Maybe I’m just lucky, but I’ve never had a problem flying with loaded mags in checked luggage, and I’ve even had those TSA inspection tags inside when I got to my destination.
I was using Pmags with the top cover on however.
I was in the July 7th class- it was the hottest day in years and probably 115 degrees on the white sand pit. Out of the 9 that started the class, only four of us made it through the whole thing. That said, none of us could’ve probably gone another hour that day, including the instructor.
I was also expecting a little more weapons familiarity and preparedness from some of the participants, and I got the impression the instructor did, too. It is clear that they need a little work on their course description, and I told them so in my feedback email.
I did enjoy the class overall, however, and I will be at the December 1st intro to pistol class. No more mid-summer training for this guy. 
Expecting anyone who takes an “Introduction” course to possess intermediate skills and knowledge is absolutely ridiculous. I took the same exact course just over a year ago and the Instructor had to spend most of his effort on the female half of a couple not because of her lack of experience, but because she had a shitty attitude. Her husband did not help any either.
During the breaks she would sit around and let her husband load both their magazines. Unfortunately, when they got split into different relays (so that the Instructor did not have his hands so full) this meant that her relay would end up waiting until her husband loaded her magazines. IMHO, she was pretty useless and could care less about learning.
However, I cannot complain because it was an introduction course and I knew that these types of shooters are bound to sign up. If you want to take courses that are full of squared away shooters, sign up for an advanced course.
I think for an introductory course you will have all different levels of experience.
When I took the course (it was a pre-req for the 2 day) there was a doctor who had just bought his AR and had some weird High magnification red dot leupold scope on it, A former retired US Army Nurse who did not have a rifle at all and got to use a SW MP 15, and finally there were some geared up weirdos from Germany. I kid you not they reminded most of us in the class of SS from WW2 era. They ignored instruction to the point where the instructors stopped trying and just made sure they were safe.
Of course I wrecked my Mercedes on the dirt road during the lunch break and went into the swamp ditch. It was ok I got a rental the next day, and drove home. I was back the next weekend for the 2 day and it was a good course. Dropped the rental off and flew back home with a check from GEICO in hand for the totaled Mercedes.
The 2 day seemed to have much more experienced shooters although some were definitely of the gamer variety.
FWIW I would see if you can take the 2 day and show creds from other sources to skip the pre-req intro course.
What is the point of owning a weapon if you do not know where it hits? I consider un-zeroed weapon to be unserviceable/broken until it is zeroed.
Seriously.
If this was billed as a Operator/Advanced carbine class than ya, he shouldn’t have been there. Shame on him and shame on the instructor for not vetting students.
But the title “Intro to Carbine Course”, tells me to expect nothing. Do you know how many people bought AR15s during the recent scare “because I might not be able to later”? I know at least 10 people that bought one and put it under the bed/in the gun safe and walked away.
It makes me happy to hear people who know nothing about the weapon are seeking out training on how to use it from a professional. I’d rather see people with no zero and confused which way the bullets should point in a intro class to the carbine than ignoring their gun until their buddies want to go shooting. And then breaking it out and doing something stupid at the range stall next to me.
To steal a phrase from a wise man, “many Americans think possession is the same thing as proficiency”. So here we see new carbine owner who realized he knew jack about the gun and sought to fix that problem.
Kudos to him. And I hope the OP wasn’t a jacktard to him in class.
I hear you, but I guess I’d rate a carbine course as course on manipulating and shooting carbines effectively. Zeroing a gun is material for firearms for dummies -course. I’m sure it is cultural differences at play here, and respect your point of view regardless. Person in question was proactive in improving his skills, which is a very good thing to do, obviously.
In this day of mass hysteria, fears of gun bans, and doomsday prepper reality TV shows, I think there are lot of people who otherwise have had no experience with ARs or other types of carbines who bought them and have no clue about how to shoot them. You have to commend the few with no clue who do seek out professional training. I haven’t been to a class for a while (I need to attend one again), but I run range for LE task forces and see many of the same things. My recent favorite was someone showing up with a brand new AR with a quality red dot and magnifier. When he got close in, he flipped the magnifier to the side - covering the ejection port and suffered the mother of all malfunctions. I feel the pain when you’re hampered by those who show up unprepared, but am afraid that there are a lot more folks in that category at the moment. Maybe they’ll learn something and end contributing to the good of the cause.
While I tend to agree, it could just be access to range as a problem. Personally I’m going to a class in a few weeks. However, no good outdoor range within 50 miles to even get a zero on a new rifle (or confirm my zero on my older rifle, which was sent back to factory). If I’m lucky I might be able to get it to a 25m indoor range, but they’re so anal with ammo my zero will probably be with some AMSCOR .223.
So, I can see having to spend some time confirming zero’s. It makes things easier the rest of the day day, without having to stop and go ensure a weapon is zero’d.
Have a plan already in place if you know you’re going to be time limited on zero. One thing I’ve done is take a piece of graph paper, pre-mark on it how many clicks per line on the graph paper (use internet to help)- and then it’s pretty much idiot proofed. Shoot a decent group, try and get it dead on, repeat.
If I’m on paper with other ammo, I’m usually able to get a class acceptable (usable to 100yd) zero in 10 rounds pretty consistently.
That’s a good point. Better that they seek out the training knowing little and going away with a few clues, than to stay clueless.