Bluez
Full Access Member
I thought I'd post it here for folks to see the kind of activities that are out there, for my friends name that ran the range with me I simply substituted "XXX"
" Weather was fantastic. This is in stark contrast to last months event. I think I got a tan! : )
- We had a total of 6 PAX present, including XXX who didnt shoot but functioned as a safety. Mostly different folks than last month which is good.. to spread out the practice..
This also it made me realize this is probably close to the maximum of folks we want to handle in our current configuration on the same day... if we want to give everyone plenty of shooting opportunities.
This range is (currently) optimized for a single shooter at a time getting challenged with a total of 10 plates grouped into 5 (sometimes 6) "Targets" around a 120 degree arc, at different distances and degrees visual presentation.. this IMO challenges a single shooter quite well...But for a short time we actually ran 2 lanes at simultaneously in order to maintain throughput.
- I think good training benefit was had by all but time constraints and rifle issues lowered the round counts below my recommended 400-500 rds for some.
I believe we can do better with this next time . In the interest of throughput I think me might either institute a maximum number in the future or institute other changes to streamline our "heats" for throughput.
- Two attendees, a father/son team had to leave by noon. Since we hadnt seen them in a while we were happy to put them in the front of the line and alternate excursions for them and as a result they were able to leave on time. The other shooters were good sports about this and I think we were still able to inoculate these two with a good experience and training effect.
- Two other attendees by the end of the day developed rifle problems. The problems kept getting progressively worse until they shut down a little early for it.
Turns out one of them was running PMC Bronze (because he wanted to go easy on XXX's steel targets) which explained all the short cycling and failure to lock the bolt back, (for those who dont know this ammo is loaded on the soft side) + he was running an adjustable gas rifle which was likely set to the "normal" position. I didnt realize his rifle was adjustable gas until the day was nearly over or we might have addressed this much earlier. Note to self, bring reading glasses next time to better assist w/ rifle issues.
The other one had only minor issues at first and they were first blamed on "steel case" but persisted w/ brass ammo got progressively worse and turned out to be a faulty extractor. At the end of the day this individual was issued a spare complete bolt by the retreat armorer and is now presumably GTG.
Lesson: It sometimes takes a moderately hard Carbine day to notice and shake out some bugs. I understand both shooters were using their primary "Go-To" rifles so this could have been a poor outcome if they suddenly needed them "for real"..and they not recently "shaken out" their rifle (or rifle/ammo combo)
This underlines once again the need to run ones rifle hard every once in a while... both for training and to shake out any bugs that might be present in your weapon.
- We are, IMHO, past the beta stage now..XXX and myself have a couple of ideas for the near future, XXX is also improving his " Pistol Shoot Ersatz Car" we are currently thinking about how (or if) to integrate it... so watch this space.
Cheers,
" Weather was fantastic. This is in stark contrast to last months event. I think I got a tan! : )
- We had a total of 6 PAX present, including XXX who didnt shoot but functioned as a safety. Mostly different folks than last month which is good.. to spread out the practice..
This also it made me realize this is probably close to the maximum of folks we want to handle in our current configuration on the same day... if we want to give everyone plenty of shooting opportunities.
This range is (currently) optimized for a single shooter at a time getting challenged with a total of 10 plates grouped into 5 (sometimes 6) "Targets" around a 120 degree arc, at different distances and degrees visual presentation.. this IMO challenges a single shooter quite well...But for a short time we actually ran 2 lanes at simultaneously in order to maintain throughput.
- I think good training benefit was had by all but time constraints and rifle issues lowered the round counts below my recommended 400-500 rds for some.
I believe we can do better with this next time . In the interest of throughput I think me might either institute a maximum number in the future or institute other changes to streamline our "heats" for throughput.
- Two attendees, a father/son team had to leave by noon. Since we hadnt seen them in a while we were happy to put them in the front of the line and alternate excursions for them and as a result they were able to leave on time. The other shooters were good sports about this and I think we were still able to inoculate these two with a good experience and training effect.
- Two other attendees by the end of the day developed rifle problems. The problems kept getting progressively worse until they shut down a little early for it.
Turns out one of them was running PMC Bronze (because he wanted to go easy on XXX's steel targets) which explained all the short cycling and failure to lock the bolt back, (for those who dont know this ammo is loaded on the soft side) + he was running an adjustable gas rifle which was likely set to the "normal" position. I didnt realize his rifle was adjustable gas until the day was nearly over or we might have addressed this much earlier. Note to self, bring reading glasses next time to better assist w/ rifle issues.
The other one had only minor issues at first and they were first blamed on "steel case" but persisted w/ brass ammo got progressively worse and turned out to be a faulty extractor. At the end of the day this individual was issued a spare complete bolt by the retreat armorer and is now presumably GTG.
Lesson: It sometimes takes a moderately hard Carbine day to notice and shake out some bugs. I understand both shooters were using their primary "Go-To" rifles so this could have been a poor outcome if they suddenly needed them "for real"..and they not recently "shaken out" their rifle (or rifle/ammo combo)
This underlines once again the need to run ones rifle hard every once in a while... both for training and to shake out any bugs that might be present in your weapon.
- We are, IMHO, past the beta stage now..XXX and myself have a couple of ideas for the near future, XXX is also improving his " Pistol Shoot Ersatz Car" we are currently thinking about how (or if) to integrate it... so watch this space.
Cheers,
