Basic Carbine Sustainment Drills

Mark — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:48:59 +0000

This series of carbine drills is designed to give the shooter a plan to follow which will ensure the shooter can maintain a basic level of proficiency with the any carbine. The round count for these drills is based on 5 x 28 round magazines (140 rounds) and will assist the shooter with budgeting both ammunition cost and time, in addition to addressing equipment and consistency concerns. This series of drills will aid the casual shooter or the shooter “on a budget” with his carbine proficiency. Primary weapon to secondary weapon transitions are also included in the drill series.

First things first, always review the Cardinal Rules of Firearm Safety before loading your weapon, now move on to other range safety controls, proper loading and unloading procedures and finally do a review basic marksmanship skills. Determine how fast you should perform these drills. A good rule of thumb is to base your speed on your accuracy. If you are missing the black you probably need to slow down to work on your accuracy and your fundamentals, but if you are driving every round in the center of target, then you need to speed it up.

3” DOTS or B3 at 7 YARDS [Get our custom 3 inch dot target]

Low ready: one shot 4 times
High ready: one shot 4 times
Low ready: two shots, one target 4 times
High ready: two shots, one target 4 times
Low ready: two shots, one shot each on two separate targets 4 times
High ready: two shots, one shot each on two separate targets 4 times

8” DOTS, BODY or B8 at 10 YARDS

Pivot left and right 90 degrees and 180 degrees: start at Low ready facing away from the target: turn (each direction), four shots, two shots each on two separate targets 2 times each direction (left and right 90 degrees and 180 degree pivot)
Transition drill: start with no magazine in your carbine. Click, transition to pistol, two shots or dry fire once 5 times.

8″ DOTS, BODY or B8 at 25 YARDS

Reload drill: from ready, one shot, Emergency reload, one shot. Recover magazine and perform Tactical reload to set up drill 4 times.
Soft malfunction (fail to fire) drill: start with an empty chamber in your carbine, full magazine, click-tap, rack, engage with two shots 4 times.
Standing to kneeling to prone: two shots each position 5 times.

8″ DOTS, BODY or B8 at 15 YARDS

Shoot on the move (box drill): Two targets, first run with 1 shot each, second with 2 shots each.

Start at left forward corner, right rear diagonal, forward, left lateral, rear to a forward right diagonal.
Start at the right forward corner, left rear diagonal, forward, right lateral, rear to a forward left diagonal.

Additional tips:

If unable to move at the range, do the static drills both strong and weak side or double up on strong side drills. Practice movement and manipulation at home dry.
While doing the 7 yard and turn drills, load multiples of 8 rounds if you wish to do more transitions.
Remember to utilize the workspace when performing all reloads and immediate action drills.
Remember at less than 25 yards/meters transition to secondary weapon to stay in the fight. At distances greater than 25 yards/meters seek cover and perform immediate action to clear carbine stoppage.

Special thanks to guest author Mark Tiedemann for contributing this series of drills. Feel free to leave Mark a comment here or look for him on m4carbine.net where he is a forum moderator.

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Rating: 10.0/10 (2 votes cast)

Stoppages and Immediate Actions

Ric. — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:55:00 +0000

There are two basic types of stoppages on semiautomatics: hard and soft. A stoppage is defined as any shooter induced or mechanically induced interruption in the cycle of fire for the weapon. A “soft” stoppage is one that can be remedied without disabling the weapon to fix. Typical “soft” stoppages include misfires, failure to extract, failure to eject and the ever popular, out of ammunition. These are pretty quick and easy to fix usually. All of the aforementioned problems can be fixed or at least diagnosed with the simple “Tap, Rack, Assess” drill. First ensure that the magazine is seated by “Tapping” the base of the magazine with your support hand. This should be done with enough force to seat the magazine if it is not already locked into place but not so much force as to knock the baseplate off of the magazine. Secondly “Rack” the slide to clear the chamber or ejection port, feed a new round into the chamber and place the weapon into battery. The most efficient way to do this is to break the support hand loose from the weapon and rotate the weapon toward the support side until the weapon is basically upside down. This is done at full extension, as the weapon does not need to be brought back to the workspace for this activity. Once the weapon is inverted, grab the serrations at the back of the slide with the support hand and draw the slide back to its limit of travel. Gravity will cause any casings or debris to fall clear of the chamber and ejection port and thus clear them. Let the slide go and allow it to travel forward under its own spring tension. This will place the weapon into battery and make it ready to fight. DO NOT HOLD ONTO THE SLIDE AS IT GOES FORWARD!!! Riding the slide forward will create another stoppage! Rotate the weapon back to its normal fighting position while reacquiring the master grip. Once back on target “Assess” the threat and do whatever needs to be done. Tada! Soft stoppage immediate action complete.

Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

Aggressive Defensive Solutions » immediate action

Basic Carbine Sustainment Drills

Stoppages and Immediate Actions