Deprime, this is an excellent video of how to run the course safely and effectively. In the video we can hear you sweeping the safety on and off and I especially like how when you transition to weak side that you can not see the second target you are shooting at, because you have stayed behind concealment enough that the camera on your ear pro isn't being exposed. Excellent run and thank you for being a safe student all day also.
Why, if you were familiar with the process of zeroing, are any of your rifles running around without hard zeroes? Presumably everyone brought some form of fast response, door kicker carbine to this class. If that was indeed the case, why would that rifle, above all others, not have a zero?
A good place to start is to insist, as a culture, that folks go to a 25Y event before they go to a carbine class or to Atterbury.
Anyone else UN-able to fill out the official review on the RR site? It keeps telling me the date is a required field without letting me fill it in!
Same issue here. I even filled it out and tried to "correct errors" before submitting. Still wouldn't let me.
Unfortunately, there was an issue with the encoding of the URL linking to the survey form. This has been an intermittent issue that I haven't yet been able to track down. You can fill out the survey by going here.
I am intimately familiar with your performance at your initial Atterbury event.
I'm flattered!
“No man is completely useless; he can always serve as a bad example.”
Brad I understand what the course listing said, and I commiserate with the sensation of being without a hard zero. My question was more to set up the asking of the question "Why?" If a guy (or gal) was attending a rifle class, and had been to a previous RR 25Y event or an Appleseed or a CMP SAFS class, why did they not have a hard, known zero on that rifle beforehand? Why, if you were familiar with the process of zeroing, are any of your rifles running around without hard zeroes? Presumably everyone brought some form of fast response, door kicker carbine to this class. If that was indeed the case, why would that rifle, above all others, not have a zero?
Keep in mind this does not forgive the event director. If the listing said there would be time spent on zeroing and no time was spent on zeroing, that is on the event director and should be addressed. However, I think there are a few comments made in this thread that point to some deficiencies within the gun culture that we can and ought to correct and address. First, Indymike, in a very honest and frank report, stated that he did not understand where what his zero was, was unfamiliar enough with his rifle he did not fully understand the function of his rifle, and through his comments we can derive that he did not fully understand the trajectory of his rifle or Kentucky Windage. Caulfieldian noted that the first shots of the class, a tactical carbine class, should be to confirm zeros and everyone should be able to work it out. He then goes on to say that the reason so many people had trouble with the qualifier was because they had poor zeroes. I disagree. I think the reason they were unsuccessful is because they just don't know how to shoot yet. That leads me beyond the question of "Why?" to the question of "What?". What are we trying to do? What are you trying to accomplish if you don't know your manual of arms and this is your first time shooting outside of an indoor range? That is no criticism of Indymike, who I would again compliment for his frankness, but it is a clear sign of situational ignorance and failure of the gun culture. A shooter in that position should be surrounded by people who insist upon them going to a more fundamental class so they can figure out what they are doing before going to a carbine class. What are people training for? Are folks just doing it to fill time or are they trying to learn how to fight better with their rifles? If that is the case then they should ABSOLUTELY show up with a hard, known zero. Will the badguys give you a chance to zero? Are people training to take classes? Is it a way of socializing? What are we doing? What are our goals?
Where do we want to go as a culture? Why do we make the choices we do? What do we do to make ourselves better? Just about any martial art can be applied one of three ways, recreation, sport, and fighting. Each one of those things is enhanced by a critical attention to detail. We can only make the most of our learning is our preparation is done in critical detail. Whenever I hear talk of trouble with zeroes I know, through long experience, that the problem is actual trouble with preparation. So when I see folks comment on zeroes in a carbine class, my instinct is to wonder, "Why didn't we, as a culture, do more to prepare the people who were unprepared?" The answer always seems to be that it is okay to be unprepared. It's not. We can do more. A good place to start is to insist, as a culture, that folks go to a 25Y event before they go to a carbine class or to Atterbury. There are a lot of gunowners in the USA, but not many shooters. We can change that is we do more as a culture to insist on making better use of our training opportunities.
Unfortunately, there was an issue with the encoding of the URL linking to the survey form. This has been an intermittent issue that I haven't yet been able to track down. You can fill out the survey by going here.
IndyMike, you are welcome to come to fcvcc.org as my guest sometime to shake out a zero on that AR. Looks like you are near my side of town.