Overview and photos from OpSpec Training’s Pistol/Carbine Class – Hoover, Ala.

Operation Specific Training conducted a two day Pistol/Carbine class in Hoover, Alabama on Aug. 4 and 5. Training day one started out with the customary safety/medical brief, with a special emphasis placed upon hydration as the air temperature/humidity roughly resembled the face of the sun. All students were encouraged to drink a lot of water, under the threat that I would be the one starting their IV, and Monster makes me a bit nervous.

Once the safety/medical aspects were covered, students hit the range for four hours of refresher on the pistol to get everyone back on the same page of prepping the trigger.

After chow (most of the class wanted to go to Chik-fil-A for some reason) students hit the range for a quick zero check, then into the “Practical Fundamentals” for the carbine. Students learned the proper “mechanical offset” for their particular rifle, and at what distance “mechanical offset” starts to affect their particular rifle. Drills were shot from the 25 yard line, to the 7 yard line with speed and accuracy being equal.

Training day two started off with equal heat, humidity, and the safety/medical brief. Students began to ramp up their capabilities by shooting fast Bill Drills from various distances. Some were pretty amazed (Ruger357 comes to mind) of how efficiently a shooter can learn to prep an AR trigger. Students then moved on to pistol transitions, failure drills, tight time accuracy drills, and multiple targets. Each student was put on the clock for different timed events. We ended the day with some precision work at greater than contact distances and slowed down to settle into good fundamentals and hit targets at distance.

Although the heat was a problem, everyone improved greatly and showed a great mastery of what Michael and I were attempting to get out to the folks in the class. On the second day of training we had a huge problem of getting the guns cool enough to touch between strings of fire. That seemed to be the main thing that ham-stringed us, as a break and some hydration, the class was ready to go again. I think the FN SCAR became the clear winner of the entire class by the end of the second day. We loaned our test guns to some folks to shoot throughout the weekend.

I appreciate, again, everyone being safe and having a good time. Below is a collection of photos from the weekend.