P&S ModCast 428 - CONUS Sniper - Primary & Secondary Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
And we are live.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Everyone, mett Landfa here with Primary and Secondary. Welcome to Moodcast.
Today's episode, we're going to talk about sniper stuff and
it doesn't necessarily have to be sniper precision rifle, and
it's not necessarily geared to any specific person, organization unit,
because some of these concepts are pretty much universal. We're

(00:31):
going to, however, we are going to focus more on
continental United States type stuff. What do we have stateside?
What are resources that are available, what are classes to take?
What are some minimum considerations for you as a shooter,
whether you're putting together or part of an organization, or
you want to just do this as a fun pasttime
because it's rewarding, it's fun, it also can be very expensive.

(00:54):
But before we officially and we are we have officially started.
But before we get into the backgrounds and stuff with John,
I'm going to say my absolute favorite thing, and that
is make sure that you are supporting those sources that
you have found to be beneficial. What I mean by
that is, if you like what John has to say,
you're going to want to find them on social media.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
You're going to want to.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Give likes, shares, subscriptions. When stuff is shared that's beneficial
to you, and we post about gun stuff, we post
about stuff that yeah, mainstream, it's that, it's not that popular,
it's not politically correct. Algorithms don't work in our favor. You,
as the consumer of this information, get to help us,

(01:39):
and you get to pass this on. So you, acting
as the algorithm, you get to spread that influence. So
say John posts a video or posts an article or something,
and then what winds up happening is you read it,
you appreciate it, and it stays right there. No one
in your no one in you're in your immediate group,

(02:03):
no one in your network gets to appreciate that or
enjoy it or learn from it. However, if you share
that piece of content, then it expands that that net.
So make sure you're doing that, make sure you're supporting
those sources that you have found to be beneficial.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Pretty simple.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Today's episode is episode four twenty eight KNUS. Sniper is
the topic. I was trying to think of. Okay, what
am I going to call this? Because I know people
immediately associate with various governmental groups with sniper, but it
doesn't necessarily have to be So John might happen to
have some background with this stuff, might also have some
teaching with this might have some cool stuff that people

(02:42):
don't get to do every day, but it also has
a cool full time job. So I'm going to shut up.
Oh yeah, my background's l enforcement. Yeah, I'm going to
have John talk now, and I'm going to sit back
and just enjoy here and hearing the knowledge.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
So John, thanks for asking me. Matt a real honor.
Always glad to participate and contribute. So John, Spears or
doc whatever you prefer. I'm a sniper and precision rifle,

(03:20):
weapons and tactics teacher for started with EAG Tactical with
Pat Rogers twenty odd years ago, and then John Chapman
and I formed Forge Tactical and I also consultant work
for Task Force seventy, which is Chappee's found law enforcement

(03:43):
training foundation that is getting off the ground. I'm a
contractor for the US Army at the Warrior Training Center,
Fort Benning, Georgia, training snipers, frequent guests down at the
Schoolhouse at Fort Benning, you know. So yeah, on top
of other stuff that I do and have done, obviously,

(04:06):
my background was US Army Special Forces and then uh yeah,
I spent a lot of time with the long gun
and and helping active duty military snipers and also training
you know US uh special operations law enforcement snipers and assaulters.
And uh my, my big piece of the pie in

(04:30):
the domestic training world is uh running realistic urban training
for snipers to teach live fire sniper assault or integration.
And that's from from my structure. Yeah, no, we we
we take you into an actual city, you know, after

(04:53):
after several days of training, and that's the culmination with
realistic urban training is putting you on actual targets inside
a real live city with you know, regular earth people
occupying buildings around there, and then run you through roles
in both the assaulter element and in the sniper element

(05:16):
doing sniper initiated assaults. So you get experience on you know,
behind the gun and in front of the sniper's muzzle
at the target site. And you know, that's we just
found many many years ago. I realized, you know that
it's one of those things that's notionalized in law enforcement

(05:38):
training and it's just another one of those like assumed competencies.
And then, you know, when I started working more and
more with with domestic law enforcement at all levels. Finding
out that it's actually it's not something that they really
train is just kind of like, Wow, you've gone through
like the basic whatever like forty hour toa sniper core,

(06:00):
which is a great way to start, don't get me wrong,
it's essential or even you have a military sniper background.
And then when you're trying to actually you know, roll
that into a capability on the tactical team, you know,
have you ever been trained how to do that? Have

(06:22):
you ever been trained how to you know, establish your FFP,
your op, how to you know, how to set up
a hasty, stable firing position at these appropriate ranges. And
what we quickly found out is like, yeah, everybody talks
about it, but nobody actually formally trains it. Yeah, so,

(06:43):
you know, a very very unfair thing to do to
a law enforcement officer who you know, even even large
metro agencies with dudes who are slotted full time to
a tactical team. I mean, they still have petrol old duties.
You know, they're not like sitting around in the swat

(07:03):
house waiting for a call out and just training the
rest of the time. You know, that's that's not what's up.
And then you take a guy on that team and
make him a sniper and da da da da da
da da. Even those guys are not like training those things,
you know, to a tax conditions standard and uh, and

(07:24):
it's like anything. It's like you just you know, it's
unfair to assume a guy should just know how to
do that if he's not trained and he doesn't practice
it regularly.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
So yeah, my small piece of training, buy well to
reinforce what you said also about implementing the live fire
and instage are not instigating initiating things off of sniper
sniper fire. A few years ago, I attended the level
two course over at Darcy. UH the counter Terriors and
score of course, where there's uh ballistic breaching, explosive breaching,

(07:58):
but there also happened to be like snipers shooting at
various targets right parallel with where you're at, and they're
shooting at targets roughly within where you're working. And that
was a cool experience. I haven't been around that, I've
not been parallel with a bullet whizzing Buy. That was
a very cool experience. I even near the end of

(08:21):
one of the ops. For those of you listening can't
see video that was. I didn't have to do the
quotation fingers for the ops. I had to break up
my phone or something. I don't remember if it was
a GoPro or a phone, but just record being right
next to the target as it's getting smacked, and how
cool that was and how what a unique experience.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah, it's you know, the sniper especially, there are many
skills and techniques and procedures that have to be taught
and they have to be performed as standard, and then
the same for the assaulters. You know, they have to
learn how to work in that environment. And then yeah,
of course to train that it has to be done

(09:04):
in a safe, repeatable way. And it's like, yeah, it's
just not something that I don't recommend, like any agency saying, hey,
we're just gonna we're just going to start doing that,
you know, not.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, yeah, but that being said, also to be put
in that situation in a real environment and have that
the first time that occurs, and then find out, oh,
sniper's not comfortable with shooting that close or assaulters aren't
moving because there's sniper fire around them, Well, that's not
the time you want to learn this.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
These are things, Yeah, you know, and when you reached
out to me, that was, I know a little bit
of what you wanted to talk about in a general
sense about like precision rifle craft. And you know, most people,
I think, you know, it's most people don't know. And
that's part of like the task for seventy mission is,
you know, and that's you know, seventy percent of US

(09:58):
law enforcement agencies have ten or fewer officers in them.
You know, it's a it's a tremendous statistic. And even
like moderate size municipal agencies that have twenty five or
thirty officers that have a SRT at some level, you know,

(10:19):
and I got to say even a lot of metro agencies.
You know, on the sniper side, a lot of those agencies,
the sniper is essentially paying out a pocket to be
a sniper as far as his equipment and his you know,
first and second line gear to support that and stuff

(10:42):
like that. So I mean, there are there are you know,
the vast majority of agencies who have a sniper capability
on their SRT that you know, the sniper is purchasing
his personal wepin and optic and bipod and try pod
and you know, and and I'm very very I'm very sympathetic,

(11:05):
very supportive of guys who do all of that so
they can give that community that that capability. Uh, it's
it's a very important mission. But at the same time,
you know, there's hobby grade equipment, there's professional duty grade equipment.

(11:25):
One is not as good as the other. And you know, uh,
and while I'm very sensitive to the the cost associated
with taking on a mission like that and supporting yourself
with equipment, and I mean the vast majority of law
enforcement agencies they are supporting themselves and there is a

(11:46):
lot of like cash out of pocket to have the
proper equipment, you know, and I'm very sensitive to that.
So in an ideal world, you know, when an agency
comes to me and they say, hey, you know, here's
a really common scenario where somebody says, okay, we've got
like six dedicated weapons systems for the team. They were

(12:11):
built by a custom gun smith, like in nineteen eighty four.
That guy's out have been out of business for ten years.
Nobody wants to work on these. They're losing accuracy. You know,
we're looking at doing an agency purchase, you know, to
get us up to speed here in the twenty first century,

(12:32):
and it's like great, buy ais go buy accuracy internationals
by complete systems. You know, I'll tell you the optic
that I think you should look at best. Same with
mounts and all the other things like that. And you're
going to spend like twelve to fifteen grand per system
for a minimum, right. But if you've done that, there's

(12:56):
no second guess and equipment. There's no day where you're
rolling out for training. It's like, how come this thing
was zeroed when I, you know, put it away last
time and now it's like I'm off, like the full
mill what is? You know, you're diagnosing a sick rifle.
If you have the capability to do something like that,
the number of times that that will ever come up
in your duty life approaches about zero. Now. The issue

(13:18):
is is like most agencies and a lot of individuals
as well who want to get in the precision rifle
game aren't looking at making like a ten to fifteen
thousand dollars initial purchase.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
No, not at all. Matter of fact, I remember hearing
about some of the initial sniper stuff from a local
team and Remington seven hundred PSS three or eight with
a very x three, three and a half to nine
or ten. Sure, And that was the basic This is okay,
this is this is what we're starting with.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Does it work?

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yes, If it's still the solution right now, you might
want to look at some options.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah, you know, if you want to just dive into it.
You know, I think you limited the scope of the
topic very well to talk about, you know, like knus
And you know, one thing that I always throw out there,
it's just you know, and I'm putting on the law
Enforcement Sniper Trainer had is like all law enforcement is

(14:18):
local on every level, and that and for capability and
equipment too. So to say that like somebody like in
the East or the Midwest or somewhere like that where
the way that their tactical team supports the agency, is

(14:39):
that really like a two hundred yard reasonable engagement range
would seem you know, that's what we would limit things to.
You know, that's perfectly reasonable, perfectly perfectly reasonable to build
a capability around as far as equipment. You know. But

(15:01):
of course, when you like I say all law enforcement
is local, when you look at the American Sniper Association
data for engagements you know, every calendar year, I mean,
like there's what's the average like law enforcement sniper engagement
distance this far? You know, every year agoes somewhere about like,

(15:23):
you know, like whatever forty two to fifty three yards
somewhere in there. I'll I'll just throw that out as
a gross And why is that? That's because the operational
environment that's happening is you know, if there's a barricade suspect,
if there's a high risk warrant being served, high risk apprehension,

(15:47):
if you know, whatever it is where the team is
rolling out, if it's in a you know, suburban or
urban setting, you know, the engagement distance from like the
the house across the street to the target house and
that's it. It's like thirty eight yards, yeah, you know,

(16:07):
and that's where the work is going on. You know.
The reason that that average law enforcement sniper engagement distance
ends up being somewhere that everybody would think is relatively
close is because of the operational environment. But at the
same time, every year there is always somebody who got

(16:29):
like a six hundred odd yard sniper engagement. You know
their ois was it like six hundred plus yards because
it was from you know, in one of the agencies
in the Western states, this wedding was most likely, you know,
a barricade suspect or you know, you know, something like

(16:50):
that where they're under a relatively long term surveillance from
a distance. You know, it's a big open area. You know,
it makes sense for the overwatch and the perimeter security
to be set back in a place that makes sense
for terrain. And you get these like four or five

(17:11):
six hundred yard engagements where law enforcement sniper you know,
has to deal with the threat at that distance. And
is that the average Nope. But again, all law enforcement
is local, which means determining capabilities and the equipment to
support that capability gets back into Yeah, there's not one

(17:33):
size fits all. So as we talk about like you know,
the weapon system itself, the optic choices and things like that,
there's a lot of variability in there. And certainly training,
training takes a big part in that, you know, And
I'll just continue to gear my conversation about equipment towards
the law enforcement professional. And there is there's a difference

(17:54):
between the guy who you know, his sniper qualification is
he went through his State TA like five day, forty
hour certification to be a sniper, but he's not necessarily
like a precision or rifle guy. You know what you
learn it in that basic forty hour course and it's

(18:16):
essential fundamental training. But you're basically learning how to shoot
for accuracy through a you know, a magnified optic on
a bolt gun and how to produce you know, good
on demand accuracy. And that's what you're doing. You're not
learning positional shooting to any extent. You're not learning anything

(18:37):
about tripod shooting. You're not learning how to build final
firing positions, you're not learning field craft skills. You're doing
none of those things. You're learning how to shoot accurately.
So the weapons system that would serve that operator is
different than the guy who is either like he's a

(18:57):
military trained sniper's part of his back round around who'said
way wait, wait, way way more advanced training. Or he's
a guy who's gone through additional levels of advanced training.
He sought that out. Or he's a guy who's like
he's a precision rifleman. He shoots long range, you know,
as his own method of like practice and self expression

(19:20):
and enjoyment, and you know that's really his thing, and
he's able to take those additional skills and translate that
into his into his capabilities for duty. You know. So
there's a big difference I wanna do. I wanna hamper,
you know, any agency by saying you should only have

(19:43):
a relatively low power four by sixteen first focal plane,
simple crosshair optic because you're never going to engage anything
past like even one hundred yards. And I don't want
there to be any fusion with you with any of
these very complex Christmas Tree reticals, and I don't want

(20:05):
you to do anything. I just want something that's dependable,
that's going to put that shot where it needs to
go every single time, from fifty to one hundred yards.
And there is nothing wrong with that. That is a
very very valid way to build a program. But again,
you dig what I'm saying, under the same circumstances, right,

(20:26):
taking that guy who's had that forty hour basic, he's
there's no ability to get him additional training or he's
going to be doing it on her own or something
like that. And given that guy like a seven x
thirty five, you know, trimmer three retical with a switch
barrel system and all of that kind of stuff, he's
going to end up making a mistake. He's gonna end up.

(20:48):
He's it's it's uh, you know, almost like a fighter
pilot who gets that, you know, gets that information overload
and loses sight of the horizon because you know, so
there are a lot of capabilities that you can build
into these systems based on your equipment choices that will
let you succeed from twenty five meters to two thousand

(21:10):
meters if you're the person who has those capabilities and
you practice them. So there's just I know, you agree
more than anybody. It's like this, Yeah, I mean, by
all law enforcements is local. Not every sniper is equally
capable or motivated. And you know, making these equipment selections

(21:33):
to get a program going or to replace older equipment,
there's a lot of these considerations you know, to have
in mind. So I guess that was long pream but
we just wanted to start by talking about the weapon systems, right.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
That works great, And what comes to mind when you
the way you just explained that was in the back
of my mind.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Dang it, and it just left.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
It was something that pat rogers would say on a
regular basis, and it was probably like it's essentially mission
mission yeah, yeah, absolutely, but also diminishing returns. You have
the guy that he's striving for that minimum standard. Does
he need the treummor three? Yeah, maybe, yeah, exactly, yeah,

(22:18):
and especially if we're talking law enforcement and budgets, butts
are only so far or so much.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Big time. Well, I'll jump in and just talk about
a couple of things, and there's something up that strikes you, man, Uh,
the most basic you know, choosing that that weapon system,
choosing the rifle. The argument that was really really big,
you know, five, six, ten years ago that I would
that I would have to talk to dudes all the

(22:44):
time about is like gas gun versus bolt gun. Yeah,
you know, gas guns are just as accurate as bolt guns.
Blah blah blah blah blah. And the answer is no,
you want a bolt gun. If your job is precision,
If you're job is delivering precision fire, you want a
bolt gun. Gas guns, yes, there are the occasional gas

(23:07):
gun that are capable of very very fine accuracy. But
I've done this in courses for years, you know, where
dudes show up with what they got, what their agency
has issued them. And when you know, this was really big,
even like seven eight years ago where it's like there
was a state agency, an Eastern Seaborn state agency who

(23:28):
they're state police. They bought like DPMs tens for everybody,
and I said, guys, you're not gonna You're not going
to pass the shoot in with those weapons. I'm not
like trying to like beat you before you started. But
it's not it's not going to happen. You know. The
shoot in for SWAT Sniper Overwatch is a course of

(23:53):
fire from two hundred to twenty five yards in twenty
five yard increments two hundred one seventy five fifty two
shots prone, you know, and running to each successive distance
one five one hundred seated seventy five fifty kneeling twenty

(24:18):
five yards standing offhand, two shots ever reached it into
a three inch paster. Yeah, and those guns are not
going to meet that accuracy standard. And if you can't
meet that accuracy standard, I can't take you into the
city on city day to shoot into a stadium bullet
trap in a real neighborhood in this community. You know,

(24:42):
where the accuracy standard at these wacky distances of like
forty seven yards, you've got to keep both shots into
the two inch square, you know, on the target, and
you're not going to be able to do that, and argument, argument, argument.
You know, it's like everybody who's ever showed up with
a gas gun and all of that, there's been one
out of twenty of them that have succeeded with a

(25:03):
gas gun. Otherwise, on city day, I mean, they go
through the whole course, but on city day they notionalize
their shots. They don't get to shoot in the city
because they're not safe. You know, one of the times
there was a huge argument like that with guys just
you know, I'm going to show you all of that.
You know, guy raises his hand, stands up and he says,
me and my whole team just last week before we

(25:25):
came to your course, Stock just came from the FBI
Advanced Sniper Course at Quantico and the same thing. The
instructors look out of the class and said, anybody who's
running a gas gun, we will sign you out a
forty X from our armory to use for the course
because you will not pass our standards with a gas gun.

(25:45):
It's not even debatable. I'll put the nail in this
and finish a Gas guns do have a role in
law enforcement My ideal use for a team to have
a gas gun is for vehicle comper You know, if
you're responsible for public venue support, if you have a

(26:06):
high speed avenue of access that you're trying to you know,
control for a vehicle, you know, counter v bid. You
know what, however you want to frame that and all
of that a gas gun to be able to interdict
of the vehicle where you're trying to disrupt the air
fuel mixture or the electrical system and kill that vehicle

(26:28):
as soon as it, you know, passes the barricades or
however it's managed to compromise you and all that. For
vehicle compromise, a gas gun makes perfect sense otherwise having
that rapidity of fire. And you know, and believe me,
I got plenty of gas guns over there, you know,
if I was trying to make the you know, if

(26:50):
the if the jihadi has got my wife with the
gun door head h yeah, yah yah yah. You know
what gunna, You know, I've got a very simple twenty
two inch gap three oh eight that puts them into
one hole every time. That's the rightful I would like
to have with me to like save my wife's life.
Do you dig? Dig what I'm saying, so, so don't

(27:10):
even have that argument with yourself. Uh uh. And all
of these everything I'm going to answer equipment wise can
be can be answered very simply from like a set
of conditional logic. You know, if then you know, if
the question, then these are the conditions that you have

(27:31):
to that you have to achieve to answer that question.
If the job is a law enforcement sniper is to
be able to provide the most precise, accurate fire possible,
repeatably on demand, then that job belongs to a bolt gun. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
If then, yeah, that's also and how many shots typically.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
Right, how many shots you know in a law enforcement
you know, O Y s.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
You know, it's not and there are always exceptions, Yeah,
they're always absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
We're just talking so you know, I will just uh grab.
So here's a you know, in this day and age
we are we are living in the day and age
of like the chassis system. Yeah, you know, so number one,
we've decided you're going to go with a bolt gun.
Go with a chassis system as opposed to a traditional

(28:29):
stock system in this day and age because of their versatilility,
because of their you know, portability to have a you know,
a folding stock to have be able to do all
of those things. I would just say, you know, and
there are a million great choices out over there. This
is a Tikah Tack, the T three X Tack A one.

(28:51):
I introduced this rifle for Barretta Defense at their Bretta
Defense Symposium, uh Harever many years ago, and I've put
a lot of agencies into these. Back at the time
when they were introduced eight nine years ago, they were
about thirteen hundred bucks. I think they're about eighteen nineteen
hundred dollars now and they're still It's got everything you

(29:14):
want on a duty capable precision gun and nothing you
don't need. Keep talking, I'm stepping away just for a second.
Yeah I can hear you. I'm wireless, but yeah, cool.
I'll just blah blah blah. You know, true three position
safety where you can lock the seer but still operate

(29:36):
the bowl to unload the gun. They come with, you know,
their own proprietary steel ten round staggered magazine which they
feed like a house on fire. They come with two.
They give you like a gift certificate for a third
three to one three ten round magazines is a lifetime supply,

(29:58):
you know, full length for mounting clip ons. You know,
Arca rail available and things like that, has threaded barrel
to accept a suppressor. So the Tikas I recommend highly. Yeah,
there you go, right, Tika. Tika is just a division

(30:20):
of Soco, their Socco barrels, their hammer forged barrels. You know,
when I introduced these guns for Barretta to the USA,
they gave me like fifteen of them the night before
the event and I had to mount fifteen optics on
fifteen guns inside them in for a bunch of journalists

(30:41):
and defense reporters and stuff. Man, I worked my ass off,
but you know, huh to get all that done. But
one of the things I quickly realized, and they're not
my guns. I didn't pull a borsnake down or nothing.
And they had grease and the barrels and they you know,
I man, I just shot them and every one of
those cotton pick in things with shooting an inchure under

(31:03):
right from the get go. And guns they're they're not
as you know, it's not a three eighths minute shooting gun.
Like you know, you've got to pay more money for that,
you know, if that's what you want from a factory gun,
buy an AI and if it doesn't shoot like that,
send it back to them. But this will get the

(31:23):
job done, you know, after you've got the rifle decided on,
I should say there's other there are many others out there, Uh,
some that I don't have any confidence in whatsoever as
duty capable gun. I'm sorry. Savage has a great barrel
making operation. They have excellent barrels. Their triggers are excellent.

(31:47):
Those ACU triggers are excellent. Their extraction and ejected ejection
system sucks. Their magazine, their magazine suck. Don't buy a
gun that's going to be a project, right, Don't buy
a gun that's going to be a project where you're
gonna have to find a gunsmith to tune this or
do that or something else like that. So Savages great guns,

(32:10):
don't buy them as duty guns. Sorry, sorry if that
hurts your feelings. There's like at least a couple of
TOA instructors who swear by their Savages, and I shit
on them all the time. It's like, don't tell people
to buy a Savage, you know, don't do it. Bergara
is like out there's an affordable option I've seen them
in classes, not seen a problem with them, have no

(32:31):
like personal I don't own any of or run them,
but you know they offer like a lifetime barrel replacement. Now,
you're never going to shoot a barrel out on a
threeh eight. Yeah, you're just not gonna do it. I
have guns with Bartland barrels that have documented over four
thousand rounds that are still like essentially like you know,
clover leafing guns. I mean, you're these middling velocity like

(32:55):
three O eights and stuff like that stand near impossible
to shoot a barrel out. But those bigaras, they have
such confidence in them that, you know, lifetime barrel replacement.
You know, so some to consider, and certainly there's others
out there. And as you want to step up and
get more into like the custom builders, you know, sky's
the limit, or go all the way to AI as
a factory limit. You know, tell your agency that they

(33:17):
got to buy you AIS and that's law enforcement standard,
and tell them Doc told you so, and uh, and
you'll have guns that you'll never worry about. Yeah. So guns,
that's that's about the big thing. You know. Optics always
comes in next, and it's like I say you've got
decisions to make for the for the for the swap

(33:42):
commander or the sniper team leader is going to say, look,
knowing what our operational environment is, knowing the level of
expertise my guys have, I want a something like four
to sixteen power and something magnification on the lower and
makes sense. I want a second focal plane scope so

(34:05):
that the redical is the exact same size throughout the
range of magnification, which just means that, you know, the
radical can't be used for ranging or anything else like
that may not make any difference to you, but it's like,
I want that rifle to that guy. There's nothing confusing
about it. He's gonna you know, you need target turrets.

(34:26):
You do have to have target turrets, dialable turrets so
that you can adjust your your elevation, your come ups,
and things like that. Absolutely, that's all I want for
the guy. I want him to I want him to
have a very clear visual field with nothing obstructing what
he's looking at. Totally cool. I have no argument whatsoever

(34:48):
with that. If that fits those parameters for you, if
you're the kind of in the kind of environment and
have the kind of capabilities where you may need to
go to longer ranges. You made need more than yeah,
having like a Christmas tree plex redical that will let you,
you know, easily hold wind calls and do things like

(35:12):
that first focal plane so that you know your your
spotter and you can communicate to each other in mills
for you know, holds and things like that way superior.
It's not even questionable minutes or mills. I would just
say this, mills. We're in the twenty first century. Mills

(35:33):
is all we care about, you know, And I don't
care if it's second or first focal plane scope. Just
go to mills. You'll never regret it. Stop thinking things
in inches and feet and yards and it doesn't. They're
all everything we're concerned about is an angular measurement. And
once you go to like a unitless measurement and just
think about things and mills, especially with first focal plane scopes,

(35:56):
it makes life easier. What else, Uh, optics, whatever your
choice otherwise, Uh, I strongly believe for duty grade optics
you should have an illuminated radical. That was my question.
You should have an illuminated radical. Uh, there's no question

(36:16):
about it. In those in those you know, twilight or
dusk hours, or you know, you just have a background
that you lose that radical end, then you've lost your
ability to do your job. Illumined illuminated radicals very very much.
UH have their have their have their use can't indicator

(36:37):
versus slope indicator. Used to see this a lot, and
this especially in the g WATT because guys coming back
from Afghanistan, you know a lot of uphill or downhill
slope shooting, and people would have a co signed slope
indicator on their on their guns. Law enforcement guys completely useless.

(36:58):
It's a do dad hanging off your gun you never know,
and especially dudes who would have slope indicators, but they
wouldn't have a can't indicator on your gun. You can
get by in that scenario where you're never really operationally
going to shoot past two hundred, You can get by

(37:18):
without either. That you don't need either indicator, but of
the two and I'll just I'll blow through it. Just
to make sense is the reason that a slope indicator
is tits on a boar is the bullet. If you're
shooting up or down slope, the bullet only cares about

(37:40):
the actual horizontal distance as far as gravity affects the
drop and shooting up er downhill, the actual straight line
normal force perpendicular to gravity distance is the coast sign
of the slope angle. Well, I'll just blow through this

(38:01):
and up to about a thirty degree slope up or down.
The coast sign of almost all the way to thirty
degrees is point nine. So if you were shooting at
one hundred meters and had almost a thirty degree down
slope one hundred meters timeser point nine is ninety meters.

(38:23):
What's the difference in your elevation dope between ninety meters
and one hundred meters. It's the same as your one
hundred meters dope. There's the subtensions of your scope, whether
it's quarter minutes or tens of mail, it doesn't care. So,
and a thirty degree slope is a huge slope. Does
it make a difference at six hundred meters? Yes, it

(38:43):
makes a difference at all distances, but the how much
of a difference. So what I'm saying is dudes. So
it's like they have a candy, you know, a slope
indicator on their gun. It's like, what the hell do
you even need that for? Especially if you're just at
the flat range or anything. I'm shooting out of a
second story window and I want to make sure that
I have the right dope. You're shooting at thirty three yards,

(39:07):
you know it will make zero difference, you know, versus
a can't indicator your left right rotation can't Yes, makes
a big difference, especially at larger distances. You know, the
difference between a hit and a miss past six hundred
meters is can't almost one hundred percent of the time.

(39:28):
So if you have put one on, have a can't
indicator on a slope indicator, you don't need it for anything.
Dope notes. I took this out of my scope cap
cover just to be able to see. But I keep
a little with like duty ammunition with one sixty eight
grain tap hornities in there where it's just got my

(39:48):
dope in twenty five meter increments, you know, out to
like two hundred and fifty meters. You know that sits
right in there inside my scope cap, so you know,
as I'm running, I just I mean, I know it.
But it's just a quick visual indicator that sits right there.
It's very handy. I hate you know, you can have
like dope cards that attach to your rail that hang

(40:11):
out there. I hate anything I don't have to have
hanging off the side of the rifle, catching on things
when I'm trying to you know, climb ladders and stuff
like that. You know, I don't want to have them.
The next big thing that I'll have to say that
it applies. You know, as we're talking more and more
about duty of course, a bipod is like bare bones

(40:32):
essential equipment. You have to have a bipod. You know,
there's days of like we're going to shoot off our
packs and do stuff like that. Died in the you know,
it died forty years ago. You know, a bipod is
useful in every way, and it helps to stabilize your
firing position. The big thing that is probably less obvious

(40:52):
to a lot of people is the argument of suppressors
versus recoil breaks for duty guns. I will make the
uh observation that every gun needs to have a can
on it. Every gun needs to have a suppressor on it.

(41:14):
Break versus suppressor which is superior in reducing recoil, the break,
which is superior in optical return on target faster a break.
There's no question about it, and I'll talk about that

(41:38):
in a second. A break is not a safety device.
It is an anti safety device. It creates muzzle blast
that is a detriment to everybody but the shooter, and
is urban snipers doing most of our stuff within a building,
even with hearing protection in a break file, A high

(41:58):
power rifle with a break fire inside of building destroys hearing.
It absolutely destroys hearing. You'll shatter windows. You know, it
happens every time, you know, or guys say like I've
heard that. You know, guys, I put this, you know,
the gun didn't come with a break on it, but
I ordered this one off midway and I put it
on there because it was threaded, you know, because I

(42:21):
want to reduce recoil. You know, man, You're I hate
to say it like this and sound like a dick,
but I'm just going to go for it because I
am a dick. Is If you cannot tolerate the recoil
of a three to zero eight weapons system, you don't
need to be a law enforcement sniper, right. Ridiculous, That's ridiculous.

(42:45):
A sound suppressor is a safety device that makes your
weapons you're safe to everybody on the team reduces muscle signature,
does reduce blasts. Is not going to break windows. It's
not going to do stuff like that. So if the
choice is a bear muscle or a break, go with

(43:09):
the bear muzzle, right. Absolutely, do not put brakes on
duty sniper rifles. Don't do it, you know that idea? Well,
you know, all the PRS guys have breaks because you know,
you want to be able to spot the trace and
the impact of your own round to make corrections. Absolutely true,

(43:29):
You're not a PRS shooter, you know. It's another example
where you know a lot of equipment from the gaming
world that finds its way into the duty world hurts us,
you know. So yeah, every damn rifle out to have
a suppressor on it, you know, so that so that
you're not a detriment to the team. I guess the
last little bit of do that. You know, a sling.

(43:52):
A rifle without a sling on it is worthless, you know,
it's not for and it has to be an appropriate
precision rifles laying. You know, even on our M fours.
You know, the sling one of its primary purposes is
not just to allow us to get a clean transition
or our pistol, but it's to be able to stabilize

(44:12):
our site picture from any firing position. That is especially
true with the sniper weapon system. You know, it's primary purpose. Yeah,
part of it is portability, but primarily it's that we
use it to stabilize our site picture from every firing position.
And you know, so it's part of reducing wobble. The

(44:33):
last thing I'll say about, like setting up something like
a duty rifle, a stock pack. If you have a
chassis kind of our stock system that will take a
stock pack, that ability to you know, have you know,
that extra magazine right there, not having to go somewhere
else and reach for it is super crucial. And I
think pretty much the only place you can get these

(44:55):
is from Triad Tactical. You know, in Kansas City. You
know there's you know, uh, it's another thing that's fallen
by the wayside. But uh, a stock pack. If you
have a if you have a weapon system that will
will allow you to have a stock pack, you will
always benefit from from having that right there by your
face and not anything once you're behind the gun and

(45:17):
you're on the optic. If you have your equipment built
in away where you don't have to leave the gun,
take your face off the gun, or leave the optic,
and you can do everything right there as is. You know,
now now you're ready to do the job. You know,
now you're ready. Now you're ready. You know when when
you know you give tell your sniper team leader I'm up,

(45:39):
and sniper team leader, you know, tells the tactical commander
sniper's up. You mean it, It's not just some notionalized,
vague meaningless you know, sniper's up. You mean you're you're
on the second floor and you have eyes on the target.
But you know, you know, what do you what are
you doing? You know you're still put my pants on,
but I'm here exactly. You know you're not actually ready

(46:01):
to take the shot. So well, you brought up sling
weapon system itself. That's that's most of the big ones.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Yeah, well you brought up slings. What specific slings have
you found to work the best?

Speaker 1 (46:13):
You know, there's a brand, I use a variety of them.
I think for a sniper weapon system, that ability to
where if you do have to take a true off
hand sling supported shot, the ability to cuff up, you know,
the ability to cuff up is big that rifles only
sling is a is you know one that I love? Uh, Yeah,

(46:36):
you can get a rifleman's wrap. There's a lot of
other things, you know, but it's like I practice standing
off hand sling supported shooting at two hundred meters on
IP six steals and if I can't cuff up, you know,
I can't, I can't get a predictable oscillation and to
develop a patterned approach to break the shot, you know.

(46:59):
So so having an actual dedicated precision rifle slaying as
opposed to like a carrying strap, you know, that's it's essential. Yeah,
Scope mounts, mounts, you know, certainly make a difference. You know.
Look I I you know, people ask me what's the

(47:20):
what's the cheapest optic I can get away with? You know,
what's the cheapest mount? And I have to say, you're
asking the wrong guy because I won't cheap out on
an optic, or I won't cheap out on a mount,
you know, like the Night Force military package that comes
with their like cantilevered mounts, you know they have you know,

(47:40):
I don't love cantilevered mounts, but that mount has been
rock solid and I run it on systems up through
three point thirty eight, and I haven't regretted it. When
I'm laying out the dollars, I prefer the Spur. The
IMSS mounting system is absolutely rock solid, but Badger makes
wonderful mounts. Spur makes probably the best mounts. The night

(48:01):
Force mounts are great. You know Leopold loopholed, I mean
to say, right, yeah, well yeah, showing my showing my
hillbelly side loop. You know, but Loopy Lupy has good
mounts that they traditionally guaranteed with their scopes, you know,
as being concentric and things like that. So you know, uh,

(48:23):
steel mounts over aluminum, yeah, most of the time, but
you know there's very high grade, durable aluminum mounts to
just you know, it's like, god, don't don't don't buy
a decent quality scope, put it on a decent quality
rifle and by like you know, like you know, twenty
five dollars burists illuminum mounts like, don't do it.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
That was one of the things I learned early on
was the optic needs to be at least the cost
of the rifle.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
It's you know, we you know, in the old old days,
we used to say like, you know, the optics should
be a minimum of twice whatever the rifle is and
stuff like that. These days. I mean, if anybody's asking me,
my standard go to a duty grade optic is the
night Force Attacker, whichever magnification range you choose. I've got

(49:12):
them four to sixteen all the way up to the
seven x thirty five military, which is the same one
that's so calm purchased and runs. And the Attacker I'm
traditionally a Schmidbender PM two guy that I ran him exclusively.
You know, I've got probably ten of them on the
rack over there. They're great optics. The Attacker is a
better optic in every way. You know, maybe the glass

(49:35):
does not have quite the light transmissibility, but I will
forgive that because the traditionally for a long range gun,
getting control of your sites, doing what we call a
tall target test, which is like at one hundred yards
dialing up you know, ten mills, shooting a group and

(49:58):
then taking a measurement and determining is is ten mills
actually ten mills downrange? You know, like how do you
know like every click is actually a quarter a minute
or a tenth of the mill, and doing a tall
target test on every optic and finding out what the
actual turret values were in the real world and plugging
that into your ballistic calculator the correction. Right. I don't

(50:23):
even bother to do a tall target test on the
attackers anymore, because after I after the first three that
I bought, and I did tall target tests on them,
and they came out one to one perfect. And now
it's like, if it's just the way that I do it,
I'll just test an optic is to test these attackers

(50:44):
is whatever my my kestral ballistic estimate is for like
my you know, one fifty meter target. I'll just you know,
dial that up and if I'm within like the you
know center two to three inches on that steel, the
turrets must be true. Yeah, I have that confidence where

(51:08):
I shoot, so, uh. The other thing, I'll just roll
around like you know, first line gear, first line gear,
you know, just change in like your your what you
normally roll out with your plate carrier as a sniper,
you know, on my PC in edition everything else, I
just have a dedicated pouch, uh, you know, to have
an extra magazine for my for my duty weapon, you know,

(51:32):
which other guys don't have. To worry about, you know,
So that's something or the same thing. If it's on
your uh, on your duty belt with your pistol, if
you have a dedicated pouch. You know. That's why I
like a stock pack, Yeah, because that's all handy. So
it's either you know, a dedicated pouch on my plate
carrier or on my duty belt or the stock pack.
So I have an extra magazine, not just you're gonna

(51:53):
run out Ammo, but you know you dump your your
magazine got dumped to you know, you you climbed up
three stories, got to that you know, roof port, you
climbed up the ladder, you get on the roof from
the magazine fell out of your weapon somewhere. You know,
it does happen. Yeah, so having another having another magazine
very handy on your first line gear makes sense to me.

(52:16):
I guess what we would go ahead.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
I was gonna say, yeah, we can take that quick
little break, yeah yeah, for refills or bathroom or whatever.
And I will be able to tell you exactly. It
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Speaker 1 (54:16):
And that's how it's done. About being bout of boom yep.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
So I went through a couple of classes with Buck
Doyle and he's local and does a scope carbing course,
And man, did I get to see the benefits of
a Tremor three.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
And I've said this, I've.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
Brought this up on the podcast multiple times, but what
a cool, cool concept, especially for something that might be
moving or you need to you need to do a
follow up shot real fast. Hopefully that first shots where
it needs to be. But it provides so much data.
What a just a cool concept.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
Yeah, it's uh, it's it's great to train guys up
and how to use that. I had a a Scout
section at Fort Stewart earlier this year that I was
training up, which is a bunch of guys who are
assigned to like the Scout sniper section, and most of
them are getting ready to go to the schoolhouse. And

(55:20):
it's like and get them built up on over that
over a few days. And the first focal plane advantage
in our hash mill laser etched redicals. You know that
tremor three is, you know, just I doubt we'll ever
surpass it. You know, I hate to say things like that,

(55:41):
but you know I've seen believe me. I go back
to my first My first sniper school was nineteen eighty
seven US Army Sniper School. I'm a plank holder of
the US Army Sniper School. You know, it's first his
first official year. You know where we went back to,
you know, you know the you know USMC, you know

(56:04):
football shape, you know the retical Milk Dot reticals and
and the ART one and the Art two. And I've
seen every generation going you know, forty odd years now.
And let me tell you that term of three is fantastic.
And the laser etche technology, the center aiming dot with
the cutout around it. You know, an old critique by

(56:26):
a lot of police snipers against first focal plane scopes
is that when you mag up that the ritical grows
inside and that the lines are so thick that they
obscure a lot of your vision. And on like that
trimmer three, the the the redical, the grids, the center

(56:47):
cutout are all so fine that even on like my
big ones, like up on thirty five power, that central
dot does not obscure anything. You can see everything wonderfully.
So I guess I would just you know, we talked
about like the weapon system, like first line gear. I
guess there's like second line gear that we could talk about. Yeah,

(57:09):
and you know the next most important the next most
important thing is a tripods. Yes it is, I believe.
And this happens all the time where we get you know,
agencies where guy wants to come and train. It's like, man,
they issued me, you know, opens up this hard case.
Here's this rifle and a scope, and they say, now

(57:30):
I'm going to be the team sniper. And it's like
there's no bipod, there's no bags, there's no can't indicator,
and they're sure as hell in a tripod. I don't
think that there's any duty weapons system that is complete
as an issue unless a tripod is part of that system.
Because the tripod allows you to build a solid, stable

(58:00):
firing position from virtually any height, from the ground up
to standing and when you're conversant in how to do
it and the principles, and it's something that has to
be trained. You just can't throw a tripod at a
guy and expect him to succeed with it. And that's,
you know, one of my main main tasks in life

(58:21):
is training people how to properly use tripods. But it
is essential gear. It is absolutely essential gear. There's there's
no question about it. Not all tripods aren't created equal.
What I put guys into is I say absolutely here
is like, you know, the basics, like a hog saddle,

(58:44):
aluminum O three eleven tripod. You know, I think there
don't don't quote me on this, but there's somewhere under
two hundred bucks, maybe a lot less than all of that.
And then put a saddle, a pig saddle or a
hog saddle, whatever you can afford directly on top of that,
and you have a bullet proof system that you can
drop this thing off a roof, carry it with you.

(59:08):
Tripods need to have slings on them so that you
can sling it and move quickly and deploy it. You know,
I hate seeing guys that they got all this equipment
and none of it has a way to be transported.
You know, it's a lot of trips from the Yeah
it is, which is I'll talk about that in a second.

(59:28):
Ballhead like photo camera armatures is like are junk right?
The idea that you know, well, I can't. You know,
I need all this adjustability. The more degrees of freedom
there are between the rifle and the tripod, the more
wobbles induces. Oh doc, that's bullshit. Mine lockdown perfectly and

(59:50):
a go again on there. The radical is the truth. Dudes,
with those systems, we bring them out to range all
the time. It says, look at your system and how
in three basic of site pictures as applies to precision rifle.
As I would teach it is there's a sustained hold,
which is you know, a concrete bench is the gold standard.

(01:00:11):
That's why bench rest shooters shoot on concrete benches. Right.
A good bag supported bipod, front bag, rear, proper body
position prone, you can get that same sustained hold or
damn close to it. You know, it's not even worth
arguing in the distance the difference between those two. That's

(01:00:32):
a sustained hold, the euretical relative to that part of
the target you're aiming at. The radical doesn't move. It's
your heartbeat, it's the pulse from your hand or whatever.
That's what's moving it. Right, sustained hold. The next kind
of site picture that you can get, as I would
call a hover, where whatever the acceptable zone of the

(01:00:57):
target is, the radical is moving, but the redical doesn't
leave whatever that acceptable portion of the target is. You know,
if you're shooting at six hundred meters on a you know,
eighteen by thirty inch chip six steel, and and that
hovers within the central three inches, you know, stop, don't
try and fight the gun perfectly still, you know, apply

(01:01:21):
your wind, send it you have that. You have that
hover for a hole. If you can get a sustained hold,
that's great. But most of the time, from like sitting, kneeling, standing,
sitting kneeling and standing, even with a tripod, you usually
can't get the same level of sustained hold that you

(01:01:42):
can get prone a on a bench makes sense, but
without that tripod, if you're just thinking you're going to
do that standing off hand with a sling like they
do in the movies, and that radical is just sitting
there like that on you know, on Charles Degall's head
or whatever like that, nonsense. It's never going to happen.
Not in a million billion years are you going to

(01:02:03):
make that shot. Right. The tripod lets you then get
at a minimum, if not a sustained hold, at least
that small hover so you can succeed at any height
that's available to you. Right. And the last kind of
side picture is an oscillation where we apply what's called

(01:02:24):
a patterned approach to break the shot going in the
same direction every time. But it's a lost art unless
you're an offhand rifleman and things like that. But that
is why the tripod is essential necessary equipment. And again
you know conditional logic. If your job is to lay
precise fire on demand from any position, then you must

(01:02:49):
have a tripod with that rifle, right because this hole,
this whole idea is like I'm going to get prone
and I'm going to take that shot. There's hardly I've
you know, there's there's a rare situation where you're ever
going to be shooting from the prone.

Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
Yeah, and for me, tripods are fairly new within the
last year, and what I found is exactly what you've described.
Not only that, I'm going to share a picture here,
it also works great for So here's my four year
old with a with a minifix suppressed. It's a little
heavy for him, it's a bolt gun, but using that

(01:03:28):
tripod with such a handy tool, and I just apply
pressure downward on the on the barrel as he's shooting
to make sure it doesn't go anywhere. But it controlled
the muzzle direction. It made shooting for him so much easier.
And also for me, it's shooting, you.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
Know, like my boys is like you know, everybody training
a youth shooter. You know, you've only you can only
do so much. You know, I didn't do like my dad.
You know my dad, you know, we'd go out to
the range for an entire like ten hour day shooting.
So you can only go out, you know, once a month,
and it turned into a marathon. You know. It's like
my boys, it's the same thing. It's like we'll go

(01:04:07):
out in the backyard. You know cause I'm fortunate to
do that, and we'll shoot until you're tired of it. Yeah,
is it a half hour shooting out twenty two rifle? Good,
we're done, let's get out of here. But then it's
the same thing. It's like taking lawn chairs, taking a
couple of tripods and they're scoped both twenty two rifles,
send them on the tripod in a chair and shooting

(01:04:27):
turtles off the pond. You know that they can do
all day? Yeah, and you know so, yes, the tripod
many many.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
Uses and it makes everything easier.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
Absolutely. And the idea is is like I say, if
you can't achieve at least that hover, you can't. You know,
it's like you can't tell your sniper team leader. I'm up,
it's ridiculous. And this is I won't beat a dead
horse here. But you know, it's the same kind of
conversation that I have, Like you know, in the schoolhouses,

(01:04:57):
I'll speak for the Army school house, which is fantastic.
It is fantastic, but they have a limitation on time.
Their job is teaching guys how to get you know,
shots on target out to like through the transonic range,
you know, with those mark twenty twos, so they don't
have tons of tons of time, you know. They when

(01:05:18):
I'm doing something with the Warrior Training Center or out
there sniper school, they come out and see what I'm doing,
and I give them all my lesson plans, and they've
gone through my like you know, tripod courses and stuff,
and they're super great. They're what a great bunch of guys.
But it's like I say, you have to be trained
how to use it, and that's what I do. I'll

(01:05:40):
teach you how to use your bags to fill voids.
You know, how to use your your rear pack to
fill a void between your leg and the ground, or
your chest in the ground or somewhere. I'll show you
how to use your sling to further reduce that hover,
you know, in all positions. I'll show you with your
body position. You know. It has to be training. I
guess the next, you know, the next part of like

(01:06:01):
second line gear is like I prefer a day pack
as opposed to like a big operator pack when you
have to carry everything in like a military context, including
multiple sets of night vision and stuff. The big like
forty five to fifty liter operator packs makes sense. And
I've got them to like my Eberly stock that's got
the sleeve where I can put my you know, put

(01:06:23):
my precision gun on my back and hump that for
great distances for you know, like urban ops and you know,
for our for our swat snipers and all that. Something
that's like a twenty to twenty five liter pack works
better anytime if if I have a setup to where
I can access everything I need without having to take

(01:06:47):
the rifle off, take the pack off, digging my pack
for stuff, you know, set myself up. You know, it's
again conditional logic. If the goal is to be able
to roll out from from last cover and can sealment
or run to get out of the bear cat the
or the hit van and get on target to give

(01:07:08):
overwatch for the hit, switch to containment, you know, be
able to watch that second floor, whatever it is. I
want my gear configured in a way where I can
just do it. I have no dead time trying to
get out with equipment and stuff like that. So my
rear bag, you know, lives on top of my back

(01:07:31):
with a couple of d rings that like come right off, boom,
my pack is there. You know, the kind of the
kind of stuff that I that I run in my
pack is again you know, it's like when I go somewhere,
I'm going to make no trips. You know, my kestrel,
you know, not not essential for a swat sniper, but

(01:07:54):
you know that's where I can, you know, right where
I can get it if I need another you know,
small bag. You know there's something it's it's right there
where I can grab it. You know, I my my
spotting scope lives in there. So you know, with the

(01:08:14):
same archie rails set up for my tripod is my weapons.
So if I'm set up and I'm going to be
somewhere for a while, the weapon comes off the tripod,
the spotter goes on the tripod, and it's very easy
to switch back and forth. And I don't need two
different tripods, you know. The other kind of gear that's

(01:08:37):
that's just helpful and essential that it like rolls out
with me everywhere. Another small rear bag lrf an lrf uh.
You know, I run mine, you know, on a small
tripod and it's a great handy answer. And it's like
I say, it lives in there. It's not necessarily applicable

(01:08:59):
to all all operations, but you need to know the
range very quickly. I would say that like the laser
range finding binocular is probably supplanting the traditional like l RF.
Uh and uh, this is like a GEOVID that I

(01:09:19):
bought many many years ago. It's the the optical quality
is unsurpassed. Uh. With that, you could get away without
having a spotter scope and an LRF. You know, ride
a good laser range finding binocular, especially that you could
mount onto a tripod. Uh. You know, takes two pieces

(01:09:39):
of equipment and takes it down to one. And now
you have the you know, everybody's gone to them. I'll
go to it eventually. It's just I'm a poor uh
like the uh the sig kilos. Yeah, you know, so
that you have an ab a ballistic calculator ability talk
to your kestrol and do things like that right in
one in one piece of gear. Would is quickly it's

(01:10:03):
becoming the a answer and I like it a lot.
You know, the other thing, dope book, just all the
other little you know, carabineer to snap into to stabilize
my shooting position standing off a tripod, small tools, always
plenty of batteries, you know, a little urban gilly you

(01:10:25):
know I always have these silly little tripod campstools, just
simply because with a tripod working from a kneeling height,
once you understand how to set your tripod up for

(01:10:46):
that kneeling height, that's the same height you would work
from sitting in a chair. So if you have a
chair with you, then you're not looking in the environment
trying to find something to sit on, you know, and
versus being seated on the ground or kneeling or something
like that. Set it in a chair. Working at kneeling
height with that tripod in a chair, you can get

(01:11:08):
both elbows on both knees and you can stay behind
that optic literally for hours without fatigue. You can stay
there longer than you can prone. So my whole thing
is is like I want to be able to roll
out with everything that I need without having to make
a second trip, and I want to be able to

(01:11:31):
deploy as a shooter on demand. So that twenty five
liter day pack on me, my tripod on a separate
sling on me, and my rifle. However I decide to
sling it or in my hands, I'm ready to roll
out the hit van. I am ready to pull that

(01:11:53):
sling tight to my chest, protect my optic. I'm ready
to climb a ladder. I'm getting ready to get on
the roof there's a If there's a target at twenty
five yards, I'm ready to engage as a sniper. If
I need like that much more time, I can ground
the rifle, take my tripod off. It's very I know

(01:12:15):
all of my heights, and that's what I teach guys
to do. Every second floor, just about every residential and
commercial building. If you're trying to shoot through a window
or use the window space to shoot through, the lip
of the window is anywhere usually from eighteen to about

(01:12:38):
twenty two inches off the ground, so prone is never
available to you as an urban sniper from inside a building,
but seated or kneeling or the kneeling tripod on a
little tripod chair, you can stay there all day long,
somewhere you know, several feet back into the room. You
can see the target house, you can provide overwatch, you

(01:12:59):
can do all of that. Then it's like I say,
somebody's saying they're in They're in the most uncomfortable position
in the world. They're in this like national match. You know,
like have seated sitting on their rear foot, they're all
crowded up, they've got their slings, like, you know. It's
like I tell guys, that's cool. How long can you
maintain that position? Can you maintain that position for the

(01:13:22):
entire time of the operation until that can be ours
stating right right? You know, much less just the period
of time as you're just trying to like provide overwatch
while the assaulters are moving from you know, LCC to
the breach point, you know, and then to where you
just have to shift off to containment because you've got

(01:13:44):
good guys inside the house and stuff like that. Much
less what if your job is primarily it's like I say,
you're there as an observer, Yeah, you know, can you
can you stay that way for hours?

Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
Hell?

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
No, you can't do that in some silly national match
crouch position. You know. It's not that, And it's not
that those things are valueless. No for being able to
get a very quick, best stabilized position shot right here
and right now. Those offhand sling supported skills should be

(01:14:16):
taught and they should be practiced. But it's like everything,
it's like, wait, those skills, right, I can teach a
guy how to deploy a tripod into a seated position
and get two shots on target from go to two
shots completed into a two inch circle at one hundred

(01:14:36):
meters in thirty seconds. You know that's not long. It
takes you, you know, to like you know, mess with
the cuff sling and do all of this and settle
down and then wait for try and establish an oscillation
and then break the shot and stuff like that. So
the tripod is essential, but it has to be uh

(01:14:57):
has to be trained ear pro. Do you do anything
different on the long gun? I I with cans in
the exterior environment, I don't wear ear pro at all.
You know, are either I'm so deaf or our our
sound suppression is so good with our cans that I

(01:15:18):
don't need it. But into seriously interior, yeah, I wear
in here. I wear in here so it doesn't interfere
with anything. And I went, you know, so now you
know it's after like, uh, you know, I built all
my team Wendy with the external you know and stuff
like that and all that. It's like, you know, about
a year after I built all of that. Whenever the

(01:15:38):
last one is like I went to in Ere and
I said, God, damn it, you know, just waste all
that time and money. I love, I love in here.
It's so less fatiguing.

Speaker 2 (01:15:47):
Is there anything specific that you're using electronic in ere?

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
Uh? Yeah, electronic in here. There's a lot of them.
I haven't tried those axles, but they're really affordable and
I'm curious about them. The three Impell tours were the
first out about like ten years ago, and when you
could get them for like whatever, like two hundred bucks,
they were a real bargain. You know. Now they want
like four hundred bucks for them and they don't. And

(01:16:13):
if you the ones that do have a bluetooth capability
require a separate bluetooth collar, and the bluetooth is not
that good. So it's when my last pair of three
Mpell Tours bite the dust, I'm just gonna throw them away.
Of the autos Otto are really really good and for
about four hundred and fifty bucks, so they're about that

(01:16:33):
much more than the three mpel tour and they're excellent,
and that's what I prefer. I wear them in the
shoot house. You know, guys running shorty, you know, eleven
and a half inch, it's about pans on them and
with brakes on them. That will that will deafen you,
you know in the shoot house, just that in ear
uh itself and in every other environment works fantastic ammunition.

(01:16:58):
Should we just briefly talk about and yeah, you know
of this a real big deep dive again, I'm orienting
this towards the law enforcement duty aspect and guys standing
up a program and all that. Traditionally, this is old
school thinking. You want an open air around, you want

(01:17:20):
an intermediate barrier around, and then you want like ap
you know, the idea being like an open air projectile
that you want is a sniper. You want the most
accurate projectile possible on soft skin humans. You know that
that's gonna be fine, And we're going to use a
match bullet, which was traditionally the Sierra match king. You know.

(01:17:43):
And when I see an agency that, it's like, I say,
they have a load of seer matchkings. I have to
have that sit down talk to Gess, you know, come
to Jesus talk with them and stuff like that. It's
like they, Yes, is it the most accurate bullet out there? Yeah, arguably,
it absolutely is. It is a terrible performer on intermediate barriers.

(01:18:04):
It's not that you can't kill people with them. But
it's just that we can do so much better, you know,
we absolutely can. Believe me. I know tons of dudes
who've dumped a lot of bad guys with Sier one
sixty eight Zier Matchkangs and stuff like that. It's just
that we can do better. The tipped projectiles do such
a better job at initiating reliable expansion and have excellent

(01:18:30):
properties against intermediary intermediate barriers like glass. You know, so
I think probably every agency I've dealt with in the
last ten years, you know, Hornity, tap one sixty eight grain,
it was the Amax, now it's the eld M. It's
essentially the same bullet, just a little bit better ballistic coefficient.

(01:18:53):
Rather than saying, you know what we're gonna do as
an agency, we're gonna buy a practice Amo and then
we're gonna buy du DYMO, divorce yourself from that kind
of a thought, right, it's not a least on the
precision side, right, there's not a there's uh the like
the Hornity, the e O d ms or what worthy
Amax have accuracy potential. That's you know, it's so close

(01:19:17):
to like Seerra matchkings. It's not even worth arguing about.
And like I say, the tip projectiles are much have
much better terminal performance and do better through intermediate barriers
in three oh eight, which again I guess we really
didn't talk about caliber. Guys. It's like, don't don't you know?
It's right you're setting up a program. There's a reason

(01:19:40):
that three o eight is like known as the law
enforcement cartridge of choice for police snipers because it has
such a proven track record of excellent performance. Uh so, yes,
you know, does like six or five creed More have
a better capability against wind? Absolutely, the best three oh

(01:20:03):
eight you're going to do have what we in wind
brackets works at about a four mile an hour wind bracket.
Six to five creed More works at a six mile
an hour wind bracket, which is to say, the amount
of wind deflection you know that is caused. Say say,
I'll just like a tenth of a mill per hundred meters,

(01:20:26):
right A what would deviate a three oh eight a
tenth of a mill per hundred meters at four miles
an hour? The six' five would take a six mile
an hour wind to devi eight as much three hundred
norma a seven mile an hour wind to deavate as
much three thirty eight you, know lapua three hundred, grain you,

(01:20:49):
know eight. TIPS i. Run i've got a solid eight
mile an hour wind bracket twice as good as a
three oh. Eight how much do we really care about?
Wind the distance at one hundred two hundred meters and
stuff like, that we really. Don't does wind have zero? Effect?
No it has? Effect is it a significant? Effect? No

(01:21:09):
it is. Not so you, know, uh you, know LIKE i,
say six y five creed, more is that like something
is like a one hundred and forty to one hundred
and forty two or even one hundred and fifty three
grain six point five hornity a? Tip is that really
that less of a ballistic performer than like a one
sixty eight or a one seventy five three oh Eight in? Reality,

(01:21:34):
no especially you, know bullet construction is most important in
terminal performance and things like. That but you, know don't
be first, on don't be last. Off like you, know
there's there there are so many, things SO i can just, say, like,
guys still don't get wrapped around the axle about. That,

(01:21:54):
yeah the latest greatest thing like all of, that you,
know it's it's is don't do, it don't do it
three oh. Eight the whole world understands. It there's gonna
be ammunition for it. Forever the selection of, wonderful wonderful
projectiles is. There. Uh you, KNOW i was gonna say
it's like probably probably The. Federal it's the UH L

(01:22:15):
e three oh EIGHT T t two, duty it's the
one sixty eight. Tactical. Uh they're tipped trophy bonded you, know,
Uh federal. Premium. UH i have shot all of this
stuff in a in a half a dozen guns that
The federal three oh eight UH T t two has

(01:22:39):
been an outstanding. Performer and those tactical, uh those tipped
tactical BONDED uh are fantastic glass. Performers they're fantastic intermediate barrier.
Performers they have accuracy uh in just about all my.
Guns that's that's, right neck and neck WITH T A A.

(01:23:00):
P i highly recommend. It but you, know anybody agent agency,
letterhead you, know ask THE fbi, ballistics you, know or
get it From Gary roberts. Himself get the letter head
on your letter, head get the get the data, that
Like Gary roberts is put, together that everybody, uses that
has all the testing results and all the recommendations for

(01:23:23):
all duty, ammunition uh you, know and then buy buy
a buttload of, it, yes you, know and don't don't
this hardly anybody individually much, less but can keep track
of like two or three different types arounds and. That
and we used to do that or uh Ruag swiss

(01:23:45):
p now used to MAKE i don't think they do.
Anymore but they made a you, know like an open
air AN ap and an intermediate barrier around that we're
all guaranteed to you, know work at the same one
hundred meters zero you. Know and that was a big
play and a lot of agencies went with, that AND
i go, like, yeah that's a really good. Idea AND
i tested it for a couple of different agencies and

(01:24:07):
proved it Was it was pretty much. True but it's
just too much to keep track. Of it's too much
to keep track of on the target. Site havn't have
three different, magazines three different area think you, know and
think about when you're going to use it at what
particular time and stuff like. That buy one sixty Eight Hornity,
tap buy the federal premium law enforcement like one sixty eight,

(01:24:29):
bonded buy a buttload of it and just shoot that
it's a non. Issue the NEXT i guess the last
big part of the package for like equipment and stuff
like that is simply if you want to have a
night vision, capability and you, know that's another whole different

(01:24:50):
level of. Expense thermal AND i are. Right we used
to traditionally say, that you, KNOW ir image, intensification you,
know buying a buying AN ir clip on like HERE'S
pbs twenty. Seven you, know clip on night vision device

(01:25:10):
sits in front of your day. Optic, uh so you're
using your day. Optic there will be zero considerations that
you have to, know and that's just like part of the.
System but you know then you're not using an illuminated.
Redical you see your radical perfectly through your clip on
night vision. Device you see the world and even you,
know either, white phosphor or. Traditional you, know you're seeing

(01:25:34):
the world in different views of like greens and blacks
or whites and blacks or things like that versus. Thermal,
right IT'S ir is analog, technology thermal is digital. Technology
traditionally we used to say that thermal seeing the differential
and heat was better for target detection because if there's

(01:26:00):
something out there that's, hot you're gonna pick it. Up
so under ir image, intensification something that blends into the
background that is not moving can be very very difficult to. See,
RIGHT i mean a dude in just dressed in ranger,
green you, know who just stands still right the heck
in front of one hundred meters depending upon what the background.

(01:26:22):
Is if he doesn't, move you you can't detect. Him,
Yeah whereas thermal you're gonna see every you, know in
like the like these twelve micron chip thermals and stuff like.
That good, lord you know at two thousand meters you
see birds in the, trees it's. True and their, footprints
oh you, See, oh it's it's. Crazy and traditionally we

(01:26:44):
used to, say LIKE i thermal as best at, detection
which is still, true and iron image and tensification was
better at target. Identification you see more more facial, features
LIKE i, say it's it's still very. True. Though so
the like the, military what we're, using the thermal clip,

(01:27:05):
bonds the iods as we call, them the you, know
the improved night day optic detection devices and stuff that
we use as clip. Ons those thermals are so, incredible you,
know to check zero at a one hundred, METERS i
put my thumb on a paster for about that long

(01:27:26):
and then walk back to the target, line AND i
can see where my thumb print. Was to warm the
paster to check my zero on, IT i, CAN i mean.
Reliably you, Know i'm like seven eight power at two
three hundred, METERS i can TELL i can make facial
recognition better THAN i can WITH ir image. Intensification so

(01:27:48):
the technology is getting better and better and better with.
Thermals but LIKE i, say one of those iods is
about sixty, Grand so you're not going to see that ON.
Drmo you're not gonna you, know, uh you, know your
agency is probably not going to look forward all of.

Speaker 2 (01:28:03):
That and if it is on D r M, o
good luck finding it because some other agency already got.

Speaker 1 (01:28:08):
It's but uh uh so so all of that is out.
THERE i would still say that if you're going to
have if you want to have a night vision, capability that,
yes a clip, on A I r clip on that
will sit in front of your day optic, uh you,
know especially like the white the white phosphor tubes are

(01:28:30):
fantastic if you if you can do. That, uh a
handheld thermal monocular for for target detection is still a great,
idea but then you're still going to need some kind
of uh spotter. Capability it's LIKE i, say none of
this is very. Cheap so you, know having like a

(01:28:53):
here's like a you, know this is a SYSTEM i
run just a dedicated Water uh you need uh an
I r flood and AN I r pointer for target.
Identification you. Know so it's Like i'm running A, kig
which is a you, know AN I r a LASER

(01:29:16):
I r. Illuminator you still have photonic barriers you have
to deal with at. Night THAT keig is you, know
a Blow it matches and everything that the military. Runs
it's it's it's like the you, know it's like a
flashlight From. God and THEN i run like a mall
is my laser pointer for my vizor OR I r
laser pointer shout out to Met. Myers, yeah you, KNOW i,

(01:29:39):
mean it's just it it's absolutely. Fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:29:44):
Here, yeah THE kig to me is THE ir equivalent
of my mod light THAT i carry on.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
Duty oh, yeah. Exactly there's there's no question about and
then LIKE i, say for being able to, spot you,
KNOW i you, know, uh you could run a clip
on in front of your, spotter which actually a very
large objective, lens you don't get really good optical. Quality
the superior way is to run like your run your

(01:30:18):
your nods in front of your eyepiece with an. Adapter
running a binocular setup is great. Too be able to
find targets and. Stuff all of this and WHY i
brought that out is just to, say is if you
were trying to build a program for your, agency or

(01:30:41):
you're just a guy who wants to get into it,
itself all of this in totality probably seems like it's
just it's hardly. Doable it's, right there's so much to,
consider there's so much, Equipment the expense is like superbly,
high and all of that is very. True just you
know WHAT i roll out. With by the Time i've

(01:31:03):
done all of, THAT i, mean, sure there's like sixty
thousand dollars worth of crap sit in, here you, know
and that's that's hard for an agency to. Justify for you,
know if you're going to have like a four man sniper,
section you, know that's hard to do as an. Individual
it's really hard to. Do you, KNOW i put four
kids through. College you, know it's like you, know, can't,

(01:31:25):
can't can't have too many of those kind of. Setups,
yeah but reducing it into doable chunks at a. Time,
yes get the investment in the best weapons, system the
best rifle that you can. Afford you, know look at
those options like we talked, about put the put the

(01:31:46):
the best money you can in into the best optic
and mount systems that you can now go from. There,
right you don't need a five hundred dollars. Bipod i'm telling,
you A harris bipod will do everything all the other
ones will do for you for for a ninety percent,
solution you, know spending you, know one hundred and fifty
dollars instead of five hundred dollars or one thousand. Dollars you,

(01:32:08):
know things like. That have a have a good you,
know have a good rear. Bag you know wherever my bags,
are you, know whatever you've got. To if you've got
to bipod and you've got a rear, bag now you're
in a capability where you can start to provide precise.
Fire after you've learned those. Basics you. Know NOW i

(01:32:29):
need a, tripod, RIGHT i need to start learning positional.
SHOOTING i need to be able to get off out
of the prone and, shoot you, know in whatever conditions
present to me at any height and learn how to
do those. Things and that's what a guy like me
teaches teach you how to. Do NOW i need to
have a way to, like you, know carry all of
these things AND i need to be able to deploy with.

(01:32:49):
That and it's very much like what a hunter, does you, know,
putting putting together what he needs in his. Daypack you,
know it's actually for. Hunting and HOW i roll, out
you know with guys you know on the job is
like it's like ninety nine percent the same. Thing, yeah you,
know it really. Is and once you've got those things,

(01:33:10):
established you know you've got you know, that LIKE i,
say laser, RANGEFINDER i guess we could, say you, know
a lot of weapon mounted laser range finders are are
out there now in the in the swat sniper. CONTEXT
i don't think they're that. Valuable you, know if you're

(01:33:31):
dealing with relatively close urban, RANGES i think you're way
better off having spending the money and getting a pair
of sig, kilos you, know laser range finding binoculars that
have you, know ballistic. Capability it's really hard to talk
them up too highly because they're they're just, fantastic ye you,

(01:33:52):
know and it would serve you very. Well and wanting
to determine range is one of the most basic primary.
Things AND i don't care if it's you, know you're
in the you're in the house across the. Street you,
Know god damn, it take, that take that two seconds
and ping that range to the to the front, door you,
know do, it you, know and dial that dope in

(01:34:13):
and then your, set you, know and you know you've made,
sure you, know don't guess at those things if you
have that extra. Time and those are the things THAT
i consider pretty much minimum equipment to get you duty.
Capable and then you, know it's LIKE i, say trying
to add night vision in it is a whole noother
level of, equipment, training maintenance and you, know things like.

(01:34:37):
That but so it's like everything you know at the
level is we go from skill to technique to procedure
to capability to. Mission you, know your agency has to
determine what its mission is going to. Be and if
you can't perform that mission day and, night you don't
truly have the. Capability, yeah you, know, now how much

(01:35:01):
how much dedication is there to actually being able to
say we have that? Capability you, know money is a
big part of, it which includes the training and you
know IN themo that, too that, too that's that's all in.
There so it's A so it's like A i believe,
ME i work with a. LOT i work with them
all from big metro agencies To department Of defense down

(01:35:24):
to small. Agencies but it's, like, yep we've got a you,
know we've got an eight MAN srt for our twenty
five man you know, agency and we're really. Dedicated and
then dudes will be super professional and they they actually
do training like you, know a month instead of just
say they do. Training you, know they get out there

(01:35:44):
and do the fundamentals and they're great. Guys but it's
LIKE i, say you, know, uh you, know, UHH dhs
isn't sending them one hundred thousand dollars grant on THE
rag to be able to fund all of. That, yeah
they're doing. It they're mainly doing it. Themselves they've they've
taken it upon themselves that you, know they want their
community to have that capability and they're shouldering most of that.

(01:36:08):
Themselves and you, know people need to realize that they're
They're americans who are that dedicated and care that much
that you know they're they're you, know they're going without
so that you can be.

Speaker 2 (01:36:21):
Safer, Absolutely SO i got one wrap up question for,
you because everyone AND i mean, everyone, okay almost everyone,
there what is it called? It they have this immediate
gratification thing that they want to buy stuff and they
want to buy. Stuff so for, me one of the
absolute best INVESTMENTS i ever did BEFORE i really, heavy

(01:36:44):
got heavily got into, training had nothing to do with
a fire or more an. Optic it was actually a
set Of i'm gonna, say, uh swordans some electronic air
Pro considering the topic that we're discussing right, now beyond the,
gun the tripod and the, optic what would you suggest
someone invest money in to bring AND i THINK i

(01:37:06):
know what, THAT i THINK i know what the answer
is going to. Be what do you think the next
thing someone should really be investing time money in time
and money Into.

Speaker 1 (01:37:15):
WELL i THINK i think suppressors are minimum threshold safety.

Speaker 2 (01:37:22):
Devices, yeah, OH i mean like other than like like
stuff that immediately is on the. Gun what would be
the next thing BECAUSE i think, yeah because. Cans everyone wants.
Cans but you've got you got to, have you got to.
Have you got to have a.

Speaker 1 (01:37:35):
Can you, know budget, it you, know plan on, it
do whatever You've you've absolutely got to have a. Can
you know it, is it is. Essential it will it
will make your life. Better it will make everybody else
on the team or anybody else around, you it will
make their life. Better you, know it's a menimoir. Responsibility
BUT i think, that, uh education, wise for the precision rifle,

(01:38:01):
game if you're, desire if your desire to be a swat,
sniper or you, know you just want to get into
precision rifle craft and you want to make small holes
at your local range which maxes out at three hundred
yards or something like. That, perfect, great, lovely you, know

(01:38:23):
educate yourself the best you can into external. Ballistics buy
one Of Brian litz's books or you know what's his
classic the best you, KNOW i don't have one, here
but like one of The applied ballistics suite of books and.
Knowledge buy a fifty seven hundred ab, kestrol a kelestrol

(01:38:47):
with the applied ballistics loaded into. It learn how to use,
that learn what your rifle, does appreciate. Ballistics and then
it's LIKE i, say if you are one of those
guys who's like just once a, year you have that
capability to make the trips somewhere to go to where
they have a thousand meter, range stretch your, legs you'll

(01:39:08):
have everything that you. Need you'll have the, Knowledge you'll
be built up and ready to. Go you, know you
will understand all of those, things and it will be
extremely extremely. Rewarding and if you're you, know lucky enough
to you, know be a guy like me who it's
Like I'm i'm, Out i'm on the range virtually every,
day and you, know you, know in long range even

(01:39:29):
SO i have to budget my long range. Time you.
Know that's like you, know you know sometimes once a,
week sometimes you, know twice a, month you, know in
the really shitty winter. Months you, KNOW i let it.
Go which the last word THAT i you, KNOW i
Really i'll throw in. There that is about training and
about valuable. Training precision. Riflemen you don't have to you

(01:39:53):
don't have to shoot at a thousand meters to be
a precision, rifleman you, know closer distances you have to
work at make the targets more. Challenging and here's actually
HOW i train and the teams THAT i work, with
HOW i try and influence them into. Training there's no
reason to go burn like one hundred rounds through your precision.

(01:40:16):
Gun there's no reason to do. It shoot small, Groups
shoot small, groups shoot small group forget about. It you,
know here's HOW i. TRAIN i like to practice positional.
Shooting so you, know one day a week to maintain
maintain my proficiency with like this setup daypack tripod duty bolt.

(01:40:40):
GUN i will it could be at any range like
my backyard range one hundred. Meters i'll put up a
backer and put a two inch paster on there And
i'll run once dry of get dry, presses or i
will drop. Prone two shots. PRONE i will build a seated,

(01:41:00):
position two shots on that two inch paster. SEATED i
will build a kneeling. Position two shots kneeling, standing two shots.
Standing i've expended eight rounds. Dry Now i'll do the
same thing, live, yeah, right load back up right from
already standing position, prone, seated kneeling standing eight. ROUNDS i don't.

(01:41:27):
STOPPED i don't start by confirming. ZERO i don't start
by shooting a. Group. Right it's like where my rounds
go cold from the first round is where they are
and where it would be IF i had to take
the shot at the same. Time and WHEN i am
keeping eight, rounds you, KNOW i give myself like a
individual average like forty five seconds per. Position, right set

(01:41:51):
the timer forty five seconds per position by the Time
i've gotten through that eight. Rounds If i'm in like
that three and a half minute mark And i've got
my eight rounds, off and if everything is within or
touching that two inch, PASTER i have done the TRAINING
i need to. Do. Yeah. Right if the job then
was to shoot it at four hundred and six hundred

(01:42:13):
eight hundred, meters the only difference is Now i'm having,
to you, know let my blistic computer determine based on
today's station, pressure you, know what my actual elevation. Is
or there's other rapid engagement techniques that we, do which
is WHAT i mainly practice, shooting you, know is doing

(01:42:35):
holds on the redical and never dialing and then estimating.
Wind so especially IF i can't make it out to
the long. Range so Why I'm i'm training for estimating
wind and conditions of weather and having to deal with you,
know elevation differences and things all like. That If i'm
doing everything short of, that WHEN i have the time

(01:42:56):
And i'm at the long, Range i'm not working on you,
Know i'm not working on how SMOOTHLY i transition between,
positions Or i'm not having to learn how to rebuild
my standing position or whatever like all of. THAT i
just go to. Training, yeah so it could be the
how you train with that big gun can be very
very ammunition efficient if you hold yourself to that. Standard

(01:43:19):
the worst thing that happens is do is, is, well
let's go check our. Zeros, well let's shoot some five shot. Groups,
okay let's, like, uh, well put all our gear on
and we'll run from the firing line to the target
line and back and then we'll shoot like one. Shot you,
Know it's, like, okay what else can we? Do it's
like there's actually a lot that you. Got, yeah let's
make the target smaller and do the. Same the very

(01:43:40):
very last THING i have to say about training, marksmanship
training for long range precision rifle my preferred way BECAUSE
i believe in a unified field theory of marksmanship. Training
my preferred form of pistol training is long range pistol.
Shooting whatever pistol my everyday, carry my secondary you, know

(01:44:05):
my big boy revolvers and stuff like. THAT i enjoy
shooting steel at fifteen one hundred yards's that's WHAT i
most enjoy, doing and it is HOW i train to
be a long range shooter because through the full fundamentals of,
marksmanship the most important marksmanship factor with the big gun

(01:44:33):
is your ability to follow through and to call your.
Shot the difference between a hit and a miss at
long range most of the, time and especially in unconventional shooting,
positions is a failure to be able to follow through
and call your. Shot if you're not fully consciously aware

(01:44:55):
of when the radical, was when you broke the, shot
and able to call the s you have no idea
why you hit or missed with any with an iron sided.
Revolver with a red dot sided pistol at fifty and
one hundred, YARDS i am doing the same thing to

(01:45:16):
succeed with the pistol THAT i am doing for the.
Rifle that ability to succeed lays almost entirely on of,
course not the earhold control and your triggering control and
your breath control are. Important they. Are but What i'm
focusing on And i'm most conscious of is my follow
through and my ability to call a. Shot make sure

(01:45:37):
it's LIKE i GUARANTEE i broke the shot right when
the sites told me it was time to break the.
Shot there was no. HESITATION i saw where the dot lifted,
from And i'm calling that. Shot and especially, then like you,
know if you're shooting like a sea zone or a
full ipsix steel which is WHAT i like to do

(01:45:58):
at one hundred yards off hand and something like, that
it's great because you have enough time to call the,
shot and then if you choose to then change your
focus to the, target is, like was my call? GOOD
i broke that one slightly right? There it is at three,
o'clock two inches right of like the. Center you. KNOW

(01:46:18):
i broke that one at seven. O'clock, yep that's where it.
HIT i pulled that one right off the left, side.
YEP i, sure did you? Know it's like having that
consciousness of the shot process is what lets you succeed long.
Range so when you can't get the big gun in your,
hand you, know get the pistol and push yourself to.

(01:46:42):
Distances you, know when you can't get out to the long,
range push yourself on smaller and smaller targets and be
more precise with the big, gun and do it through all,
positions and do it with all of your equipment, on
and do it with a reasonable time. Hack and if
you're doing all of those, things pretty soon everything just

(01:47:04):
becomes you, Know you're you're you're unconsciously competent at, it you,
know and that's the. Goal so so that's that's literally
ALL i know about anything. Ever pretty much awesome. Discussion
thank you for your.

Speaker 2 (01:47:19):
Time before we have this last thing from, You i'm
going to repeat my, favorite my favorite thing to, say
and it's as the as the, viewer as the. Listener
make sure you're supporting those sources that you have found
to be. Beneficial, Now i'm gonna Ask john to provide
some places where he can be found to include maybe some,
stuff maybe he, WRITES i don't, know he might have

(01:47:40):
some books out, there.

Speaker 1 (01:47:41):
So, yeah you, know you can easily look me up
On amazon or. Audible i've got about a solid dozen
books On amazon And. AUDIBLE i write For wargate And Galaxy's.
EDGE i write military science fiction of all damn. Things and,
uh if you, Look Doc spears is my author. Name

(01:48:03):
if you look Up Doc, spears just type that Into
amazon Or, audible you will be assaulted with a plethora
of titles that you will absolutely enjoy because it's all
like stuff like. This it's like my mission in life
was to uh it, was you. KNOW i Recently special
operations Historian Bud, gibson who runs The Reconnaissance, cast has

(01:48:27):
done a series of interviews with me about my experiences
And Special forces in in operations overseas and a lot
of those. Things, UH i fictionalized them so THAT i
could talk about. Them, uh so you'll find you'll find,
that you, know all my books are basically rooted in
as like how would how would this actually be? Done

(01:48:49):
it's not like lightsabers and guys doing. BACKFLIPS i hate that.
Shit but you can find me On i'm ON. X
i'm pretty sure It's Doc spears On instagram And. Facebook
USUALLY i think it's Under John. Spears but if you
see somebody looks like this to one of Those Doc
spears Or John, spears you'll come across, me and then

(01:49:09):
also on the. TRAIN i love interacting with. Folks and
on the training, side where can you be. FOUND i
am doing The Forged tactical is exclusively not doing open enrollment.
Classes we're only Doing department Of defense and closed agency.
Training we've been that way for a couple of years.

(01:49:30):
Now we're as busy as we want to be with
all of. That so, YEAH i hate to make it
sound like a mister chance to train With, doc BUT
i actually promise because the demand is out. There if
it doesn't happen later this, year it will certainly happen next.
Year THAT Swat Sniper, overwatch which is the live fire

(01:49:52):
sniper assault or integration course THAT i, Do i'll be
doing it For Alliance Police training And i'll and they
will be managing all of the you know the logistics
of things like, that And i'll be doing it at their.
Facility BUT i, WILL i. Will i've laid off of
that last, year But i've you, know getting a lot
of flak for, it but just just been. Busy so

(01:50:13):
we'll get that added back on so that our our
police snipers have that that venue of training open it's a,
fantastic fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:50:22):
Facility, yes and some of the best Bathrooms i've ever
had the privilege of using a gun.

Speaker 1 (01:50:30):
Range everything there. Is anybody who hasn't been To Alliance
police training and hang out With Joe wire at any
of his classes or their hosted, classes it's literally the you,
know the best facility there. Is.

Speaker 2 (01:50:43):
Yeah SO i Had Larry korea Of Monster Hunter international
on a few weeks, ago AND i GUESS i know
a couple more authors THAN i. Realized AND i think
we might need to do an episode talking about all
that stuff at some point in the. FUTURE i think
that could be. Fun but, yeah thanks for your. Time awesome.
Discussion just honored to be. Invited oh it's and As

(01:51:06):
i've told other, guests, yeah you're gonna have to come.
Back i'm, sorry and we're going to have other. Topics and,
yeah we need to Get john.

Speaker 1 (01:51:13):
Back any any WAY i can make a. Contribution i'm
always proud to do so.

Speaker 2 (01:51:19):
Awesome so, yeah big thanks To john first time. Doc
also big thanks to our. Sponsors big thanks To Lucky,
Gunner Filster, walter and also our network, supporters both on
the forum Primary secondary Dot, Com slash form and On.
Patreon if you want to help support the, network go
through those. Routes Primary secondary has a bunch Of facebook,
groups forum website. Videos this was episode four hundred and twenty.

(01:51:44):
Eight if you think about, it we have a lot of.
Episodes this was actually a shorter. Episode we're just approaching
two hours right. Now multiplay that. Too by four twenty.
Eight that's a lot of, hours and those, hours it's
wonderful to have these, networks wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:52:02):
To have these.

Speaker 2 (01:52:03):
Discussions as a matter of, Fact i'm going to be
posting something about some terminaballistic stuff that's ONLY i only
learned it because of these. Interactions and it's been such
an awesome journey to interact with this caliber of person of.

Speaker 1 (01:52:18):
People so that is.

Speaker 2 (01:52:19):
All i'm going to end the stream And i'm going
to go pick up a fourteen year old from school,
Now so thanks and we'll talk to you.

Speaker 1 (01:52:28):
Later

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P&S ModCast 428 - CONUS Sniper

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