We will have one flying the next shoot. Results will be up soon. I totaled the score sheets, broke them up into divisions and put them in order. I sent the results to Steve who will post them.

After taking a couple of handgun classes with Aesir, I was looking forward to taking a carbine class with them, and I wasn’t disappointed. I have never been able to shoot long guns anywhere near as much or as often as a handgun, so I was looking forward to learning and retaining as much as I could to hone my proficiency with a carbine. I wasn’t disappointed on this count, either.

Day One:
The day started off hot, but thankfully the humidity didn’t feel that high. Before the day was out, the heat would become brutal. Luckily, we’d brought a ton of bottled water and a lot of Gatorade, so neither myself or anyone there got dehydrated, although there were a couple of times when I thought I would overheat. Fortunately, no such thing happened.
We started with the normal safety brief, the appointing of First and Second responders, and the “group hug.” Jeff then gave us a quick rundown of the things we would be covering during the day. This included a ballistics chart showing the difference between a 25yd, 50yd, and 100yd zero point.
The shooting started with us prone, getting our rifles sighted in, starting at twenty-five yards and eventually back to one hundred yards. Once we had that down, the drills started, with instruction covering grip, stance, and trigger control.
We were shown the trigger reset drill, and instructed in the proper way to do administrative reloads with rifle magazines.
Later, we did some work with shooting from different positions (kneeling, supported kneeling, prone, and even a little urban prone.)

Day Two:
The second day started off hot, since we started in the afternoon instead of the morning. The festivities started with a little refresher on handgun basics, since today’s instruction would include transition drills. After the handgun primer, we did indeed move on to how to safely do transitions to handgun, when and why to do them.
This day also covered moving off the line of attack (moving out of the way of a threat before shooting at them) and some shooting-on-the-move instruction, and drills.
Then the day was cut a bit short by a rather large storm moving through. If it had been rain only, we would have kept shooting, but there was a lot of lightning as well, and nobody in their right mind would want to be out in the middle of an open field holding a three-foot metal stick during a lightning storm. So we retired to the range’s covered patio to reload and wait out the storm. This led to a lot of jawing about gear and such, and I actually learned a few things just by standing there and talking gear and techniques with Steve. So, even though we weren’t out on the range shooting, I was still learning.
Unfortunately, by the time the storm had blown over, about half the class had left. Those of us who were still there got to shoot a few more drills involving cover, and even a little shooting on the move exercise. Then we helped tear down the range, policed trash and brass, then headed back home, tired but happy.

Summary:
Heat aside, this was a great class. We learned the tools we need to take back home with us and use to become proficient with the AR platform. We also (hopefully) learned a lot about gear; what works and what does not.

I learned that while a single-point sling may be just the ticket for clearing a house, or for use during a short practice session at the range, it is NOT (for me) appropriate for a ten-hour carbine class, or any other time when you may need to carry your weapon for an extended period. The sling I have is a quality sling, but it made my light-weight rifle feel like it weighed a ton by about half way through the first day. It’s too narrow, and to keep it from almost choking me out, it had to be opened up to the point that the charging handle was almost down to my belt buckle. Something that always bugged me, even before this class, is the long tail that stays on the rifle when the sling is detached. It’s always in the way. This system is coming off my rifle very soon, to be replaced with a wider, two-point style.
One piece of gear I bought with this class (and my own shooting practice) in mind is the Spec-Ops Brand T.H.E. Gun Belt. If I am only going to practice with a pistol, then threading a mag carrier or two and a holster onto my pants belt is aggravating, but doable. But trying to carry two pistol mag carriers, two rifle mag carriers, a holster, and thread all of these on while trying to skip belt loops, etc. is just too much to think about. Hence the Gun Belt. A belt-on-belt design, it makes life so much easier, and you can put everything on the belt and just leave it there. It’s %100 made in USA from USA materials. Mine worked great, and I can recommend it without reservation.

I was also relived to find that the carbine that I built had no problems that I can trace back to the rifle itself. I had one problem, back-to-back, with one Pmag (which I have separated from the rest for further evaluation,) and on the second day I had one failure to return to battery. I transitioned to my Glock and finished the drill, then looked at the rifle. The bolt wasn’t in battery, but it wasn’t open enough to see into the chamber area, so I treated it like a double-feed. I had no more problems, and when I got it home and took it apart for a detailed cleaning and inspection, I found a popped primer down below the trigger group. I suspect that this had something to do with the previous failure. So, I feel really good about this rifle and the parts I used to assemble it.

One other shooter had constant trouble out of his DPMS 308. Between the rifle, the mags (DMPS and Magpul) and the ammo (Brown Bear,) it’s hard to know where to find the culprit. Some of his Brown Bear was soft point, and a lot of them just smashed up against the feed ramps and jammed without feeding. He had one stuck case about two hundred rounds into the first day, in which the extractor ripped a chunk out of the rim and left the case in the chamber. It had to be knocked out with a rod. This was the only stuck case problem with his rifle, but there were many other problems, a lot of which I wasn’t close enough to see or diagnose.

Optics were mostly Aimpoint, with a couple of EOTechs. I didn’t hear or see anyone have any problems from their optics. Myself and the above-mentioned .308 shooter shot with iron sights. My biggest problem with this sight setup is not the sights themselves, but with the fact that to properly grasp and sight my carbine, my sight picture is always obscured, to one degree or another, by the frame over the top of the lens on my safety glasses. This was incredibly aggravating, and I fought against it all weekend. I handled Steve Sellers’ rifle, which has an Aimpoint Micro with lower 1/3 co-witness, and this gets my head up just enough that my sight picture is not blocked my the frame on the glasses. I’ll probably go with this or a similar setup.

As to the Aesir organization themselves, as always, they were very professional, very knowledgeable, and did a great job of communicating this knowledge to us. They were right out there with us in the heat, and were perfectly willing to demonstrate any drill that they wanted us to do. They were very hands-on with the students, very capable with their skills, and yet very approachable. These guys are constantly going to classes themselves, and bringing what they learn back and integrating it with what they already know to bring a great value to the shooters who come to train with them. I cannot recommend them highly enough. If you live close by, do yourself a favor and get a class with these folks. In fact, even if you don’t live very close, if you can get enough people interested, get in touch with them anyway; they will travel to you to put on the class.

So, all in all, this was a great class, I had a wonderful time (aside from the heat, I HATE this time of year,) and I learned more than I would have imagined. Definitely a case of getting far more than you pay for. I would love to take this class again, and if it comes around sometime when it isn’t so hot, I will.

Thanks for reading.
Cheers, jeers, and questions welcomed.

My gear:
Carbine: The Spikes/BCM build that I finally finished in January.
Pistol: Glock 17, 4th Gen.
Mags: P-mag 30-rounders
Mag carriers and holster: Kydex, that I made.
Sling: Gear Sector, single point.
Belt: T.H.E. Gun Belt for the goodies, 5.11 Tactical Operator’s belt, my everyday pants belt.
Ammo: Federal XM193 55gr. 5.56 NATO, 9mm Blazer
Lube: Slip 2000

When the people I work with started asking “what are you doing this weekend?” the way most people in most jobs do, some were a bit surprised to hear that I was going back to the Basic Handgun class. “Didn’t you just do that back in March?” they’d ask. “Yes, I sure did,” I told them.
There’s never anything wrong with going back through the basics. No matter how good you are, or how far along the training spectrum you’ve come, the basics are the foundation that the whole of your training and abilities are built upon, and reinforcement in this area is not a bad thing. I like to think of it in terms of reading a book; no matter how many times I’ve read a particular book, I usually catch something the next time through that I didn’t before.

The morning started off with nice cool temperatures, but I knew it wouldn’t last. And thank goodness for sunscreen, because by about nine o’clock the sun was out in full force and would be until about three in the afternoon.
We started things off with the usual “group hug” (“I’m so-and-so from wherever and I’m here because___________”), followed by the safety brief, and appointing of First and Secondary responders in case of mishap. Then it was time to load up and get out on the range.
We started off, like last time, with learning the fundamentals of grip, stance, sight alignment/sight picture, and trigger control. This first half of the class was pretty much identical to the last class, but it gave me the opportunity to see how well I had incorporated what I had learned from last time.

After lunch, we got into doing drills, some on the clock, some not. Jeff also likes to change the pace between drills, going from drills that are very fast-paced, and on a timer, to drills that are a bit slower, and more focused on precision.
He also did a good job of not just trotting out the same old drills we ran the last time. The second half of the day was almost nothing at all like the second half of the day during the last class I took with him. Having different drills to run this time not only keeps things interesting and fresh, it also means I have even more tools to use during my all-to-infrequent practice sessions to build my skill.
This was also my first experience with the “Roadhouse Drill,” an interesting little drill using steel targets that were rearranged for each shooter, while the designated shooter was not looking. This is the drill where somebody-who will hopefully remain nameless-was the only person to shoot head-shoot the “no-shoot” target.
Since we weren’t too far behind schedule by the end of the class, Jeff decided we had time to try the “Walkback Drill.” So, we carried a steel plate over to the 100 yard rifle range. The drill goes like this: Your first shot at the plate is at 25 yards, two hands, taking all the time you want. If you miss, you still get to try….primary hand only. When / if you miss with your primary hand, you still get to try……but with your reaction hand only. When / if you miss with your reaction hand, you are out of the drill. But, “your baggage goes with you.” Say you hit the plate at 25 using both hands, but at 50 you miss with both hands. Using your primary hand only, you hit at 50. When you move back to 75, you are still shooting primary hand only. Devious, isn’t it?
I don’t know exactly how big the plate was, but for the sake of generalities, I’ll say it was at least 16″ x 16″, and it gets tiny in a hurry at these ranges. Everyone thought it was fun, and it was definitely the furthest I have ever attempted to hit anything with a handgun. I’ll also say they grow some brave turkeys down in Linwood; part of the time we were shooting this drill, there was a wild (?) turkey wandering around to our left and across the downrange area, who didn’t seem bothered at all by the sound of gunfire, bullets whizzing overhead, or the sound of bullets smacking steel.

What I took away from this course:
-Mostly, a class like this shines a light on the areas that need the most work, and the purpose of this kind of class is to give you the tools to take with you so that you can become more proficient. As far as areas that need more work…..well, all of it! But I need to especially focus on my one-handed shooting accuracy, both primary-hand and reaction-hand.
-Another benefit to a class like this, as said somewhere above, is you can evaluate how well the things you were taught before have integrated into your technique.
I’m not a braggart by any means, nor do my targets display ragged, golf ball-sized holes at all ranges, but I can say without undue ego that I did a lot better this time than I did the first time through. (Incidentally, so did my nephew, who attended the last class with me.) There is still a lot of work for me to do, but now I have even more tools to work with to accomplish the goal of proficiency with a handgun.
-Never underestimate the importance of dry-fire practice. Between the last class in March, and this one, I have only had the opportunity to practice one or two drills that were taught to us. But I have done a TON of dry firing, and will continue to do so. It’s easy, it’s FREE, and it’s helped me a lot.
-It’s time to buy a proper pair of safety/sunglasses. The clear ones I have and the yellow-tinted ones my nephew let me try just aren’t cutting it for outside use. Thankfully in the afternoon, some high overcast came over, or the sun would have been in our faces as we faced downrange. So, some good shaded shooting glasses are on my short list.
-Showing up with all of your gear is better than being the dumbarse who left something incidental (Holster? Who needs a holster!?) at home.

So, all in all, everyone had a safe, productive learning experience. Jeff and Steve were real good about switching things up, while still stressing the points they were trying to get across to us. They were also real good about spending one-on-one time with the students, working on things with each of us until we got them down pat, and they didn’t just tell us how to shoot the drills, they got in there and shot a lot of them with us too, showing us that they knew what they were teaching us.

There were no gun- or gear-related malfunctions with either myself or my nephew, aside from the double-feeds we intentionally set up during the malfunction-clearing portion of the class. His adjustable sight needed to be adjusted, and every now and again his slide wouldn’t lock back on an empty mag, but this was attributed to the super-high grip of the reaction hand putting just enough pressure on the slide lock lever to keep it from coming up. This only happened two or three times all day, and since we are certain that it is the reaction hand grip that is doing it, we don’t consider it to be an actual problem.

For anyone who is within driving distance, I cannot recommend Aesir Training enough. If you own a handgun, and especially if you carry one concealed in public, you owe it to yourself and the public to become as proficient as you can with it. Aesir Training is the place to get just that. You’ll never regret it.

My gear:
Handgun: Glock 17, Gen4, with Glock-brand mags
Holsters and mag carriers: Kydex, I made them.
Ammo: Sellier & Bellot 115gr. FMJ, 9×19 (I really like this ammo)
Belt: 5.11 Tactical Operator’s Belt, 1 3/4″, my everyday pants belt.
Deep Woods Off insect repellant.

Thanks for reading.
Jeers, cheers, comments and questions welcome.

Kenny.

Thanks for the kind words. And welcome to Aesir Training. Glad to have you.

KM,

When you are ready, I know just the guys to teach you.

Safe shooting,

JF

KM