CIS Defensive Carbine Class

[Guest ETS_Inc]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This weekend, I had the privilege of attending the Defensive Carbine class put on by Todd and Dustin, of Critical Incident Strategies. For those of you who've just crawled out from under a rock, CIS is an authorized vendor and site sponsor here at TGO.

I am pretty wiped out from two days of runnin' and gunnin', so this is going to be a short post for now. I'll post a more detailed review later this evening, after I've had time to take a shower, eat dinner, and catch up on some e-mails. For now, though, let me tell you something: if you're looking for a well-taught, well-organized, local class that will help you become a more proficient rifle fighter, without breaking the bank, look no further; Todd and Dustin have got you covered.

As I said, I'll post more later. For now, i'm going to go recuperate from two days of abusing my trigger finger. Stay tuned for a longer, more in-depth review.

[Guest Todd@CIS]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This weekend, I had the privilege of attending the Defensive Carbine class put on by Todd and Dustin, of Critical Incident Strategies. For those of you who've just crawled out from under a rock, CIS is an authorized vendor and site sponsor here at TGO.

I am pretty wiped out from two days of runnin' and gunnin', so this is going to be a short post for now. I'll post a more detailed review later this evening, after I've had time to take a shower, eat dinner, and catch up on some e-mails. For now, though, let me tell you something: if you're looking for a well-taught, well-organized, local class that will help you become a more proficient rifle fighter, without breaking the bank, look no further; Todd and Dustin have got you covered.

As I said, I'll post more later. For now, i'm going to go recuperate from two days of abusing my trigger finger. Stay tuned for a longer, more in-depth review.

Frank...thank you for the kind words and for being an asset to the class.

BTW, be sure and wipe everyone's drool off of your bad-ass toys!

I believe I'm going to have to "short barrel" one of my Saiga12/Tromix shotguns.

[Guest Dustin@CIS]

Frank, it was great having you in the class and also thanks for the kind words.

I agree, the toys you brought for us to T&E are going to break my bank. Look forward to training with you again.

Edited March 3, 2008 by Dustin@CIS

[Guest ETS_Inc]

Guys,

I truly enjoyed the class. Outside of the Army, this was my first formal, professional rifle class. It was great. Oh, and we need to discuss your needs for AOW's vis a vis my need to take your Defensive Shotgun and Pistol classes

Now, the review:

Saturday, day one, started off in the classroom. We covered the usual basics, such as an introduction to the instructors and their backgrounds, and the basic safety rules. We spent a good bit of time discussing Mindset, and why it is vitally important that the student realize that a Defensive Carbine class is not a recreational class, it is a class designed for using a rifle to protect the lives of the students and their loved ones against someone who would mean to kill or seriously injure them. To help drive this point home, we watched the entire video of the Columbine shooting, taken from cameras inside the school, complete with audio. That was the first time I'd seen that video, and I have to say, it was a bit chilling. We also discussed the OODA Loop, and why it's important.

Then, we discussed the need to keep movements as simple as possible, using many of the same movements to complete similiar acts in order to reduce the need to think about what you're doing. "Keep it simple" and "Stupid proof" were terms heard all weekend.

We also discussed zeroing a rifle, and the differences, ballistically, between a 25-yard zero and a 50-yard zero. We also covered the fact that an AR has a 2.5" offset from the sights to the bore. This is very important when shooting at close ranges or behind cover. Additionally, we discussed the differences in aiming using optics versus iron sights.

Before breaking for lunch, we talked about different carbine accessories, such as optics, slings, vertical foregrips, and collapsible stocks. Todd and Dustin gave their opinions on the usefulness of each accessory, and I have to say, I was in complete agreement with them on such matters. If your accessory isn't solving a problem, it's probably causing one. If nothing else, it's money spent on something useless that could have been spent on training and/or ammo, not to mention it's unnecessary weight.

After lunch, we met at the range and began by zeroing our rifles. Todd and Dustin had us use some interesting zero targets, which were fired at from 25-yards, but replicated a 50-yard zero, using a circle drawn at the bottom of a center square. This was followed by a stress-inducing drill designed to reinforce an earlier point. (I'm not going to ruin the point of the drill by divulging the lesson.)

Once we confirmed our zero, we begin shooting in earnest. We covered a lot of situations, such as firing non-standard responses (3-5 rounds), shooting from standing, kneeling, and prones platforms. Several drills were done to show that speed is important, but accuracy is more important. For some of them, we went head-on-head, competing against the other shooters, to see who get the most accurate shots the quickest, without missing the target. It really drove home the need to fire quickly but accurately. Before the end of the day, we worked on some transition drills, going from our carbines to our rifles. We were also tasked with ensuring that we side-stepped before each shot, to throw off the opponent, and to do a quick check to our sides and rear after engaging the threat and also before changing elevations, to look for additional threats, as well as friendlies.

[Guest ETS_Inc]

On Sunday, we met at the range at 7:30, and got started right away. The first thing we did was reconfirm our zeroes.

After that, we started working on a few more drills, such as off-hand shooting, one-handed (weak-sided) reloads, and shooting behind cover.

Then, we started doing some teamwork drills. Shooting in close proximity to another shooter, with the two shooters passing behind and in front of each other with a loaded weapon is not something you're going to be allowed to practice on many static ranges, but it is an important skill. We also did some stack drills, with the shooters behind each other, with the lead student shooting and peeling off, allowing the next student to engage the target. As each student peeled off, they took their place at the back of the line. The stack moved forward for a short distance and the started moving in reverse, with the shotoers still engaging the targets.

A little later, we did some run and gun drills, similiar to "suicides" that we all fondly remember from high-school gym class, except with some shooting being done at each line.

We followed that up with some more "fast and accurate" drills, using bowling pins. These were done with the added stress of shooting against another student. That added stress was pretty daunting, and made most shooters flustered, until they realized that speeding up wasn't getting good hits.

After we were finished, we had a bit of a "Mad Minute," where we just took some turns doing some relaxed shooting. I had brought a couple M-16's, as well as an 870 AOW, and a few suppressors. Everyone took a turn with the AOW, and everyone seemed impressed with the controllability of it. One of the M-16's had a 7.5" upper, with Primary Weapons Systems FC556 compensator / muzzle device. The noise coming from tht gun is impressive, to say the least. Firing 30-round bursts from it attracted quite a bit of attention from many of the folks in the handgun carry permit class being conducted in the bay next to us. lol

[Guest ETS_Inc]

The class consisted of 5 students. All of the other students were Smyrna police officers. Of the five students, four were former military combat arms folks: two Marines and two Army Infantrymen. Todd and Dustin limited the size of this class for a reason. They had recently rewritten their curriculum and revamped some of their drills. They wanted to use this class as a test-bed, to see how the new lesson plan would work. For that reason, they limited this class to a small number of professional gun folks, so that these students could give feedback and criticism from an informed point of view. This, in my opinion, is the mark of a professional instructor. They knew that they had written a good course, but wouldn't just take their own words for it; they wanted the first students to take the class to be people who would know the difference between good training and bad, and wouldn't be afraid to speak up about the quality of instruction.

One of the changes that needed to be ironed out was the quantity of ammo needed for the different drills. The syllabus stated that about 750 rounds would be needed. Todd told me before the class that that was likely too low. I brought about 1500 rounds, just to be on the safe side. Many of the other students only brought about 800 rounds. We definitely went through the 750 rounds, and could have easily fired a full case of rifle ammo. I know that with the rising cost of ammo, many will be skeptical about taking a training class with an requirement of 1,000 rounds. Keep in mind that this is very good training, and the cost of the class itself is really low when compared to many of the other schools around the country, and those schools have similiar ammo requirements.

On the subject of ammo, this is were most, if not all of the problems arose over the weekend. Myself and another student found ourselves spending a lot of the drills on Saturday fixing problems. I was using Olympic (Greek) 55gr, which gave me nothing but issues. The other student was using Wolf, and seemed to be having as many problems as I did. Once I switched over to Federal XM-193, my problems were resolved - I didn't have another ammo problem all weekend.

The guns used were a hodge-podge. One shooter used an S&W M&P-15, while another used a Frankengun built using a RRA lower and an M&A upper. Two of the students were using Bushmaster carbines. All four of these rifles had 16" barrels. Two of them were equipped with Aimpoints, and two used iron sights. One of the four used a vertical foregrip, while the other three used standard handguards. As for myself, I actually brought two lowers and three uppers, in case I had any problems. The guns were both registered M-16's, one a Tromix lower and the second a Doublestar lower. The uppers were the aforementioned Model 1 Sales 7.5", a Doublestar 14.5", and a DPMS 11.5", set up with a YHM Phantom 7.62 suppressor. I used an EOTech 551 on the uppers. The 7.5" used a short, tube guard, while the 14.5" had carbine guards, and the 11.5" had a YHM rail and a vertical foregrip. All four of the other shooters had slings on their guns, a mix of 2-point and 3-point slings. I used a single-point on the Tromix lower, and ran the Doublestar lower sans sling.

One thing classes like this are good for is figuring out if your gear works, and if not, what needs to be done to fix the problem. My rifles worked great, other than the problems associated with bad quality ammo. I used a Tactical Tailor Mini-MAV chest rig, with two pistol mag pouches, a triple rifle mag shingle, which was topped off with a single rifle mag pouch in the center and a 6-shot shotgun shell panel on each side. The Mini-MAV works great. It is a low-profil, basic rig that does great as a means to haul ammo when dealing with an active-shooter, bug-out, or fight your way home rig. It is not intended to carry all the gear for a sustained fight. It holds enough ammo for a short-duration fight. I also used a set of Hatch kneepads, which are invaluable when going into the kneeling or prone positions (especially for those of us with bad knees). I used a Maxpedition Thermite on my non-dominant leg for a dump pouch. I really liked the way I had my gear set, it worked well.

All of the students carried Glocks as sidearms. I ran my new Glock 19, with Glock laser and light combo, held in a Fobus Tactical holster. The holster takes a little getting used to, though. Because of the light/laser, and the way the holster is set-up, the drawstroke is not a standard drawstroke. Instead of drawing straight up, I have to rock the gun backward and come up after clearing the holster. I also realized that I don't really care for the finger grooves on 3rd-generation Glocks, especially not after shooting all dy for two days straight.

The drills we did were very good. I definitely worked for my certificate. I've been shooting AR-15/M-16 based rifles since I enlisted in the Army in 1989. I've been on multiple real-world deployments, carrying an M-4 carbine everyday, while in warzones. I still learned new things this weekend, and felt challenged throughout the class.

One of the things I like most about Todd and Dustin's way of teaching is the fact that they don't feel like they know everything. They said on several occassions that their way of doing things is not THE way, it is just A way. I feel the same way they do: if you do something and it works, it wasn't the wrong way to do it. Sure, there might be better ways to do things, but that doesn't mean your way was wrong. Todd and Dustin will not only tell you the good points about their method, they don't mind explaining any bad points. They are aware that some people prefer other methods, and they won't belittle someone for choosing that method.

Todd and Dustin asked those of us in class for constructive criticisms, in order to make their class better. I couldn't think of much that needed to be changed, other than revamping the ammo requirement. The only other suggestion I had was the idea of giving the students a hand-out with the various drills printed on it, for the students to take home with them. That would allow the students to remember the many drills we performed, so that they could work on them on their own.

[Guest ETS_Inc]

As I said before, if you are looking for well-taught, well-organized training, done affordably in the Middle Tennessee area, you'd be hard-pressed to do better than the guys at Critical Incident Strategies. Sure, there are other instructors in the area, some of whom are more well-known. Todd and Dustin have studied with those instructors, as well as others around the country.

In fact, they are taking a Larry Vickers pistol class next month. They are true professionals, knowing to not rest on their laurels. They know that there is always room for improvement, that you can always learn something from every class you take, and that good instructors owe it to their students to bring as much to the table as they possibly can. Exposing themselves to new instructors, and therefore new ideas, is a way to ensure that they are getting as much information as they can.

I look forward to taking the CIS Defensive Pistol and Shotgun classes in the future. I might even take their Carry Permit class one day, so that I can learn from them, and bring that info to my own students.

I strongly recommend Todd and Dustin as instructors.

[Guest utarch00]

Wow Frank, great write up. I have been considering taking some classes in the near future and I think I will be strongly looking at CIS.