AAR for July 12th/13th Carbine Operator Level 2 with Agoge Tactical Regimen
DISCLAIMER: I AM IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER AFFILIATED WITH AGOGE TACTICAL REGIMEN. I DID NOT RECEIVE ANY SORT OF COMPENSATION FOR WRITING THIS AAR. I AM NOT A PAID SHILL. THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED HERE ARE MY OWN AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE OPINIONS OF THE TRAINING CADRE AT AGOGE TACTICAL REGIMEN.
Company: Agoge Tactical Regimen
Course: Carbine Operator Level 2
Dates: July 12th and 13th
Instructors: Jody Levesque and Matthew Rosenfield (Rosie)
Location: Agoge Tactical Regimen private range (approx 70km SW of Saskatoon)
Price: $300
Round Count: ~1000 rds carbine, ~100 rds pistol.
Weather: Sunny, clear skies, low winds, temperatures between 20-30 degrees celsius
TOO LONG/DIDN'T READ SUMMARY Top notch facilities, excellent instruction, great training opportunities, fair prices, HIGHLY RECOMMEND!
Just a quick little blurb about me so you can perhaps put my opinions into perspective: I am 100 percent a civilian shooter from Calgary, AB. I do not carry a gun for a living in any way, shape or form. I have been shooting for approx 17 years now, started getting more into the "tactical" shooting disciplines approx 5 years ago. This is my third course taken through Agoge Tactical Regimen. I have previously completed their Pistol Operator Level 2 as well as Carbine Operator Level 2 last year. I have also attended pistol and carbine training courses through Shadow Force, Calgary Shooting Centre and The Shooting Edge. I decided to retake Carbine Operator Level 2 this year as the stars seemed to align and my father, brother in law and I all had the weekend off and decided to make the trek out to Saskatchewan and bust some caps.
For those of you considering taking this course who aren't from the area, there are a few options available to you in terms of accommodations. The range is located approx 1 hours drive SW of Saskatoon so you could stay in a hotel there. There is also a cleared field behind the range that students are welcome to camp on for no additional charge. The range has an outhouse for your convenience. The road onto the range is fairly narrow, but you should have no trouble pulling a smallish trailer/tent trailer if you want to sleep in comfort. I slept in a tent in the camping area last october for one of the courses and the area was more than adequate. For this course, we hauled out my father's gigantic tent trailer with all the bells and whistles and stayed at the campground located in Rosetown (approx 50 minute drive SW of the range). This campsite was fantastic, and boasted an indoor shower/bathroom, 30 amp power and water hook ups all for the price of $25/night.
DAY 1:
The course started off more or less on time at 0800 with some administrative details. Introductions were made for both the instructors and the students, followed by a safety brief, medical brief, review of the fundamentals of marksmanship, the three pillars of success taught by ATR (marksmanship, manipulations and mindset) and a brief calisthenic warm up to get everyone limbered up for the day. This whole process was completed at the start of both training days. For this training course, their were 11 students present.
The first order of business once we were on the firing line was a quick refresher of administrative reloads, followed by zeroing of everyone's carbines.
We then stepped onto the 7 yard line and began working small dot targets to ensure everyone remembered the principals of height over bore/mechanical offsets. Throughout this drill and all others, Jody and Rosy would each watch over half of the students, ensuring adequate supervision of students at all times. All drills were completed multiple times, but not to the point of excess. Everyone had a chance to become familiar with the drill, but did not become bored and sloppy. Usually the drills were conducted as a group for a few repetitions, and then run individually with either Rosie or Jody assessing each shooter as they ran the drill. For me, this was fantastic. On some courses in the past, I have felt that once I have demonstrated a level of competency I tend to get ignored a bit by instructors as they focus their attention more on the students who are having a harder time getting along. Not so here! Jody and Rosie have a pretty sharp eye for details as they always seem to find something for you to improve upon. I honestly don't think their was a single drill I ran either day without receiving some great constructive feedback.
The morning consisted mostly of a refresher of skills and techniques students would have acquired on introductory carbine level courses. Speed reloads, tactical reloads, various ready positions for the carbine, search and assess, tactical communications, working with a fire team partner, stationary turns as well as advancing and walking backwards toward a threat were all focused on. Rosie and Jody make it very clear early on in the course that speed is not what they are looking for. What matters to them is smooth, properly executed manipulations with effective hits on target. The goal of this mindset is to produce speed through elimination of wasted movement. This concept is not new and earth shattering, but it is a solid plan. Personally, I received a few reminders to "slow down and quit flapping".
The afternoon began with a review of transitioning to secondary weapon systems.
At this point, it became quite obvious that this was a CARBINE course, not a PISTOL course. The focus is definitely on manipulation of the carbine, with pistols taking a back seat. Anyone looking for advanced pistol training should check out ATR's Pistol Operator Level 2. Don't expect to be spending a lot of time using your pistol on this course. We finished this stage of the course off with a little friendly competition: who could have the best time running the following drill "1 shot with rifle, transition to secondary, 1 shot with secondary". This drill was run at the 7 yard line, with each student given only 1 opportunity to step up for a timed run. The reasoning behind this is to test the students in a "cold and on demand" manner. The training cadre believes that running a drill multiple times in order to achieve a blistering speed is not a realistic representation of an actually engagement. Instead, the goal is to let students discover what they are capable of achieving while going "zero to 60". Any shots that landed outside the 10 ring resulted in a 1 second penalty. While all students completed the drill with varying degrees of success, 1 student stood out. The lone female student on the course, Courtney, smoked everyone else with a time of 3.31 seconds. If I remember correctly, the next runner up was over a second slower!
The rest of the afternoon passed with an in-depth review of malfunction clearance followed by a focus on shooting on the move, both forward and backwards, explosive movement to "get off the X", and lateral movement while shooting. During all points of the afternoon, the emphasis on accuracy was not relaxed. Stray shots and misses were considered unacceptable. To close out the first days training, the class was divided into two groups for a relay race: from the 50 yard line to the 25 yard line, completing a specified manipulation, making 4 hits on steel targets and running back to the 50 yard line. The day ended with a quick debrief.
DAY 2:
The final day of training began with the same opening as the first. Safety brief, medical brief, fundamentals of marksmanship, three pillars of success and a quick warm up.
The entire morning was spent utilizing advanced carbine manipulations. One handed shooting, reloads, transitions, malfunction clearance were covered in depth. These drills were very easy to get tangled up in. As such, Jody and Rosie's individual assessments really came into their own here. These drills were great eye openers for many students, allowing us to identify deficiencies in our plate carriers/chest rigs/slings etc. Both Jody and Rosie were able to give students several suggestions for changes to their gear set ups to eliminate future problems.
These drills were moderately physically exerting, and towards the end many students were getting a bit gassed. My 62 year old father did a great job of keeping up with the rest of the class (the majority of whom were less than half his age). However, he ended up having to deal with the mother of all double feeds (one round was crushed and bent almost 45 degrees!) and was fighting hard to clear it.
Jody was keeping a close eye on him and recognized that he was pushing himself too hard and would not be gaining anything by continuing to struggle with his rifle with only 1 hand, so he stepped in to end the drill. Very appropriate decision in my opinion. The class then broke for lunch.
A quick note on lunches at Agoge: obviously, there is nowhere to buy any food anywhere nearby, so everyone must bring their own food/water. There is no segregation of instructors/students. Both Rosie and Jody are very laid back and approachable and are more than happy to have a conversation with their students during the breaks.
After lunch, things got even more interesting. The range comes equipped with several moveable barricades and a couple of old cars that can be utilized during drills. The paper targets were dropped and steal targets hung. For any of you who haven't had the opportunity to train with steel targets: you are missing out! The immediate auditory feed back you get from a successful hit is awesome.
Barricades were placed and a car was pushed out to use as cover. Everyone in the course partnered up and we began running scenarios. Students were expected to work as partners and communicate verbally as they put rounds on target and moved from barricade to barricade. Jody and Rosie each supervised one student during these drills, ensuring that safety was maintained at all times. Once again, the emphasis during these drills was on marksmanship and manipulations. You weren't impressing anybody by running full tilt from each barricade. After each run, students were given a thorough debrief from both instructors on what went well and what needed to be improved upon. Everyone had the opportunity to run these drills several times and there was a noticeable improvement in everyones performance by the end of the session.
The day's shooting ended with a qualification shoot. 60 rounds were shot from various distances and positions, all done with the additional stress factor of a timer for each shot. I can't speak for the other students, but I personally noticed a large improvement in my shooting compared to the first day.
The course ended with a full debrief. Students were invited to step forward and share their constructive criticisms and general feedback with the instructors. This was no ass kissing session. Several students had some great suggestions for how the instructors could improve on their teaching methods. Afterwards, everyone received the certificates and the instructors passed out some free swag courtesy of Ferro Concepts, TAD gear, and 5.11 tactical.
In summary, this course was a blast. I was very privileged to get to run this course with members of my family and I made several new friends there as well. I believe everyone who attends a course at ATR will walk away with a few new tricks up their sleeve. I highly recommend that anyone who has been on the fence about trying out this training company should look into taking a course. ATR seems to be gaining in popularity lately and I believe most of their courses this year are already full... but if you are truly interested check out their website and shoot them and email and see if you can get put on their wait list for a course this year, or see if you can get slotted in for a course next year!
Quick note on Gear used on this course:
Carbine used day 1: BCM EAG carbine with 14.5'' barrel with Aimpoint T1, BFG VCAS sling.
Carbine used day 2: Plain Jane armalite 14.5'' barrelled carbine with A1 upper, carbine length hand guards, home made VTAC style sling etc etc.
Pistol: Sig Mk25
Plate Carrier: Mayflower APC with Level 3 stand alone plates, with Haley Strategic Disruptive Environments chest rig
Holster: Safariland 6004 on a G-Code leg rig
Carbine ammo: Bulk surplus Norinco 5.56mm, head stamp C95
Pistol ammo: El Cheapo Blazer 9mm
please note: the stylish sombrero was only added in to cover up my name tape. The actual sombrero I wear on courses is much larger and purple.
Both carbines functioned great. A lot of people talk smack about the norinco ammo, but I didn't have a single ammo related failure during this course. In fact, the BCM carbine hit the 3500 norinco round mark with out a cleaning (just lubed with G96 every now and then) and I couldn't be happier with the performance I'm getting. Granted, I'm not shooting it past 50 yards so I can't speak to its accuracy, but if you are running a carbine course like this it is more than adequate.
If anyone has any questions about this course, please go ahead and ask and I'l see what I can do to answer em!
DISCLAIMER: I AM IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER AFFILIATED WITH AGOGE TACTICAL REGIMEN. I DID NOT RECEIVE ANY SORT OF COMPENSATION FOR WRITING THIS AAR. I AM NOT A PAID SHILL. THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED HERE ARE MY OWN AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE OPINIONS OF THE TRAINING CADRE AT AGOGE TACTICAL REGIMEN.
Company: Agoge Tactical Regimen
Course: Carbine Operator Level 2
Dates: July 12th and 13th
Instructors: Jody Levesque and Matthew Rosenfield (Rosie)
Location: Agoge Tactical Regimen private range (approx 70km SW of Saskatoon)
Price: $300
Round Count: ~1000 rds carbine, ~100 rds pistol.
Weather: Sunny, clear skies, low winds, temperatures between 20-30 degrees celsius
TOO LONG/DIDN'T READ SUMMARY Top notch facilities, excellent instruction, great training opportunities, fair prices, HIGHLY RECOMMEND!
Just a quick little blurb about me so you can perhaps put my opinions into perspective: I am 100 percent a civilian shooter from Calgary, AB. I do not carry a gun for a living in any way, shape or form. I have been shooting for approx 17 years now, started getting more into the "tactical" shooting disciplines approx 5 years ago. This is my third course taken through Agoge Tactical Regimen. I have previously completed their Pistol Operator Level 2 as well as Carbine Operator Level 2 last year. I have also attended pistol and carbine training courses through Shadow Force, Calgary Shooting Centre and The Shooting Edge. I decided to retake Carbine Operator Level 2 this year as the stars seemed to align and my father, brother in law and I all had the weekend off and decided to make the trek out to Saskatchewan and bust some caps.
For those of you considering taking this course who aren't from the area, there are a few options available to you in terms of accommodations. The range is located approx 1 hours drive SW of Saskatoon so you could stay in a hotel there. There is also a cleared field behind the range that students are welcome to camp on for no additional charge. The range has an outhouse for your convenience. The road onto the range is fairly narrow, but you should have no trouble pulling a smallish trailer/tent trailer if you want to sleep in comfort. I slept in a tent in the camping area last october for one of the courses and the area was more than adequate. For this course, we hauled out my father's gigantic tent trailer with all the bells and whistles and stayed at the campground located in Rosetown (approx 50 minute drive SW of the range). This campsite was fantastic, and boasted an indoor shower/bathroom, 30 amp power and water hook ups all for the price of $25/night.
DAY 1:
The course started off more or less on time at 0800 with some administrative details. Introductions were made for both the instructors and the students, followed by a safety brief, medical brief, review of the fundamentals of marksmanship, the three pillars of success taught by ATR (marksmanship, manipulations and mindset) and a brief calisthenic warm up to get everyone limbered up for the day. This whole process was completed at the start of both training days. For this training course, their were 11 students present.
The first order of business once we were on the firing line was a quick refresher of administrative reloads, followed by zeroing of everyone's carbines.
We then stepped onto the 7 yard line and began working small dot targets to ensure everyone remembered the principals of height over bore/mechanical offsets. Throughout this drill and all others, Jody and Rosy would each watch over half of the students, ensuring adequate supervision of students at all times. All drills were completed multiple times, but not to the point of excess. Everyone had a chance to become familiar with the drill, but did not become bored and sloppy. Usually the drills were conducted as a group for a few repetitions, and then run individually with either Rosie or Jody assessing each shooter as they ran the drill. For me, this was fantastic. On some courses in the past, I have felt that once I have demonstrated a level of competency I tend to get ignored a bit by instructors as they focus their attention more on the students who are having a harder time getting along. Not so here! Jody and Rosie have a pretty sharp eye for details as they always seem to find something for you to improve upon. I honestly don't think their was a single drill I ran either day without receiving some great constructive feedback.
The morning consisted mostly of a refresher of skills and techniques students would have acquired on introductory carbine level courses. Speed reloads, tactical reloads, various ready positions for the carbine, search and assess, tactical communications, working with a fire team partner, stationary turns as well as advancing and walking backwards toward a threat were all focused on. Rosie and Jody make it very clear early on in the course that speed is not what they are looking for. What matters to them is smooth, properly executed manipulations with effective hits on target. The goal of this mindset is to produce speed through elimination of wasted movement. This concept is not new and earth shattering, but it is a solid plan. Personally, I received a few reminders to "slow down and quit flapping".
The afternoon began with a review of transitioning to secondary weapon systems.
At this point, it became quite obvious that this was a CARBINE course, not a PISTOL course. The focus is definitely on manipulation of the carbine, with pistols taking a back seat. Anyone looking for advanced pistol training should check out ATR's Pistol Operator Level 2. Don't expect to be spending a lot of time using your pistol on this course. We finished this stage of the course off with a little friendly competition: who could have the best time running the following drill "1 shot with rifle, transition to secondary, 1 shot with secondary". This drill was run at the 7 yard line, with each student given only 1 opportunity to step up for a timed run. The reasoning behind this is to test the students in a "cold and on demand" manner. The training cadre believes that running a drill multiple times in order to achieve a blistering speed is not a realistic representation of an actually engagement. Instead, the goal is to let students discover what they are capable of achieving while going "zero to 60". Any shots that landed outside the 10 ring resulted in a 1 second penalty. While all students completed the drill with varying degrees of success, 1 student stood out. The lone female student on the course, Courtney, smoked everyone else with a time of 3.31 seconds. If I remember correctly, the next runner up was over a second slower!
The rest of the afternoon passed with an in-depth review of malfunction clearance followed by a focus on shooting on the move, both forward and backwards, explosive movement to "get off the X", and lateral movement while shooting. During all points of the afternoon, the emphasis on accuracy was not relaxed. Stray shots and misses were considered unacceptable. To close out the first days training, the class was divided into two groups for a relay race: from the 50 yard line to the 25 yard line, completing a specified manipulation, making 4 hits on steel targets and running back to the 50 yard line. The day ended with a quick debrief.
DAY 2:
The final day of training began with the same opening as the first. Safety brief, medical brief, fundamentals of marksmanship, three pillars of success and a quick warm up.
The entire morning was spent utilizing advanced carbine manipulations. One handed shooting, reloads, transitions, malfunction clearance were covered in depth. These drills were very easy to get tangled up in. As such, Jody and Rosie's individual assessments really came into their own here. These drills were great eye openers for many students, allowing us to identify deficiencies in our plate carriers/chest rigs/slings etc. Both Jody and Rosie were able to give students several suggestions for changes to their gear set ups to eliminate future problems.
These drills were moderately physically exerting, and towards the end many students were getting a bit gassed. My 62 year old father did a great job of keeping up with the rest of the class (the majority of whom were less than half his age). However, he ended up having to deal with the mother of all double feeds (one round was crushed and bent almost 45 degrees!) and was fighting hard to clear it.
Jody was keeping a close eye on him and recognized that he was pushing himself too hard and would not be gaining anything by continuing to struggle with his rifle with only 1 hand, so he stepped in to end the drill. Very appropriate decision in my opinion. The class then broke for lunch.
A quick note on lunches at Agoge: obviously, there is nowhere to buy any food anywhere nearby, so everyone must bring their own food/water. There is no segregation of instructors/students. Both Rosie and Jody are very laid back and approachable and are more than happy to have a conversation with their students during the breaks.
After lunch, things got even more interesting. The range comes equipped with several moveable barricades and a couple of old cars that can be utilized during drills. The paper targets were dropped and steal targets hung. For any of you who haven't had the opportunity to train with steel targets: you are missing out! The immediate auditory feed back you get from a successful hit is awesome.
Barricades were placed and a car was pushed out to use as cover. Everyone in the course partnered up and we began running scenarios. Students were expected to work as partners and communicate verbally as they put rounds on target and moved from barricade to barricade. Jody and Rosie each supervised one student during these drills, ensuring that safety was maintained at all times. Once again, the emphasis during these drills was on marksmanship and manipulations. You weren't impressing anybody by running full tilt from each barricade. After each run, students were given a thorough debrief from both instructors on what went well and what needed to be improved upon. Everyone had the opportunity to run these drills several times and there was a noticeable improvement in everyones performance by the end of the session.
The day's shooting ended with a qualification shoot. 60 rounds were shot from various distances and positions, all done with the additional stress factor of a timer for each shot. I can't speak for the other students, but I personally noticed a large improvement in my shooting compared to the first day.
The course ended with a full debrief. Students were invited to step forward and share their constructive criticisms and general feedback with the instructors. This was no ass kissing session. Several students had some great suggestions for how the instructors could improve on their teaching methods. Afterwards, everyone received the certificates and the instructors passed out some free swag courtesy of Ferro Concepts, TAD gear, and 5.11 tactical.
In summary, this course was a blast. I was very privileged to get to run this course with members of my family and I made several new friends there as well. I believe everyone who attends a course at ATR will walk away with a few new tricks up their sleeve. I highly recommend that anyone who has been on the fence about trying out this training company should look into taking a course. ATR seems to be gaining in popularity lately and I believe most of their courses this year are already full... but if you are truly interested check out their website and shoot them and email and see if you can get put on their wait list for a course this year, or see if you can get slotted in for a course next year!
Quick note on Gear used on this course:
Carbine used day 1: BCM EAG carbine with 14.5'' barrel with Aimpoint T1, BFG VCAS sling.
Carbine used day 2: Plain Jane armalite 14.5'' barrelled carbine with A1 upper, carbine length hand guards, home made VTAC style sling etc etc.
Pistol: Sig Mk25
Plate Carrier: Mayflower APC with Level 3 stand alone plates, with Haley Strategic Disruptive Environments chest rig
Holster: Safariland 6004 on a G-Code leg rig
Carbine ammo: Bulk surplus Norinco 5.56mm, head stamp C95
Pistol ammo: El Cheapo Blazer 9mm
please note: the stylish sombrero was only added in to cover up my name tape. The actual sombrero I wear on courses is much larger and purple.Both carbines functioned great. A lot of people talk smack about the norinco ammo, but I didn't have a single ammo related failure during this course. In fact, the BCM carbine hit the 3500 norinco round mark with out a cleaning (just lubed with G96 every now and then) and I couldn't be happier with the performance I'm getting. Granted, I'm not shooting it past 50 yards so I can't speak to its accuracy, but if you are running a carbine course like this it is more than adequate.
If anyone has any questions about this course, please go ahead and ask and I'l see what I can do to answer em!
