GORUCK Autryville FAD Weekend - Jan 2025

TRAINING LEAD-UP

Wednesday, Jan 15:

HDT-KB 10.6.2 (Arms) in 42:28, HDT-KB 10.5.CP "Cliff Hanger" 15 min BW AMRAP with 6 rounds and 10 reps

I wondered at first if the dead hangs would be too easy.  It was doable, but it is a lot of volume to put on your shoulders!

Thursday, Jan 16:

After work, I hit part of the Palmetto Trail, but I didn't get that far before hitting a bunch of downed trees from the hurricane.  It was impassable.  It was surprising.  It's not like there's just a trunk in the way and you can go over it or under it.  With all the branches, you're forced to go all the way around, and there could be a whole mess of trees that all fell criss-cross.  I did try to force my way through different sections, but it was still tricky even seeing where the trail continued, at times.

Since I didn't get much distance there, I rucked along the disc golf course at USC Upstate afterwards, in Garmont T8s in a 30#RPC.

COUNTER ACTIVE SHOOTER - PISTOL - NIGHT

I couldn't make it to the daytime class, but I jumped in partway into the night class.  There were two guys there.  One of them looked familiar, but I couldn't remember where I knew him from.  I do so many events and encounter so many guys.  It turns out he was the Selection finisher from the documentary!

Wt shot standing, kneeling, seated, with a handheld light in one hand, with target transitions and mag changes.  We had the option of using WMLs, but for this, I decided to use a handheld to get in the practice, since I don't normally practice with it.

We did walk-stop-shoot with target transitions a few times.

We did the drill with the torso and plate rack alternating shots.  To improve speed, throttle up on big movements where precision doesn't matter, and throttle back down when precision matters.

We also did the drill where you alternate SB OH tosses alternating left, right, and 2-handed shots.

The last thing we did during the day was work around a VTAC.

We had a break to let the sun completely set.

Once it was dark, we did a more comprehensive drill where we did the plate rack seated, brought a SB to a VTAC, shot through the VTAC (used my WML to make light management easy through the holes), then went to and shot over and around barrels.

We did walk-stop-shoot... my shots were getting messier, and I was flinching more as I got tired.

COUNTER ACTIVE SHOOTER RIFLE DAY & NIGHT

Saturday shenanigans... just me, Alex, and Chuy this time!  What a crew.

We zeroed our rifles, then did the Alt-C drill, allowed to use the SB on "supported" and the mag on "unsupported".  I did my best yet, with the rounds all pretty much around the little circle within each target.

We did slow aim fire at 7yd to figure out height over bore, followed by controlled pairs.

It started to rain, and we shifted under the pavilion to do a little longer range shooting.  We could still hear hits on the 200yd steel, but it was impossible to tell if we were hitting the 300yd steel.  The rain obscures visibility as well as sounds.

We set up steel, and then we stayed under the pavilion while doing turn left / turn right drills.

We did target transitions with controlled pairs.

We did single-round drills to force and practice reloads.

We did timed 1-shot drills from low ready... my best time was 0.7s on the ~20yd steel.

We did the same but with controlled pairs... I got messy, which means I was pushing the speed a little too hard.

We started really focusing on target transitions with multiple shots.

We did the bill drill, although not all of my hits would've been on a dollar bill.  I got my best time of 3.03s (on steel, not necessarily on the bill) when I focused on pulling the gun into me.

We did walk-stop-shoot.

We did a complex drill called "Payback's a B*tch", which starts with the key drill, then you grab a SB from a car to rescue somebody, then carry that SB through the o-course (without having to carry the SB on the obstacles), which involved a short rope climb, cargo net, ladder wall, tall wall, low wall, tall rope climb, balance beam.  Dump the SB, then shoot kneeling from 40yd, run up to the barrel and walk and shoot at 3 targets, twice each.  Shoot standing at 3 targets, 3 each, then run to the plate rack and engage it with pistol.  

Unfortunately, I audibly strained my right shoulder trying to go up the wall... I've done this wall with no issues before, with the same amount of kit, so it was surprising and unfortunate.

Shooting went well, and I only missed my first shot (a mental error).  All of my competition experience helped with pacing.

At night, we did drills similar to ones we did during the day, but with the WML.

We even did "Payback's a B*tch" again, but without having to carry the SB this time.  My shooting was messier this time, and my shoulder wasn't any better.

TEAM TACTICS

We started with classroom time, learning about ambushes based on SUT.  That was a segue into how corner-fed rooms are taken.  Then, we moved on to the more complex center-fed rooms.  We talked about how to process the room.  We also touched on breaching and multi-breach scenarios with a direction of clearing.

Since we only had 2 participants, Chuy joined the stack at times.  We practiced clearing with two buildings with hallways and connecting rooms.  It's hard, and there are so many moving pieces to keep track of, but it's great to get a taste of it, and hopefully, each time I take this class, I get a little better each time.

- Use your light

- In the stack, be right up on the next guy

- Make high percentage shots, and don't blindly shoot at the center of the cardboard.

What an amazing opportunity to train this was!