possum
Member
Before you read the review I want the readers to be aware of something. This is not a he said she said. I was personally there, and this is my account of the course, my review as I posted it, and the results of me doing so.
Background: I took Fighting Rifle last weekend. Tactical Response wishes, and asks that you write an "AAR" of the course, and post it on www.getoffthex.com, which is their forum. I took the course and It was highly disappointing in many ways, I wrote an honest review of the course and posted it on their forum.
Result: James Yeager the CEO has "un friend" me from face book, suspended my account on his forum, and has deleted my review of the course. Additionally they supposedly have a 100% money back guarantee. If you are not satisfied, and you can articulate why you are unsatisfied they will refund your money. I was not given that opportunity in the class or since, and it has not been brought up by any member of Tactical Response's staff.
This makes me wonder how many post have been deleted that weren't to Yeager's liking. How many bad reviews that he has really gotten over time but no one would ever know.......
To say the least I am done with Tactical Response.
Now for the review itself.
Where:
12-13 March 2011: Rutherfordton NC.
Who:
Students
This class as most that I have attended was comprised of folks from all walks of life. Everything from active military, pilots, LEO’s, Lawyers, concerned citizens etc. I was honored to be training with alumni that I have taken previous courses with. It was great to see them after so long, and train with them again. A huge thanks goes out to my good friend and fellow student that gave me a place to stay during the course and got me to the range each day for training. Thank you again. Also thanks to “militant_nerd” for hosting this course. Thank you for making it happen. I hope that there are more courses in or around the area that this course was held.
Instructors:
The instructors for this course were Jay Gibson, and Paul Gomez. I can’t tell you how stoked I was when I showed up to the range and saw who the instructors were going to be. Ever since I first met Jay in the “Team Room” in Sept of 2008, I have been impressed by him as an instructor, and as a person. Of all the folks in the industry there are very few that I respect as much as I do Jay. Jay thanks for the great instruction yet again, pushing me to be better than I was. Air-bone! As for Paul, since the first time I read about him in a magazine a few years ago as well as hear nothing but good things from friends I have wanted to train under him. He has been on my “bucket list” of instructors to train with for a while now. Paul, it was great to meet you and finally be able to train under you. Thank you for a great class, and great instruction.
A little about me:
I finished clearing the Army on the day before the course. I signed out of the Army on terminal leave on Monday the 14th of March, so I guess you could say that for this course I fell into the “military” category. I have trained at Tactical Response before, but this was my first time through Fighting Rifle. I have attended several courses on both the Military and the Civilian side. There are many reasons that I trained with Tactical Response for the first time in 2008, and why I returned in 2011. I just hate that it took so long to get back to a Tactical Response course. Well a course of any type for that matter. In the Military I served as an Infantryman for 8 years. I have deployed multiple times to the Middle East. Now that I am a civilian I am a custom kydex gear maker, as well I start college very soon, and instruct for a training company in AZ.
Why:
As I stated earlier there are several reasons why I returned to Tactical Response for training. Upon completion of Fighting Pistol and Advanced Fighting Pistol a few years ago, I was impressed with many things. The instructors, curriculum, mindset, and lectures were all reasons for my return. I enjoy that Tactical Response pushes the envelope. My main goal was to learn to run my Carbine better, faster, more efficiently, and more consistent that I was able too prior to the class. While another reason was to give my mindset a boost, as I know it has been lacking the last few months. Though the carbine is no longer my main weapon to “fight” with, there is so much more that is gained from training than just manipulation of a certain weapon system. Mindset is always first and foremost. Individual and team tactics are applicable across a broad spectrum with any weapon system. This is one of the big things that set Tactical Response apart; the mindset that is built into each course. I really saw that in a huge way for the first time during Advanced Fighting Pistol.
I am currently in the process of transitioning from Military to civilian not only in career path but also in my training. Now that the Rifle is not the tool that I will most likely have if I have to fight for my life, I still want to maintain my proficiency with it. I want to ensure that I am always training in my personal “context”. With the focus of that “context” being handgun, medical, and unarmed defense.
Tactical response’s courses are realistic and relevant; however it is up to you to ensure that you follow through with the 3rd “R” of being recent. This is where I have failed as of late. I have been making payments every chance that I get, however for me I do not believe that that is good enough.
Mindset:
As I stated earlier mindset is always foremost in the Tactical Response curriculum. As mindset is one of the hardest things for someone to “get”, if you have any fight in you at all it will come out, and be honed at Tactical Response. Tactical response is truly a fighting school. Though there are a lot of rounds fired and various drills conducted, there is always the bigger picture, which is getting you the end user to run your weapon system under stress all while honing the fighting mindset, your will to fight and win. I train with guns because I know they work, and I know that they are great defensive tools. Training to fight with a gun is not pretty, and it does not always look “cool” if you are training right. Gun fighting is a Martial art, but it is not one that is for show, flash, and spectacle. Much like BJJ and one reason that I choose it over any other form of unarmed defense is that it works. It is ugly, dirty, and you might get hurt. I am trying to win at life, not impress a panel of judges or beat the local “gamer.”
Tactics:
Other courses that I have attended showed you a drill, or how to do something, but there was no real tactic or technique in it. “Go shoot behind that barricade”. Not the case here, there are almost as much tactics in the 2 days as there is mindset. That doesn’t mean that you will agree with all of them, or deicide to train further on them. However you have been exposed to them and that is the key. Individual tactics like shooting from cover. Buddy team tactics such as peels, bounds and more. Again this is a fighting school, therefore they teach tactics that work to allow you to be better prepared to fight and win. A caveat: why would a civilian need to know how to fight in a buddy team? A couple easy answers that come to mind; if the ball drops and there is another armed citizen there, well there is your team. Have loved ones? There is your team. Work with what you have, no with what you want to have. Carry a bug? Arm someone that isn’t. There is your team.
Skills:
There is only so much that Tactical Response can do for you in this department. Simply because it is on you to take what you have learned, sharpen and hone your “skills” to be the best that you can be. You can only get so far and do so much skill wise in 2 days. It is up too you the end user to “make payments” (practice). Tactical Response exposes you too many things, the things that they believe are most important for your survival. In the class you are shown what you need to focus and train on, now go out and do it.
Gear:
For this class gear wise (holster, mag pouches etc) I used all gear that I make. I will not go any deeper than that as I do not want to cause an issue on the forum as I had in the past. Like I stated before I am no longer training as a solider so I did not wear a carrier, and plates, but I ran a simple belt rig set up with a g-19+tlr-1 light attached, 2x p mag pouches, and 1x single g-19 mag pouches. More than the above mentioned reasons I also used this course to T&E a lot of my products.
A piece of kit that I believe every serious shooter should have in their range bag is the “LULA” loaders. I have one for handgun and AR mags. I have been using them for about 3.5 years now, and they are some of the best money I have ever spent on “gear”.
For the belt of the belt rig, I wore a 5.11 operator belt. I have been wearing this belt for about 3 years, both on deployments, and in training, and it is a solid piece of kit. No issues at all as usual.
The only issue that I encountered during the course was when on day one my MI rear sling mount came loose loc tite and all. Like all the other screws and bolts etc on my carbine it had loc tite and indexed marked. For some reason it still came loose. However there were no issues that arose from it being loose until day two. When we were doing buddy team drills, and I was in the prone, pulling the charging handle back, and it would not move all the way back as it was getting stopped by the sling mount that was loose and hanging willy nilly.
Guns:
For my secondary weapon system I carried a g-19 with a tlr-1 attached OWB. It works, that is about all that needs to be said.
For my primary weapon system I ran my BCM/ Spikes/ mag pul AR. It is a BCM upper, spike’s lower, with all the mag pul trimmings that I have come to like. It ran like a top, and though I had ran it many times before this was the best test of it yet. This is the first class that I ran a BAD lever, and the Redi Mag. I love both of those pieces of gear. I can’t recommend them enough. Having a spare magazine on the rifle for that quick reload is very nice to have. The BAD lever allows me to run the gun more efficiently in my opinion. I don’t have to take my hand off fire control which I really appreciate. My optic was an eo-tech which I have been running on ar’s for years in both the military and the civilian side. I used an equal mixture of pmags, and usgi mags for the course.
I had 2 issues with the Carbine. On day one I had a type 3 malfunction with an old USGI mag which I discarded in the range bag and did not use again. On day 2 while doing buddy team drills, I got enough hay in the chamber to make a scarecrow out of. Apparently not even a BCM upper and BCG will run with hay in the chamber. Lesson learned.
Ammo:
For the carbine I ran PMC 55gr fmj. It is great stuff. I had no complaints before and I still have none to speak of. For the g-19 I used Tula steel cased 115gr. Again I have been satisfied with this ammo in the past, it runs in my gun, and it is inexpensive. No issues at all.
Points of disagreement with the course.
1)After attending Fighting Pistol and Advanced Fighting Pistol maybe my expectations were too high. Honestly I was a little disappointed with the overall course. I figured that the course was going to be fighting pistol but with a carbine, same drills, same material covered etc. In some ways it was in drills, and round count. However the classroom and lecture time at Fighting Pistol is a big part that sets it apart from other handgun courses. Those things were not there in the Fighting Rifle course.
2)For me personally and others in the class it started and finished at an appropriate “level”. There was nothing that was asked or trained that I didn’t have prior experience with. The opposite was true for many people. Many times during the 2 days the student were told to “fix it” though they had never been taught how to correct malfunctions. I think that is essential to any course, especially one that has folks that are brand new to the carbine all the way through folks that have been using one for many years. Malfunction clearance was covered in length in FP, why not in fighting rifle. I would have had no issue training on malfunction clearance in this course. I think that it would have been very beneficial to the students to have been trained on how to “fix it”. When I was tasked with training soldiers with a carbine, M9, or any weapon system the first thing I would do is ensure that they know how the gun works. Allowing them to have a better understanding of the weapon system as a whole. How it functions, and why it does what it does. Which to me at least seem to make it easier for them to “grasp” running the gun, as they knew how it functions. I feel that there was too much energy spent on doing what was “high-speed” and what would garner great reviews, and not enough on what is needed to “run” a carbine. It is hard to fight effectively when you can’t reduce malfunctions on demand under stress or not. I have always gone by the follow statement: “high-speed is doing the fundamentals on demand”.
3)Since being exposed to the Tactical Response “Top-off” technique I never agreed with it, and never practiced it in my practice sessions. I knew why I didn’t agree with it, and it became very apparent as to why it is not the most sound technique during buddy team drills. By the time you bounded forward you would have a partial mag, and 3-4 partial mags left in your wake. Mags and ammo that would have been great to have on the “objective”. If we are assuming that we didn’t know that the “fight” would be over at the last forward bound, or upon returning to the initial point that contact was made (bounding backwards). I can’t imagine doing this technique in a fight in the civilian context, and especially not in the military context. Instead of using up 2-3 full magazines in a break contact drill, I would be left with maybe 1 full and 1 partial magazine maybe, and multiple other usable mags and ammo strown across the battlefield that are now worthless to me. A partial magazine that I can’t use when needed, and or access is just as worthless to me as an empty magazine on my person, or wasting the time to retrieve an empty.
4) During the buddy team drills, students were told to “fight to the prone”. If we assume that the “fight” command is someone shooting at us, and or the start of an ambush etc, I am not going to take my sweet time getting down. I am going to get down and engage, the priority to be get the hell down and fast. Additionally I saw students, and even during the demo, one of the Ro’s went to supine upon the simulated bullets flying past you “fight” command. I can think of no reason that when I have the option to go prone that I would voluntarily go to my back in a gun fight. In BJJ yes, in a gun fight no. You have less control of your weapon system, and can not engage as effectively as you can with “ass behind the gun”, in a prone position. You are in a position of disadvantage for yourself, and your team because you are not as effective as you possibly can be. I will not “fight to the prone” and I will not go to my back voluntarily in a gun fight.
Conclusion:
Though I will always do my best to attend more training, as much as I possibly can, I do not feel that I will return to Tactical Response for further training. Techniques and, methodologies aside I can and do still recommend fighting and advanced fighting pistol, but I can’t do so for Fighting Rifle. I feel that I will be better served attending courses elsewhere. It is my hope that I have not burned any bridges, and that I have not made enemies of good people, that is not what this was meant for. Nothing personal about anyone, but this is truly how I feel, and I think it is best for everyone to be honest and up front.
Background: I took Fighting Rifle last weekend. Tactical Response wishes, and asks that you write an "AAR" of the course, and post it on www.getoffthex.com, which is their forum. I took the course and It was highly disappointing in many ways, I wrote an honest review of the course and posted it on their forum.
Result: James Yeager the CEO has "un friend" me from face book, suspended my account on his forum, and has deleted my review of the course. Additionally they supposedly have a 100% money back guarantee. If you are not satisfied, and you can articulate why you are unsatisfied they will refund your money. I was not given that opportunity in the class or since, and it has not been brought up by any member of Tactical Response's staff.
This makes me wonder how many post have been deleted that weren't to Yeager's liking. How many bad reviews that he has really gotten over time but no one would ever know.......
To say the least I am done with Tactical Response.
Now for the review itself.
Where:
12-13 March 2011: Rutherfordton NC.
Who:
Students
This class as most that I have attended was comprised of folks from all walks of life. Everything from active military, pilots, LEO’s, Lawyers, concerned citizens etc. I was honored to be training with alumni that I have taken previous courses with. It was great to see them after so long, and train with them again. A huge thanks goes out to my good friend and fellow student that gave me a place to stay during the course and got me to the range each day for training. Thank you again. Also thanks to “militant_nerd” for hosting this course. Thank you for making it happen. I hope that there are more courses in or around the area that this course was held.
Instructors:
The instructors for this course were Jay Gibson, and Paul Gomez. I can’t tell you how stoked I was when I showed up to the range and saw who the instructors were going to be. Ever since I first met Jay in the “Team Room” in Sept of 2008, I have been impressed by him as an instructor, and as a person. Of all the folks in the industry there are very few that I respect as much as I do Jay. Jay thanks for the great instruction yet again, pushing me to be better than I was. Air-bone! As for Paul, since the first time I read about him in a magazine a few years ago as well as hear nothing but good things from friends I have wanted to train under him. He has been on my “bucket list” of instructors to train with for a while now. Paul, it was great to meet you and finally be able to train under you. Thank you for a great class, and great instruction.
A little about me:
I finished clearing the Army on the day before the course. I signed out of the Army on terminal leave on Monday the 14th of March, so I guess you could say that for this course I fell into the “military” category. I have trained at Tactical Response before, but this was my first time through Fighting Rifle. I have attended several courses on both the Military and the Civilian side. There are many reasons that I trained with Tactical Response for the first time in 2008, and why I returned in 2011. I just hate that it took so long to get back to a Tactical Response course. Well a course of any type for that matter. In the Military I served as an Infantryman for 8 years. I have deployed multiple times to the Middle East. Now that I am a civilian I am a custom kydex gear maker, as well I start college very soon, and instruct for a training company in AZ.
Why:
As I stated earlier there are several reasons why I returned to Tactical Response for training. Upon completion of Fighting Pistol and Advanced Fighting Pistol a few years ago, I was impressed with many things. The instructors, curriculum, mindset, and lectures were all reasons for my return. I enjoy that Tactical Response pushes the envelope. My main goal was to learn to run my Carbine better, faster, more efficiently, and more consistent that I was able too prior to the class. While another reason was to give my mindset a boost, as I know it has been lacking the last few months. Though the carbine is no longer my main weapon to “fight” with, there is so much more that is gained from training than just manipulation of a certain weapon system. Mindset is always first and foremost. Individual and team tactics are applicable across a broad spectrum with any weapon system. This is one of the big things that set Tactical Response apart; the mindset that is built into each course. I really saw that in a huge way for the first time during Advanced Fighting Pistol.
I am currently in the process of transitioning from Military to civilian not only in career path but also in my training. Now that the Rifle is not the tool that I will most likely have if I have to fight for my life, I still want to maintain my proficiency with it. I want to ensure that I am always training in my personal “context”. With the focus of that “context” being handgun, medical, and unarmed defense.
Tactical response’s courses are realistic and relevant; however it is up to you to ensure that you follow through with the 3rd “R” of being recent. This is where I have failed as of late. I have been making payments every chance that I get, however for me I do not believe that that is good enough.
Mindset:
As I stated earlier mindset is always foremost in the Tactical Response curriculum. As mindset is one of the hardest things for someone to “get”, if you have any fight in you at all it will come out, and be honed at Tactical Response. Tactical response is truly a fighting school. Though there are a lot of rounds fired and various drills conducted, there is always the bigger picture, which is getting you the end user to run your weapon system under stress all while honing the fighting mindset, your will to fight and win. I train with guns because I know they work, and I know that they are great defensive tools. Training to fight with a gun is not pretty, and it does not always look “cool” if you are training right. Gun fighting is a Martial art, but it is not one that is for show, flash, and spectacle. Much like BJJ and one reason that I choose it over any other form of unarmed defense is that it works. It is ugly, dirty, and you might get hurt. I am trying to win at life, not impress a panel of judges or beat the local “gamer.”
Tactics:
Other courses that I have attended showed you a drill, or how to do something, but there was no real tactic or technique in it. “Go shoot behind that barricade”. Not the case here, there are almost as much tactics in the 2 days as there is mindset. That doesn’t mean that you will agree with all of them, or deicide to train further on them. However you have been exposed to them and that is the key. Individual tactics like shooting from cover. Buddy team tactics such as peels, bounds and more. Again this is a fighting school, therefore they teach tactics that work to allow you to be better prepared to fight and win. A caveat: why would a civilian need to know how to fight in a buddy team? A couple easy answers that come to mind; if the ball drops and there is another armed citizen there, well there is your team. Have loved ones? There is your team. Work with what you have, no with what you want to have. Carry a bug? Arm someone that isn’t. There is your team.
Skills:
There is only so much that Tactical Response can do for you in this department. Simply because it is on you to take what you have learned, sharpen and hone your “skills” to be the best that you can be. You can only get so far and do so much skill wise in 2 days. It is up too you the end user to “make payments” (practice). Tactical Response exposes you too many things, the things that they believe are most important for your survival. In the class you are shown what you need to focus and train on, now go out and do it.
Gear:
For this class gear wise (holster, mag pouches etc) I used all gear that I make. I will not go any deeper than that as I do not want to cause an issue on the forum as I had in the past. Like I stated before I am no longer training as a solider so I did not wear a carrier, and plates, but I ran a simple belt rig set up with a g-19+tlr-1 light attached, 2x p mag pouches, and 1x single g-19 mag pouches. More than the above mentioned reasons I also used this course to T&E a lot of my products.
A piece of kit that I believe every serious shooter should have in their range bag is the “LULA” loaders. I have one for handgun and AR mags. I have been using them for about 3.5 years now, and they are some of the best money I have ever spent on “gear”.
For the belt of the belt rig, I wore a 5.11 operator belt. I have been wearing this belt for about 3 years, both on deployments, and in training, and it is a solid piece of kit. No issues at all as usual.
The only issue that I encountered during the course was when on day one my MI rear sling mount came loose loc tite and all. Like all the other screws and bolts etc on my carbine it had loc tite and indexed marked. For some reason it still came loose. However there were no issues that arose from it being loose until day two. When we were doing buddy team drills, and I was in the prone, pulling the charging handle back, and it would not move all the way back as it was getting stopped by the sling mount that was loose and hanging willy nilly.
Guns:
For my secondary weapon system I carried a g-19 with a tlr-1 attached OWB. It works, that is about all that needs to be said.
For my primary weapon system I ran my BCM/ Spikes/ mag pul AR. It is a BCM upper, spike’s lower, with all the mag pul trimmings that I have come to like. It ran like a top, and though I had ran it many times before this was the best test of it yet. This is the first class that I ran a BAD lever, and the Redi Mag. I love both of those pieces of gear. I can’t recommend them enough. Having a spare magazine on the rifle for that quick reload is very nice to have. The BAD lever allows me to run the gun more efficiently in my opinion. I don’t have to take my hand off fire control which I really appreciate. My optic was an eo-tech which I have been running on ar’s for years in both the military and the civilian side. I used an equal mixture of pmags, and usgi mags for the course.
I had 2 issues with the Carbine. On day one I had a type 3 malfunction with an old USGI mag which I discarded in the range bag and did not use again. On day 2 while doing buddy team drills, I got enough hay in the chamber to make a scarecrow out of. Apparently not even a BCM upper and BCG will run with hay in the chamber. Lesson learned.
Ammo:
For the carbine I ran PMC 55gr fmj. It is great stuff. I had no complaints before and I still have none to speak of. For the g-19 I used Tula steel cased 115gr. Again I have been satisfied with this ammo in the past, it runs in my gun, and it is inexpensive. No issues at all.
Points of disagreement with the course.
1)After attending Fighting Pistol and Advanced Fighting Pistol maybe my expectations were too high. Honestly I was a little disappointed with the overall course. I figured that the course was going to be fighting pistol but with a carbine, same drills, same material covered etc. In some ways it was in drills, and round count. However the classroom and lecture time at Fighting Pistol is a big part that sets it apart from other handgun courses. Those things were not there in the Fighting Rifle course.
2)For me personally and others in the class it started and finished at an appropriate “level”. There was nothing that was asked or trained that I didn’t have prior experience with. The opposite was true for many people. Many times during the 2 days the student were told to “fix it” though they had never been taught how to correct malfunctions. I think that is essential to any course, especially one that has folks that are brand new to the carbine all the way through folks that have been using one for many years. Malfunction clearance was covered in length in FP, why not in fighting rifle. I would have had no issue training on malfunction clearance in this course. I think that it would have been very beneficial to the students to have been trained on how to “fix it”. When I was tasked with training soldiers with a carbine, M9, or any weapon system the first thing I would do is ensure that they know how the gun works. Allowing them to have a better understanding of the weapon system as a whole. How it functions, and why it does what it does. Which to me at least seem to make it easier for them to “grasp” running the gun, as they knew how it functions. I feel that there was too much energy spent on doing what was “high-speed” and what would garner great reviews, and not enough on what is needed to “run” a carbine. It is hard to fight effectively when you can’t reduce malfunctions on demand under stress or not. I have always gone by the follow statement: “high-speed is doing the fundamentals on demand”.
3)Since being exposed to the Tactical Response “Top-off” technique I never agreed with it, and never practiced it in my practice sessions. I knew why I didn’t agree with it, and it became very apparent as to why it is not the most sound technique during buddy team drills. By the time you bounded forward you would have a partial mag, and 3-4 partial mags left in your wake. Mags and ammo that would have been great to have on the “objective”. If we are assuming that we didn’t know that the “fight” would be over at the last forward bound, or upon returning to the initial point that contact was made (bounding backwards). I can’t imagine doing this technique in a fight in the civilian context, and especially not in the military context. Instead of using up 2-3 full magazines in a break contact drill, I would be left with maybe 1 full and 1 partial magazine maybe, and multiple other usable mags and ammo strown across the battlefield that are now worthless to me. A partial magazine that I can’t use when needed, and or access is just as worthless to me as an empty magazine on my person, or wasting the time to retrieve an empty.
4) During the buddy team drills, students were told to “fight to the prone”. If we assume that the “fight” command is someone shooting at us, and or the start of an ambush etc, I am not going to take my sweet time getting down. I am going to get down and engage, the priority to be get the hell down and fast. Additionally I saw students, and even during the demo, one of the Ro’s went to supine upon the simulated bullets flying past you “fight” command. I can think of no reason that when I have the option to go prone that I would voluntarily go to my back in a gun fight. In BJJ yes, in a gun fight no. You have less control of your weapon system, and can not engage as effectively as you can with “ass behind the gun”, in a prone position. You are in a position of disadvantage for yourself, and your team because you are not as effective as you possibly can be. I will not “fight to the prone” and I will not go to my back voluntarily in a gun fight.
Conclusion:
Though I will always do my best to attend more training, as much as I possibly can, I do not feel that I will return to Tactical Response for further training. Techniques and, methodologies aside I can and do still recommend fighting and advanced fighting pistol, but I can’t do so for Fighting Rifle. I feel that I will be better served attending courses elsewhere. It is my hope that I have not burned any bridges, and that I have not made enemies of good people, that is not what this was meant for. Nothing personal about anyone, but this is truly how I feel, and I think it is best for everyone to be honest and up front.
I am still trying to figure that one out.
