Lighthorse Tactical Basic Carbine (
http://www.lighthorsetactical.com)
Chief Instructor: Curt Carpenter
Date: 7 JUNE 2014
Round Count: 300
Duration: 8 hours
Location: Double Tap Training Grounds Calera, AL (
http://www.doubletapal.com)
I want to start off by saying that I am writing this review because I was looking for something like this for the past few months as I was looking into starting into firearms training and there were very limited reviews on any basic classes out there. I have never reviewed a class before (since this was obviously my first class) but I am going to try and give a brief overview of the class as well as my opinion on it.
The class started at 0800 and it got started with the basic introduction of the Instructors. The first topic covered was a general overview of the AR platform and the way that the weapon functions. Secondly, we covered field stripping and cleaning of the weapon. This was done very thoroughly and the instructor did a great job of making sure that everyone in the class understood proper disassembly, reassembly, cleaning and lubrication of the rifle. Third, this is when we covered the range safety, general medical briefing, and also the fundamentals of marksmanship.
After about 2 hours in the classroom we made our way out to the range. The first thing we did on the range was to get our rifles zeroed in. Since this class had several shooters with brand new rifles and other rifles that have just not been zeroed in for the type of work we were going to be doing this took some time. The instructors did a great job of working with each shooter individually and making sure that their weapons performed the way they should and that everyone was properly on target. After this we started working drills. During the remainder of the class we ran several different drills. There were several drills that were covered at ranges from 5 yards to 100 yards and the shooting positions covered were standing, kneeling, and lying prone. I'm not going to go into great detail about the types of drills that we did because I would be typing for a while but I will say that every drill that we did was done until everyone in the class understood what needed to be done for the situation.
In closing, I have shot guns my whole life and was afraid that a basic carbine class was going to be a juvenile class and a waste of my money..... I am very glad that I took the advice of several others on this site and took this class. I can't speak highly enough of the instructors at Lighthorse Tactical, with a class of 9 students and 3 instructors there was plenty of hands on time and they were willing and able to answer any and all questions that anyone might have. I was also afraid that the class would have more emphasis on classroom work and very little range time, I could not have been more wrong about that. This wasn't a strict 8 hour course, we did alot of range work and we shot until we were finished not until our time was up. I would recommend this class to any level of shooter from someone who is shooting an AR for the very first time to someone who has shot for years and looking to take their shooting to the next level.