May 25/26 Training Weekend – Second AAR
AAR of 2 day Combat Rifle/Contact Drills 25,26MAY13 Somewhere Outside Romney, WV
Helen & Joe, wife and husband, attended Max Velocity’s training facility outside of Romney, WV for a 2 day Combat Rifle/Contact Drills training course. Neither of us have any military experience, but we have had some previous firearms/ tactics training:
Storm Mountain: Long Range Rifle I, II, III
Defensive shotgun
Handgun I, II, III
Mason Dixon Tactical: Rural Team Tactics A1, A2, B1, B2
I am a 58 year old, 210# engineer turned farmer in fair aerobic condition. Helen is “39” and actively training in Krav Maga, in good aerobic condition and working on her strength conditioning. We were the only husband & wife team in the 11 participants, and Helen is Max’s first female participant. The other 9 participants quickly demonstrated their weapons proficiency and trigger finger and muzzle awareness, which in addition to Max’s vigilant safety consciousness, had us feeling very comfortable be around and working with these men with weapons on live fire ranges. Over the two days of the course a real camaraderie developed between all of us. It is a true disappointment that our AOs are so distant from one another.
This course is for people who understand and have practiced rifle marksmanship skills on flat square ranges and know that won’t be enough in any real defensive conflict. Max’s individualized instruction is THE necessary next step beyond the flat square range basic marksmanship skills. Fire and movement on uneven up and down trails in the dappled lighting conditions of the wooded hills of West Virginia challenges your visual scanning, your footwork and your aerobic conditioning like no other training. You will resolve to increase your PT!
Max follows the “crawl, walk, run” method of training, beginning with individuals operating singly on the two ranges, then two person teams, ending with four person teams. Targets consisted primarily of pop-up targets that are dropped when you suppress them with effective rifle fire, accessory static paper targets were used as well. Max had set the sensitivity of the pop-up targets to drop if hit by a .22lr. So training with less expensive .22lr rounds is doable. We used .22lr for day 1 and transitioned to 5.56 for day 2. We used ~ 200 .22lr and about 200 5.56 each, for day 1 and day 2 respectively.
Max takes each individual, each two person, each four person team separately through the course of fire and provides an individualized critique of every run. When you are not online you are watching and learning from others successes and their corrections as well as getting to know each other. This is instruction you will not get on a firing line of 12 simultaneous shooters engaging a static target, no matter how many times you press the trigger.
Men get your wives involved. Who better to have your 6? Helen would be happy to converse with any wives that have questions. Talk to Max and we can work out the contact details.
Max is the Real McCoy, a True Patriot!
Thank you Max Velocity!
Helen & Joe
Pennsylvania (A.K.A. Wanna-be West Virginians)