A good drill for you all to try...

AR/M4 AR General Discussion
1

Figured this was the proper forum.

I was at the range today practicing with my ARs.

I ran in to Mike Pannone, author of several handbooks about the M16/M4, HK416, and Glock. He’s also been there and done that, and is definitely someone who you should listen to if you want to learn how to run a carbine (or a handgun, or an SPR, or…).

He was running through some drills at the bay next to mine, and I found myself doing one-shot drills to the count of his shot timer on some small steel plates at about 20 yards.

We got to talking, and he let me shoot using his steel target and shot timer, which is IPSC “A” zone size, at 50 yards. He said he was developing a few drills for a federal agency that uses carbines, as part of a larger qual.

The drill starts with the carbine slung, strong hand on the pistol gip, weak hand on the sling or not touching the rifle. The idea is that the shooter has not identified a specific threat, so there is no need to be in the low ready with the carbine. For those of you who’ve slung a rifle all day in an area which you might have to use it, you know what I’m talking about. At the sound of the beep, bring the carbine up and fire a single round.

Sound easy? Well, the A zone looks pretty small at 50 yards, and the qual time is 2 seconds. He was shooting in the 1.2-1.3 second range consistently with a stock trigger group using a 5.45 hammer spring. Using the same trigger group & spring in my own rifle, I was in the 1.67-1.78 second range, though I dropped a few, and went over 2 seconds once.

I’m being specific about the trigger groups because Mr. Pannone was adamant that a good trigger will decrease his times significantly - to about the 1 second mark or less. His times are even more impressive when you consider the fact that he has the use of only one eye.

After that, we discussed methods of instruction, body mechanics, etc. Knowledge flowed forth.

He really knows his stuff, but beyond that, he’s an excellent instructor. Many people can shoot well, but not all of those people can impart their knowledge on others with the same skill. I picked up as much in that half hour or so as I did in the last carbine course I attended. If you (or your agency, if you’re LE) get the chance to train with him, I highly recommend it.

2

Lots of quals and drills used to start out with a slung weapon, thankfully most have moved away from it. If there is a specific need for the agency to have it in their qual, thats up to them. I’m not aware of any agencies teaching to patrol or hit calls with their weapon slung anymore.

Another thought would be that from 50 yards, most agencies are still counting on firing a minimum of two rounds, and running a qual with one round strings seems odd to me, at least from that distance.

ETA- I don’t negate the info you gained, nor how it was taught, simply putting out another perspective that he may already include with his work.

3

I’m sure he does - as I said it’s part of a larger qual course - but I know that when I was doing dismounted patrols I hardly ever had the rifle in any other position than slung with my strong hand on the pistol grip, so it did make a good amount of sense to me.

I think that for LE, if you have your rifle out, there is a damn good reason for it, so it makes sense for you to have the butt of the rifle in your shoulder. But that isn’t really sustainable for many hours and doesn’t make a good impression when you’re trying to be nice to the local populace - if you aren’t clearing them out because of an active shooter or similar event. I don’t know what agency it was or what their mission is, beyond generalities, but apparently this would be beneficial to them.

Also, I think the 1 round aspect is to reinforce the idea that the first shot needs to count. He was going other stuff, you know, fancy prone positions and so on, but we didn’t really discuss them.

4

Sounds good.