Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend John Chambers’ M4 Sniper Week - Designated Marksman School in Coleman, Texas. This is a five day class combining his DMR and Advanced DMR classes.
John is a graduate of the Army's squad designated marksman training program and served as a designated marksman. Most of his service was in a Long Range Surveillance Unit, which has a lot of applicability for the sort of guerrilla small unit tactics that Suarez International teaches. He is exceedingly well qualified to teach a course like this.
Gear
This was not an easy class to fly out to. Sniper classes are fairly gear intensive, and combined with the class being five days long, it requires a lot of stuff. John was willing to receive a box of gear I mailed there for me, so I could limit myself to one checked bag, plus a carry-on. Even so, I had to be selective about what I brought.
My rifle for this class was a FS2000. The bullpup layout makes the rifle very compact, but it still has a 17.4" barrel. Gabe and I used his to make hits out to 500 yards at the Guerrilla Sniper class last September, which is really what made me to want to bring it to this class. Gabe was nice enough to loan me an ACOG, one of the LED powered TA02s with a .223 BDC reticle. This is some very good glass and I was glad to have it. I kitted the rifle out with an FN tri-rail forend, a subby VFG, and a short Versapod bipod on a American Defense QD mount.
Most of the students in the class brought various types of ARs. We had everything from stock M4s up to 26" long bull barrels. While the majority of the class had ARs, there were a few other rifles. One student brought an 5.56mm AK for his primary rifle, and several others brought 7.62x39mm AKs as second (or third) guns. On the .308 side, there were a pair of students with FALs, one with an M1A, and one SCAR 17. John brought quite a few rifles, including a nicely matched pair of DMRs: one in 5.56mm, the other in .308. He also brought his AUG, a Savage bolt gun, and a couple of .22s (rifle and pistol). He also brought out a cut-down Browning Auto 5 with some birdshot as a snake gun.
There was a great variety of glass on display. Probably the most common optic was an ACOG, but there were a substantial number of low power variable optics (1–4x, most commonly). A few folks brought much more powerful optics, up to a 6–24x.
For support gear, I brought along my Infidel chest rig. For many uses I prefer a war belt, but one nice feature of a chest rig (especially a fairly low profile one) is that it packs a lot smaller than a big war belt. I also brought along an Eberlestock Halftrack pack to carry the rest of my gear in. For additional optics I brought a pair of Burris binoculars, a Leupold spotting scope, and a Leica rangefinder.
I wore multicam to the class. Most folks had camoflage of one sort or another. Multicam was the most popular, but some had commerical hunting cammo, several relied on Hippy Earth Tone cammo, and one had a very nice set of the A-TACS desert pattern.
Travel and Venue
I flew from Phoenix to Austin on Monday and stayed the night at John’s house in Austin. His family’s hospitality was first rate. On Tuesday we stocked up for the trip and drove up to Coleman for the class.
The class is held on a large (dozens of square miles large) ranch near Coleman. The ranch’s guest facilities host hunters most of the time, but since there wasn’t anything in season at the moment, we had the opportunity to use them quite inexpensively. The bunkhouse is very well equipped, with four bunkrooms, a large common room, and a kitchen. John and I appropriated one bunkroom, and the students split up among the other three. Each bunkroom sleeps up to seven and has it’s own shower. The common room provided a nice place to hang out after class, and served as an eating area for dinner.
We were responsible for our own breakfast and lunch, but the folks at the ranch provided dinner every night. The food was fantastic, with lasagna, ribs, brisket, fish, and some of the best steak I’ve ever eaten. Five days of lodging and dinner, for just $175. At a lot of places you could spend that much on food and lodging in one day!
Wednesday
On Wednesday morning we woke early and had a bit of breakfast. A couple more students had come in during the night, and the remaining ones trickled in just before the class started at 9 o’clock.
After handing out the waivers and handled the usual admin stuff John gave the safety lecture. In addition to the usual four rules, he also talked about some stuff specific to this kind of class, including talking about the potential hazards of mixing a CCW holster and a chest rig. We also talked a bit about environmental threats, like heat, dehydration, etc. He also informed us that it was open season on any coyotes or hogs that showed their faces during the class.

He began the class by talking about the role of the designated marksman. Unlike a sniper, the DM is integrated into the maneuver element, such as an infantry squad. This means they need to be able to carry out all the roles of an infantryman, from patrolling to CQB. The obvious role for the designated marksman is to provide precision fire at long range on a designated target. Their other major role is to offer overwatch and fire support to a maneuver element.
John talked a bit about the realities of the role of the sniper and designated marksman. We hear all the some of the fantastically long range Hathcockian shots, but we hear about these shots because they are exceptional. The reality of sniper shops in Iraq and Afghanistan is that most are under 300 meters. On the law enforcement side, the average SWAT sniper shot is just 68 meters.
Moving on to equipment, John said he often gets the, “what is the best rifle” question. He really things that a good marksman needs three: a good semi-auto, a bolt gun, and a .22. The semi-auto is a lot more flexible and more adaptable to a range of roles, including CQB. The bolt gun allows you to employ a heavier caliber, more powerful rounds. It’s a good choice in a fixed position where only a few, very precise or long distance shots will be required. The .22 is a more specialized weapon, lacking in the range and terminal ballistic capabilities of its centerfire brethren. However, it’s inherent quietness makes it an asset in certain circumstances (even more so when equipped with a suppressor).
As far as optics go, he emphasized that for this sort of work you want something fairly low power. A variable with a low end of no more than 3x (with 1x or 2x being better) or a low power fixed optic like an ACOG. While a mildot reticle can be used in this application, John really likes BDC reticles, like the ones on the ACOG or some other optics.
John went through the fundamentals of rifle shooting. This stuff is very basic, but if you don’t have the fundamentals down, you’re not going to be successful in some of the more advanced stuff we’d be doing in the class. He went through the different shooting positions, talked about proper sight picture, and discussed trigger control. The job of shooting isn’t over once the trigger breaks. You need to have a follow through and proper trigger reset. Finally, he talked a bit about controlling your breathing and preventing it from disturbing the shot.
While the fundamentals are sufficient to shoot a tight group at close range, at longer distances we need to start talking about exterior ballistics. Wind has the biggest disruptive influence here, so we spent quite a bit of time talking about how to estimate wind. While John went through several methods for estimating wind based on cues in the environment, this is really something you have to learn by spending a lot of time out in the field. Once you’ve decided out how much wind there is out there, you need to figure out how that will affect the flight path of the bullet. John went through several quick and dirty methods for calculating this for .223 and .308.
One interesting thing John talked about was a method for shooter and spotter to quickly communicate wind holds. Rather than doing it in inches or mils, you use aiming points. Aiming point 0 is the center of the target. Aiming point 1 is halfway to the edge of a torso sized target (about 5"). Aiming point 2 is at the edge of the target. Aiming point 3 is five inches beyond the target, etc.
The last subject of the morning’s lecture was range estimation. John isn’t really a fan of many of the eyeball estimation methods. For serious rangefinding you need a laser or some sort of scope reticle. The ACOGs make this really easy. Each holdover hashmark is about as wide as a man’s shoulders at that distance. Mil reticle scopes require a bit more math, but you can range just about anything that you can estimate the size on.
We broke for lunch, then headed out to the range.
The first order of business was checking everyone’s zero. Most folks took small adjustments at most, but there were a few who needed to rezero (or just zero) their rifles. Some folks had some optics issues. We had one student whose scope was mounted way too far to the rear, providing insufficient eye relief.

After everyone was zeroed, John had them shoot a reduced-range Army Qualification Test (AQT). This is a series of reduced size targets allowing soldiers to qualify at 25 yards. This gave John a baseline for how well the students could shoot, as well as giving the students a reference point for how they were at the start of the class.

We spent the rest of the day working our way through the classic shooting positions, starting with prone. John showed the classic prone position (both the military and olympic variations), as well as using the magazine as a monopod. John’s a real fan of monopod prone. We worked it dry, then went live at 100 yards.

Next up was the sitting position. It’s more difficult to get into and out of than other positions, but it provides almost as much stability as prone, yet allows you to see (and shoot) over micro terrain or vegetation. John showed the cross legged and open legged sitting position. He also showed an interesting variation where you wrap your arms around the your knees for stability. It takes some flexibility to get into, but if you can it’s really a very stable position. Again, we worked it dry and then live.
Moving to higher positions, John demonstrated kneeling. Quick to assume, more stable than standing, but not as much as sitting or prone.

We rounded out the day with the standing position. In addition to the standard olympic standing, John demonstrated a variant with the hand turned the other way (thumb towards shooter). This works particularly well with guns with cylindrical forends like the AR.
The other variant of the standing position he showed us was putting the magazine well in the crook of your support side elbow and grabbing your strong side sleeve. This is really a very solid, stable position. Interestingly, it also works very well for bullpups, tucking the pistol grip in the crook of their arm.
We wrapped things up for the day and headed back to the bunkhouse for a great meal and good fellowship.
Thursday
It rained pretty good overnight, so John moved some things around so we could do our close quarters shooting in the morning and hope that things dried out a bit before we went out and did prone in the afternoon. One of the things that differentiates the designated marksman from the pure sniper is that the DM is expected to perform all the normal infantry roles including CQB. This requires the right skills, as well as equipment that allows you to use those skills effectively.
We drove out to a different shooting area, where a earthen dam created a nice big backstop. John went through some of the ready positions and demonstrated the proactive reload.

The live fire started out with some reflexive shooting drills, firing three round bursts from 5 and ten yards. Some of the folks with higher magnification scopes had some difficulty with this. I borrowed John’s AUG and put a few rounds through it. It handled very nicely and shot well. I tried shooting a bit with it from the left shoulder. It can definitely be done, but there are some complications compared to my FS2000.

Next up was the transition to pistol. John showed the preferred SI method for doing this, using a simple two point sling and dropping the rifle on your back so it hangs diagonally. We ran this a bunch of times dry, making sure everyone had it down, then ran it with live rounds in the pistol. Some folks were a bit rusty on their pistol skills, so John had me take them aside and work on the drawstroke a bit. We also discussed some holster options. We had a few folks with thigh rigs there, but as usual, many of them were way too low. A thigh rig should be run quite high, high enough that it’s easy to reach without stretching or leaning over.

We moved on to some of SI’s get off the X drills. We started out going to the 1 o’clock, which is fairly simple for right-handed shooters (we only had one lefty in the class). Going to the left, to the 11 o’clock, is a bit more involved. John had the students do this with a simple partial shoulder transition - keeping the primary hand on the trigger and the support hand on the forend, but moving the butt over to the support side shoulder.

Finishing up the morning, we did a bit of point shooting from the underarm assault position. Afterwards we drove back to the bunkhouse and had some lunch.

After lunch, we drove out to the area where we’d been shooting the previous day. John and I took a couple of targets out and set them up at various distances for a range estimation exercise. The students used the reticles of their optics to make a range estimate. If they had a mil reticle, they could use the known width of the targets to estimate the range. If they had an ACOG, they could use the width of the drop hashmarks to estimate the range on the torso sized targets. Other scope manufacturers publish the subtensions of their reticle, making it possible to range with them as well.
Our next drill was timed alternating rapid fire. This developed from the ‘talking guns’ concept that a pair of machinegunners can use to provide continuous fire on a target. You have a pair of shooters. One fires, as soon as the second shooter hears the first shooter fire, he shoots. As soon as the first shooter hears the second shooter fire, he fires again. With a good pair of shooters you can get over one round per second on a target at intermediate ranges. John said they used this in Iraq due to a shortage of .308 designated marksman rifles. Putting a lot of .223 rounds onto the target for maximum terminal effect.

After everyone had a chance to shoot the timed alternating rapid fire drill, we went back to working the various shooting positions, as we did yesterday. This time, we started at 200 yards, making some of the less steady positions a lot more challenging. Prone was pretty easy, and most folks were able to do quite well from sitting with a bit of practice. I dug out my tripod and used that for support when sitting, which is just cheating. Kneeling was a bit more challenging. A few folks took some shots from standing. I tried a couple using the position John demonstrated yesterday with the pistol grip in the crook of the support side elbow. I did pretty well with it.

We moved the targets out to 300 yards and did some more shooting, mostly from prone. I banged on the steel a bit trying out various prone options with the FS2000. It’s really quite versatile when it comes to shooting from prone.
We waited around until the sun dropped out below the horizon for a bit of low light shooting. John had everyone start out with some point shooting from the underarm assault position at close range. This also provided an opportunity to compare the effectiveness of different flash hiders. We had a variety, including quite a few GI birdcages, Smith Vortex, AAC, etc. There wasn’t a whole lot of variation between them. All did a pretty good job controlling the flash, but they did not eliminate it. On the other hand, we also had a pair of AKs with muzzle brakes instead of flash hiders. Both of these just created huge fireballs. Much larger and brighter than any of the other rifles. These would be big target indicators and definitely killed your night vision.
One student had a Gen 1 Russian night vision rifle scope. He passed it around and took a look through it. It’s definitely an improvement over no NVG, but it definitely showed the limitations of first geneation NVG.
John took a pair of chemlights out and put them on targets at 200 and 300 yards. With night adjusted vision, they were quite visible even at these distances. Even with the target visible, folks with non-illuminated scopes had some difficulty indexing their weapon on target. You can see the target, but not the sights. An illuminated reticle can solve this problem if the lowest setting on the sight is sufficiently dim. Some folks illuminated reticles were bright enough that it reduced their night vision enough that they couldn’t see the target beyond the lighted crosshairs. There is a very fine line here in terms of illuminated reticles.
Done with the night shooting, we headed back to the bunkhouse for a late dinner. Tonight’s meal was ribs and beef brisket, absolutely delicious. Along with some good beer and nice bourbon, it really hit the spot after a long day of training.
Friday
We started out the day shooting the AQT, as we did at the start of class on Wednesday. This time, John allowed only half the time, making students shoot the 20 round course in just one minute. Despite this, almost everyone shot better than they did on Wednesday. However, a few folks found they had developed some zero issues, and there were some malfunctions.

The folks with zero issues moved off to the side to zero their rifles, while the rest of us did some close range precision shooting at head targets at about 70 yards. Many students didn’t demonstrate the same level of accuracy on the head targets as they did on the AQT. The faces aren’t quite as distinct, and there’s a psychological aspect to shooting at a human face, even on paper.

After lunch, we did some basic team tactics work. Simple two man teams with each man covering the other when he moves. The key here is communication. The man who is going to move yells, “Moving!” The covering partner yells back, “Covering!” After hearing the reply, the moving man gets up and advances 3–5 steps and takes cover. When he’s in position, he yells, “Set!”. The two men switch roles and the process repeats itself. Everybody paired up and ran the drill dry about 50 yards up and back. The one thing that folks seemed to have some trouble with is doing the commands with enough volume. This may come from doing this dry, but when the gunfire is going off and you’ve got multiple teams involved, you need to really belt out the commands loud.

We moved back up on the hill and did some shooting at longer ranges. We scattered some reduced size steel targets at 200 yards. John and I moved two of the targets out to 400 yards and one out to 500. When we got back to the firing line we discovered that the 500 yard target was right in line with the fence, so we moved it out well beyond the fence to 600.
We spent the rest of the afternoon doing some self-paced long range practice, with pairs of shooters shooting and spotting on the steel targets. Everyone was getting good hits, fairly easily at 400. At 600, it was more difficult, but everyone managed to get their dope at that distance too. A lot of people seemed surprised at their ability to hit at these distances. It’s not as difficult as some people think, and John is really good at teaching this stuff. The hardest part is probably spotting the little 5.56mm impacts way out at 600 yards.
I had a bit of difficulty this afternoon. I found that the ACOG on my rifle was a bit loose. I popped it off and discovered the screws holding the optic to the mount were a bit loose. After cranking the screws down I took a paper target and did a rough zero (you can use the 300 yard hashmark at 25 yards to get a pretty decent zero). After doing this I was able to go back and get hits out to 600 yards.
Back at the bunkhouse John talked a bit about camouflage and handed out some burlap for them to work with. After dinner the students got to work with the burlap and got ready for tomorrow.

Saturday
This morning we started out with a patrolling drill. John explained the basic principles of patrolling: planning, reconnaissance, security, command and control, and common sense. He went through some basic hand signals, to tell the folks in the squad to freeze, halt, get down, or cease fire. He talked a bit about formations: file and wedge.

We headed out into the woods in two teams. After about 100 yards John called a patrol halt. He had everyone kneel down in a tight circle (butt to butt, as he put it). There he talked about SLLS: Stop, Look, Listen, and Smell. The patrol leader signals this by taking of his hat and elbowing the team member next to him, who does the same and passes it on to the whole patrol. This is an opportunity to use all your senses, looking, listening, and even smelling for anything out of place.

When you’re ready to depart the patrol halt position, the team leader gets up first, followed by the rest of the team in order. As the team heads out the tail end charlie is responsible for checking the position and ensuring nothing got left behind.

We did a couple of patrol halts as we moved through the woods, then maneuvered back to the road. John used this as an example of how to cross a linear danger area. There are many methods for doing this, but the one John likes goes as follows: While the rest of the team does a patrol halt, the point man approaches the road and takes a look. If he decides its safe, he calls up the tail end charlie. The tailgunner sets up to provide security. The point man calls up the rest of the team and they head across the road in a rush. Once they’re across, the tailgunner crosses. We ran this a couple of times, then headed back to the vehicles.

John gave the two-man teams 45 minutes to construct and camouflage hasty sniper hides and set up a linear sniper ambush of a force moving up the road. The students got busy digging in, cutting vegetation, and gathering rocks and fallen wood.
After 45 minutes John headed out to about 300 yards and had me stand next to each position and see if he could see them. All of the positions were very well camouflaged. I walked out about 100 yards and took some pictures. Even from that distance most were very well concealed unless you knew exactly where to look.

With the positions evaluated, it was time to launch the sniper ambush. John’s instructions to the students were to engage all targets in their area of operations (the entire range, basically. On his shot, they began engaging targets. After a few minutes he called, “High priority target in the open, 700 yards” and had the entire class lay down alternating rapid fire on the 700 yard targets.

After giving everyone a chance to shoot a bit more, he called cease fire. During the debrief he pointed out that the order was to engage all targets. Everyone worked on the longer distance ones, but many of the short distance ones didn’t get engaged, including three of the reduced size steel targets at about 100 yards. Shooting the long range stuff is cool but these, if anything, represent the greater threat.

As we broke for lunch, John had everyone start thinking about vehicle hides. He also noted that this was a role that was very suited for a .22 rifle (or even a pistol with the right optic). Several students had brought .22s and John loaned out a pair of his. Firing a full power centerfire rifle inside a vehicle is a bit of an experience, so he asked everyone using a .22 to try with a centerfire rifle as well.
The students displayed quite a bit of ingenuity in coming up with shooting positions inside their vehicles. One of the first students to go actually managed a very quick shot working solo. He backed his pickup truck up to the firing position, rolled over so that he was facing backward in the passenger seat, and shout out the rear through the sliding window at the back of the cab.
Several teams used the back seat of an SUV, shooting out the rear window. They rigged up some rope for closing the window after taking the shot. Another popular option was sitting in the rear of a vehicle, shooting forward and to the right out of the passenger side windows. Of course, there was the classic, shooting out of a covered truck bed.

There was some interesting use of distractions, including screening the shooting vehicle from view with another, and setting off a car alarm in another vehicle to attract attention. One interesting thing we found, particularly with the .22s was that cranking up the music could cover up the shot almost entirely. So, “Pump up the base, put three in the face.”
As usual, the vehicle hides were one of the highlights of the sniper class. As one student said, “This just seems so naughty.”
We had about an hour left, and John let the students do some free shooting on the targets out there in the field. Two of the steel torsos were out at 700 yards and again, many students were pleasantly surprised at their ability to hit at those distances.

Heading back to the bunkhouse, we had an excellent dinner of fried fish. Again, a great evening of fellowship and camaraderie.
Sunday
We spent the final day on various interesting exercises. For the first, John instructed the two teams to move tactically to their shooting positions. Once there they were to engage all of the targets on the range, except the high value target. The HVT was identified as being dressed differently than everyone else.

The teams assembled about 50 yards behind the firing line and patrolled up to their shooting positions. The team leaders spent a bit of time allocating targets among their team members, then John kicked off the festivities with a shot from his rifle. Everyone opened up and began engaging the dozen targets scattered out in the field.
John let folks shoot for a while, then called fire on some specific targets. When things were done, the HVT (dressed in a yellow shirt) was unharmed, but the rest of the targets had been shot up pretty well.
One thing John pointed out is when assigning targets or fields of fire it’s more effective to get down as close as possible to their position (right next to them or even dropping yourself half on top of them) so you can see what they see and describe their responsibilities as clearly as possible. This also allows you to speak more softly (or to make yourself heard amidst lots of gunfire).
Our next exercise was some vehicle combat. Yesterday we did some shooting from vehicle hides, today would be a bit more dynamic. John set up several targets on the right and left side of the road. We loaded up two students at a time in the back of his truck and they engaged the targets on the move.
Frankly, this was a real blast. Shooting from a moving vehicle isn’t something most of us have an opportunity to do, but it is a lot of fun. Bouncing down a dirt road, even at relatively low speeds of 10–15mph is not a very stable shooting platform. Magnified optics are pretty much useless, and red dot sights not much better. This is point shooting territory, along with walking your shots on target based on bullet impacts (some tracer rounds would be quite useful, if they were available). It also burns through ammunition real fast. I’d blown through a 30 round mag before I even knew it.

After running it as one of the gunners, I rode along for a couple of runs as a photographer and drove for a couple of runs. When serving as the driver, I did a bit of shooting out the passenger side window one-handed using my FS2000. Not many rifles well balanced enough where you could do that effectively. However, my experience also pointed out why it’s generally better for driver to concentrate on driving rather than shooting. When trying to make sure I didn’t put any holes in John’s truck, I had some difficulty keeping the truck on the road.
After everyone had gone (some of them a couple of times) we broke for lunch. After lunch we started working on the culmination exercise for the class. One team would take positions up on the ridge and provide covering fire while the second team patrolled down to the right of the range in the treeline. The cover team would shift, then lift, their fire, allowing the second team to assault across the objective, retrieving a high value item (a rock with some orange engineers’ tape on it). As they clear the range on the left side, the cover team resumes firing and the assault team patrols back in the treeline on the left side of the range.
With all this shifting and lifting of fire, communication and coordination between the two teams is very important. John went old school on this, and gave the assault team a bright orange VS–17 panel (usually used to mark positions for aircraft). The assault team waves it when they’re ready to set up for their assault. At this signal, the cover team shifts their fire left, and only shoots at targets on the left side of the road. When the assault team is ready to launch their assault, the team leader throws the VS–17 panel out onto the range, signaling the cover team to cease fire. Once they stop shooting, the assault team advances across the target, shooting the handily provided targets and retrieving the ‘rock of orange destiny’. When they reach the far treeline, the cover team resumes firing, shifted to the right, so they only engage targets on the right side of the road.
Obviously, sending folks downrange during live fire is potentially pretty hairy. Its not something you’d want to try without a group of very squared away guys who have demonstrated their proficiency over the course of a class like this. John had everyone run through this dry, at a small scale using a bit of road to represent the range. We ran it several dozen times, switching roles between the two teams. When John was confident everyone had it down, we headed out to the range and went live.

The first iteration went fairly smoothly. There was a bit of difficulty locating the right rock, and the assaulting team’s line got a bit ragged as they moved across the objective. Once the exercise was finished, the two teams switched roles and did it again.

During the second iteration, I went downrange with the assault team to get some pics. The team stopped and threw the VS–17 panel at the wrong spot, about 100 yards short of the target. The support team ceased fire, then the assault team realized they were in the wrong position. They headed further downrange and made their assault on the objective.

After debriefing the culmination exercise, John had one last bit of fun. He had some of the plastic ‘Ivan’ targets that were really shot to hell, and wanted to give them an honorable retirement. He mixed up some Tannerite (an exploding target), put a jar in the heads of each of five Ivans, and set them out from 200–400 yards. The Tannerite jars were pretty small, so you needed to be quite accurate, but when they hit, the results were spectacular.

Conclusions
This was really a fantastic class. The instruction was top notch, we had a great group of students, and everyone learned a hell of a lot.
Classes like this one are truly special. Having most of the students staying in the bunkhouse, eating together, and hanging out during the evenings builds a level of camaraderie and fellowship that going out to dinner and bumping into each other in the hotel lobby cannot match. Venues like this one, the Sugar Loaf Lodge in Anaconda, MT, and Warrior Skills camp in Georgia add another level to already great classes.
We had all the room that we needed, and still only used a tiny portion of the ranch. There was quite a bit of talk about what John should offer next year, with many people (including me) noting that it would be a perfect venue for our Rural Patrolling class. Keep an eye out, a class in Coleman is one not to be missed.
I was extremely happy with the FS2000. It shot well, and kept up with all the AR based DMRs in the class. The bullpup layout is an excellent way to get a full length barrel in a very short and handy package. It’s got great CQB capability and doesn’t give up reach in the DMR role for it the way an SBR would.
I really like the setup with a stubby VFG. With most rifles, magazine supported prone means one point of contact with the ground. With the FS2000, the magazine supports the rear of the rifle, while I can grab the bottom of the VFG to support the front. This fore and aft support makes for a very stable shooting platform, even in hastily assumed positions. If I’ve got more time I can deploy the bipod and either use my hand to support the rear of the rifle or swap out the 30 round mag for a 20 rounder and put a rear bag under it. It’s like the rifle was made for the DMR role.
The one area where the FS2000 initially seemed to suffer compared to other rifles was shooting off a bag. The short fore-end just doesn’t leave a lot of real estate to rest on a ruck. However, watching a student shoot his bipod equipped rifle off a bag I noted that it was actually the bipod, not the forend, resting on the bag. On the FS2000, the folded versapod bipod can be placed on a bag to provide support to the front end.
While the students did quite well, I think there will be quite a few equipment changes after this class. Some of the higher power scopes are going to be ditched in favor of low power variables or fixed low power sights like ACOGs. One student brought a couple of ARs with red dot sights and magnifiers, but he fairly quickly discovered they were no match for the ACOG he had on his M1A. They’re going to get swapped out for ACOGs at the first opportunity. The student with the 26" bull barrel AR definitely decided that it wasn’t the right rifle for this sort of thing (he spent much of the class shooting John’s 5.56mm DMR).
While the weather was generally great, it could be decidedly cool in the morning. Some folks seemed to wish they’d brought some more warm clothing. I had a fleece, gore-tex, and a watch cap, so I was fairly comfortable, though I did wish I’d brought my warm gloves instead of just a set of ‘tactical’ ones.
Central Texas must be about the most perfect environment on earth for prickly pear cactus, because the place is covered with them. My nice multicam boots are very comfortable, but their nylon is no match for prickly pear spines. Next time I’m out there I’m bringing some heavy leather boots instead.
Sometimes we get questions asking about the differences between the DMR classes and Guerrilla Sniper. The GS classes are focused on long range marksmanship, with a bit of fieldcraft thrown in. The 5 day DMR class (or alternatively, the pairing of DMR and Advanced DMR) covers pretty much the same topics as the 3 day GS class, with the addition of some rifle gunfighting, team tactics, and rural patrolling skills. This really grows directly from the definition of a designated marksman: a rifleman capable of delivering long range shots and overwatch who also has the skills and equipment to pull his weight as a member of an infantry squad. This class is really built around that definition and covers the fundamentals of it quite well.
Finally, I have to say that John is a really great instructor. While I’ve met him in other circumstances, this is the first class I’ve taken with him as a primary instructor. I had heard great things about his classes and he more than lived up to his reputation. This class is his specialty and it definitely shows. I would highly recommend the DMR classes, as well as anything else John is teaching.