On October 10 and 11, 2009, Magpul Dynamics conducted their Dynamic Carbine 1 course in Houston, Texas. Chris Costa and Travis Haley were the course instructors. It was hosted by Matt Brockmann of MAST Solutions and held at the Houston Community College Police Academy Range, which is an outstanding state of the art training facility consisting of 3-50 yard shooting distances with a concrete surface and blast baffles overhead. It gets pretty loud with 15-plus students all blasting away at once with their carbines, especially when short barreled rifles like mine are fired with muzzle brakes, but overall it’s a great range to host classes at in my opinion. And for me, since I’m in a wheelchair and all, it really is by far the best and most wheelchair-friendly outdoor gun range I’ve ever shot and trained at thus far since I began doing this type of training several months ago (I’ve take 3 classes in 3 months now). I hope to continue to have these great opportunities to train there in the future.
This AAR is going to be rather lengthy, but I wanted to put a lot of effort into it because both Chris and Travis put such a tremendous amount of effort into training me and working me over really hard this weekend, so I figure it's only right to return the favor.
Training Day 1
We met up in the classroom on Training Day 1 (TD1) at 0800 for a very in depth safety brief and to take care of the other general administrative business. Both Chris Costa and Travis Haley were able to make this class, which was awesome. They introduced themselves and gave us a general rundown of how things would go over the next two days of training, as well as going over Magpul Dynamics’ core principles of Reality, Efficiency and Consistency, and explaining exactly what each one meant in relation to MD’s style of training.
I could’ve sworn there were 20 shooters at the beginning of TD1, but I had obviously miscounted. All I know is that by the afternoon of TD2 I counted 16-17 shooters. I have no idea what happened there, because it was supposed to be a full class of 20 students; maybe some other guys from the class can chime in on that. There were several law enforcement officers in our class, with the rest of the students being a very diverse crowd of civilians: some were prior military, but most were not. But we all had a damn good time regardless of our backgrounds and learned a ton of invaluable information about our guns, our gear and ourselves. The carbines being used ranged from a couple of Colts, Noveskes, and LWRCs to DPMS and Rock River Arms. There were a few custom builds too, as well as one very sexy Larue Stealth upper. I briefly talked to the students afterwards and made some notes of several of the guns malfunctioning, but I wrote so sloppy that I'm simply not comfortable enough with listing any of their malfunctions simply because I don't want to make any errors. So for those who experienced any malfunctions on their carbines, please feel free to list them if you'd like.
We geared up and hit the range at around 0900. The high on TD1 was around 70-degrees and very cloudy with a chance of rain, although we stayed pretty dry that day. We kicked things off with zeroing our carbines. My 11.5” BCM with Aimpoint Micro T-1 red dot sight was already zeroed, but I passed it off to Costa so he could quickly confirm my 50-yard BZO from the prone position, that way I didn’t have to have them move up a table for me to bench my gun on just to confirm my BZO. After everyone was dialed in we began working on all the different reloads (Administrative, Tactical and Speed reloads). Chris and Travis demoed each one before we ran the drills ourselves. Christ those guys can shoot! Not only is their rate of fire phenomenally fast, but it’s extremely accurate as well, with the overwhelming majority of their shots landing in the high center chest of the new Magpul targets.
The targets Magpul created for training are pretty cool. You'll see some pics of them in the days and weeks that follow, but what you won't be able to see is the fine print at the bottom of each target, which functions as a great cheat-sheet for zeroing Aimpoint, EOTech and ACOG optics. It tells you what each click on each of those optics represents at multiple zeroing distances. It can really help you out when zeroing one of those optics on the days when you're having brain-farts at the range and cannot remember just how many clicks equals how much at whatever distance you're currently zeroing at.
At 1200 we broke for chow. When we returned at 1300 we spent the next hour back in the classroom for the Mindset lecture. It was extremely informative and I truly believe it’s vital to this type of class. Although we were shooting at paper targets in this class, in reality those targets represent a “bad guy” that we might some day have to kill. I think it’s crucial for those of us who are receiving this type of training, and who might actually wind up using what we learn in these classes to defend ourselves or our loved ones from some bad guy out there, to understand the psychological effects of actually engaging and killing another human being: how the body, mind, eyes and the basic senses react to such traumatic and violent events. I also got up in front of the class and, for the very first time in front of a group of people, told my story of just how I was wounded in Iraq. I was a bit nervous at first, but then I just began to act as if I was bullshitting with my fellow Marines and was fine for the next 8 or so minutes that I spoke to the class. Although I probably dropped well over one hundred f-bombs in my profanity-laced story, I knew that I had gotten my point across very effectively (as evidenced by many of the students coming up to me afterwards and throughout the rest of our training and telling me just how much it meant to them to hear my story, and that it really sunk in just how important basic weapon manipulation skills are, why Travis and Chris teach us to do things in the way that they do, etc…).
To put it bluntly, the mistakes I made in combat, which led to my being shot in the chest (just under the left armpit) and paralyzed from the waist down, were primarily the result of either training scars or from simply not being shown how to perform some vital weapon manipulation techniques and not practicing the techniques that we did learn often enough.
The detailed thread I wrote on this subject can be found in the Training section of the M4Carbine forum, and is simply titled, “Lessons Learned in Combat.”
After the Mindset lecture we headed back outside to the range to do some more shooting. We worked on the Dynamic Kneeling and Prone. Travis and Chris do an out-fucking-standing job whenever they demo each technique before we perform it ourselves. When demonstrating the Dynamic Prone position, the Magpul Dynamics duo would drop their bodies straight down fast and hard on the deck with boatloads of decisiveness and aggression. They would give one hundred percent as they demoed the techniques we were about to perform, and we could all see the pain in their eyes and on their faces as their bodies slammed down on the concrete at lightning speed. I firmly believe that seeing Travis and Chris do this, watching them put themselves through obvious physical pain, motivates the hell out of the students and encourages them to do the same: to move with a fucking purpose and get your ass down on the deck as fast as possible so that you can quickly and efficiently neutralize the threat(s) downrange.
Some of the students immediately got the hang of quickly getting into the Kneeling and Prone positions, while others took a little longer to adjust to such rapid movements. In several cases, the student’s age no doubt played a role in the speed with which they transitioned from Standing to Prone. Lack of experience was also a factor, which is to be expected in a basic carbine course. Some students would actually get down on the ground and into the Prone position quickly enough, but they were dropping very easy shots because they were holding their carbine up off the deck. Travis saw this and then asked if it’s okay to rest the magazine on the deck; one student said no, explaining that doing so can cause feeding problems. Travis then responded, “Not with the PMAG it won’t.” He explained that it’s perfectly fine to rest the magazine on the deck and use it as a monopod to help stabilize the gun. He then demoed this for us -once again slamming his body down on the concrete- resting his carbine’s magazine on the deck as he fired tremendously fast, connecting with the high center chest as usual (fucking showoff!
). The point was taken and techniques amongst several of the students changed.
I obviously cannot get into the Kneeling or Prone positions since I’m confined to a chair, so instead I leaned forward and rested my left elbow on my left thigh for the “Kneeling.” As for the “Prone,” Chris came up with the idea of me substituting that position with a 90-degree turning drill, so that I could get some more diverse training out of it rather than just doing the leaning forward and using my knee for support technique again, which was my initial plan. Travis, Chris and I would continue to come up with very unique, interesting and downright fun ways for me to take on the many challenges in this class. I could tell they had put a lot of thought into how exactly to include me in each and every drill, whether that meant trying the actual position/technique, or if that simply wouldn’t/couldn’t work for me, substituting it for something else so that I could get some very beneficial trigger time.
But the main point here is that they didn’t baby me or treat me like some stereotypical “pussy ass” disabled vet at all (which TV shows and movies seem to always portray us as); they treated me like the Marine Infantryman that I still consider myself to be, and ran me harder than anyone's run me before... and I fucking loved every minute of it!
Training Day 2
The weather on TD2 started off nasty. As I pulled up in the parking lot it was raining quite a bit. It was 65-degrees in the morning when we arrived, with a high of 74 later in the day, although I personally don’t think it ever reached that high, as I comfortably wore a beanie on my head and my thin waterproof jacket for the majority of the day. But the on-and-off light rain and cooler weather were much better than the wet, humid and hot days that followed, so I wasn't about to complain because we had it much better than the second carbine class did.
We kicked off TD2 by running the BSA drill. Some students, myself included, were told to fire 3 shots instead of the usual 2, in order to try and reach our individual failure points. Everyone is unique and has a different skill level and point of failure, and Travis and Chris are great at identifying each student’s individual skill sets. Students in these basic courses are generally good at a few things and not-so-good at others, and the Magpul guys do an amazing job picking up on everyone’s individual strengths and weaknesses, and then exploiting them: they really push you hard on everything you do, but constantly tweak their training methods on the fly for each and every student. They keep a very loose grip on the leash and give you more freedom and leeway when you excel at something, but reign it back in and give you much more TLC when you’re running a drill and you’re not performing at the optimum level you could be reaching.
I dropped 16 shots on the BSA drill, which really frustrated me. However, and I’m not trying to make some lame ass excuse here, I was doing the 90-degree turning drill at the 50-yard line to substitute for the Standing-to-Prone course of fire. I would face right, hear the shot timer go "beep," turn my chair to the left as fast as possible to square up to the target, lock up my brakes, raise my rifle and quickly fire off 3 shots at the target down range within the 4 allotted seconds we had to complete the drill (which was more than enough time). I’m going to work on that technique some more and strive to get much better at doing it.
After we ran the BSA drill the rest of the students learned how to do the Supine position and then practiced doing it dry, followed by running it live. This would be the only course of fire during the entire Dynamic Carbine 1 class that I would not participate in, in some form or another. Chris asked me if I wanted to give Supine a go, but I had already tried that position in my first carbine class several months ago and it just didn’t work out for me. However, I now really regret not giving it a go, because after giving it a lot of thought I think that I could’ve done my own personal version of a Supine position by simulating falling over backwards in my wheelchair and then, instead of trying to lean forward and fire (which is what I tried previously and was impossible for me to accomplish), I think I could’ve just rolled my upper body to the right of left and done an adaptation of Urban Prone. I’ll definitely be trying that one at the range very soon.
When it was time to run the Urban Prone position, HB (the range safety officer/LEO/instructor and all-around great guy) brought out a mat for me to lie on. Costa set it up and then grabbed a hold of my chair (with me in it of course) and slowly tipped it over to the right side. Success! I was in the Urban Prone for the first time ever and it fucking rocked! Chris kneeled behind my body and helped to stabilize me to help me keep my body in the correct position, as it was hard doing it for the first time. With more time I definitely could’ve worked on the technique without him having to stay behind me like that, but we were being overly cautious in that position because my body is so damn fragile and I didn’t want to injure myself. I’ve literally snapped my left femur with my bare hands while stretching and working on my range of motion exercises in the VA Hospital roughly 2 years ago, so obviously my body can only handle so much physical punishment nowadays. I didn’t want to break or damage something from overdoing it in a position I’d never done before because I probably wouldn’t have even realized it until I got back home that night, since I can’t feel anything from the waist down. But I definitely want to get into the Urban Prone again, as it was a blast! I simply can’t explain how great it feels when I’m doing something like that with the rest of the class. It makes me feel like I’m not disabled and not being singled out, and I’m really glad that I tried it and succeeded!
After running my gun in the Urban Prone on the right side, Chris tilted me and my chair back upright and then tipped me (slowly) over to my left side, where I shot off another mag at some crazy looking white dude that was giving me the evil eye (paper targets of course, just in case this finds its way somewhere else on the internet). My body definitely preferred lying on the left side in the Urban Prone as opposed to my right, and I functioned much better in this position.
Next we ran some malfunction drills, starting with the good ol’ Tap-Rack-Bang. I’ve been doing this since I was in the Marine Corps, and as we all know it’s not exactly rocket science. But I still really like going over it often enough so that I never ever hesitate to perform immediate action when the weapon system goes “click” instead of “bang.” We also worked on clearing double feeds. I have been running Magpul’s new BAD Lever on several of my lowers for the past month and my God does it make life much easier when clearing a double feed, or any other time you need to lock the bolt to the rear or send that bitch home in a hurry! I really like it, but still need a lot more time with it to reach that ideal level of efficiency that the BAD Lever makes possible.
After that, the barricades were pulled out and Chris and Travis showed us the best way to navigate our bodies and carbines around them in order to not expose too much of ourselves to possible incoming enemy fire. I still can’t possibly say enough about just how great their live fire demos are and how much we all learn from watching them run their guns like madmen! At one point Chris Costa ran his badass Knight’s Armament .308 caliber SR-25 Battle Rifle while working the barricade… it was friggin’ awesome watching him shoot that beast, and with a .308 version of the outstanding Triple Tap muzzle brake mounted on the muzzle of it, Chris was able to control the hell out of it as he blasted away at the threats downrange.
When I first approached the barricade I locked my chair up several feet behind it and leaned out to the right and shot one-armed, while holding on to my chair with my left hand. Travis witnessed me doing this and came over to work with me on my technique. The instructor from my first carbine course 3 months ago just said something to the effect of, “Just do it however you feel comfortable man, I’m not gonna get on to you for doing something the only way you can do it.” But Travis Haley and Chris Costa on the other hand would both push me to do it the right way, regardless of the fact that I am in a wheelchair. Of course there are times where I simply cannot do something whatsoever (i.e. Dynamic Prone), so I have to substitute it for something else. But the next thing I know, Travis had me leaning over to the right using both hands on the gun this time, which obviously allowed me to have greater accuracy and fire much faster. However, he still took advantage of my being able to one-arm the gun (something I have practiced) by having me fire 5 shots at the target using both hands on the gun, then leaning out a bit further while one-arming it and hitting a target that was located further to the left, which I could only see by leaning out further to my right. I hope all that makes sense, and I’ll post some pics (and possibly some video too) of me doing it to give you a better idea of how I went about it. After I fired my 10 rounds on the right side of the barricade, I’d transition my nimble BCM 11.5” SBR to my Reaction side shoulder and run the same drill from that side, then I’d switch back to my Weapon side shoulder, sling my weapon and roll away from the barricade.
The other students would line up behind each barricade and perform different positions at each one: Standing, Kneeling, both Standing and Kneeling, and then Urban prone on both sides of their bodies. Everyone really enjoyed shooting around and under barricades. It’s something that a lot of guys don’t have access to at their local ranges, so of course all of the students had a blast doing it.
We broke for chow at 1200 and when we came back we trained with just our pistols for about an hour. We started off slow in the high compressed Ready and would then extend our secondary firearms outward, touch the trigger, press the trigger, really concentrate on trigger control and reset, and then do it over again while trying to maintain a tight group. Speed was not the goal here obviously. After Travis and Chris showed us how to maintain a proper grip on our handguns, and just how much a shooter’s grip on the gun helps to either control the recoil or have the recoil control you if you’re not doing it properly, we then worked on our draws from the holster. We ran all these drills with our Secondary weapons from about 3-7 yards.
After we practiced out draws from the holster for a while, we then slung our carbines back on and worked on Primary-to-Secondary transitions a bit. After they were confident we could handle it well and safe enough, Chris and Travis told us from that point on we could transition to our Secondary weapons whenever our Primaries ran dry if we wanted to.
At around 1500 that afternoon we started shooting on the move. In order to prevent the range from getting too crowded, the students split up into two groups and took turns having Costa shout out the commands "Forward, Rear, Right and Left." It's so funny watching dudes start to move to the right whenever “Left” or “Forward” is called out. I noticed that the students had a tendency to over-think everything whenever moving is incorporated into shooting for the first time, especially when they're all on the line together, myself included (more on that in a second).
I sat back and watched the two groups of students run the movement drill, and then Chris and I went up to the firing line and I ran the drill by myself as the rest of the students were reloading their mags and hydrating back behind the 50-yard line. He would call out a direction, I'd turn my chair (if need be) and push as fast as my tired body could manage for several feet, and then quickly lock my brakes up and raise my carbine to fire off 5-10 rounds at the target. On the last one that Chris called out, he had me fire at multiple targets. Once again, like everything else, it was a blast and Chris pushed me hard and treated me like a Wounded
Warrior instead of a Disabled Veteran.
The last course of fire we ran was the whole firing line (split into two groups again) shooting when threats were called out while slowly walking forward and backward. I participated in this with everyone else. As I mentioned earlier, when moving and shooting are incorporated with each other, less experienced students have some issues doing to two combined tasks. For the first several attempts I had problems staying on line with everyone else. I wasn't pushing my chair hard enough in between each “threat” that was called out, and it was hard to time the one good push I could get with everyone else's walking pace. Costa soon approached me (he was actually behind me the entire time for safety reasons) and basically told me that I needed to get my shit together and really focus on staying on line with everyone else (in a polite way, of course).
"Roger that!"
Once he made me aware of my errors I was able to correct them and made sure to look to my right as I moved (I was all the way on the left flank during this drill). When "Threat" was called as we were moving, I might only be able to get off two shots instead of 3-4, because I had to ensure that I didn't start lagging behind the line as my chair slowed down without me pushing it. I realized that night that my tires were really low, which definitely affected how smoothly my chair was rolling on the moving and shooting drills.
That completed our Magpul Dynamic Carbine 1 course. Everyone was really tired, yet we were all happy and in great spirits, each feeling a great sense of accomplishment. I was so fucking amped up for the duration of the night, long after I drove back home. It's a great feeling for me when I attend and complete a carbine class. I always feel like a Marine Infantryman again, like I'm on top of the world and truly unstoppable. It's an awesome feeling that is hard to come by these days, and doing this kind of stuff is the only thing I have found to get that "high" back that I experienced so long ago now (approx 6 1/2 years ago as of October 12, 2009).
I think everyone reading this would benefit greatly from taking a Magpul Dynamics class and would have a great time attending one, even if you’re already an experienced and seasoned shooter. So, does this mean that I am drinking the Magpul Kool-aid now that I’ve attended one of their classes with Chris Costa and Travis Haley? No… I’m doing a fucking keg-stand and chugging that shit! It truly has to be seen and experienced in order to be believed, and yes they really are as good as they appear to be on their great DVDs. I’m sure that everyone who has taken a Magpul Dynamics class would likely agree with every positive remark I’ve made about Magpul Dynamics’ training programs overall. Travis and Chris are the real deal. They are also extremely modest regarding their exploits, achievements, experiences and time behind the gun in actual combat. If you attend one of their courses, it would behoove you to listen to and take in everything they say, as well as taking lots of notes when and where you can.
I learned a lot about my gear, my gun, my body and myself in this class. I am simply amazed at just how much I learned and accomplished over the weekend and am very proud of myself. However I still think I could’ve performed much better and will strive to excel in this business. I want to continue to climb that “ladder of excellence” that Travis Haley is always mentioning and just get better and better at all of this. I’ve come a tremendously long way in the past year since I bought that Bushmaster AR and got back into shooting (no, I don’t have that carbine anymore) and have had a complete blast along the way.
Thanks so much to Chris Costa and Travis Haley for deciding to take me on as a student and working with me and pushing me so hard. I'm proud to call you guys my "brothers-in-arms." Thanks to Matt Brockmann of MAST solutions for finding the HCC Police Academy Gun Range at the last minute and for hosting this course... you did an outstanding job, brother! Be very proud of yourself, man. And thanks to both Matt B and an awesome (and downright beautiful
) girl named Heather who took all of the pics and video on TD2! We all like to have those memories and stare at ourselves looking like badass warriors in those moto pics!
Also, much thanks to HB as well, as he does a lot behind the scenes to keep things flowing smoothly at his range.
Gear and Gun
I once again ran my outstanding BCM 11.5" SBR in the following configuration:
-BCM bolt carrier group and BCM Gunfighter charging handle (Mod 04)
-KAC Triple Tap muzzle brake
-Larue Tactical FUG (vert grip)
-KAC URX II Mid-Length free-floating rail system with integral flip front sight
-Aimpoint Micro T-1 red dot sight on a Larue Tactical high mount
-Magpul CTR stock with extended butt-pad
-Magpul MIAD pistol grip
-Magpul BAD Lever
I ran my BCM upper on my registered KAC SR-15 lower and used a Magpul MS2 single-point sling. It ran great for just under the 1,000 rounds I fired and had zero issues. I fired significantly less ammo than most other students did, and I really regret it. I basically didn't push myself hard enough when it came to my rate of fire in order to reach my failure point (usually). Oh well, lesson learned. I'll work on it. I can't possibly say enough great things about BCM! Their guns are meant to abuse and shoot a lot, and they can take everything you throw at them. I haven't cleaned mine for several thousand rounds now and it's still going strong without any issues whatsoever, as long as I squirt a little Slip 2000 Extreme Weapon Lubricant (EWL) in there in between my high round count shooting sessions.
I also attached Costa's Knight's Armament M4QD sound suppressor for the last course of fire (shooting and moving). It made my SBR very muzzle heavy indeed, but it did tame and suppress the muzzle blast and nastiness associated with firing an SBR in a semi-enclosed environment. Of course I now really want to buy one. The KAC suppressor also darkened my Triple Tap Brake a little, which was kind of nice, although I could really give a shit if the damn thing was black or bright pink because it simply works so well in keeping my recoil down to a controllable minimum, without being near as obnoxious as the other brakes out there. The Triple Tap brake and an SBR are a great combination, that’s for sure.
To put it simply: I absolutely LOVE this gun!!
My secondary weapon was a Glock 19 in a Blade-Tech holster, worn in a cross draw position in a 45-degree angle on my left hip, just to the left of my belt buckle. This position works well for me, albeit a bit slower on the draw because I consciously have to avoid sweeping my left femoral artery, as well as anyone standing to my left, when drawing my Glock from the holster (which wasn’t an issue here, as the instructors put me all the way to the left flank of the firing line when doing transitions). I accomplish this by drawing the pistol out of the holster, rolling it up to my chest into the High Compressed Ready, and then punching out towards the target.
Although theoretically I should’ve always been the last one to draw my secondary, since there’s more going on with me and I also have to drop my carbine to the right of my wheelchair to get it completely out of the way of my draw stroke, very rarely was I actually the last one to draw and fire when transitioning to my sidearm.
I ran about 30 pre-loaded PMAGs and, as usual, they functioned great! It saved me so much time during breaks because I didn’t have to reload any of my magazines, which is why I had the extra time to take so many notes on my notepad and was able to write up such a detailed AAR. In addition I learned that it's just really bad etiquette to bring another manufacturer's magazine (referring to the other polymer competitors out there) to a Magpul class
. I also figured out that I hate every other mag out there other than PMAGs and good quality GI mags with Magpul no-tilt followers in them. There really is no reason to use anything else in my honest opinion, especially considering that the other polymer mags out there cost more than PMAGs do.
Haley made my mouth drop wide open when he told me that two of the PMAGs he was using in our class had over 100,000 rounds through them and that they were used in the filming of the original AOTTC DVD. That's some impressive shit, especially knowing how hard he abuses the hell out of them by dropping them on a multitude of surfaces and running them in a wide variety of weather and environmental conditions.
The ammo I used for my carbine was PMC Bronze 55gr .223 caliber FMJ. I have been using this ammo for a while now for all my range trips, training sessions and carbine courses, and it always performs phenomenally. I’ve yet to have any problems with it whatsoever and will continue to run it through my carbines. I also used PMC 115gr 9mm Luger FMJ for this class. It’s actually my first time to use PMC in 9mm, simply because I never really see it anywhere. But to be honest, I’m not nearly as picky about my handgun ammo as I am with rifle caliber. That said, the 9mm PMC did run great, with zero malfunctions. I wore two Blade-Tech mag pouches on my right hip, in between the 1 and 2 o’clock position on my belt.
A Sneaky Bag held my 4 primary magazines. I’ve used it in my two previous classes, but after my most recent one I decided to butcher the living hell out of it in order to make it work much better for me in a carbine course. After all of my not-so-subtle scissor work on my Sneaky Bag, my mags now stick up out of it and I can index them very rapidly in a wide variety of positions. Before I cut it all up, I found myself “fishing” for mags 50% of the time, which sucked. It works great for me now and even functions as a small dump bag since it has a separate pouch, but I’m still looking for that perfect man-purse that comes directly from the manufacturer already suiting my every need, without me having to cut several square feet of fabric off of it in order to make it perform up to my ridiculously high standards.
Well, I hope that's everything. I've spent a good 12 hours writing and editing this now, but I'm sure I still forgot some stuff and will be mentioning it below in the weeks to come. If you were at this Dynamic Carbine 1 class, please participate in this AAR, as it helps Magpul and all of the forum members out and a lot can be learned and gained from these things. I know I've learned a shit-ton of knowledge from them myself, so please don't hesitate to get involved in the discussion!
I enjoyed talking and shooting with each and every one of you, and glad I got to meet you guys. I hope to see and train with all of you again in the future!
Take care and Semper Fi,
Paul
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