AAR: Kyle Defoor 2-Day ADVANCED Carbine 26 & 27/May/2012 Waterman, IL.

This was the first class I have hosted and honestly, I was pretty anxious to get it on and nervous about it running smoothly. Grey Group was great to work with throughout the entire thing start-to-finish. They made sure everything was in-order prior to the start of the class.

When Kyle arrived Friday night I met him out at the range to show him the lay out and get things set up a bit so we had minimal set-up time in the morning. All went smoothly.

This is my first course AAR and since Mark kindly put out his AAR which outlined most of the drills we did throughout the two days, I’m going to give my personal take aways from Kyle’s class and many of the things I observed with Kyle’s style of training during the class.

Come game-day we had 17 students arrive for the class. It was a mix of a few street cops (including myself), a couple of SWAT cops, former & active military dudes and civilians from all different walks of life.

I ran my personally built AR which consists of: Noveske 16” SS mid-length lightweight barrel, Noveske M4 upper receiver, Noveske FFL lower, WMD Guns Nib-X BCG, Geissele SDC trigger, and a Troy/VTAC 15” Alpha rail. My sling is a MagPul MS2 and a VTAC padded sling that I cannibalized a year or two back. I run it primarily as a single point. My optic is my trusty Trijicon TR24G 1-4x with the Green triangle reticle (fucking love this scope!). I decided to run the gun completely dry (No lube) to see how it would fare. It ran like a champ without a single issue and the action was still butter smooth after the class.


To open up, Kyle asked if there were any shooters who did NOT have a zeroed rifle. I think one or two shooters raised their hand. The first couple of hours was spent on getting those shooters dialed in. This was the first point where I saw that Kyle was a master of an instructor. He was able to handle getting the two non-zeroed shooters dialed-in while still keeping the attention of the rest of us and keeping us all interested with various anecdotes on the topic of zeroing. Kyle explained why he prefers the 100yd zero. Basically there are no hold-unders to have to take into consideration within the effective range of the gun. Kyle had us shoot out to 300yds to demonstrate that fact. It also gave us all the opportunity to see what our hold-overs will be throughout that range. He made a point to mention that while he appreciates the math and thought process that go into the various ballistic charts that you regularly see posted on the internet, he does not put much value in them. You need to get out there and shoot YOUR gun to see where it hits at distance with your preferred ammo. Otherwise it is all just theory.

Once we got everyone dialed in on their zero Kyle had us shooting some closer in stuff. I think it became apparent to him and everyone else in the class that there were a few shooters who did not have a firm grasp on manipulations. Kyle made a point to check those who could not conduct an emergency reload and some other basic manipulations. He did it in a respectful/fatherly way which did not kill the shooters enthusiasm, but he got his point across and we were able to move on.

On kneeling: This was one of, if not the biggest take-away for me from Kyle’s class. Kneeling has always been my nemesis which is common for many shooters. I have tried a half dozen or so different styles of kneeling over the years and Kyle’s was the first to give me an immediate improvement on-target while still remaining a comfortable position to hold. I think that is the biggest positive on his kneeling position. It is a position most shooters can get in and out of quickly and it works.

Kyle’s standing position was aggressive and was similar to what I have been using. I may make some adjustment to the position of my butt-stock based off of Kyle’s “Hunch-back Turtle” comments. I had been running my butt-stock closer to centerline than what Kyle’s does. I will need to work that out a bit more before I decide.

After we got back from lunch Kyle’s illustration and description on the human anatomy and shot placement regarding “Timers & Switches” really drove to point home on how important shot placement is when you need to get immediate results on a threat. This was good shit.

Another topic that Kyle has me analyzing is High vs. Low Ready. I had been a long-time Low-Ready guy and thought that it was the bees-knees when it came to weapon retention and defense. Kyle has me reconsidering that. Regardless of which is “better”, I now understand that they each have their place. One place where I am now convinced High-Ready is superior is running with the rifle.

Kyle busted out his 7yd test which is still a work in progress for him regarding the time standards. This is something that I will definitely be running “cold” in the future first thing when I get to the range.

After running the 7yd test we broke for dinner and headed back to the range just before the sun went down for the night shoot portion of the class.

One thing that became apparent during the night shoot for me was that my Surefire Mini-Scout Light (110 lumens) was a great CQB out to about 25yd weaponlight, but out at 50yds it was weak. There is no way in hell I could identify a threat @ 50yds with the Mini-Scout. Im probably just going to swap it out for a 2-cell Scout light which I think is pushing around 200 lumens which seemed to be an ideal rating for CQB out to 50yds based off of the other shooters who were running 2-cell Scout lights or X300’s.

TD2 started off with Kyle sitting us down for his “Mindset” brief. Many things stood out that will stick with me for life. Some simple, and some things that only come with the vast experience that Kyle brings to the table. I’m not gonna get into detail on the more sensitive stuff. The one “simple” thing that I think will pay-off for me in the long run is his view on “The other strong hand”. I had heard the internet back-and-fourth over this concept last year, and didn’t really get too excited about it either way.
Hearing Kyle break it down as something to take as a simple positive mindset thing really made a lot of sense to me. If you can’t “get” that, then drive-on.

We started off the day running with the rifle dry/unloaded to get everyone squared away with the concept before he had us go live-fire. Running muzzle up was natural for me and it seemed that everyone else was comfortable running muzzle up as well.

Kyle then started us off with his 8 round test #2 (IPSC target) which I completely bombed. I decided to dial down the magnification on my scope to 1x when I got to the 25yd line and ended up slicing my hand open on something and missed both of my head shots @ 25yds. No one passed that first test of the day which was a bummer.

As was mentioned by Mark, the biggest thing Kyle drove home was how important it was to “Stay in your Lane”. The first relay of dudes I jumped in with on each of his tests gave me complete confidence. No issues at all running & shooting with those guys.

After his first test Kyle went over his spin on Turns & Pivots. After reading an earlier AAR on Kyle’s class on this very topic, I immediately thought to myself “Fucking Brilliant!” Basically turn your upper torso towards the threat and get hits on-target asap. THEN adjust your feet however you need to and square up to the target and continue hammering the target to the ground. So many years wasted on training fancy footwork prior to engaging the target. This was one of the many big take-aways from Kyle’s class. Awesome, simple, effective.

After Kyle got everyone squared away with muzzle control during turns/pivots, he set up three different drills which we all ran consecutively.

These drills were very challenging and were also a bunch o’fun. The focus was on shooting the bad guy to the ground and getting accurate head shots on hostage takers at speed.

Kyle then had us shooting from an array of barricades we set-up on the 100yd line. Kyle’s take on shooting from behind cover/concealment is different than what all of us in LE are used to. Extending the barrel beyond the barricade and using it for support has always been frowned upon regardless of the distance to the target. Kyle put this into perspective for me by simply pointing out that if you need to support yourself to make a precision shot from behind cover, use what you have available to get stable even if you will have to extend your barrel beyond the cover. Kyle’s supported kneeling position from behind cover is definitely something else I will use in my future training.

Kyle then set up hasty sniper hide in a small patch of tall grass and a small tree off of the side of the berm @ 200yds. It demonstrated to me how well you can hide your position with even the smallest amount of vegetation available, and use it to place accurate first round hits on target. The majority of the shooters in the class were able to get first round hits on an IPSC steel target.

Kyle finished up by running us all through his carbine test #3 (300yd run down) which is one of, if not the most physically demanding tests I have run. Total ass-kicker to get all of your hits within the 2min time limit. I was happy with my score which tied Kyle’s score of 92 for the day. I made the time with less than 2 seconds to spare. BIG thanks goes out to Arc’Teryx for the swag!

Overall an awesome class. I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to have their limits pushed on accuracy and their physical ability. Kyle’s class will also likely cause most to reconsider some of the things they have been used to doing in the past.

One note for shooters thinking of taking Kyle’s “ADVANCED” class: Be honest with yourself and both your shooting and physical abilities. If you are not up to speed with your weapon manipulations and shooting skills BEFORE you arrive for Kyle’s class you will quickly fall behind the curve and will cause Kyle to adjust the tempo of the class so as not to create an unsafe condition for the rest of the shooters in the class. I believe this was the case with this class after reading up on some of the previous AAR’s done on this same class. Kyle did not run our class through a couple of his other drills and tests which he does on a regular basis in his other advanced carbine classes. Regardless, Kyle did a fantastic job in keeping all of us challenged throughout the entire course and kept us all safe.

***Class pics will be posted up here as soon as I can get approval from the ASC board as they have a policy against posting photos and videos***

Its a LaRue handstop that I cannabalized to fit on the VTAC handguard.