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Old 01-28-2013, 12:30 PM
ramzar's Avatar
ramzar ramzar is offline
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Default AAR: John McPhee 2-Day Carbine Class – Jan 19-20, 2013 - Chino, CA

Class: John McPhee 2-Day Carbine Class with Low-Light
Instructor: John McPhee (AKA Shrek)
Assistant Instructors: Bryan (AKA B-Monkey) and Jeff
Cost: $525.00
Date: January 19-20, 2013
Hours: 8am-7:30pm on Saturday & 8am-4:30pm on Sunday
Location: Prado Olympic Shooting Park in Chino, CA
Students: 25 (mix of civilians, LEO and military)
Ammo used: 700 rounds carbine & 400 rounds pistol

This was a great class from a noted instructor who only recently started open enrollment classes. John has taught to all levels and manner of people: civilians, executive protection, special forces, military, law enforcement, SWAT, etc.

I went to the John McPhee carbine class and got some of the BEST pistol instruction and diagnostics ever!

John's class is all about the fundamentals and efficiencies. Nothing fancy! The individual diagnosis and fixes to each and every shooter was priceless. By itself, worth the price of admission. He strives to impress upon you to make your shooting at a subconscious level. The teaching is through the conscious mind and repetitions. Perfect practice makes for perfect. Bad practice just instills bad habits and training scars.

Each morning we practiced with just the pistol. The fundamentals are the same and by fixing problems with the pistol it helps with the rifle. This is very similar to what another Delta dude Larry Vickers says: "the better you become with a handgun you are automatically becoming a better shooter with virtually every other small arm".

John wants you to put your flashlights on your weapon at all times and practice with them all day.

Surprisingly, no live fire demos were done but everything was explained clearly as to why and how and shown. The instructors did participate in live fire on some of the drills.

When training allow your pistol to go dry, reload and upon reload give the target another round or two.

TRAINING DAY 1

We started out with the pistol fighter stance by leaning into it for better recoil management. Legs are mid stride of a walk. Always be a in a position to walk and move immediately.

Grip is a huge thing with John. The more grip you have on the pistol the more accurately and faster you can shoot. Get the strong hand as high up the tang with thumb pointing up so that the support hand has room to get in there. Of course, then shooting strong hand only is with thumb up. You need to cover as many square inches of the pistol surface area with your hands. Support thumb points at the target and make sure you close all gaps. Closing the gap (control back strap with the heel of support hand) was one of my issues especially with multiple shots and John saw that immediately and fixed it. Get everything as high up the pistol to control recoil. You are controlling the pistol along 3 axes: left/right, up/down and front/back. The amount of force along each axis will be tailored for each shooter.

A good grip can compensate for a bad trigger. We practiced at slow, medium and fast pace with 3 grips and triggers. Jerking the trigger is NO problem with the proper grip. To illustrate that Bryan would hold the pistol while John passed a screw drive through the trigger guard and then would hit the screw drive and thus the trigger would be pressed (or slammed). As long as the grip is good and the sights are aligned it makes for good hits. Don't try that exercise on your pistol because as John said he has broken quite a few triggers that way.

John and Bryan went through the line and fixed each shooter's issues. John's diagnosis was far more incisive than Bryan's but eventually everyone get the proper diagnostics from John which was priceless. His advise and fixes and catered to each individual based on their physicality. Again, priceless.

Another key component was to pick up the front sight as early as possible after the draw and muzzle horizontal. I had noticed that when drawing and shooting strong hand only I was always picking up the front sight much earlier than two handed shooting. Here's the trick that John gave us: after the draw come to the dominant eye and attain a full grip there. For me as a right-handed shooter and right-eye dominant instead of bringing the pistol to center and punching out, punch out from the right side at an angle identical to strong hand only and have your support hand meet the strong hand all the way to the right side instead of center. Tried it and it works great. You're riding the front sight to the target as early as possible and make adjustments before full extension. Now, I need repetitions.

For malfunctions there are only two types based on whether your pistol is in battery or out of battery. For in battery you do a tap/rack/assess but with John they are small movements. You tilt your pistol to accommodate your support palm for the tap and rack by pinching the slide. For out of battery (dead trigger) you lock slide to the rear, strip mag with new mag and rack the slide only once. You don't need an infinite do loop. Works day and night.

For magazine changes, drop the mag while the pistol is vertical to have gravity assist. Once new magazines is seated send the slide home using your support thumb on the slide release button for a better grip (also to avoid sending the slide home before the magazine is seated and thus an empty chamber).

For the trigger the placement of the trigger is secondary and subjective. Remove the slack and after firing the round do NOT consciously look for trigger reset and instead have your trigger finger come off of the trigger as fast as possible. Let the gun reset itself so that you don't short stroke it (trigger freeze). These were lessons they learnt from Rob Leatham and it's applicable to all trigger types and not just the light triggers. "Slapping" the trigger is fine as long as you have a good grip. This will get some getting used to for many and requires patience plus high number of repetitions.

Next was tempo (AKA cadence, rhythm, pace) where we want even splits even on target transitions and we have full control of the sights.

For multiple targets it's the shoot-look-shoot cycle. Shoot at first target, look at second target and bring the weapon to the second target and shoot.

We practiced all of these with single and then escalated multiple rounds as well as multiple targets.

In the afternoon we started with the stance on the rifle/carbine. Your support knee is a step forward and somewhat bladed. Like with pistol the feet are pointing forward to allow for faster walk initiation. The bottom 2 inches of the stock (stock is fully extended) is in the crack of the shoulder and the shoulder is in front of the hips. Elbows are generally down. Use your body mechanics to negate the weight of the rifle. Just like the pistol the strong thumb is up and on safety. Bring the rifle up to the eye while looking at the target with head towards the charging handle. Breathing is over-rated. Lower the weapon to walk/run.

For rifle malfunctions it's still only the two in battery and out of battery fixes. For in battery the same tap/rack/bang. Tilt rifle left to tap (small movements) and tilt right to charge. For out of battery, lock back, tuck rifle in, put fingers into the magazine well, new mag and charge.

For rifle mag changes, drop mag while vertical, tuck rifle, new mag in and support thumb drops the bolt.

For pistol transition take a step forward (remove bladed stance), guide the rifle down and pinch it with your elbow. Little bit awkward for me. So, when you go dry practice both by first transitioning to pistol and then charging your rifle and giving the target another round. Basically, transition to pistol if you're 25 yards and in. We also did target transition going both left to right and right to left. Same shoot-loo-shoot cycle.

We had a man on man shoot off using the modified El Presidente. Basically, only two rounds per target with penalty on misses. Remember tempo and even splits between each round. Watch your sight and don't let the subconscious wander.

For the night shoot John explained how important it is not to have a flashlight AD. They would basically unscrew or tape over the flashlight so as not to give away position. Also, wires on flashlight get tangled up and cut so best not to have wires.

We did many iterations of single and multiple rounds on one or two targets. It was an intense hour of night shooting.
__________________
Their drills are bloodless battles, and their battles bloody drills.
- Historian Josephus (AD 37-101) on the Roman military

Last edited by ramzar; 01-28-2013 at 2:56 PM..
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