Successfully finished a Guerrilla Sniper Course at Arena Training Facility in Blakely GA. I’ve taught this course for years, but this is the first time I taught it at Arena.
A few hours in the classroom, I cut the students for lunch, and we met back on the range for the fun stuff.
Just over half the students shot .308/7.62x51mm, the rest shot 5.56x45mm. We had 1 bolt action and the rest were semi-autos. All the 5.56 guns were AR variants with barrels of 16” or 18”. The .308 gas guns were mostly AR variants with 1 FN SCAR 17S.
Optics were a mix of variable-power optics from Nightforce, Sightron, Vortex (both Gen1 and GenII), and a few others. Some had illuminated reticle, some did not, and they were a mix of MOA and milliradian.
Almost half of the class ran some sort of suppressor/silencer. When shooting from inside some of the structures, they sure made a difference!
For the majority of the demos, I shot a Steyr SSG69 .308, cut and threaded at 16.5” with a Silencerco ASR FH under a Silencerco Omega suppressor. Optic is a Nightforce ATACR 4-16x42mm and ammo was M118LR.
I shot one demo with the .300Blk that Accurate Ordnance built for me out of a Remington Model 7, 16” thin barrel, Timney trigger, MDT LSS chassis, and a Nightforce NXS 2.5-10x32mm. I used the same Silencerco Omega on it and ammo was SIG 220grn SMK subs.
We started with unsupported and supported positional shooting. Standing, kneeling, and sitting. I showed the students how to use various slings and support, including your partner. A couple of the students found that the rifle that they love shooting prone, was a bit unwieldy when they couldn’t rest it on the ground. During this portion of the course, I provided targets out to almost 500yds and students chose which targets they engaged from each position.
I showed the students how to construct artificial support from objects they can carry with them, or scrounge locally. I introduced them to shooting from a tripod and all tried their hand at that, again at distances of their choosing.
After that I ran them through On Call Shots in 2-man teams. They started with me calling the cadence and shot, and finished with one of the 2 shooters doing it.
Those drills took us until after sundown and we went into lowlight drills once it got full-on dark. The first lowlight drill was to shoot the flame from a birthday candle with 1 shot at 50yds. 2 students accomplished this on their first shot. Other lowlight drills involved targets and scenarios at 300 and 500 yards.
Sunday morning the course started off with Vehicle Hides. A small assortment of vehicles were used; a 4-door pickup with tonneau cover, a minivan with dual sliding doors, and a Toyota Camry.
Following the Vehicle Hides portion, we traveled over to the Breaching Facility and shot from rooftops. Immediately after, we went to The House and shot from the carport and the living room. Students used the tripod from the carport, but from the living room they were only allowed to use objects and furnishings found in The House to construct a shooting platform.
I cut the students loose for lunch and we met back at the UKD Range. The final event of the day was the Comprehensive Exercise. In 2-man teams, one team at a time, the students went through an exercise that covered all the tactics and techniques they learned through the entirety of the course.
The course went very well. The next one is at the same location on February 9-10. Being as this was the first time that I held the course at Arena Training Facility, I will be tweaking the course slightly to improve efficiency for the next go ‘round.
Semper Fi!
A few hours in the classroom, I cut the students for lunch, and we met back on the range for the fun stuff.
Just over half the students shot .308/7.62x51mm, the rest shot 5.56x45mm. We had 1 bolt action and the rest were semi-autos. All the 5.56 guns were AR variants with barrels of 16” or 18”. The .308 gas guns were mostly AR variants with 1 FN SCAR 17S.
Optics were a mix of variable-power optics from Nightforce, Sightron, Vortex (both Gen1 and GenII), and a few others. Some had illuminated reticle, some did not, and they were a mix of MOA and milliradian.
Almost half of the class ran some sort of suppressor/silencer. When shooting from inside some of the structures, they sure made a difference!
For the majority of the demos, I shot a Steyr SSG69 .308, cut and threaded at 16.5” with a Silencerco ASR FH under a Silencerco Omega suppressor. Optic is a Nightforce ATACR 4-16x42mm and ammo was M118LR.
I shot one demo with the .300Blk that Accurate Ordnance built for me out of a Remington Model 7, 16” thin barrel, Timney trigger, MDT LSS chassis, and a Nightforce NXS 2.5-10x32mm. I used the same Silencerco Omega on it and ammo was SIG 220grn SMK subs.
We started with unsupported and supported positional shooting. Standing, kneeling, and sitting. I showed the students how to use various slings and support, including your partner. A couple of the students found that the rifle that they love shooting prone, was a bit unwieldy when they couldn’t rest it on the ground. During this portion of the course, I provided targets out to almost 500yds and students chose which targets they engaged from each position.
I showed the students how to construct artificial support from objects they can carry with them, or scrounge locally. I introduced them to shooting from a tripod and all tried their hand at that, again at distances of their choosing.
After that I ran them through On Call Shots in 2-man teams. They started with me calling the cadence and shot, and finished with one of the 2 shooters doing it.
Those drills took us until after sundown and we went into lowlight drills once it got full-on dark. The first lowlight drill was to shoot the flame from a birthday candle with 1 shot at 50yds. 2 students accomplished this on their first shot. Other lowlight drills involved targets and scenarios at 300 and 500 yards.
Sunday morning the course started off with Vehicle Hides. A small assortment of vehicles were used; a 4-door pickup with tonneau cover, a minivan with dual sliding doors, and a Toyota Camry.
Following the Vehicle Hides portion, we traveled over to the Breaching Facility and shot from rooftops. Immediately after, we went to The House and shot from the carport and the living room. Students used the tripod from the carport, but from the living room they were only allowed to use objects and furnishings found in The House to construct a shooting platform.
I cut the students loose for lunch and we met back at the UKD Range. The final event of the day was the Comprehensive Exercise. In 2-man teams, one team at a time, the students went through an exercise that covered all the tactics and techniques they learned through the entirety of the course.
The course went very well. The next one is at the same location on February 9-10. Being as this was the first time that I held the course at Arena Training Facility, I will be tweaking the course slightly to improve efficiency for the next go ‘round.
Semper Fi!
