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TigerSwan 5 Day Carbine/Pistol- Linden, NC   September 2008

Thanks to Josh Burmeister of Grey Group Training for inviting me down to this course, we had previously spoken about the quality of instruction with Brian Searcy and TigerSwan and he was absolutely right, I can’t think of any other course I’ve taken that’s made me a better shooter in such a short amount of time. I’m glad I went and would gladly take another course with these guys again and would recommend them to anybody who’s looking for solid training.

The weather was a challenge thanks to Hurricane Ike so we spent the majority of the 5 days either in hot humid NC heat or hot humid NC rain.

For those that don’t know Brian Searcy spent the majority of his 20+ years in the Army with their most elite Special Operations Unit retiring as a Command Sergeant Major. He was also a top level competitive shooter with a whole list of accomplishments. You can read more about it on the website: www.tigerswan.biz

Class: Nominally restricted to MIL or LE but had 9 students including Bob, a TigerSwan employee who handles their Law Enforcement Initiatives. A couple of Cumberland County SWAT cops and the rest were military, almost all were soldiers from nearby Ft. Bragg with multiple tours in OEF/OIF.

Instructors: Besides Brian we also had Tony Copper (also a retired Sgt. Major from Special Operations) and JD, a former SF guy.

Format of the class was pretty straight forward, pistol work in the morning followed by carbine in the afternoon. Pistol work starts at 25 yards, everyday. Carbine starts at 100 yards, everyday. Targets used were mainly the NRA 25 yd. bullseye targets, this was for both the pistol and carbine work.

The emphasis was on marksmanship each day before moving on to the tactics portion of the class, which was really just applying your marksmanship skills while moving, assuming different positions, engaging multiple targets, etc.

This goes along with his belief that his old unit didn’t do any “high speed” training, they just did the basics very well under any conditions on demand. Throughout the course one thing that sticks out is the instructors will demo everything they teach believing that its better to show the students the right way to do it rather than just telling them.

I didn’t take great notes as far as the different drills and when we did them but this is at least an overview.

Usually most classes start at 5 or 7 yds. with shooting at 25 beginning later in the class but Searcy has students start at 25 yds. regardless of skill level since this allows the instructors to see what students need improvement on immediately. Shooting too close can mask shooter errors such as poor trigger control. Start at 25, identify the problems, fix them and then continue with the class.

One thing I found different from other courses I’ve taken is that initially, there is no emphasis on “train as you fight”, meaning they want you to take off all the gear, this includes something as innocuous as gloves. The reason being, in a crawl-walk-run methodology, if you can’t shoot with gloves off then what makes you think you can shoot with gloves on? And if you shoot with gloves on all the time, what happens when you don’t have gloves?

Which is not to say that they aren’t above using any tool available to help the students shoot better since they freely recommend using things like sure grip and sight black to help isolate shooter errors since there are so many aspects to proper pistol shooting, e.g. stance, grip, sight alignment, trigger control, etc. We also did ball and dummy drills every morning, while this initially seemed tedious it actually reinforces the training since you get to remind yourself everyday of how much more practice you need as well as watching your fellow students. Think of it as a 30 minute investment in training that pays for itself over the next 7 and a half hours.

Over the 5 days, we worked pistol drills from 25 to 3 yds. including kneeling and prone positions, reloads, malfunction clearances, strong hand only & weak hand only. We worked some drills with multiple targets including the El Presidente as well as more “basic” exercises like shooting on the move. TigerSwan does not emphasize tac reloads, preferring that students continue to shoot until they run dry so they have the opportunity to train the emergency reload when they don’t expect it.

For Carbines we went over the normal lectures on equipment malfunctions, slings, lights and optics. Optics were predominantly Eotechs along with 2 Aimpoints.

Shooting commenced at 100 yards for zero confirmation and we worked our way in while going to different positions such as sitting and kneeling as well as offhand. TigerSwan teaches the aggressive bladed stance rather than a squared up stance.

Format was the same as with pistol, work on marksmanship and accuracy before moving on to more tactical shooting. We shot on paper for the majority of the class with a little bit of shooting on steel toward the end of the class.

Shooting on the move was emphasized and one of the abiding lessons for me was “if you’re not shooting, you are on the gas!”. Do everything as fast as humanly possible without sacrificing safety or accuracy.

There were a few equipment problems, several students had Eotechs come off their weapons which prompted Tony Copper to explain the importance of loc-tite and witness marks.

Several students (myself included) had problems with poor quality ammo.

For example, I had one rifle that would work fine with Brown Bear .223 and another that would choke. One brand new Daniel Defense factory assembled upper choked and forced the student to use a loaner weapon from Grey Group. A few students had PMAGS; some worked better than others…. despite Magpul’s excellent customer service the general attitude was it wasn’t worth sending back. I didn’t necessarily agree with it but understand why since you want your equipment to work right now.

One student had a S&W M&P15 with a rail (Samson?) that was installed by the shop at Gander Mountain, suffice to say that he started seeing some problems with it short stroking. A trip to Shooter’s in Fayetteville (which ended up being the de facto gunsmithy for the class) revealed the rail was installed incorrectly leading to the gas tube being off center.

Majority of the pistols in class were Glocks and a few students had front sights that either worked their way loose or came off completely. Classes like these are an excellent way to test your equipment as well as your ability to use it.

I started off with an Aimpoint but by the end of the class was using my Eotech as much as I could. While I understand the concept of a 4 MOA dot vs. a 1 MOA dot at 100 yards being scientifically insignificant I will tell you that I shot better with the smaller dot. Also the hash marks on the outside of the 65 MOA ring can serve as an indicator if I’m canting the rifle, which isn’t as evident at closer ranges but starts to have an effect as you get farther out.

I also used an HSGI modular shoulder harness loaded with Tactical Tailor single mag shingles and an HSGI bleeder pouch. I saw one last year on the same range during a different class and decided to try it out. It worked OK but I was definitely slower on the reloads.

I was using an older Redi-Mag and found that if I did all my emergency reloads from that and backfilled the Redi-Mag from the pouch it worked very well. The pouches on my strong side interfered with my pistol draw and was aware of before the class but didn’t get it sorted out in time. Either I move my holster off the belt and on to a drop leg or I move the pistol to a different location altogether, work in progress.

Tags: Brian Searcy, CAG, Carbine training, Combat Weapons Training, Delta Force, M4 training, Pistol training, SFOD-D, Tactical Rifle, TigerSwan, Tony Copper

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 at 9:26 pm and is filed under After Action Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.