Bartholomew Roberts
Member
Just finished a three-day carbine course and thought I would jot down some thoughts/experiences. First, it was a great class. We had some competent shooters and great guys who had the basics down and had most of their gear issues worked out and it allowed us to move a little faster than usual. The class had five people with two instructors, so we all got excellent personal attention as well.
The first day was very similar to the first day of Primary Carbine. We listened to a very informative and interesting lecture that reflected some recent information for the morning and broke for lunch. The afternoon was spent zeroing rifles and confirming the standoff/holdover for close in shooting. We finally finished up with a little positional shooting for about 150-200rds the first day.
The second day was the heavy shooting day. All of the ranges were under 30yds. We worked primarily on shooting and moving and movement as teams. I didn't fully clean the rifle after the first day; but did wipe down the bolt carrier group and re-oil it first thing in the morning. I fired 720 rounds of Guatemalan 55gr and Remington UMC 55gr (mostly unsuppressed but some suppressed as well) between the morning cleaning and the end of the day. Although it was starting to get sludgy towards the end of the day, I decided not to add lube and it continued to run without a problem.
Day 2 was a good test on weapons and gear and a few problems cropped up. I had one stoppage all day - one of my pre-92 black follower mags didn't feed a round and I dropped the hammer on an empty chamber mid-mag. I transitioned to pistol and pulled the trigger on a second empty chamber (no round chambered to start with
). I then moved to cover and sorted out both weapons with no further problems. We had a 9mm AR with three stoppages due to a new plastic mag. One shooter was running a used Comp M2 Aimpoint. As he was shooting, the 4MOA dot would blink on and off with the recoil. The shooter centered the target in the blank 30mm objective and continued to make good hits though. We tightened everything on the Aimpoint and were unable to get it to duplicate the problem again.
The final problem was a shooter with a 5.56mm chambered, chrome-lined Bushmaster M4 barrel. He had purchased some of the polymer Wolf to save money. The Wolf ran fine until the rifle got hot (though accuracy was poor with 6" groups at 100 from a stable position). However, when the rifle got hot it was stuck case after stuck case. Opening the rifle to inspect it, chunks of fouling fell out that were so big that initially we thought a part had broken. Instead, it was just a plasticized carbon gunk that was solid as a rock. The shooter had cleaned the rifle twice already that morning; but cleaned the chamber aggressively and got it very clean. We started again and the rifle was down with stuck cases within 100 rounds.
I've been in several classes where Wolf worked OK in similar barrels. About the only thing different here was the rate of fire. We had the rifles much hotter and it seemed to affect function with the Wolf. The same rifle ran fine with brass cased ammo.
The final day was a combination of lecture, Q&A, vehicle work and jungle runs. I started this day with a nice clean rifle. Sights with magnification really shined on the jungle run as they were able to pick out targets at a greater distance and allow good hits. The vehicle and jungle run shooting took place out in the soft sand and trees. Sand got all over the rifles - especially those with muzzle brakes since they kicked up a cloud of dust with every shot. All the ARs were covered in sand and movement was a little extra effort.
Despite the dirt, there were no stoppages from any of the rifles. Excluding the Wolf rifle, out of the eight rifles for the four other shooters, we had a total of 4 stoppages out of about 4250 rounds total (my magazine related stoppage, and the 3 mag-related stoppages on the 9mm).
Gear report: The rifle has gotten heavier since the Primary class and I felt it by the end of the third day where the Specter MOUT sling was cutting into my shoulder. I used the same chest rig; but with a different holster, dump pouch, AR mag pouch, and GP pouch. The new rig was flatter and more compact; but held 7 AR mags, two pistol mags and a pistol. It worked out very well for this class. Everyone else ran various belt rigs and seemed happy with them.
I'm a little tired right now, so feel free to ask a question if I missed some detail you want to know.
The first day was very similar to the first day of Primary Carbine. We listened to a very informative and interesting lecture that reflected some recent information for the morning and broke for lunch. The afternoon was spent zeroing rifles and confirming the standoff/holdover for close in shooting. We finally finished up with a little positional shooting for about 150-200rds the first day.
The second day was the heavy shooting day. All of the ranges were under 30yds. We worked primarily on shooting and moving and movement as teams. I didn't fully clean the rifle after the first day; but did wipe down the bolt carrier group and re-oil it first thing in the morning. I fired 720 rounds of Guatemalan 55gr and Remington UMC 55gr (mostly unsuppressed but some suppressed as well) between the morning cleaning and the end of the day. Although it was starting to get sludgy towards the end of the day, I decided not to add lube and it continued to run without a problem.
Day 2 was a good test on weapons and gear and a few problems cropped up. I had one stoppage all day - one of my pre-92 black follower mags didn't feed a round and I dropped the hammer on an empty chamber mid-mag. I transitioned to pistol and pulled the trigger on a second empty chamber (no round chambered to start with
). I then moved to cover and sorted out both weapons with no further problems. We had a 9mm AR with three stoppages due to a new plastic mag. One shooter was running a used Comp M2 Aimpoint. As he was shooting, the 4MOA dot would blink on and off with the recoil. The shooter centered the target in the blank 30mm objective and continued to make good hits though. We tightened everything on the Aimpoint and were unable to get it to duplicate the problem again.The final problem was a shooter with a 5.56mm chambered, chrome-lined Bushmaster M4 barrel. He had purchased some of the polymer Wolf to save money. The Wolf ran fine until the rifle got hot (though accuracy was poor with 6" groups at 100 from a stable position). However, when the rifle got hot it was stuck case after stuck case. Opening the rifle to inspect it, chunks of fouling fell out that were so big that initially we thought a part had broken. Instead, it was just a plasticized carbon gunk that was solid as a rock. The shooter had cleaned the rifle twice already that morning; but cleaned the chamber aggressively and got it very clean. We started again and the rifle was down with stuck cases within 100 rounds.
I've been in several classes where Wolf worked OK in similar barrels. About the only thing different here was the rate of fire. We had the rifles much hotter and it seemed to affect function with the Wolf. The same rifle ran fine with brass cased ammo.
The final day was a combination of lecture, Q&A, vehicle work and jungle runs. I started this day with a nice clean rifle. Sights with magnification really shined on the jungle run as they were able to pick out targets at a greater distance and allow good hits. The vehicle and jungle run shooting took place out in the soft sand and trees. Sand got all over the rifles - especially those with muzzle brakes since they kicked up a cloud of dust with every shot. All the ARs were covered in sand and movement was a little extra effort.
Despite the dirt, there were no stoppages from any of the rifles. Excluding the Wolf rifle, out of the eight rifles for the four other shooters, we had a total of 4 stoppages out of about 4250 rounds total (my magazine related stoppage, and the 3 mag-related stoppages on the 9mm).
Gear report: The rifle has gotten heavier since the Primary class and I felt it by the end of the third day where the Specter MOUT sling was cutting into my shoulder. I used the same chest rig; but with a different holster, dump pouch, AR mag pouch, and GP pouch. The new rig was flatter and more compact; but held 7 AR mags, two pistol mags and a pistol. It worked out very well for this class. Everyone else ran various belt rigs and seemed happy with them.
I'm a little tired right now, so feel free to ask a question if I missed some detail you want to know.
