hey guys, I did the 88tactical intermediate fighting rifle course this weekend, thought I'd do a review.
now that I'm not on my kindle, a little more in depth on the rifle course I froze at this weekend.
First and foremost, I had a lot of fun. It was cold as hell and there were times when my fingers and toes were freezing, but none fell off. On day two (the really cold day) we had a burn barrel going so when one relay was shooting, we could warm up. Overall, it's the most fun in zero degree weather I've had.
Day 1 was fairly basic. We started with some basic classroom time going over rifle basics. All stuff that most of us knew but a couple new ways to look at it and some things to think about were brought up. Then we went outside and got a good zero with our irons and optics. We did some speed drills and close distances as well as positional work and that was pretty much the conclusion of day 1. round expenditure, somewhere around 200-250
Day 2 was a hell of a lot of fun. We did a lot more speed drills, before including some manipulations (reloads and malfunctions clearing). Then we started on use of cover. Seems like such an easy concept, but there are definitely some finer points and tweaks to be made. We also did movement. both lateral and a little forward. We did some awesome (and aggravating) drills using the cover, transitioning positions, and having magazines with both empty shell casings and dummy rounds in them. We did a little (though not a lot) of transitioning to a pistol, but enough to get a little more comfortable with it and have some pistol fun. we also did a little multiple targets drill and 1 basic shoot/no shoot drill. we also did a couple drills to learn our individual sight offset for close range "critical" shots. To finish up the day, we did a timed cumulative drill. Shooting from 7 to 25 yards, using cover, using multiple positions, having to deal with at least 2 malfunctions firing at a 5 by 8 sheet of paper. The conditions of having a "qualifying time": must shoot at least one round from every stage. any manipulations must be done behind cover and all every shot (10 per sheet) have to land in that 5x8 sheet. I won the drill with 1:01 (second was 1:02) day 2 round expenditure: 300-350 rounds. 50 pistol rounds.
Final thoughts: Not only did I have a lot of fun and get to shoot 600 rounds out of my rifle, but I learned a lot and I'm much more confident about my individual competence with said rifle. I had a light lube on my rifle the first day. I added a very light coat of lube to it for the second day but didn't clean it. It was very dry air out there and I even left my rifle in the truck over lunch break on day 2 instead of bringing it in to warm up. Towards the very end, I could feel the bolt dragging a little when charging the weapon. For that last drill I resisted the temptation to throw a little lube on there before that cumulative drill. I didn't have any malfunctions (other than the ones forced on us) and my weapon fired well every time I pulled the bang switch. this was also the first time using my battle belt from HSGI. I have the battle belt with a cobra riggers belt, two of their double rifle-1 pistol mag pouches, a serpa holster with the molle adapter. The only downside of the belt was that a lot of position changes and movement, left it riding up higher on my waist (and a little loose) but to be honest, it's only something I noticed after action. The molle adapter for the serpa doesn't fit right (one set of hooks will reach but not both) on the first day my holster fell off (luckly we weren't using pistols yet) two zip ties fixed the problem. Over all, I liked the gear and it allowed my to quickly access my gear.
One more thing, this class, while only intermediate, is something anyone can benefit from. One of the other students is a retired swat sergeant and trainer and he was there to stay sharp and felt that he benefitted greatly from it. The end