This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending Tom Perroni's one day carbine course (Fredericksburg, VA.).
I have had prior instruction (pistol, rifle, and shotgun) from several different schools/instructors prior to attending this course.
So my goal/outlook for taking this course was as a refresher to keep my skills up.
The day started at 9 am in the CCJA/PTTA offices/classroom in Fredericksburg.
It was three hours of instruction that covered a broad range of material.
First and foremost, there was the obligatory stuff about range and firearms safety; then
the material focused on...
weapon specific topics, to include:
nomenclature
disassembly and proper lubrication
zeroing
magazines
sights (to include sight alignment/sight picture)
optics (and co-witnessing)
slings
kit (webgear, etc)...
Also covered was also instruction on individual, paired, and team movement.
There were other topics, but I do not have my syllabus handy and I cannot remember. None-the-less,
the topics were covered using lecture, handouts, powerpoint/video presentation, and hands-on methods.
While the material was basic to me, it was delivered in a manner that kept my interest. I was dog tired from work
and lack of sleep, yet, I never felt like I was going to nod-off during the classroom instruction.
At noon, we broke for lunch, then headed to the range ater 1 pm.
At the range, a qucik review of safety protocols and we got down to business.
First was some pistol work from about 7 yards, or so. This included transitions and
various malfunction drills with the pistol (stove-pipe, mag not seated, and double feed)
After that, we focused on the carbine.
Various drills were performed, including the following:
"serpentine" drill
lateral shift (two man)
shooting at targets tangetntal from the shooter
shooting from behind cover (standing and kneeling)
disadvantaged position shooting (shooting while laying on your back)
a "stress" drill that involved getting ones heart rate up, then running to the firing line and
accurately
emptying your primary and secondary
Unfortunately, there is a curfew of 5pm (noise), so the day ended much too soon.
Now, here are some observations:
Pros:
1) Low cost.
2) Good classroom stuff that was well presented and held everyone's attention/interest.
3) Excellent, motivated, and, patient instructors.
4) Good variety of drills that although were mostly "basic" in nature, were not overly easy or boring. Students were challenged.
5) An institutional belief in training for "real world" and thus being reflected in the way training was conducted.
Cons:
1) Not enough range time. The 5pm curfew and giving students an hour for lunch gave us only
three and a half hours for actual range time.
I suggest folks bring lunch and chow on the range. I don't want to suggest cutting back the classroom
portion. It had good material presented.
2) Lack of focus on carbine malfunction drills during the range time. We did EXCELLENT pistol malfunction drills, but,
we did not do the same with our carbines.
Overall, I was very satisfied with this course.
Why?
Although I have previously taken more advanced carbine instruction, this course reaffirmed what I had learned in previous training.
I was challenged to properly perform while under the watchful eyes of professionals. This validated what I previously learned
and ensured that I most keep doing things like this to keep the skill level up.
It is always good to review and practice the fundamentals.
Lastly,
As I posted elsewhere, the majority of the carbine malfunctions (at least 90%) encountered by the
students were easily attributed to:
failure to properly seat the magazine
Info on Tom's school can be found here:
CCJA
