AAR Midnight Rendezvous 2.0   March 20th, Alma, GA


Nine guys from all over the East coast got together March 20th at the SETG Range near Alma, GA for Midnight Rendezvous 2.0   Due to some flooding in the area we had to reschedule one of the February classes to March 20th. In the rescheduling we lost a couple of students who were planning on attending.

We began as usual during the day at 1pm. For most students attending many of these skill sets are new and many have stated that the “daylight phase” of training was critical in helping them have a grasp of the material while working the same skills at night. We mirror the night time phase of the training with the daytime phase of the training. In other words, you will learn and work on the skill sets during the day, then repeat the same format at night under NODs. This format allows people to learn the material during the day without the added stress of nighttime involved. Also then by the time night rolls around, the material has been drilled multiple times already. Simply put, your not doing “new stuff” at night for the first time under the added pressure of NODs.

This class was Midnight Rendezvous 2.0   and while we don’t require people to have attended MR 1.0 first, the first class does set the stage and the “building blocks” for what is taught in MR 2.0  In the future we will have to have a few previous class requirements for classes like the partner tactics NV class.

About 70% of the people attending had not attended MR 1.0 already. So we began with a simple diagnostic drill to see what needed to be worked on.

We had a little extra daylight due to the time change and it not getting dark’ish till around 7:30 so we had a lot of extra time to shore up things that came to light in the diagnostics drills.

To that end we started out with some simple movement drills to include turreting the upper body while engaging multiple targets.



We moved into working corners and angles. Here is where “clipping the chicken wing” and good squared up stance comes into play. We demonstrated the material and then students paired up and worked the “peek a boo” drill with RED GUNS. One student was on one side of the barricade slicing the pie and doing a drop out while another student stood on the other side of the barricade and called out anything he would see that broke the angle. You could hear “foot!” “Elbow!” quite regularly. The person slicing the pie would correct and reapproach the problem till all he heard was “Gun! Head”  Which is what should be seen first by the bad guy.

Everyone got ample chances to work this material dry via the peek a boo drill utilizing BOTH sides of the barricade. Yes that meant you had to be able to handle your rifle ambidextrously. This is something we work on extensively during MR 1.0



Because it seemed to be needed, we went over shoulder transfers again- something that is covered in MR 1.0  All but one student had AR platforms and while that’s a right hand centric weapon, it can be run efficiently with the left hand without any crazy monkey grips or acrobatics. We covered how to do just that.

We then went “live” again and students got a chance to work the same drills live against targets. Everyone got multiple rotations on both sides.

After this we went into pistol work. Started off with a simple diagnostic drill at 7 yards. This class was pretty squared away with pistol and only a few things needed to be mentioned.

Mirroring the rifle work we did some simple movement drills turretting the upper body  and engaging multiple targets while on the move.

Working the same drills we did utilizing cover, slicing the pie and doing drop outs with the rifle, we did the same with the pistols- again both right and left handed. We also showed a neat option if your just stuck shooting right handed, or if you want to “cheat” a bit and shoot right handed on a left handed corner.

Final daylight instruction was working rifle transitions to pistol. Multiple methods were shown and students got a lot of dry work on each. Then we went “live” with DRY rifles and loaded pistols and worked all of the transition methods.

We took a break to change targets for the night phase and give everyone a chance to eat some food.

The night phase started slow as 2 students were having issues getting their IR lasers zeroed. Once that was figured out we got back on track and actually made up a lot of time in the night phase.

The night phase of training mirrored the day phase, giving students the chance to work the same drills again this time at night with their NODS on.  Everything changes a bit when your view is narrowed down to the proverbial “toilet paper tube” size view – or two tubes. Scanning becomes more important.

The only gear failures we saw was one student seemed to have an old batch of ammo and had a few dud rounds here and there but he was an experienced shooter so most barely caught that fact cause he was quick to clear each one.

We always include a “scenario” based drill for both application of material as well as for the fun aspect as the last thing done. On MR 2.0 the scenario is that a group of dirty godless commies are known to be coming down your block after burning and killing in another area. Your job is to gather up 5 other guys and fight them.

This involved movement of your “team” of 5 or 6 people to an elevated position approximately 100 yards from the area they would move through. The “bad guys” were the camouflaged targets seen in the pics and there were a group of six of them moving through that had to all be engaged at once. In other words, a night ambush.

For safety reasons the groups moved to the elevated position with empty rifles, loaded them before the exercise began and shot them dry during the exercise. Safety is paramount and we have engineered the class and these drills to emphasis that.

Once everyone was set, we waited. This gave each shooter the time to first off FIND the targets he had to engage. Some were much more difficult than others. The timing of the movement of the moon helped us in that regard and I pointed that out.

This is how they looked during the day-



at distance-



Finally, the squeeze was given and the whole hillside erupted in IR laser light and gunfire. A quick accounting and a quick departure. The class ended with an AAR from each student and some good discussions on what can be done to improve the class structure.



Great group of folks at this class! Like most classes we have seen a mix of military and civilian folks, experienced shooters and some not so experienced shooters. I would say this class was above the average we have seen.
All of the spring NV classes have been sold out for months, but the Fall 2021 classes have just been posted and most are roughly ½ full at this point.

Fall 2021 NV/carbine classes


Thanks to all that attended and we are looking forward to seeing you at MR 3.0 or other classes soon.

For MR 2.0  principally it's rifle, pistol, NODs, associated gear, eye and ear pro, etc.

Starting last fall we added a lot more "dry drills" into the mix to cut down on round counts. Before the ammo crunch no one wanted to work dry drills, since the ammo crunch everyone has been more than happy to LOL   We have MR 2.0 down to roughly 300 round rifle and 100 round pistol.

Students are always welcome to shoot more or less.

Fall classes are filling up pretty quick, look forward to training with you!