Tactical Response - Fighting Rifle/Advanced Fighting Rifle in Camden, TN Review/After Action Report
This is another long review - I owe it to my brothers and sisters here to be honest, thorough and informative. I will not be diving in to respond to haters, please let this be what it is and resist the temptation to turn it into something it is not.
WHO WENT:
I work at a large Gun Range/Store/Training/Gunsmithing Facility in Georgia I am also an NRA Training Counselor and Firearms Instructor. I instruct around 300+ students per year. I try and attend as many professional classes as my calendar and wallet allow. I was again accompanied this year by my 2nd in command who is a Sgt in the Army and is a firearms instructor for Uncle Sam. Last year we both attended the Fighting Pistol Course. We drove out Easter Sunday and took Fighting rifle Monday and Tuesday followed by Advanced Fighting Rifle on Wednesday and Thursday driving back afterward, arriving home bleary-eyed Friday morning at 1AM.
INSTRUCTORS:
Tactical Response - Don Numbers, Jay Gibson, Tim Morse and James Yeager. Don and James worked in with the group Monday and Tuesday then left early Wednesday morning to go teach Fighting Pistol with Midwest Industries in Pennsylvania Thursday and Friday. Jay and Tim were our constant Instructors throughout the week. I am a better instructor because of them. Constant honest feedback. What more could you ask for from an experienced instructor? These guys are good.
THE COURSE
It was a great benefit to have taken the Fighting Pistol course prior to taking Fighting Rifle because of some of the fundamentals that are taught in Fighting Pistol as well as the ever critically important “Mindset” lecture that is the capstone of the Fighting Pistol course come into play in the Rifle Course.
Fighting rifle takes a student from understanding the basic safety rules of operating a rifle to holding your rifle, use of a sling, drawing your rifle, loading, unloading, reloading, clearing malfunctions, and basic maneuvering while operating your rifle in a simulated fight scenario. The student quickly masters these basics and then progresses into moving while shooting, concealment vs cover, shooting from cover, shooting from various positions (fetal, prone, kneeling, standing, walking forward, backwards, sideways, box drills, etc.), transitioning from rifle to pistol back to rifle among other drills. The day begins in the classroom to cover basic principles of gun safety and range safety and then you’re off to the range.
Day two is a continuation of instruction at the range. A quick recap of what you learned the day before is covered before more advanced drills are conducted. The second half of the day is spent working in teams. Never having any previous Military experience, this was AWESOME for me. Understanding how to communicate effectively, bounding / leap frogging, moving, laying down cover fire, etc. are taught as an introduction to the Advanced Fighting Rifle class which utilizes the same techniques only on a more advanced and chaotic level. Day 2 of the Fighting Rifle course was an AMAZING and eye-opening for me.
I am not going to describe the advanced course drills on days 3 and 4 out of respect for Tactical Response and those reading this that might take the course in the future. I will say that I learned a lot about myself on days 3 and 4 and that if I am ever to be a true warrior it will be due to the things I learned on days 3 and 4. My team, whoever it may be in that awful moment will be more effective and because of the things that I learned on days 3 and 4.
MY GEAR:
My nightmare scenario is an active shooting where I have to fight my way to my rifle (in my trunk) with a pistol and then go shoot the bad guy in the face in order to save innocents. My rig was set up with this in mind: “light and fast, minimal and nimble”. So with that in mind my gear was basically a Glock 19, 5 mags, Blackpoint Tactical OWB Holster and double-mag holster, 500 rounds of 9mm Federal ammo, Spike’s Tactical Crusader in .556, Sight Mark Wolverine Red Dot, Blue-Force Vickers 2-point sling, Blue-Force Minimalist 10-speed 4-pouch Chest Rig, 9 - 2nd Amendment Mags (not one problem), Ear and eye pro, Shamagh, standard issue knee-pads, Kuhl ripstop pants, Solomon Speed-Cross shoes, 6,000 rounds Federal .556 (not one problem), pocket tourniquet and izzy bandage. All my gear proved worthy even on challenging conditions, I will be adding an IFAK to my rig because I dropped supplies while trying to rescue downed team members and needed them badly later on in the fight.
WEATHER:
We got drowned like rats twice. Temps were 60-80 depending on the time of day and cloudiness. We had to call the range at 5PM Tuesday due to really, really bad lightning but overall a very real experience for fighting conditions in the Southern climates of CONUS.
SUMMARY:
Wow. I am failing miserably in these short descriptions to convey how much I learned and the weight of the experience. We started as 30 strangers and melded into a team. We exerted ourselves to exhaustion and still remained effective and safe as a group. In live fire training with people everywhere, at many angles and vantage points made contact, peeled off, we got behind cover, put down effective fire (out to 250 yards), moved by bounds, communicated, covered each other, rescued our wounded and attended to them medically and got out of dodge. If you fancy yourself a rifleman, this class is for you. As an Appleseed instructor, I can hit steel at 300 yards consistently, but doing it on the move while taking cover and communicating with my team? THAT is waaaaay different. All in all for the 2 of us to attend including all expenses we spent over $4,000.00. We got WAY MORE than we paid for. GO TAKE THIS CLASS NOW WHILE YOU CAN.
If you made it this far. Thanks for reading and God Bless.
