2 day Rifle Class at Front Sight.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Just finished a 2 day Practical Rifle Class at Front Sight yesterday.(Fri 5/14 Sat 5/15)

This was Class #30 for me and I felt pretty good about it. Got a big round of Applause when I told them it was #30. The Mini 14 has been thru about 5 classes there now including my first Rifle class in 2007.

First day was HOT! I shot my Ruger PCC.40 Carbine. It ran perfectly all day.

Shot my Mini 14 on the second day and did OK. But it started out cool and windy and finished up hot and REAL WINDY with dirt flying everywhere and getting in every nook and cranny. My gun was so filthy when I took it apart today (Sun5/16) it took me an Hour to deep clean it with a complete teardown using Brake Cleaner and WD40 and an Air Hose.

I got one round stuck which has never happened before with any Centerfire Rifle I've shot, and we had to Butt Stroke it to get it freed up. Butt stroking a Mini 14 is not as easy as doing a Pump Shot Gun but we got it freed up and never had another problem. I attributed the problem to the hundreds of Wolf Steel Cased Rounds I've fired in that gun and never cleaned the chamber. Will clean the barrel and chamber tomorrow.

Getting up at 6:00 AM is not something I really like doing and 4 days of it made today a sleep in the chair day.

Any way I had a real good time and made some new friends. Instructors were great as usual. There was 56 people in the class. Due to the ammo shortage they cut the round count down 35% on all the classes, but they did it in a way that you didn't really miss it.

I had already done a Pistol Class on the preceding 2 days and was a little used up, but still did fine in the class. I even broke my long standing avoidance of laying on the ground in the dirt during the last iteration shooting at 100 yards. I did this because if I had shot off hand I wouldn't have hit anything including the berm as the wind was nearly constant at 50+ MPH!

I still made it home by 11:30 on Sat Night. Freddy's in Victorville is the half way point and a good feed, and if you haven't been to one you really need to check them out too..

Randy

[baranski]

Sounds like a great trip!

[PogoJack]

Congrats! Why did you switch rifles?

Did most people have ARs?

Can you shoot steel case on that class?

Sounds awesome, do you airbnb or trailer up there?

[damon1272]

Yep wolf did the same thing to my mini. Quit using wolf, cleaned it and never had the issue again.

Those mini 14 though, guy in class had one. Ejected brass was vicious. Got hit in the neck with it hard enough that I though I may have been hit with a ricochet or a jacket off a round. Freakin hurt. Had to move down the line after that.

[beanz2]

Which Wolf steel case did you run?

This:


Or, this?

[FeuerFrei]

I always thought the Rugger pc carbine/Glock-on combo would be a real winner.
Shared ammo and mags. What's not to like there?

Too bad the Mini Me choked, but I'll bet it wasn't the ammo. Mini's are grinders, so I'd attribute the hick up to the crappy conditions. Everything chokes at some point.
Everybody has to kick start a Mini, AK, M1A, Garand, etc or even mortar an AR at some point. Sheet happens. You clear it and move on through.

[hermosabeach]

I am pretty sure it cannot be a steel nor bimetallic bullet.

Front Sight has too many steel targets that are damaged by bimetallic bullets


Years ago- surprise magnet inspection was common for anyone shooting steel cased Ammo and brass cased NATO 7.62 x51.

[beanz2]

Yes. That’s why I asked which Wolf steel cased ammo he was shooting. With the recent importation of non magnetic 223 bullet Wolf lately, Randy deserves the benefit of doubt.

.

[W.R.Buchanan]

So Many questions?
I wasn't using Wolf ammo there. I was using Brass cased Winchester. I have shot alot of it thru the Mini and never really cleaned the chamber, in fact I hadn't cleaned that gun in years simply because they run really clean and don't need it that often.

The Wolf ammo that I have is the second one in the post above with the Black Box. I bought a case about 2008 and still have a few boxes left.

The reason for switching rifles was Ammo. I only had so much new ammo to shoot. I had just gotten off a 2 day Pistol Skill Builder and shot my G23 in that class so I was running low on .40 S&W.

I did manage to talk to Brad Ackman about including the PCC's in the classes and we talked a good while about it. I think the edict comes from Piazza who I will be addressing this afternoon. It is stupid to exclude PCC's from the Tests because of power when the longest shot is 100 yards. 9MM and .40 and .45 and a few others will go 100 yards and make a hole in a paper target just fine. Saying my Marlin 1894 CB .44 Magnum is not a full power Rifle is stupid and shows a complete lack of understanding of firearms coming from people who shouldn't be saying such stupid things.

Anyway we'll see. In a two day class with no test I don't care as I am there simply to shoot, re establish my fundamentals, and have fun. I got a Cert that shows I finished the class, and it will be filed with all my other certs later today.

I graduated the pistol class again. Shot -23 which was OK, but they changed the sequence of all the Malfunctions and I blew a type 3 (which I never miss) and was late on a couple others. My shooting was a little weak and I shot -14 before we got to malfunctions. The G23 is a little harder to shoot than my G21SF. I still was lowest score in the class which blew me away! It was hot for the first two days and that had something to do with the Low Scores. I also sat in the break room for nearly 2 hours before the test as I had already gotten to "diminishing returns," before lunch.

We stay at my Bro in Laws VACAY house in LV and drive out 45 min every day to the site.

It was a good trip. Shotguns next time for sure.. Most fun courses out there are the Shotguns.

Randy

[beanz2]

I think FS would do well to address the need for PCC classes. Thank you for speaking to the #2 man. Was Ackman receptive or dismissive?

Ideally, a PCC class should also include some sort of shoot house scenarios, like we do with handgun classes.

.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Beanz; I talked to him for about 30 minutes about the PCC's adn other things.

He acknowledged very quickly that the Leverguns in .357 or .44 shouldn't be lumped in with 9MM or .40 or .45ACP.

My point was if it would shoot 100 yards and make a hole in the target it comes under the heading of "Any gun will do , If you will do."

I could pass that class with my 10/22, and if you didn't hear it go off, you could never tell at the target, which would look exactly like an AR target with .22 cal. Holes!.

I am going to make that point abundantly clear in my course critic that I am going to write next.

Randy

[mtenenhaus]

Wow, 30 classes...that's awesome.

Just curious if you don't mind, In what way did they modify the malfunction clearance skills. I'd like to learn their methodology.

[W.R.Buchanan]

They changed the Pistol Malfunctions. All start after trigger press, finger strait. then you move on the go command. I think they think it's safer this way. We still had a couple of ND's on the clearance drills which I have heard very few of in all my previous classes.

It used to be, you started with the Malfunction set up in the gun. On the go command you fixed it before the buzzer went off.

Now they have you depress the trigger and then finger strait, then they give the go command. It took two steps out which for me are part of the Rote function of clearing any malfunction.

However it doesn't really matter on all the Tap Rack Flips like 1&2, where it screws me up is on the Type 3 where there is several steps that have to be done in order.

It took me along time to get this down, and then they added the Check for Magazine on your belt which totally screwed me up since I always retain the mag. Then I finally got that step engrained and now they changed the start sequence.

Very frustrating.

On the rifles the Type 3 is not timed, you just have to do the steps right. And the thing I learned this time is you don't lock the bolt open on a Mini 14 you just strip the mag out, Rack 3 times, reinsert mag and rack. Mini's don't double feed, they can have failure to extract, but don't try to shove two in at once like an AR will. ON the Emergency Reload you knock the dead mag out with the new mag same as you do with an AK.

Randy

[DRM6000]

I think FS would do well to address the need for PCC classes. Thank you for speaking to the #2 man. Was Ackman receptive or dismissive?

Ideally, a PCC class should also include some sort of shoot house scenarios, like we do with handgun classes.

.

Running a PCC through the shoot houses should absolutely be part of the curriculum. I've done it several times and the knowledge gained is valuable. Students had to run pistols because rifle calibers weren't allowed. So, I brought a 9mm AR.

Another thing we learned while learning to run rifles in the shoot houses is that walls are invisible to rifle rounds. (I wonder if the holes are still there? )

[mtenenhaus]

W.R thanks
sounds like great fun