fun, educational carbine drill

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smithers599
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fun, educational carbine drill

#1

Post by smithers599 »

Yesterday we had a carbine day with our local shooting group. Eleven stalwarts showed up.

Shooters were told to bring 20 loose rounds to the line.

There was a table. On the table was a cardboard banker’s box. In the box were 10 AR15 magazines – some metal, some plastic, some 20s, some 30s. There was a Givens target 15 yards downrange.

Those who were not shooting the stage helped load the magazines. Each of the magazines contained 1, 2, or 3 rounds – at least 1, no more than 3. Throw the magazines in the box and stir them up.

Shooter started with unloaded rifle in hand, bolt closed, safety on.

On the beep, shooter reaches into the box, grabs a mag, runs the charging handle to load the rifle, and shoots at the target until the bolt locks back.
Drop the empty mag, reach into the box and grab another, insert it, drop the bolt, shoot at the target until the bolt locks back.
Repeat until all 20 rounds have been fired.

Score is time plus 1 second for each shot outside the second scoring zone.

Cooper wrote that the Combat Triad is Marksmanship, Gunhandling, and Mental Conditioning. This is an excellent gunhandling drill! Running the charging handle and bolt release, dropping magazines, inserting magazines (especially when they come out of the box upside down and backwards).

Some lessons learned:

I found myself pulling the empty mag out instead of letting it drop – because that is what I do when I am not shooting under the clock! After about the 5th magazine I caught myself and started doing it right. That’s called “learning.”

A couple of shooters had ambidextrous controls on their rifles, but it turns out they placed the bolt release and the magazine release quite close to each other. As you would expect, sometimes they hit the wrong one. Being in a hurry exposes such issues.

One shooter brought a very nice bullpup. (I don’t recall the model.) Reloading a bullpup quickly is quite awkward. The magazine well is almost under your armpit, and inserting a mag with the rifle on the shoulder is not easy. Good thing to know.

Give it a try sometime.


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delta6
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Re: fun, educational carbine drill

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Post by delta6 »

Sounds like a pretty good skill test. Thanx
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iammaxwell
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Re: fun, educational carbine drill

#3

Post by iammaxwell »

Nice.
I do something similar. Some mags loaded full, others random. Sometimes mix in different capacity mags too. Train to shoot til empty/failure, check, drop mag and reload or fix failure, repeat.
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