pangris
Member
Review – Three Day Tutorial at Shootrite with Tiger McKee
www.shootrite.org
I recently had the pleasure of attending my first one on one tutorial class. I booked the class with Tiger months ago, prior to the hurricanes in my area. When Katrina and Rita came through and there were very real threats in great numbers in the immediate area. The situation really brought home some harsh realities. I live in the Baton Rouge area, and as a result of the destruction 60 miles east, we had no power, fuel, meat, dairy, etc for days. I saw some crazy behavior and came to realize the infrastructure of our daily society is far more fragile than any of us would like to seriously consider. A lot of the “end of the world as we know it” scenarios played out, for real, in a short term sense. Lines for gas, when there was still gas, commonly erupted into fistfights as people tried to hoard gas into 5 gallon containers as several dozen people waited in line. The only restaurant that had enough power via a natural gas generator to operate had a four hour wait to get in the door. A lot of people figured out late in the game that you can’t have enough water, gas, guns, ammo (or training!)… note that 4x4 diesels are also popular when there is no gas. Another lesson was that if you know there are multiple threats – think dozens at a minimum, hundreds quite possibly – you don’t pick up handguns or shotguns. The ARs and M1A’s came out of the safe. I live in a nice area and I never, ever thought there would be a scenario where there were would be 3000 people in our Expo center who were rioting and looting (and going through withdrawal) 4-6 miles from my home.
The quick lessons I learned–
First, to steal from Clint Smith – Apply logic. Think about what would happen in your area if for some reason there was no power for 24 hours, or more.
A)Have water & food on hand. Figure out a supply for a few days. At a minimum buy a few cases of bottled water and remember that canned food does go bad – buy stuff you will actually eat and keep a supply on hand.
B)You can’t add fuel to your car. My tank will never again be less than half full. I also have 4, five gallon NATO spec fuel containers full at my house. Use fuel stabilizers and cycle the fuel every couple months.
C)You can’t buy much of anything – and you have to have cash as credit card machines, check verification systems, etc won’t work. Keep cash on hand, all the time. Consider precious metals as well…
D)You won’t have light, refrigeration, or air conditioning. Have a few GREAT flashlights and the batteries to power them. I was lucky enough to have several Surefire and Streamlight units, along with plenty of lithium batteries. A 7500 watt generator is worth its weigh in gold… and remember the fuel to power the system. You lose everything in your fridge and freezer if don’t have a generator. I’m planning on installing one of the natural gas powered units so I won’t need gasoline… not having power for 8 days in a 30 day period really gets.
E)Guns are good. Ammo is key. Training under your belt is peace of mind.
F)Give serious thought to what you drive and what you would take. Can you fit your whole family – and pets! – into the vehicle, along with your other necessary supplies? Also, do you have food for your pets?
G)The bad people of the world WILL take advantage of the situation and they WILL steal whatever they can for as long as they can.
Fresh from that experience, the training with Tiger had even more relevance than it might have prior to our eye opening experience. As an added bonus, my wife didn’t bat an eye when thousands of rounds of .223 showed up
Shootrite just moved to a new location in near Guntersville, Alabama. The area is centered around the lake and the resulting tourism. The area is geared toward customer service. There are hotels that range from very inexpensive - $40 for a room with two beds in the state park – to very nice, as in hundreds a night. There is also a great car rental place, Blue Heron, which will deliver a car to your hotel along with the paperwork, then pick it up later. I never had to go to a rental office.
Shootrite is about 20 minutes away from Guntersville, north of the state park. It is a beautiful drive! A picture from the drive up -
The new range is in a natural clearing with a mountain acting as the primary berm. It is a very large area, several hundred yards wide by a little over a hundred yards deep.
The set up for one person from about 50 yards back -
Wider view of the left side of the berm/mountain
Tiger has a great vision for the range and I believe it will soon become one of the most unique training facilities anywhere. These pics are a month old now, so there is undoubtedly a lot of progress, but the classroom was under construction -
As well as heavy equipment working on the landscaping, for lack of a better term -
You have to stand in the middle of the area to fully appreciate the plan, but range will incorporate…
1)Permanent walls on the range
2)Elevation changes
3)When training with rifles, firing through a wooded area,
4)Working your over obstacles and terrain toward or away from a target
5)A FOF shoot house, using gas powered airsoft handguns and rifles
6)Chargers…
As of RIGHT NOW, it is more than adequate for fundamentals – which are what we should probably be doing 95% of the time anyway – and I learned a tremendous amount even without all the Disneyland stuff - simulators, etc.
The advantages of the tutorial are endless. It is hard to give a formal review because I was able to move at my own speed so if I got something with no problem, we moved on with no wasted time. Things I had a harder time with, we worked on until I got it right (several times!). For the most part, the carbine work we did was within 50 yards although we did some shooting out to 100 yards. We did most of the things you encounter in classes – shooting while moving, working with reactive targets, etc. Moreover, I learned a few things about how to use the rifle in CQB that you simply couldn’t do in a class unless you didn’t mind sweeping the entire line over and over. Suffice to say Tiger’s skills are not limited to shooting, but he also has a tremendous grasp of using the firearm as a blunt impact weapon, general martial arts, knives, HTH, etc.
A note on the rifle I used. When my wife did a one day tutorial with Tiger, he showed me some of his stuff and he had an AR that was exceptionally light for an all metal, fixed stock weapon. I think it was around 5.5 lbs. I was inspired, having hauled an M1A around for a couple days at Thunder Ranch. I built a rifle very similar to his and with a mounted Surefire Scout, 6 extra batteries and a lamp in the stock, it is less than 6.5 lbs. After two full days, I wasn’t sore, annoyed, etc. The design concept is a solid one and I have to credit Tiger for the inspiration. I’m planning on building another on just like it – after all, two is one, one is none, etc etc. A Picture of the rifle before I added my Scout light...
IMG
Tiger also turned me on to some of Streamlights latest stuff. I’m a pretty diehard Surefire guy, but the Thunder Ranch LED stuff is GREAT. I bought the TL2-LED kit and I’m very pleased with the light.
After this experience, I’ll be spending a fair amount of time in Guntersville… we had a great time and Tiger is a great instructor with a great new facility.
Other pics -
Tiger demonstrating how to work and AR left handed, using cover.
Me behind cover, bending more than I was designed to!
The wall-o-cover, used to practice working behind cover, and unconventional shooting positions.
A target Tiger designed, available from Action Target. It can pivot, and snap to face from 90 degrees.
Tiger about to demonstrate a one handed drill. These are a very valuable PITA!! Tiger had to threaten me with duct tape since my second hand kept slipping into the picture...
Tiger with my AR... the man is happy when he is on the range with an AR in his hands!
Tigers book - a great read. You can buy it on his website.
www.shootrite.org
I recently had the pleasure of attending my first one on one tutorial class. I booked the class with Tiger months ago, prior to the hurricanes in my area. When Katrina and Rita came through and there were very real threats in great numbers in the immediate area. The situation really brought home some harsh realities. I live in the Baton Rouge area, and as a result of the destruction 60 miles east, we had no power, fuel, meat, dairy, etc for days. I saw some crazy behavior and came to realize the infrastructure of our daily society is far more fragile than any of us would like to seriously consider. A lot of the “end of the world as we know it” scenarios played out, for real, in a short term sense. Lines for gas, when there was still gas, commonly erupted into fistfights as people tried to hoard gas into 5 gallon containers as several dozen people waited in line. The only restaurant that had enough power via a natural gas generator to operate had a four hour wait to get in the door. A lot of people figured out late in the game that you can’t have enough water, gas, guns, ammo (or training!)… note that 4x4 diesels are also popular when there is no gas. Another lesson was that if you know there are multiple threats – think dozens at a minimum, hundreds quite possibly – you don’t pick up handguns or shotguns. The ARs and M1A’s came out of the safe. I live in a nice area and I never, ever thought there would be a scenario where there were would be 3000 people in our Expo center who were rioting and looting (and going through withdrawal) 4-6 miles from my home.
The quick lessons I learned–
First, to steal from Clint Smith – Apply logic. Think about what would happen in your area if for some reason there was no power for 24 hours, or more.
A)Have water & food on hand. Figure out a supply for a few days. At a minimum buy a few cases of bottled water and remember that canned food does go bad – buy stuff you will actually eat and keep a supply on hand.
B)You can’t add fuel to your car. My tank will never again be less than half full. I also have 4, five gallon NATO spec fuel containers full at my house. Use fuel stabilizers and cycle the fuel every couple months.
C)You can’t buy much of anything – and you have to have cash as credit card machines, check verification systems, etc won’t work. Keep cash on hand, all the time. Consider precious metals as well…
D)You won’t have light, refrigeration, or air conditioning. Have a few GREAT flashlights and the batteries to power them. I was lucky enough to have several Surefire and Streamlight units, along with plenty of lithium batteries. A 7500 watt generator is worth its weigh in gold… and remember the fuel to power the system. You lose everything in your fridge and freezer if don’t have a generator. I’m planning on installing one of the natural gas powered units so I won’t need gasoline… not having power for 8 days in a 30 day period really gets.
E)Guns are good. Ammo is key. Training under your belt is peace of mind.
F)Give serious thought to what you drive and what you would take. Can you fit your whole family – and pets! – into the vehicle, along with your other necessary supplies? Also, do you have food for your pets?
G)The bad people of the world WILL take advantage of the situation and they WILL steal whatever they can for as long as they can.
Fresh from that experience, the training with Tiger had even more relevance than it might have prior to our eye opening experience. As an added bonus, my wife didn’t bat an eye when thousands of rounds of .223 showed up
Shootrite just moved to a new location in near Guntersville, Alabama. The area is centered around the lake and the resulting tourism. The area is geared toward customer service. There are hotels that range from very inexpensive - $40 for a room with two beds in the state park – to very nice, as in hundreds a night. There is also a great car rental place, Blue Heron, which will deliver a car to your hotel along with the paperwork, then pick it up later. I never had to go to a rental office.
Shootrite is about 20 minutes away from Guntersville, north of the state park. It is a beautiful drive! A picture from the drive up -
The new range is in a natural clearing with a mountain acting as the primary berm. It is a very large area, several hundred yards wide by a little over a hundred yards deep.
The set up for one person from about 50 yards back -
Wider view of the left side of the berm/mountain
Tiger has a great vision for the range and I believe it will soon become one of the most unique training facilities anywhere. These pics are a month old now, so there is undoubtedly a lot of progress, but the classroom was under construction -
As well as heavy equipment working on the landscaping, for lack of a better term -
You have to stand in the middle of the area to fully appreciate the plan, but range will incorporate…
1)Permanent walls on the range
2)Elevation changes
3)When training with rifles, firing through a wooded area,
4)Working your over obstacles and terrain toward or away from a target
5)A FOF shoot house, using gas powered airsoft handguns and rifles
6)Chargers…
As of RIGHT NOW, it is more than adequate for fundamentals – which are what we should probably be doing 95% of the time anyway – and I learned a tremendous amount even without all the Disneyland stuff - simulators, etc.
The advantages of the tutorial are endless. It is hard to give a formal review because I was able to move at my own speed so if I got something with no problem, we moved on with no wasted time. Things I had a harder time with, we worked on until I got it right (several times!). For the most part, the carbine work we did was within 50 yards although we did some shooting out to 100 yards. We did most of the things you encounter in classes – shooting while moving, working with reactive targets, etc. Moreover, I learned a few things about how to use the rifle in CQB that you simply couldn’t do in a class unless you didn’t mind sweeping the entire line over and over. Suffice to say Tiger’s skills are not limited to shooting, but he also has a tremendous grasp of using the firearm as a blunt impact weapon, general martial arts, knives, HTH, etc.
A note on the rifle I used. When my wife did a one day tutorial with Tiger, he showed me some of his stuff and he had an AR that was exceptionally light for an all metal, fixed stock weapon. I think it was around 5.5 lbs. I was inspired, having hauled an M1A around for a couple days at Thunder Ranch. I built a rifle very similar to his and with a mounted Surefire Scout, 6 extra batteries and a lamp in the stock, it is less than 6.5 lbs. After two full days, I wasn’t sore, annoyed, etc. The design concept is a solid one and I have to credit Tiger for the inspiration. I’m planning on building another on just like it – after all, two is one, one is none, etc etc. A Picture of the rifle before I added my Scout light...
IMG
Tiger also turned me on to some of Streamlights latest stuff. I’m a pretty diehard Surefire guy, but the Thunder Ranch LED stuff is GREAT. I bought the TL2-LED kit and I’m very pleased with the light.
After this experience, I’ll be spending a fair amount of time in Guntersville… we had a great time and Tiger is a great instructor with a great new facility.
Other pics -
Tiger demonstrating how to work and AR left handed, using cover.
Me behind cover, bending more than I was designed to!
The wall-o-cover, used to practice working behind cover, and unconventional shooting positions.
A target Tiger designed, available from Action Target. It can pivot, and snap to face from 90 degrees.
Tiger about to demonstrate a one handed drill. These are a very valuable PITA!! Tiger had to threaten me with duct tape since my second hand kept slipping into the picture...
Tiger with my AR... the man is happy when he is on the range with an AR in his hands!
Tigers book - a great read. You can buy it on his website.