at 1000 I dialed in the wind instead, so I could hold for elevation right on my vertical crosshair. The problem was I'd forgotten to reset that to zero after I was done shooting. So my first shot today was 1.5 mills off. Always reset your turrets to zero after shooting!

Scott had us reset our zeros to 500 yards and calculate our hold overs and unders from that point for 300-700 yards. He'd call out a target and we'd have to estimate range, apply the appropriate hold and fire. This was obviously much easier for those of us with graduated reticles so we could just hold the appropriate amount of mils over or under (it's also where a having the same adjustment units on the scope and the reticle really shines, because your new holds are just your old holds, minus the adjustment to get to a 500 yard zero).

During lunch, we put up some paper targets with faces on them (Bin Laden, Hitler, Saddam, etc.) at about 200 yards. Students were given a particular target and told to go make a headshot on that guy. This was one of the exercises I really loved when I took the class and the students seemed to have a blast with it.

When we were putting up the face targets, I also helped Scott scatter some 3D torso targets with t-shirts on them around the range for the students to try to spot. Unfortunately they'd blown over by the time we were ready to start looking for them. So they got to try to spot prone guys instead of sitting ones. Two were moderately difficult to spot, one the students needed some coaching to find, and the last one had fallen over behind some grass and was hidden so well that I couldn't even spot it until Scott went downrange to stand it up, and I was the one who put it there! After spotting the targets the students estimated range and then, of course, shot at them.

Next up was camouflage. Scott went through the list of 'S's that will get you detected if you're trying to hide and will help you detect others if you're looking or them: shape, shadow, shine, silhouette, spacing, scent, speed, sound, and spoor. Since Alex was wearing woodland BDUs Scott sent him to walk over towards the treeline to demonstrate how difficult it could be to spot someone. He stopped short of the treeline a few hundred yards away. Standing he was reasonably visible. The most visible parts were his hands and the desert tan boots he was wearing. Those desert boots definitely weren't suited to the very green environment we were working in. Interestingly, the ballcap he was wearing shaded his face enough that it didn't stand out the way his hands did. Kneeling he was considerably less visible. Prone, with his hands and boots out of view, he would have been very hard to distinguish from a bush, even with binoculars. 

Scott directed Alex into the woods and sent out a student wearing Multicam so we could compare the patterns. This was a treed area, but it was overcast so the light was very flat, meaning there were no deep shadows. In these conditions the woodland pattern was darker than most of the background. The Multicam, on the other hand, blended in very well. The student was visible while moving but as soon as he stopped he was very hard to spot. However, when he crouched down and bent over, the shadow he created was more visible than he was standing up. Shadow is on the "S" list for a reason.

Now that the students had been educated a bit on how not to be seen, it was time to put this to the test. Alex and I drew the easy assignment during this exercise. We sat around back at the firing line and watched for the students while they had to move across the range to a prospective firing point. They did pretty well. I saw one head that was up a bit to high as they were moving down a draw (somebody needed to get a bit lower in his low crouch) and one face for a few moments at the edge of some brush.

Thus far, most of the students' shooting (with the exception of the barricade and window shots yesterday) had been fired from nice flat ground with no obstructions. Now they took some shots from positions that were more representative of unusual sniper hides. To simulate an urban hide in a crawlspace of other low place they had to make a shot from underneath a table, through a narrow slot between the underside of the table and a horizontal crosspiece beneath. Next up was a more rural hide, with the students shooting over the crest of a small vegetated berm that ran across the range. 

This brought us to one of my favorite parts of the class: vehicle hides. The other students all shot out of the beds of their pickup trucks. Alex and I on the other hand, were driving mid-size sedans, neither of which has a generous enough trunk to shoot out of. Instead, I piled luggage and a couple of rucksacks on the driver's side rear seat, topping it off with a TSD sniper bag. The shooter sat in the rear passenger seat, shooting out the driver's side rear window. With Alex driving we pulled up and I was able to put shots on two steel targets quite easily.

We also worked some on coordinated fire. The idea is for two (or more) snipers to fire simultaneously, either to increase the chances of taking out one target or to hit multiple targets simultaneously. The important thing is for the shots to be close to simultaneous, so the target(s) won't have time to react or duck from the first shot before the second arrives. You do this with a simple countdown with everyone firing at the same time. After a few tries some of the students could fire close enough together that it sounded like a single shot.

For the final exercise, Scott put up some 2" circles at 100 yards. The goal was to get a first round hit on the target. This is close, but the small target was fairly challenging. I settled in, breathed deeply and pressed off a shot that drilled it about half an inch from the center. Frankly, I was quite pleased with myself.

Final Thoughts

This was a great class. The Guerrilla Sniper curriculum Gabe designed works really well and Scott did a good job presenting it. In particular, he did a great job taking advantage of the gear and facilities he had available: stuff like the night shoot, the mover, using cover as support, and shooting though the windows. Even though I'd taken this class before there was quite a bit of new stuff. Taking S.I. classes a second (or third) time, especially from different instructors, is always a learning experience, and the Guerrilla Sniper class more than most.

I was very pleased with the changes I'd made to my gear since the previous GS class. I'd been able to meet the GS minimum with my old setup, but the difference between that and my new rig was just tremendous. Shots that I struggled to make last year were almost monotonously easy and stuff that was beyond my capabilities is now within reach. 

The scope, in particular was a tremendously worthwhile investment. Being able to accurately and repeatedly dial in adjustments and hold precisely with the reticle is a huge upgrade. Having both a mil reticle and mil adjustments made the math easy and is well worth the price premium. Combining these with a spotting scope that has a mil reticle in it makes calling corrections dead simple. I was also quite impressed with the Leica rangefinder. I was able to range a IPSC size steel target sitting alone on a berm from 800 yards and get the true range, not the distance to the berm behind it (in this case the tripod adapter also proved its worth, since there's no way I would have been able to hold the rangefinder steady enough to do this offhand).

The one part of my optics related setup I was a bit disappointed with was the Manfrotto joystick head. This would have worked fine with a spotting scope that didn't have a reticle in it, but it was very hard to line it up exactly with the reticle at longer ranges. When you release your grip on the adjustment lever to lock the tripod into place, it tends to move it a little bit to the left. The Horus reticle helped mitigate this because you didn't really have to get the center of the reticle on the target, any intersection of the mil grid would do. Moving the scope half a mil or so to accomplish this was easy to achieve with just hand pressure on the tripod. Nevertheless, I think I may still look for a different, more precisely adjustable tripod head. The PRS/SLIK tripod itself was just rock solid.

One big difference between this class and the previous one was that I spent almost all of this class shooting off a bipod, while I spent almost all of the previous class shooting off a ruck. A big part of this is the fact that I have a good bipod this time around (rather than the piece of crap Chineese knockoff I had last time). The other factor is probably that I wasn't able to get my bags well set up ahead of time. I had to leave on this trip less than 24 hours after getting back into town from a business trip, so packing mostly consisted in tossing stuff from previous range trips straight into the car. 

The TAB Gear rear bag continued to work very well. So well, in fact, that I never really brought out the Triad Wedge rear bag except for show and tell on the third day. 

Overall, I am quite happy with how my gear performed. After the previous class I had a long list of changes I wanted to make an new gear to buy. This time around any tweaks I make are going to be pretty minor. 

The theme of my writeup of the previous GS class was that you can take this class and meet the GS minimum (200 yard headshots, 600 body shots) without a huge amount of gear. The theme of this one may be that more/better gear really helps you get beyond the minimum. That said, you still don't have to go as whole hog as I did. The one investment that will really pay off in spades is a really good scope. That made more of a difference than any of the other stuff I bought between the two classes. A mil reticle, good, repeatable adjustments (preferably in mils as well) and good quality glass provide a tremendous increase in capability. This, combined with a good rifle, a bipod or ruck, a rear bag, and the proper skills and hits at a quarter mile or more are astoundingly easy.

Guerrilla Sniper is truly a great class and I would highly recommend anyone interested in enhancing their long range rifle skills take it. Scott Vandiver did a great job with this class and I really look forward to seeing what he can do in the future at this excellent facility.

Discuss this class on Warriortalk.

The Warrior Parent – Part 4: Raising an Armed Family

By Uli Gebhard, Suarez International Staff Instructor Los Angeles

Three Generations on the range

I know that this comment is going to come up in this context: “How dare you exposing innocent children to guns!” Well, let's talk about this statement for a minute – or actually seven minutes – since this is the average response time in my hometown to a 911 call. That is, if you have the opportunity to make that call.

Just a couple of weeks ago Sarah McKinley shot a man that tried to force his way into her home. She had already called 911 but the police was still several minutes out when the operator told her to “do what you have to do to protect your baby”.
Just two days earlier a 14-year old North Carolina boy used a shotgun to protect himself and his 17-year old sister from several home invaders.

These a admittedly extreme scenarios, but in both cases the use of a firearm saved the family from harm. The police officers arrived on scene to late to help. I have the following question for those who are appalled at the thought of kids being introduced to firearms: Can you reliably fight an armed assailant off with your bare hands for seven minutes? If yes please contact me – I'd like to learn what you are doing.

A firearm paired with the knowledge, skills and willingness to use it efficiently levels the playing field. Every parent should have this type of preparation to keep his or her family safe!


There are obviously two aspects to this topic – being an armed parent and introducing your children to firearms and marksmanship.


Childproofing the Armory

I had firearms long before my wife and I got married and long before our first son was born. How do you handle being armed and raising a family? Little kids and guns do not mix – as long as junior or the little princess is too young to understand the dangers of a firearm, the best approach is to keep the weapon either on your person or under lock and key. The huge gun safe with the family armory will likely take very long to access due to location or locking mechanism. Small quick-access safes are a good solution to keep your defensive handguns ready. Main differences are the lock systems:

• Mechanical Push-Button Combination locks are independent of batteries and virtually maintenance–free. The lock can be easily reset in case you mess up the entry of the combination. However it will not tell you if the lock has been tampered with.
• Electronic Push-Button Combination locks require batteries and may lock you out or mandate a delay in case the combination was entered incorrectly several times in a row. The lock provides feedback in case someone tried unsuccessfully entering combinations.
• Biometric Lock – fingerprint reading electronics in particular have been on the market for several years. I have no personal experience with them, however, the feedback on the first models was that the electronics were set to err on the side of caution and did not always unlock even if the correct finger was on the reader. Dirt, moisture, scratches or any number of things seem to have led to false non-releases. I'm not sure how well these systems work today, however, I'd be hesitant to trust my life to some potentially quirky electronics.

The quick-access safes can also be mounted or secured inside a car. This can be helpful if you want to keep a firearm with you but may have to go visit one of the many places such as a post office or other federal building that will not permit carrying a firearm on your person.

OK – so you either carry your gun, or you have it in a quick-access safe. An additional measure of safety that you may want to consider is keeping the chamber of your semi-auto empty when it's not in your holster. A three-year old can press the trigger on a Glock, as one former LAPD-officer painfully found out, but a young child does not have the strength to rack the slide.
Separating young children and guns is a good first step to being an armed parent. One question that arises here is how to introduce the kids to the families defensive hardware.
One thing that I've seen with most families is that they do not hide the fact that they have firearms from their children. The one family that did hide the existence of their guns is currently struggling to find a way of introducing this topic to their son.

Gunproofing Your Kids

Keystone Crickett (front) and Henry .22 (back) make great rifles for young shooters

Our kids have always known that we have firearms. They also knew right from the beginning that they are tools to keep us safe and that those tools only work if they are not known to anybody outside the family. I've read a lot of posts on online forums where armed parents were concerned that their kids or kids of their friends will eventually bump into their hardware and wonder what that hard “thing” on the belt is. Can you prevent things like this? Most likely not. But you can prepare for it: Most of us log a lot of defensive gear around and many items are more benign than our RMR Glocks. I've reached under my shirt once or twice to pull my Cold Steel Recon out and let the kid know that G10 grip scales will make for a hard bump. More than once my own kids had a knowing smile on their face when that happened.

I can only speak for those families that I know: all of them teach their kids from the beginning that guns are dangerous if they are not handled properly. Thus, whenever the youngster wants to take a look at the firearm it is done after going through all of the safety procedures and rules together. To me it is amazing how short-lived a kids interest a firearm can be in this context. My younger son wanted to see my AR as I came home from teaching a class. We went through the safety rules, cleared the gun, pointed it in a safe direction, he peeked through the sights without even having the hand fully on the pistol grip, mumbled “Thanks, Dad” and was gone in a flash...

How old does a boy or girl have to be to be safety conscientious around a firearm? It's not so much a question of age as of maturity. Some kids may grasp that concept as early as four, others may be seven. Regardless of their age, realize one thing: Your children look very closely at what you are doing and will pick up your habits.
If you choose to make the commitment to be armed to protect your family, you also make a commitment to setting a good example for your children every time you handle a gun. If you bend or break the rules they will consider this OK and follow your lead. On the positive side, if you handle your gun carefully and responsibly every time you pick it up, you kids will catch on to that. You may find that your seven-year-old is the only kid on a birthday party that keeps the finger off the trigger of the soaker gun while they are darting across the backyard. Kids take pride in what they learn and I can only encourage you to give them lots of positive feedback when they show awareness for the safety rules. It can be as simple as them picking up your Red ASP Training gun showing off that they know where the safe direction is and that they know to keep the finger off the trigger.

Will kids still play with toy guns? Most likely yes – but they have to be able to distinguish between the cops and robbers games with their friends and the seriousness of a real firearm. A point that has always been very important to me is the role of video-games, especially for pre-teen kids. First-role shooter games emphasize that it's OK to blow people up for fun – this is the wrong message if you want to teach your son or daughter at the same time that a firearm is a dangerous but useful tool. Consequently our kids do not get to play those games, neither at home, where we simply don't have them, or at their friends houses where we let the parents know that it's not OK for our kids to be around those games. We've made nothing but positive experiences with the way our kids handle the firearms in the household. More about that later.

Overall the key points were for our family and for the vast majority of armed families that we know, that defensive weapons were never a secret to the youngsters but that they knew not to reveal these assets to anyone outside the family. Also, all those families raised their kids with an awareness of firearm safety.

In all of these families the kids eventually became interested in shooting a firearm. That of course, opened a whole new chapter for them and their parents.


    Raising Young Marksmen

These boys had a safe and fun day at the range.

Families in rural areas may have a property that is large enough to set targets up in the backyard and get a couple of rounds downrange without disturbing the neighbors.
However, I'm writing this article form the perspective of a parent who lives in a large urban area with the next outdoor range an hour's drive away – and that range being usually fairly crowded with their private ranges booked for months in advance. How can we introduce our kids to marksmanship in these settings?

A good option to start presents itself with Airsoft rifles and BB Guns in the comfort of our own home or garage. Coincidentally, the Boy Scouts of America have a Marksmanship program for Cub Scouts (ages 6-11) with BB Rifles.
Airsoft has a couple of advantages: The 6mm plastic pellets carry very little energy and a thick piece of cardboard will suffice as a backstop. This means that you can set your range up in the hallway if that's all the space you have available. In case of our kids, we found that a spring-powered M-4 worked really well. With the shoulder stock completely collapsed, the carbine fit their length of pull and the skinny standard AR pistol grip is small enough for the hands of a five-year old.

On the risk of sounding like a broken record: good safety procedures go a long way: We went through the safety rules every time we set up range in our garage and handled the airsoft rifle with the same diligence as we later would treat a real rifle. One of the benefits of using a rifle over a pistol is that it is a very stable and easy-to-work-with platform when shooting from a bench or table. That in turn makes for successful hits and lots of fun for junior. Cardboard strips for targets that tip over when hit provide instant gratification.
Our son was able to cock the rifle by himself at age 5 and from there on my role changed from hands-on coach to RSO and feedback provider.

Other good starter guns are BB guns such as the Daisy Red Rider or the slightly smaller Daisy Buck. They will most likely require help from an adult to cock. And, since they are shooting metal projectiles, they will need at least wood or better a metal pellet-trap as a backstop. They also have a bit more range than the airsoft. For the parents of little girls, the red rider also comes in pink.

The Garage Gallery will almost inadvertently lead to interest in “The Real Thing”. Young kids need a rifle that fits their frame and skill level. This means a short length of pull, light weight, single shot and an action mechanism that they can handle. Following is a list of rifles that fit that general description.

• Keystone Sporting Arms Crickett Bolt-Action, Peep-Style rear sight. Striker has to be manually cocked after the bolt has been closed. Trigger is on the course side.
  
  
• Chipmunk Rifle .22LR Owned by Keystone, almost identical to the Crickett
  
  
• Henry Mini-Bolt Fiber Optic Sights (Rear Notch-Type) Bolt-Action, similar function to the Crickett. Trigger is supposedly better than the Crickett.
  
  
• Savage Rascal and Savage Cub both feature peep-style rear sights and most intriguing the accu-trigger that Savage's full-size rifles are renowned for. Striker cocks upon opening the bolt. Other than Crickett-Type actions, this rifle can be unloaded without pulling the trigger.
  The Rascal will hit the market in early March – You'll probably see a follow-up about this rifle later this year.
  
  
• Thompson Center Hot Shot Break action, external hammer, peep rear sight. Everything on this rifle is scaled down for kids – including the trigger guard. Many adults will have a hard time squeezing their index finger into this tiny opening. Thompson also lists stock extensions so that the rifle can grow with the young shooter
  
  
• Mossberg Half-Pint Plinkster Bolt-Action, wood stock, Notch-Type Rear, open sights. It felt heavy and bulky to our six-year old when he handled it in the store.
  
  
• Rossi Youth Matched Pair .410ga/.22 LR or 20ga/.22LR break action with interchangeable barrels, fiber optic front and notch-type rear sight. The ability to change from rifle to shotgun is interesting, however, I have not yet found any of them in our local stores.

This list is by no means complete. The rifles listed are those that I am aware of. I ended up buying a Crickett for my oldest son – that decision was not based so much on personal preference back then, as on availability. Not every store in Southern California carries rifles for children. At $135, what did we get?

The Keystone Crickett works out well for this young marksman

We got a rifle that is perfectly suited for the small frame of a six-year old. Length of pull, weight and handling characteristics fit the bill. One thing that I personally liked was the additional step of manually cocking the striker after a round has been loaded. Just one more point to emphasize that the rifle is going “hot”.
My sons are able to handle all the manipulations. In the beginning they needed a bit extra help with cocking the striker, but eventually they also got their technique down for this step.

What I would recommend, especially for younger kids for their first range trips is letting them shoot from a fully supported position either prone or from a table. The stable platform makes the first hits easy and gives them the confidence that what they did with the airsoft or BB-Rifle will work just as well with the “real” gun.

During the first trip to the range we started out with targets a mere 5 meters away. The tin cans that we set up were thoroughly perforated at the end of the day. The distance to our targets increased continually with subsequent range trips and pretty soon 10” Diameter steel plates at 65 meters were within the realm of the possible. This is all still with open sights. I never mounted any type of optics, red dot or telescopic, on this little rifle. Since our son started out with the peep-sights of the airsoft AR, he was right at home with the same type of sights on the Crickett.
As far as targets go, anything reactive that provides instant gratification for a solid hit is good. Tin cans, sporting clays, steel targets, small spinners or my personal favorite: coffee containers filled with water and frozen overnight. On those, every hit sends a spray of ice flying. However, the more hits one scores, the more accurate the following shots have to be to get whatever ice is left at the bottom of the container.

The favorite target of the Junior Staff:  coffee containers, filled with water, frozen overnight

When our sons joined us for a group shoot on the range, I made them more than once part of our safety briefing by letting them recite or explain the range rules. On that same token, especially when bringing kids to the range who have no experience with real firearms, make sure to run the briefing on a level that they will understand. Earlier this year, we had my younger son and two of their friends from school joining us on the range. We had every firearm that they would handle that day on the table and explained every single one – and had them repeat back or re-explain to us what to do, what not to do and why. These four boys had a day full of exciting new experiences and they were safe on the firing line. This was a huge relief especially since one of them does not usually sit still for any extended period of time.

A kids dedication to firearm safety will not go unnoticed. A co-worker mentioned at a social gathering that he was pleasantly surprised with the way a seven year old shot and behaved on the range. A lady in the group was appalled at the obscenity of a young boy shooting a life firearm. My co-worker let that go for the moment. A while later he picked the conversation up from a different angle, asking her “Does your son still play HALO wars?” “Why yes – that's his favorite game. He's really good at it!” came the surprised response. “So, he plays a first-role shooter game and has no idea of the damage that a real gun can do!?” Things went downhill from there.
While this lady did not get the point, I believe you do: Kids learn responsibility when they handle firearms.

    They know their marksmanship, where do we go from here?

Once kids know and enjoy their marksmanship skills, they may want to take them a step further.
There is a good selection of magazine-fed bolt-action and semi-automatic rifles on the market. A personal favorite is a youth-sized lever-action. The magazine holds upwards of ten rounds, yet, the rifle has to manually cycled for every shot, same as the bolt-action, just a bit more progressive.
If you happen to own an AR-15 with collapsible stock, you may want to invest into a .22LR conversion kit. With it in place and the stock all the way in, your son or daughter can practice with your rifle.

This AR-15 with CMMG Conversion Kit made for a fun range day!

Many threads on online forums revolve around which handguns that can be used to teach Kids the basics.

• Several .22 Revolvers such as the Taurus 94 have a small grip and a light single-action trigger that makes accurate shots comparably easy.
  
  
  
  
• The Walther P22 has a small grip and controls that most smaller kids will be able to work– call it functionality with “cool' factor.
  
  
  
  
• The Ruger Mark II and III have a comparably small grip, but they are still fairly large for the hands of an 8-year old. Better might be the new SR-22, which seems to be similar in size to the P-22. At the writing of this article they just hit the market and were sold out at our local stores.

Regardless which route your son or daughter wants to take – repeating rifle of pistol, make sure that the firearm they use is appropriate for them and maintain their focus on safety. It's easy to get carried away when switching from a single-shot bolt-action to a ten or even thirty-round semi-auto rifle.

Uli Gebhard is Suarez International Staff instructor for California

Find Uli Gebhard's courses here

Discuss this topic on Warriortalk