DARC 'William Wallace 2.0' AAR, 21June2014

[english kanigit]

This is a quick write-up regarding a shooting event that OSAer uncle moneybags and myself attended in LittleRock, AR on 21June2014. I'm writing this to serve as a point of learning and/or discussion for anyone who wishes it. If you want to cut straight to the chase a first-person video from my Contour camera can be seen at the following link. Specifics on the various target distances and other aspects of the run can be found on the YouTube video description. I cannot copy/paste them here at this moment. Be forewarned, it is about 23 minutes long.
http://youtu.be/3PbQkUuSvCk



I've been familiar with the Direct Action Resource Center for quite some time now. This is mainly from reading training AARs from LEO-types I know who've trained at the facility. As their old website stated that they were a LEO/.MIL only training facility I had never given them a second look. That seems to have changed in the last year or so and as a result when I heard of this 'freedom shoot' event I immediately jumped on the opportunity.

From their thread on ARFcom:

“William Wallace” is a fun shoot, not a competition; there are no prizes other than the experience and sense of pride for actually doing it. The shoot is basically one long, strenuous lane of running and gunning – it’s fun, but it is not easy. The shoot is not a place for politics or for playing camouflage-commando dress up. At some point along the route, most people consider quitting… but most do not. The shoot is a great opportunity to ‘test’ yourself and your equipment with a similarly minded and supportive group of people.

There are four main rules at this event: 1) Weapons safety at all times, 2) Maintain positive control of your firearms, 3) Have a good time, and 4) No walking – you can stop and try to catch your breath, but no walking. You don’t have to be an Olympic athlete or master class shooter to successfully participate.

Date:
21 June 2014

Time:
Sign-in is at 730am, Saturday. Don’t be late… we are going to commence at 8am and you will need to sign waivers, know your shooting order, and receive a safety and event briefing.

Fees (includes dinner):
1.Adult Shooter, $30
2.Adult Spectator, $15
3.Minor Spectator, $10
4.Minor Shooter, $20

Please note:
1.There are only thirty (30) shooter slots available for this event. If you want to secure your slot you need to officially register prior to the shoot. Shooter slots are first come and based on a completed registration form and payment.
2.No one under the age of 13 is allowed on the facility for this event. All minors must be accompanied and supervised by an adult family member at all times. A minor is anyone who is not 18 years old or older.
3.Minimum age to participate is 15 and the individual must be accompanied along the entire firing sequence by a responsible parent and/or legal guardian at all times.
4.Please bring your own water, lunch and snacks for the day. I also recommend some sunscreen and insect repellant.
5.Safety violators, whether shooters or spectators, will be told to leave. There is no refund for being unsafe.
6.This event is not open to the public. We need to register who is coming so DARC can manage the shoot and accurately provide the food and drinks. Blue Panda is going to be grilling hot dogs and hamburgers for the dinner meal.
7.This shooting event is very strenuous (ask someone who has done it before). You will be expected to run, climb, crawl, drag heavy objects and shoot safely while maintaining more than one loaded weapon throughout the event. If you are physically incapable or unsure of your health and weapons handling skills, then this event is not for you. DARC will not tolerate unsafe behavior with a firearm, not following the rules, whining, walking, falling out of towers, bad attitudes, imaginary friends, and/or unicorn wrangling.
8.The event is designed for modern defensive type of firearms. Please don’t bring your race/space guns, gear and holsters. Keep it practical, functional and secure. What you start with is all that you will have and if you drop it or it falls off/out, then it is considered out of play.
9.Dress code – no flip-flops, short shorts, tank tops, pasties, thongs, bikinis, banana hammocks or offensive clothing. Some people will have their children and spouses present so we ask that you be respectful.
10.A strict no alcohol policy is in effect for this event. No alcoholic beverages (or illegal drugs) are allowed on the property – not even locked in your vehicle. There are no exceptions to this rule.

There were very detailed regulations on the type of gear and guns not allowed, primarily for safety reasons. Basically space/race guns and holsters that will not adequately retain and protect a blaster during vigorous activities were forbidden. The emphasis of this event was supposed to be upon 'practical' tools for everyday or duty use. What seemed to set the tone for the event though was the first three questions on the FAQ that was sent out with the registration packets:

1. How much ammunition and/or how many magazines do I need for the shoot?
I don’t know, the ‘bad guys’ didn’t tell us...
2. Will there be time to get zeroed or confirm zero before the shoot?
No, this event is not set-up to support that. Please arrive with everything ready to go.
3. How far is the route?
It’s less than a mile but all the stuff you will be doing seems to take its toll... It is not a 5k with guns and
some zombie targets.

From the rules, reading up a bit on their world class facility and the training which they offer it should be immediately apparent that these folks are very serious about their business. This was not a 'lowest common denominator' event. The competitors were a fairly even mix of prior service folks, LEOs and competently trained and motivated citizens.

I ran in the solo carbine run, the buddy/team run with UMB using a loaned SPR – precision upper receiver group and the night run using white light. My primary weapon was an Arsenal SLR-107CR that was modified for suppressor use by Oklahoma's own Two River Arms. My secondary was a standard Glock 19.

A few specific thoughts and points of learning will be added throughout the day as I have time.

Ek

 

[english kanigit]

Personal notes:

Fitness is key.

Though I've fallen away from it in the last few weeks due to work schedules for most of this year I have been hitting it fairly hard with CrossFit and then running a bit whenever I have time. This paid huge dividends both in this match and in some other stuff I've done this year because I am less fatigued after moving around obstacles or manipulating a heavy rifle for longer periods of time not to mention wearing armor which I did for the first run.


Hydration is life.

The weather during this event fluctuated rapidly between extremely hot and muggy to very cool with light rain and then worse than before after the sun came out. Because of the humidity it was almost impossible to stay cool as the body's sweat would not evaporate. This only gets exponentially worse wearing something like armor. There were actually a couple of folks who suffered from near borderline heat exhaustion by the time they got to the metal rappel tower and had to spend extra time there 'cooling off'. Hydration for something like this during the time of year that we are in is not a "day of" sort of affair.


Food.

The body is a machine, machines need fuel. Some things burn more cleanly than others and the effects of this can be very real. I tend to pack a lot of nuts, granola and fruits for things such as this and eat in small quantities regularly throughout the day which tends to serve me very well.

Gear prioritization.

I tend to be a completely unabashed pack rat. I had actually put together a hybrid chest rig/backpack and planned to run with it but thought better of it once I got on site. There's a very fine line which delineates the stuff that is critical from the stuff that is nice to have and that is usually determined by the task at hand. This is something I'm still trying to get the hang of.



Shooting notes:

Zero.

Know your zero and if necessary your holdovers for your given optic/caliber combination. While there are many free ballistics programs available for open use keep in mind that all of this stuff is purely theoretical until you actually put it into practice and tested for you, your weapon as well as your environment. The zero for your weapon must be refined at distance to have any predictability.

Corollary to the above - Understand your limitations and that of your equipment but don't ever be afraid to push those boundaries. We were having some difficulty hitting the targets between 500 & 1,000 yards on the buddy run. While I took it upon myself to try and engage the 500 yard steel target and later found out that I was successful connecting with it several times I didn't think of trying to engage any of the others with my partner acting as a spotter. As I was shooting 7.62x39 it likely would've been a waste of ammunition and time but I won't know because I didn't try.


Shooting at night.

Getting to shoot in true darkness is not a common opportunity, sadly. For the most part we used many of the same targets, even shooting out to 200 yards via white light from the Surefire FURY mounted on our rifles. A few points of consideration on this: we had already run through the exact same course of fire at least twice already that day, the targets were for the most part still painted white which gave great aid in reflecting any available light from the shooter and no target discrimination was required. Realistic practical engagement distances at night will be much, much shorter without the need of some more advanced technology.

One problem that is not normally considered but becomes immediately apparent when shooting with white light is that of smoke and other ejecta from a weapon. Light, especially that from the newer high-powered LEDs, is easily reflected back by this airborne particulate matter and will quickly obscure the target if more than a couple of shots are required. While I had run into this before in a shoot house class I did not expect it to be just as much of an issue outside. One trick I was taught previously is that making a level change such as going from standing into a slight crouch, kneeling or squat can immediately get you under what's blocking your view. Lateral movement can work too if you're alone but forming this habit can be a safety issue if working with other folks.

I actually serviced my very first target on the night run without the suppressor mounted on my Kalashnikov just to see what difference it would pose and surprisingly there was even more smoke and junk that ended up in the air. Muzzle flash was non existent to my observation with and without the suppressor. This was probably due to a combination of the über-efficient 3-prong flash hider and the 500 lumen weapon light being turned on…

Ek

 

[Gabriel42]

Good job! Seems like it was pretty taxing for such geographically short course. Looking forward to the Pawnee event. About to go for a run in honor of it and getting my fat *ss in shape.

 

[Nimaro]

Awesome write up!

 

[uncle money bags]

While I could just echo everything EK said and leave it at that, there are a couple of points worth adding and expanding on in my case. Since vids are posted on the course I wont bother describing it. There is a lot more going on during the event and the vids are a good indicator. What I really appreciated was the chance to run a challenging course of fire on a 100% hot range under big boy rules.
I used this event to shake out a couple of gear changes I had made in anticipation of the Pawnee event and to verify my holdovers/dope under stress for longer range engagements.
First of all is temperature and humidity. The temps during the day were in the low 90's with humidity in the 80% plus range; wind was a breezy 3 to 5 mph, sometimes, calm the rest of the time. In a word, miserable, unless you were doing nothing in the shade, in which case you had to fight off the mosquitoes.. If you have spent time on the south east coast during the early summer like around Ft. Jackson, Gordon, Bragg you know what I am talking about.
In anticipation of this I spent the week prior hydrating, and drank about 3 gallons of water with electrolytes the day of the event. I had multiple clear and painless urinations all day so I think I had that covered. Where I made my biggest mistake was calorie intake. Ek mentioned this above, but in my case I under consumed. It felt like I was running at a fraction of the pace I am used to geared up. My legs felt like lead weights and it was hard to catch a breath. Very similar to the experience I had at the Tbird summer event.

First run
The first run of the day I elected to go heavy. This included everything I mentioned in the Pawnee run n gun thread except I wore my PIG plate carrier with medium ESAPI plates. By the time I exited the shoot house I was already drenched in sweat. Now, I sweat more than the average mammal, but this was ridiculous. Fortunately some of the moisture was soaked up by the ground while going under the simulated obstacle between the shoot house and sniper condo. At the end of the run I removed my dripping ACS, wrung it out and and laid it over the bed of the truck, in the sun and what little wind there was. When I packed it away at about 2300 it was still wet. The rest of the day I ran in my Rudder Rack and same ammo load out.
My take away is hydration is still king, even if you cant get enough evaporation and eat enough calories. That, and the plate carrier can stay in the kit bag when the temp/humidity is at that level, I might be tempted to run one if it was a jumpable version, but the PIG is just too padded and hot.
Since the longest shots for this COF were to be 400 yards;( and considering the Pawnee event will have a 500 yard target), and my optic of choice is an unmagnified Aimpoint M4 I had to do some work prior to the shoot working on my holdovers. For everything from 5 to 300 yards, or so, I am able to guesstimate the holdover and get hits. At around 400 and beyond the hold overs become tricky. Because of this I decided to figure out the dope for my round after getting some chrono data on it. Using the Hornady calculator I came up with my bullet drop at 400 and 500 yards, converted that info to clicks of adjustment on the elevation dial and went to the range. Everything worked like a charm. The only real downside is the time necessary to make the adjustments may allow a "real" target the chance to move. I wouldnt consider this method particularly good for engaging those types of threats, but for range/static targets it works.

second run
Ek didnt mention much on the buddy run, except alluding to my craptastic work with the borrowed DMR. I had not planned to even shoot this event, which had targets from 500 to 1000 yards since I didnt have rifle/scope combo capable of making those hits. Then Mr. Mason steps in the conversation and offers me the use of his DMR. Nice gun, nice glass. The only issues are I am using my hand loads and have no idea what my holdovers will be and that the reticule on the NightForce scope is a minimalistic dot, surrounded by a circle, with a couple of leveling lines outside of the circle. Every shot was going to be a guess. Adding to the problem were the 10 pushups for every missed target. Not being someone to spurn such a generous gift I accepted knowing at least I could spot for EK, and that my arms would be fried by the end. I was correct on both counts. Still, it beat sitting in the air conditioned Q-hut drinking water and being worthless. It was bad enough, that another member of the staff who was running the course ahead of us traded me his rifle with a Trijicon TA11 for the rest of the course after the 1000 yard stage. At least with that scope I had horizontal hash marks to work with for elevation. With that gun, from the rappel tower I did get hits on the 750 yard 18 inch gong using my ammo. Even then, I was holding over beyond the range of the reticule at around what would be the 850 to 950 yard BDC mark.

third run
The first thing about the night shoot I noticed was the adequacy of 500 lumen for everything from the shoot house out to 200 yards. It was not too bright indoors, and lit up the 200 yard targets well. I would consider it the minimum level of light as long as there is good spill. I used a Surefire Fury on the rifle and a Surefire X300u on my pistol. Both performed flawlessly. As EK mentioned, smoke and ejecta reflecting the light and totally obscuring the target for a couple of seconds in a calm wind. Indoors it was necessary to move out of the clouds line to reacquire targets. Note to self; the wind direction and speed becomes a factor when engaging at night even beyond their effect on the bullet. The night shoot also showed the importance of defogging and acclimating your glass and eye pro. If your gear is inside and cool, it will condense water when you take it outside in the hot and humid air. Use some defogging solution and keep your critical equipment in the same environment you intend to use it before needed so it can adjust to the conditions.

As I think of more I will add on.

 

[SMS]

Pretty cool EK and UMB. Love the variety of the shooting stages!

EK, did you figure out why your micro was flaking out?

Looks like the last few stages didn't have any ROs present. Honor system or did I just not see them?

 

[english kanigit]

The loose nut behind the trigger (me) did not tighten the battery cap down enough when replacing the battery.

There was supposed to be a person at every stage but I was one of the last runners. Some of the folks ahead of me started to suck it physically and the ROs began escorting them along the last two stages.

Ek