I was extremely fortunate enough to attend the US Optics Academy precision class Taught by none other than Jim Gilliland (Shadow 6). the man is legend, but wont admit it, he is humble, yet knowledgeable to the enth degree on intermediate and long range shooting.
The event was held at High Pine which is a bed and breakfast that doubles as a pretty decent range with sloping crop fields, grassy knolls and long thick woodlines in western GA, we are 20 min from Ft. Benning for those that know the area.
We meet Friday evening and talked safety, and do's don'ts and a few lessons learned that Jim has learned over his 20 year career as a shooter and soldier.
A huge take away from me was just learning how to setup a semi auto vs. a bolt gun for the tasks you want them to accomplish as well as learning the differences and nuances of the two.
For this class I shot my only "precision" gun which is my KAC SR-25 EMC. This gun gets around, pulling double duty as a short range hard hitting carbine in classes and on hog hunts, but every once ina great while she gets a longer range optic slapped on her and we push her out. This is the only gun I own capable of this and I realize there are a multitude of better precision bolt guns that launch better bullets than the 175 black hills .308 I shot. But at the end of the day I held my own pretty well.
Next was zeroing, Jim uses the tried and true 100 yard zero on his scoped guns.
I shot, Jim tweaked and corrected, his Spotting scope was a huge help.
Once zero'ed we hit the actual shooting range.
Crawl walk run
We started with a 6in popper at 200 yards, which while small wasnt much of a challenge for any of the students, working our way to almost 500 yards the very next iteration. Jim instructed us to watch the heat Mirage as a great way to get a sense of where the wind was moving and roughly the speed. By the end of the First day with Jim calling wind for us and elevation both mil and MOA for those folks, about half the class was banging steel at about 850 yards, the limit of the range. For me and a novice in the long range game it was a giant confidence builder for me to be able to place first, or at least second round hits on these targets between 500-850 yards. As the day ended I was feeling pretty good and thirsty for both a cold beer and more knowledge. after dinner and the Sun set I then broke out the NOD's Lasers and CNVD's and let everybody ring some steel in the cooler quieter night air. I don't care who you are that is pretty cool in complete darkness hitting a target at 500 yards.
Day 2 started with a quick warm up then we switched things up, we began calling our own wind holds, Jim took a hands off approach and let us work through our own problems and only stepped in when needed.
Next was barricades and improvised shooting positions, using your body, gear, and environment to eek out as much stability as possible in tough positions.
some of these were tough and under real world conditions your best shot might be 500 yards or less. With the heat index it was well into the triple digits with 60-70% humidity making for a less than pleasant day, suck it up buttercup. Hydrate and stick with it.
All in all a great class, my gas gun was able to holds its own against the bolt guns, though I had to dial in nearly twice as much elevation on long shots as they did, but I got it done. I had zero malf or issues with any of my gear and ran the entire class suppressed. Train with the US optics academy and you will not be dissapointed, We at TNVC look forward to doing more with Jim and the US Optics folks in the future. I learned so much and highly value this training and what Jim has done for our country.
this is what jim brings out to a class for just his use.