Rogue Elite

Everyone learns to shoot at different levels, and we all basically figure it out at some point, but the fundamentals for shooting will always be the fundamentals.    There always little add ons that we can do when trying to improve our shooting skills and for those familiar with competitive shooting, without using a sandbag or a bipod, a good rifle sling can give you far more stability than just a good grip.   You have to learn the positions you need to get into and how to adjust your sling to the correct length, but I have watched people improve their off the bench accuracy dramatically.    You will get very good windage control if you are setup properly.
A new era of rifles are upon us, the M4 Carbine is probable the most commonly accessorized rifle out there, but there are some really well thought gun slings for it.  I always suggest quick detach slings because being that the M4 Carbine is meant for CQB, you may get in a situation where you are getting snagged or someone gets a hold if you and detaching yourself from your gear may mean getting away.   You may have to do some slight modifications to your AR15 when  you switch your traditional rifle sling over to a different configuration.   Blue Force gear rifle slings are probable our biggest sellers and have lots of good references from those in the sandbox.

I’m sure you’ve done plenty of research into combat optics, which is the toughest and which reticle is best for you,  but are you setup for a backup plan if your sighting system goes down?   Using loctite on all of the places that need to be locked down does wonders for reliability, but in combat, sometimes your optics can get smashed or even shot.    There have been several advertisements showing up about ACOGs getting hit by bullets and even surefire flashlights that took bullets and still worked, but sometimes a broken scope that is loctited to your gun will become a nightmare in a combat situation if it is broken.   Quick detach rifle scope and rifle sights are becoming more common because this is a reality of combat.

I personally do not like the idea of fold down front sights because I never thought the permanent front sight obscured my targets if I hed the gun right, but some people really don’t like the front sights there when using red dots or Eotech gun sights.   I think this is being a little too anal, but if it works for them, that’s their decision.   I do see some people operate Eotech gun sights with no backup sights and I think it’ll  be a matter of time before they show up a range with dead batteries and realise that their gun is going to be as accurate as a blunderbuss.   If you set your cowitness sights up, you can use them as primaries or backups at any point.   Using fold down front sights is an extra step to getting your Carbine backup if the primary optic goes down, but that’s just my opinion.

A lot of this is really going to be about conditions that you are shooting in, and it will also depend on how good your eye sight is in the first place, but traditional gun sights that are solid black can sometimes be hard to pick up in low light and even if they are being used in sunlight, they are too thin or too thick for a shooters taste.   Depending on the type of shooting that  you are doing sometimes the gun  you have is a good format, but some changes need to be made to your rifle sights or handgun sights.  Even today there are some red dot optics that I do not like because the dot is so big that it obscures the target and it makes it very difficult to shoot tight groups.   Low light can make it even hard to see objects behind the the target.

The real advantages I see to actually altering the front sights on handguns is for home defense.   Even if you have a flashlight on or there is some lighting  in  your home, it’s still can have a lot of shadows and moving from room to room will give you areas where it would be good to be able to see exactly where your front sight is pointing.   Hunting with a handgun or rifle usually means hunting in early morning with limited light and the same for late evenings in later afternoons.  Hi visiblity sights should give you some advantages for speedy target acquisitions.

Whenever we run a novice student through a carbine course, one of the first things we teach them after the basic saftey and shooting techniques is barrel sight offset.   Since so many people are using AR15 type rifles, there is a considerable distance between the place where a scope points its crosshairs and where the bullet is going to impact at close ranges.   Something like a Trijicon ACOG gives you a good idea of what people mostly use and we show crosshairs pointing at a dot and where the bullet hits approx 2 inches below that.   This really only has a purpose in showing a shooter what could be applied is using a firearm in self defense in a hostage type situation.

Since lasers have been improving and prices are coming down, we see them showing up more and more on handguns.   While I suggest people take a look at the price they are paying for them and do a lot of research on the durability of the product, a whole new can of worms emerges when sighting in your crimson trace or lasermax laser sights.   Depending on how your laser is mounted, there will be a windage offset that needs to be known.  Crimson Trace laser grips on revolvers can project from right above the grip area or there is a newer style that projects next to where the barrel line is.   Each have their pros and cons, but there is still an offset.   With new tools, there are always slight changes that need to be made to insure an operator knows that with distance, bullet impacts change.

If you have ever taken a course at Thunder Ranch, one of the things you will hear from an instructor is to put a white light on your gun.    I think there are valid arguments about how to use lasers and lights on a firearm, but there are mostly liabilities in not having  a light available in defensive situations, especially in your own home.   Why would anyone not put a light on a firearm in there house?  Police are trained to move and turn lights off and on as they move white pretty much voids the argument that it gives the bad guys a place to aim, well, if the guy with the light spots the guy in the dark first, his gun is probable already pointed in the right direction.

If you wanted to, you can use duct tape on a lever action or a double barrel shotgun and use your grandfathers Radio Shack flashlights and it may do the trick, but for only another $25-$30 you can get a white light from Streamlight flashlights that won’t burn a hole in your pocket, and given modern advancements in battery and bulb science,  you will save money on batteries in a very short time period,   The new Streamlight flashlights called the Polytac have a C4 LED that are 2-3x brighter than other LED.   I’ve done side by sider comparisons with my Surefire G2 and I do see the difference.  These flashlights are easily attached to most modern flashlights and can be used on Combat rifles without problems.

I first stepped into the world of tactical carbines after years of toting around an M16A2 for close to 10yrs.   We basically had to clean and maintain our firearms daily when deployed and I often wondered what we might have been able to do during the day if we didn’t have such a high maintenance rifle.  Looking back, I realized there wasn’t much else to do and this was something that we did to just occupy time.   The M16A2 is not a very clean running firearm, but it can go for hundreds if not thousands of rounds without cleaning if it was lubed correctly from the beginning.   In all of my years of service with the M16A2, and the years standing next to operators with AR15 rifles, I’d say 90% of malfunctions were bad magazines or improperly loaded, and bad ammo.   The next was improper lubrication.   It’s been a few years since I’ve been on the range during hunting season, but It was about 5yrs ago that I ran into an AR15 owner that said the key to running an AR15 reliable is to run it dry.   Well, if you own an AR15 and you think this is true, I can’t help you.

I recently watched a DVD about advanced Carbine tactics and although I thought it was of some value to Novice Carbine Operators, they left out something that I found to be crucial to all operators.   PUSH, PULL will eliminate 99% of your magazine malfunctions and I couldn’t believe that after close to 10yrs of video, I never saw this tactical being used.   Sometimes a magazine will insert into a Carbine and load a round, but by the 2nd round and after the recoil of the first round, gun magazines will drop loose.  I actually witnessed this on a Carbine course this week and the operator didn’t even know his gun was unloaded until he moved 10ft forward.

There are numerous reasons that your rock solid rifle optics will go down.   Some optics use batteries which will always go down at some point.   Your tough Trijicon ACOG will hold zero under most combat conditions, but a 30 caliber bullet can still dismount it.     Reticles can come loose, rings can fail, glass can break and numerous other things occur in a fight that don’t normally happen with occassional hunting trips.   Most rifle optics won’t handle real big drops, but having the ability to have a backup just incase the glass goes down.  Co-witnessing your sights is a simple answer for those using rifle scopes and quick detach mounts in my opinion are worth considering.   It has never happened to me in a hostile situation, but having a MOA rifle with broken glass that is solidly mounted on my rifle has got to be a nightmare sceneario.

The Trijicon NSN has iron sights mounted on the top of the rifle scope which can come in handy in closer situations and are a less expensive alternative to mounted a red dot on your ACOG.    That is worth the money if you are in the line of work that calls for it, but for general blasting and plinky, I think that $1800 optics is a bit much.   The Eotech 512 is probable my recommended optic for an M4.  I think people can get carried away with optics on the M4 because even though the rifle is pretty accurate, it really is not very powerful or effective past 200yds.    With a growing selection of combat optics you can put on the AR15 type rifles, one other suggestion I have for shooters is to always keep your iron sights on the rifle.   I’ve seen a few people show up at classes with just an Eotech mounted and they complained the front sight blocked their FOV.   Well,  taking a 200yd shot with an Eotech that has a dead battery is like parking a mini van from the furthest back seat.

Like many tactical shooting accessories, you have to put a lot of thought into which type of configuration you want on your Carbine before you spend the money or you will find out real fast  you just spent $500 on some thing that you really didn’t need.    The differences between using some of the fixed power Trijicon rifle scopes, Leupold CQT, and the Eotech 512 are considerable.   Each can be used for many things with an advanced shooter, but they are intended for certain applications and within those boundaries, they work well.    There was a shift away from the Trijicon ACOG for some military and law enforcement personel because once we invaded Iraq, and the house to house fighting went on for several years, the need for magnification was virtually unnecessary.

The Aimpoint and Eotech optics are hands down the most popular CQC optics being purchased or issued, but there are times when just a little bit of magnification would be helpful.  If you are 100-200yds away from a potential target, being able to see what they are holding in their hands or see there faces is a big help.   If you determine that they are a threat, then depress the trigger and get the job done.   The Eotech magnifier is probable the most expensive magnification option, but it does the job if you think you may want the magnification.   Once you factor in the cost of the Eotech and the magnification optic, you will have basically spent the same money as Trijicon ACOG rifle scopes, but there are still differences in what you can effective use each for.   Think before buying and borrow your buddies rifles at the range before you spend the cash, if you do, you’ll get your moneys worth.

I  have a few novice Carbine gun owners that have recently been thinking about taking training courses, but really didn’t have the ability to go away for 2-3 days straight.   For many in the shooting community, we have wives or job commitments that make it difficult to get 18-30hrs away.   Even though I consider myself to be an above average operator,  with a few decades of experience under my belt, I have a fairly large collection of firearm instruction DVDs.   I keep the bad instructional DVDs as references, but I only show certain ones to friends and family.   Now that instructors can put out video at cheaper costs due to advances in video production technology, there are more and more videos coming out.   I have some of Gabe Suarez’s videos, Clint Smith, Rob Pincus ect. and they all have their good points.    Some are very basic, while others have good advanced lessons.

A few years ago I went through my entire DVD collection to look for the ones to lend to a friend that was buying  his first AR15.   I realized that Carbine training was a weak point in my collection and I looked around the internet for other options.   Magpul Dynamics Art of the tactical carbine is issued in Volume 1-3DVD and Volume II-4 DVD.   There are some basic lessons being taught in each DVD, and I have to admit that I take issue with the way some of the tactics are taught, but not for any safety reasons.   This is a much faster paced video instruction, but it is well worth the money.   I recommend watching Volume I atleast 2xs and making sure you absorb all of the info before moving on to Volume II.   There are always things that you don’t pick up the first time, and from my experience, I still notice things here and there every time I watch one of these.

I remember the days when I would stare at rifle scopes and ask shooters how much they cost, and when they told me how the rifle scopes cost, I’d calculate that whichever rifle I was thinking about putting the scope on, the cost of the rifle was less than the cost of the optic.   I have no idea how much money companies are making off of some optics, but there is a certain point that I really don’t care how good people think  they are, 90% of people spending that kind of money on optics probable could get the job done with something that cost 50%-75% less.   In all of my years of target shooting and plinking, I have only had scope mount issues and 2 rifle scopes that ever broke.   Every rifle scope  that broke cost less than $100.   I have a few Leupolds that have been on bolt actions and semi-autos and they all hold zero and have excellent clarity.

If you do research on rifle scope manufacturers and there warranties, then put some thought into what kind of objective lense you think  you want and get the reticle that applies to your shooting purposes.  There are a lot of really interesting reticles being sold by various manufacturers and they work very well.   Mil-Dot reticles still have their place, but some of the range estimation reticles for varmint and big game work very fast.   Once you’ve determined which rifle scopes you want then get the best rifle mounts you can afford to get and remember to use loctite on every screw.   I have had scope mounts fail on me, but never when I used loctite.  For hard use optics I strongly recommend marking the heads of the screws so you can do visual checks to see if they are turning.