So as been discussed here, I went to Tactical Response in Camden, TN this weekend. I'll try to make this Bapple-outline-esque but there's no guarantee it'll match up to the caliber of my video outlines since I'll mostly just be rambling. Maybe I'll make a video AAR with some footage or something if I get the time. Anyway, on to the AAR.

So the class was taught by 3 instructors, Reid, Jay, and Tim. All were quite good at instruction and were very hard on us to get our technique down properly.

So on the firing line up close when we were doing pistol and rifle drills, the atmosphere was very intense. The berm was so dry that clumps of dirt and rocks were hitting us on almost every drill since there was rifle and pistol fire to both sides of us. If at any time during a drill your rifle were to go empty or malfunction, you were told to yell "cover" and transition to your pistol.

One other thing that was a bit strange that I have never done before that they always had us do when inserting a fresh mag was to rack the slide or charging handle every time. This means that even if a fresh round is in the chamber, you should still rack the charging handle. After the second day when all the shooting was done, my buddy and I picked up probably 50-100 fully intact rounds. It was a bit strange to see that much live ammo on the range but it is what it is.

One thing about the entire class - it was physically grueling. Since I never played sports or anything maybe it seemed more intense for me. But the first day we worked on the range all day through lunch. I had only eaten some beef jerky and peanuts in the morning to try to keep my calories up. When they suggest you bring lunch, you should definitely bring lunch. We did get to run out and eat lunch on the second day, but the first day was very intense.

So back to the physical part - it was intense. There were plenty of people who had cuts and bruises on their bodies from getting into different firing positions behind cover and from getting hit with chunks of rocks on the close firing line. They taught us to shoot from our backs, sitting, from our knees, around cover, on our sides, from a distance, from close up, and everything in between.

Shooting from different positions was something I hadn't really done before. Shooting from my back felt very strange since the muzzle blast was directly between my knees. Shooting around cover was also interesting. Due to muzzle-optic offset, there were plenty of people who shot the plastic barrels we were using as cover. When you're close to cover, you have to get that optic WAY out around it.

So, now what y'all are wondering - "What gear did you use!?"

For my pistol I ran my M&P CORE with the 40 S&W barrel. It ran like a top without a single issue. Granted we only fired our pistols about 300 times, but it still worked well anytime I took it out of the holster. I ran the gun in a Safari Land holster and my backup magazines were in a Fobus holster.

Here is where the plot thickens a bit. I ran my ACR with an Aimpoint PRO on the first day until early afternoon when it started having some SERIOUS issues. I was getting failures to extract, double feeds, etc. I thought the issue was that one of the instructors had put grease on my bolt and it was slowing down the cycling rate. But after further inspection, my pistol spring had split in about 8 pieces. So, the operating rod was loosely floating around and not striking the bolt carrier with enough force to do anything. It got really frustrating until I had remembered I brought a backup rifle.

So for the rest of the course I ran my buddy's Colt 6940 (monolithic) sporting an EOtech sight. It ran very very well. The only issue I started having (typical on any DI rifle) was that the charging handle was getting sticky after a few hundred rounds. I was also running the gun bone dry so this was understandable. A little grease on the bolt and charging handle made it slick as hell.

Comparing running the ACR to the Colt when running drills was quite eye-opening. The ACR is HEAVY - very heavy. Most of the weight is at the muzzle end so the front-heavy nature really got tiring after a while. The ACR had a softer recoil impulse than the Colt but felt a lot bulkier too. So when the ACR was working it was nice despite being a bit heavy. The two-point sling setup on the gun in factory form is fantastic. It locks up on two QD mounts that are in perfect spots. I ran the Colt with a single-point sling and definitely preferred the two-point. Only being clipped on to one spot allows the rifle to wobble and flop around too much, whereas the two-point keeps it close to your body. I ran both of these with a Blackhawk chest rig that was rented from TR. I will probably get a plate carrier down the road since I have more flexibility in terms of mag pouch positioning and such.

I wish I had brought a dump-pouch for my rig. I hated having to go retrieve magazines every single time after every drill. Keeping them all in one place would've been nice, especially when I had to transition to my pistol and had all empty mags.

I also cannot stress the importance of having a Camel-back. It was awesome to fill it up once or twice a day and stay constantly hydrated.

As a side note, the Tactical Response crew left for Nevada at 6 a.m. the day after we finished training. They were pretty passionate about getting out there.

I feel like I've been a bit long-winded but to sum it up, it was worth every single penny. They have a money-back guarantee if you feel the training sucked so I highly suggest anyone try it.

If you have specific questions ask away, OB brethern.