Gunsite Carbine Class: Day 1

Yesterday was the first day of the carbine class at Gunsite, which was mostly focused on zeroing our rifles with the excellent Trijicon 3.5×35 optic mounted on the S&W MP-15 MOE rifles.  After the rifles were zeroed, we worked on snaps at 15 and 5 yards so that the instructors could get a feel for where each shooter was in terms of skill set.

One of the areas that I’m in need of correction on is my trigger finger – no, I don’t put it in the trigger guard when it shouldn’t, but rather I take it out before I should.  I’m somewhat conditioned from shooting gun games, because when I shoot a stage, after I’ve fired my required number of shots, be it 1, 6, 32, whatever, I immediately remove my finger from the trigger guard.  I do that before I scan targets to make sure I shot everyone.  At Gunsite, they teach that after you fire the required number of shots, keep your finger on the trigger and look through the sight for just a second, then index on the frame and scan/assess for threats.

The quality of instruction has been resoundingly excellent.  I’ve never been a great rifleman, and I’m an especially lousy prone rifle shooter – so it was amazing to me that after a little bit of instruction, my prone long range groups tightened up significantly.  Of course, it’s mostly the rifle and the instructors – I’m just pulling the trigger.

I will say though that as neat as it was to watch my shooting improve at 50 yards from prone, I’m much more excited about today, as we’re going to be getting into the good stuff, rapid shots, the real meat and potatoes of defensive rifle shooting.