SILLY RIFLE SCHOOL THINGS THAT CAN GET YOU KILLED

[SeekHer]

Submitted just as received in the e-mail to me from Suarez International

SILLY RIFLE SCHOOL THINGS THAT CAN GET YOU KILLED

Rifle training in the civilian or police worlds is a relatively new study compared to pistol training. The most prevalent source for any training prior to 1990 was with a pistol and driven mainly by modern technique advocates from large fixed facility schools and their competitive endeavors. There were also rifle teachers whose main purpose was hunting and had no interest in any anti-personnel use of the tool.


Sometime around the late 1980s and early 1990s many trainers branched out and began doing rifle and shotgun instruction. This was the era of the Assault Rifle and one could buy an AR-15 for about what a used Glock costs today. It made sense to offer training to new owners of these guns. The problem was that few of these guys had any experience in running anything other than a 1911....or a bolt action rifle. Imagine combining a group of sport hunters and competitive pistol shooters and asking them to develop a curriculum for fighting rifle.


Both of these groups dragged things into the realm of the rifle class that did not belong there. As could be expected, just as the 1911 dominated the school scene for years, so has the AR-15 dominated the same scene with regards to rifles. There was a brief period where guys like Cooper advocated the Steyr AUG, but the supply of those never reached the level of other rifles. The AR became the choice. It was cheap, plentiful, 223 ammo almost grew on trees, and gear peddlers could sell you all manner of things for it.


The assumption was that the AR, just like the 1911 before it, was the quintessential fighting tool in the genre and in spite of old timers' derisive "poodle gun" comments, all training would support the AR-15 series and all the graduates and instructors sought to compare all other rifles to the AR, and run them as if they were ARs....and run their ARs as if they were just big pistols.


This is a foolish mistake that led to several other foolish mistakes in training..


The first one was the concept of the "speed load". The speed load was a technique developed by the original IPSC crowd when Jeff Cooper was still in charge. To maintain continuity of fire in a match, the empty (or partial) on board magazine was ditched and a fresh loaded one was emplaced in the gun (invariably a 1911 or P35).


Now consider this - This is stationary shooting. When the match is over you go pick up your magazines at your leisure, and go reload them in the shade while you sip your drink.


Pistol shooters got interested in rifles and having come from ONLY A PISTOL background....or having grown up with Springfields and Garands, they dragged over the pistol concepts into the rifle study.


In a real fight you will move or you will get hit. You will get behind cover or you will get hit. All the while you are also shooting so the other guy doesn't have such an easy time of it. So if you are moving and dropping your rifle's empty magazines, you will eventually end up with a single shot magazine-less rifle. Again, not an issue in a match, but quite an issue in combat. I know of no other place on earth where dropping magazines like they were buggers off your fingernails is taught. Even our own guys in the middle east retain their magazines if possible to reload later.


The other point is that a rifle fight IS NOT THE SAME AS A PISTOL FIGHT. There are similarities in the CQB arena, but that is where it stops. So just because in certain cases you might drop pistol magazines on the deck does not mean that is the same process required for the rifle. And note that, even with a pistol, those times are special events indeed.


I queried Warrior Talk about anyone being saved by a gun school based speed load in combat. No one to anyone's knowledge ever needed to do this. Hmmm.

Moreover. The concept assumes that you will have a magazine with which to load. Thus you had to go get that magazine and strap it on when you grabbed up your rifle. If you did that you probably also could have gotten your pistol as well. Capice?


So even if your rifle went dry, and you shot every single round in the magazine, why do something which is slower (reloading the rifle in any manner)? Instead of dropping a mag, drop the rifle on sling and shoot 'em to the ground with your pistol. This is much faster than anyone's so-called "speed load".


Another mistake is trying to run the AK like you run an AR. Now that there is such a prevalence of AK rifles in the USA, and my "colleagues" have seen how successful we have been with the AK platform, everyone has an AK operator class. But there are AK classes and there are AK classes.


Any Joe Six-pack can grab an AK, put on some BDUs and claim to teach you AK Operator stuff. All most of this consists of is the same tired old AR-15 material with a Kalashnikov. Trying to run an AK as if it was an AR is stupid. It is like trying to run a Glock like its a 1911. Some of these guys assume the AR is the best rifle out there because it supports their theories of shooting. So if their theories of shooting are correct, all guns must be run like the AR. If the non-AR platform cannot be run like an AR, it must be a substandard system. Or so goes the thinking. Again...Stupid!


Trying to make the AK (vis a vis attachments and accessories) into an AR is like adding a thumb safety to a Glock, or turning a shotgun into a rifle. Unnecessary. To learn the AK you must erase the entire modern technique rifle template from the chalk board. Look at it with an open mind and you will see a better weapons system to fight with.


Fortunately, today, the discerning student has many more choices than they did twenty years ago. So do your homework when selecting rifle training and don't take anyone's word that something "must be done" a certain way. Look at the problem from outside the confines of the square range and answer these issues for yourself.

Gabe Suarez
Suarez International USA, Inc.

Spaniard by Heritage
Cuban by Birth
Christian by Grace
American by Choice

[1911Man]

I totally agree with his point about trying to run an AK like an AR. There's no forward assist (doesn't need one), no bolt release (could probably use one), no last round hold open, safety is on the other side and totally different, mag ejection is different, and the gas system is totally different.

The AR is a precision instrument and the AK is a peasant's rifle. In a SHTF situation, ammo availability and circumstance might determine my choice. Hurricane evac = CAR time. Firefight with zombies = AK w/ drum.