"Zumbo" revisited - why can't we seem to repeat that epic act of activism?

The Zumbo Carbine Course Day 1
I'm able to access a computer here at the motel.

Today was training day one of the special SWAT magazine Pat Rogers Carbine Operators Course for Jim Zumbo.

Got to the Boone County Sheriffs Department Range here in Lebanon IN about 7am. I was warmly greeted by Sheriff Ken Campbell. I've known Ken for about 5 years and he exemplifies how relations should be between the firearms owning public and the police. Ken sponsors nationally known trainers like Pat, Louis Awerbuck, Steve Tarani, Shep Kelly, Dean Caputo at his factility and all of the classes are open to the public. Ken is an adjunct instructor at Gunsite and teaches a couple of off site Gunsite courses at his facility every year. When Ken gives his welcome briefing, he states that he hosts these course for the public because the more knowlede the public has in these matters the better it is for everyone. Someday one of the graduates of a course at Boone county may sit on a jury or grand jury looking into a use of force incident and the knowledge they gained in the course may bring about a better outcome.

I was a wondering who would be in this class. When Pat invited me he made it clear that the plan was to present a cross setion of the types of people who train with him. There are three police officers in the class, Brent Wheat (SWAT columnist and Lebanon IN PD officer), Brad Sanderson of the Boone County Sheriffs Department and myself. There are two physicians, two nurses who are high power competitors (both female), a real estate agent (also female), a retired LTC from the Marines who is now military sales director for Aimpoint, a couple of business people, Ken Campbell's father in law who builds his own black powder cannons, the corporate chef for the Lone Star restaurant chain, Pat's significant other who is a scientist who works for a DOD agency on night vision projects and Rich Lucibella and, of course, Jim Zumbo.

The course started the exact same way everyone of Pat's carbine classes I have attended starts with a safety lecture, classroom time on the mechanics of running an AR type carbine and Pat's usual colorful stories.

At about 10:00 am we hit the range shooting one shot groups from 3 yards working trigger reset drills. Once everyone was shooting acceptable groups we moved back to the 25 yard line to zero. Zeroing was a relatively painless exercise and we moved back to 50 to confirm the 50 yard zero. After that we moved into controlled pairs, hammers and failure drills.

Broke for lunch, and upon return we worked transitions, and handguns. We then worked kneeling positions and the non standard response.

The course is moving a little slower then some of them I've attended but it's entirely due to the skill level of the students. Last year the course was mostly SWAT guys and military and we moved much faster. All total I fired a little over 200 rounds through my carbine and 50 or so with my pistol. Last year we hit almost 400 rounds on TD1.

Jim Zumbo still seems to be a little in shock over what happened to his life. He's never done this type of shooting. Pat's course can be pretty physical. It takes a lot to stand on the line hour after hour and it took it's toll on everyone. Zumbo hung in there. By late afternoon when I was sore and hurting, he was still there with no complaints and he's 11 years older then I am. Tonight at dinner I asked him how he enjoyed himself today and he said he was having fun. He can shoot. His manipulation skills are not good, but that's to be expected since this is his first experience with this type of shooting. He has videotaped some of the class for a TV show.

My personal gut feeling is that he really didn't intend his blog to come out the way it it did. At dinner we discussed the demise of fox hunting in the UK. He spoke very strongly and I judged it to be sincere (and I like to think I can judge that because people lie to me all the time at work) about how the same forces that ended fox hunting in the UK are at work here in the US. Right now my gut feeling is that Zumbo is guilty of the same thing we all are guilty of at times, instead of keeping quiet lest someone think you a fool, he turning on his computer and confirmed it.

Tomorrow I intend to ask him directly about it.

I'll try to post TD2's report tomorrow night. In the meantime, lets keep this in the staff forum.

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Today went a little faster. We started with a grouping exercise at 50 yards to make sure no one's sights had moved. A couple shooters had to readjust and then we were back on track. We worked multiple targets shooting roadhouse rules and box drills. Then Pat introduced his non-standard response which is firing seven to nine rounds COM into what you can see of the target. Once non-standard response had been introduced to the class we fired Pat's wave of death exercise. In that exercise everyone faces either the right or left side of the range at the indoor ready. When the shooter in front of you turns his/her head to acquire the target you begin your turn and fire. Done properly the sound starts with one rifle and builds to a peak in the middle then slows as the wave moves down the line. The purpose of the drill is to get you shooting on a visual cue. To give you an idea of the skill level in the class, I am shooting on target number 4 of an 8 target firing line. On the first few iterations I was the first person in my firing order to get rounds down range. Of course this is the 5th time I've trained with Pat and I borrowed the drill from him to use in the training I conduct. So I'm a little ahead of the learning curve compared to the less experienced shooters.

We broke for lunch about 11:30. After lunch we shot at 100 yards. Out of the five times I've taken this class, this is only the second time we ever fired at 100 yards.

The next exercise was shooting on the move. We did several iterations dry, and then live. We worked multiple targets and shooting on the move the rest of the day. I fired 420 rounds of 5.56 and 7 rounds of .45 today.

I would have made it through the day without going to the pistol at all, except Pat asked Rich and the shooter to his right to continue firing a non standard response during a shoot on the move exercise until they reached the 5 yard line where we were to stop. Pat was filming them. When you fire that exercise you dress on the shooter to your right out of the corner of your eye as an instructor is walking down the right side of the line and makes certain the line stops at the proper time. Somehow the instructions were misunderstood and those two continued firing and moving almost all the way to the target. I was dressing on Rich out of the corner of my eye so I kept moving too. Ended up running the carbine dry and transitioning to my pistol to keep the fire up. Shot it to slide lock. The up side was I didn't throw any rounds that drill .

Dinner was prepared by the chef in the class right on the range. Steak, zucchinni, asparagas, all on the grill. Baby potatoes, potato salad and baked beans were also on the menu. All courtesy of Rich Lucibella and SWAT Magazine.

Rich is a fun guy to be around. I shoot next to him. He's running an 18" AR that Greg Sullivan built him with a SureFire suppressor and a Springfield XD in .45.. And I have to give him credit, he's training as he intends to fight. He's struggled for two days with pulling magazines from his pocket. I asked him if he wanted to borrow some tactical gear and he told me that he is not likely to get in a gunfight with tactical gear on, so he wants to train with what he'll likely have available. Sounds almost like me.....Matt, Rich says hi.

I talked to Jim Zumbo today about the blog entry. He says it was a combination of fatigue, three glasses of red wine and his publisher's guidance to post controversial things in the blog. We discussed how evil black rifles with normal capacity magazines were the tip of the spear in the war to keep our guns. He also stated that there are a lot of hunters who believe what he wrote. From my interactions with them, I know he's right.

I don't know if someone has given him his television show back, but he's been taping a lot of things that he wants to put on his show. I think Denny Hansen's plan to use this as a way to build a bridge between the different factions of the shooting community might just work out.

Jeff

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Today we started at 8 am, back on the 50 yard line verifying zero. I guess it takes some people awhile to figure out little things like witness marks on the screws to your optics so you can tell nothing moved. A few people had to make sight adjustments.

The class stayed at the 50 yard line and did a drill where we shot 2 standing, 2 kneeling and two prone. Four iterations of that drill and we moved to the 25 yard line and worked on speed reloads. Fire two rounds standing, speed reload on the way down to kneeling and two rounds from kneeling. Then we moved to 5 rounds slow fire into the head.

After that it was back on the 15 yard line with handguns working failure drills. Back to the carbines and worked shooting while moving.

Then it was play time. I doubted that Jim was having as much fun as he told me he was having on day 2 because it's hard work and was a whole new ball game for him. Quite frankly he struggled. After we fired the last drill of the day, we broke out the full autos. After a brief introduction on how to stand and brace, we put a MK18 (which is a 10" barreled M4 variant built at the Naval Weapons Center in Crane Indiana). Two short bursts to get the feel of it them an entire 30 round magazine on full auto. Jim was grinning ear to ear, and shouted (Art's gramma needs to plug her ears) F**k me twice, that was fun!!! We had several full auto weapons for him to play with, the MK18, an M4A1 my PD's M16A1, an MP5, a Glock 18 and an M249 SAW. Then we ended stopped shooting. Jim was presented with a large stuffed Elmer Fudd holding an M4 instead of a shotgun. He insisted that everyone in the class sign it and he said it would go in his office. There were some interviews done for Jim's TV show and quite a bit of video was shot. I wasn't interviewed. I got the impression that he wanted to focus on what Pat calls earth people, not soldiers or cops. And that's probably better for the message we're trying to put out. I was in a lot of the video that was shot, but who knows what will make the show.

BTW the Glock 18 is now my favorite Glock in the world. I dumped an entire magazine into the 8" COM of Pat's target from 7 yards in about half a second. you have to lean into it like a shotgun, and I weigh in at about 250, but I found it very controllable.

I can't say enough about Rich Lucibella's generosity and commitment to our fight. I hate to think of what he spent to put this course together.

There was a lot missing from Pat's normal POI and he apologized to me several times about the pace of the class. I told him that I understood that it was not so much a training opportunity as it was an opportunity to build a bridge between different aspects of the shooting community and that I was honored to be invited.

I'll post more later, I promised Mary I'd take her to dinner....

Jeff

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