Yesterday, I attended an Intermediate Carbine Clinic in Ravensdale, Wa conducted taught by Kevin Williams of LMS Defense. It was held at the Cascase Shooting and Pistol Range on the 50 yard range.
This was my first course with LMS. I’ve taken a fair number of courses, mostly handgun, with Insights Training which is based here in Bellevue where I live, but was interested to see another approach. Additionally, while last year I attended a ton of training courses, this year has been much more difficult. My first son was born in March and my wife has been somewhat less thrilled than before with me disappearing for 2-3 days at a time to do courses.
The one day clinics offered by LMS seemed like a decent solution to this problem, though I’d still like to do some longer duration courses–at this point, I’m not sure I’ll be able to make that happen this year.
The weather yesterday was ideal, sunny clear skies and almost 80 degrees. There were about 10-12 attendees, most of whom it seemed had previously attended courses with LMS. I think many were in EMS positions, along with a few active and former military, and a smattering of others who I assume, like me, were just regular old civilians.
We started at around 9am with a quick recitation of the four universal firearms safety rules then got to zeroing our carbines in two numbered groups. Kevin did not express any dogmatism about what was the proper zero and let each shooter decide what his zero should be. We only spent about 30-40 minutes on this (in fact the prereqs for the course stated each attendees rifle should zeroed prior to class, but I’m guessing they would prefer to be safe).
After zeroing, we moved up to the 5 yard line and Kevin asked the first group of shooters to shoot at a small dot. It clearly became apparent that many of us had forgotten hold over for 5 yards and the the POI for most was several inches high. Kevin discussed the “normal” approach of just compensating but also discussed some more precise means of compensating I’d not previous heard. On involved aligning the top of the rear sight with the bottom of the front sight and then using just the top of the front sight post for POA/POI firing. It worked surprisingly well. Then he mentioned for those of us running EoTechs using the bottom of the bottom hash mark when at 5 yards. This was also something I’d not known and was surprisingly accurate at 5 yards.
We then spent time at both 25 and 50 yards shooting for accuracy on paper and using steel, before moving on to speed and tactical reloads. As with most other things, Kevin was non-dogmatic about proper reloading technique.
Speed reloading was essentially the same as I’ve been taught before: bolt open, drop the magazine, insert a new mag and as your hand comes up hit the bolt release.
For tactical reloads, Kevin demonstrated a few techniques, the L-shaped technique where you clamp the new mag at 90 degrees, rotate the old mag out and the new mag in, and the side by side technique where the new mag is held parallel and you move it in. He also mentioned that he was mostly unconcerned with your technique for tactical reloads since it should only be done when behind cover and where a few seconds will not matter. He mentioned that while in the Rangers, they didn’t have any of these fancy techniques and simply did the following:
- Confirm that you have a full magazine
- Remove old magazine and stow
- Grab new magazine and insert
Williams said that what this technique lacked was a cool name and said LMS was attempting to come up with one for this technique. We then moved on to malfunction clearance.
For malfunction, most of what LMS taught coincided with what I’d been taught from Insights. For immediate action, it was the fairly common: tap, pull, rack, bang. It was when we got to remedial that things started diverging a little from what I’ve seen elsewhere. This included generating various malfunctions with live ammunition as Kevin said they weren’t a fan of plastic dummy rounds as they don’t bend and behave quite like real ammo.
Here, to the best of my recollection, were the various malfunctions we generated and the remedial action. Please note I may have some details incorrect:
Normal double feed
To generate
[ol]
[li]Lock the bolt back and eject chambered round (if one exists)
[/li][li]insert a full magazine
[/li][li]drop a round into the ejection port
[/li][li]release the bolt thereby chambering a second round
[/li][/ol]
To clear:
[ol]
[li]rip the magazine clear
[/li][li]lock the bolt to the rear
[/li][li]reach the left hand up into the magwell
[/li][li]push the fingers out through the ejection port.
[/li][/ol]
Bolt over round double feed
To generate
[ol]
[li]Lock the bolt back and eject chambered round (if one exists)
[/li][li]insert a full magazine
[/li][li]drop a round in via the ejection port
[/li][li]Turn the weapon upside down
[/li][li]Hit bolt release
[/li][/ol]
To clear
[ol]
[li]rip the magazine clear
[/li][li]Pull the charging handle as far back as possible
[/li][li]Chop forefully with your firing hand in an L-formation striking it via the meat between the thumb and index finger reach the left hand up into the magwell
[/li][/ol]
Bolt and charging handle over the round
To generate:
[ol]
[li]lock the bolt back and eject chambered round
[/li][li]insert a full magazine
[/li][li]Dropping a round in via the ejection port
[/li][li]Turning the weapon upside down
[/li][li]Pointing the weapon upright and close the bolt
[/li][/ol]
Typical remedial action won’t clear this type of malfunction. Kevin pointed out one way to clear this would be the traditional mortaring of the weapon, but that this was not preferred as the LMS guys have seen even mil spec weapons have their buffer extensions bent by doing this. Instead, Kevin provided another solution.
To clear:
[ol]
[li]place the muzzle of the weapon down against the ground
[/li][li]brace the stock of the weapon against one’s chest
[/li][li]Forcefully pull (it will take quite a bit of force) on the charging handle with both hands.
[/li][li]It will likely only move a bit but use the bolt catch to keep the charging handel in place, then chop it as described previously.
[/li][/ol]
Stovepipe
To generate:
[ol]
[li]lock the bolt back and eject chambered round
[/li][li]place a piece of used brass sideways in the ejection port
[/li][li]Hit the bolt release to chamber a round and close on the spent brass.
[/li][/ol]
To clear
[ol]
[li]Using the firing hand, reach forward and pull the stovepiped round out
[/li][li]Using that same hand (NOT the suppport) hand, pull the charging handle to rack the weapon
[/li][/ol]
We the moved onto timed movement drills, starting at 25 yards, moving to 10 yards, then finally to 5 yards. Here is a video I took with a Contour ear pro mounted camera (note a reload wasn’t supposed to be part of it, I just fucked up):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFlIAz2oO90
Finally, we practied a variety of more unusual shooting positions. These included prone, urban prone, fetal prone, SVU prone, and quite a few others for which I can’t remember the names. We practiced these dry then using steel did them with live fire. I personally had a hell of a time seeing my sight picture from some of them and in some
cases didn’t even get rounds off before time was called. For me, this was the part where I felt I wasn’t quite ‘getting’ it, but it improved a bit as time went on. Lastly, we used barricades to practice all the positions with timed competition shooting steel.
I want to personally thank Kevin Williams, assistant instructor Jordan (not sure of his last name), LMS and all the other students for helping to put on a safe, fun filled, and educational day. I definitely hope to train with LMS again in the near future (wife permitting!)
Side note: In Kevin’s after action report, it turns out one of the students foiled an attempted bankrobbery at gunpoint after class. Not sure what the hell