Greetings fellow MNGunTalk members,
My name is Aaron, and I live in the twin cities metro area. I recently took Controlled Chaos Arms (CCA) Tactical Rifle class. It took place down in Iowa, at the Brownell's range in Searsboro. There were only two other students besides myself, so we had a lot of individual attention from the instructor. Rick Largesse, our instructor, is a veteran SWAT cop in the Des Moines area. Not only is he squared away with a pistol and rifle, but he is gifted at sharing what he knows with his students. He's not there to show off, he's there to make us better. I am definitely better now than I was before I left for the class.
The class was a long one-day only event. Class started at 8am, and went until around 7pm, with an hour lunch break. We started by confirming zeros with our rifles from 100 yards in the prone, and then moved to a little bit of seated and kneeling shooting from 100 yards. Beyond that, most of the day was spent between the 10 and 75 yard lines. CCA also offers a basic rifle class, which I took as well, and that class really focuses on marksmanship fundamentals and various shooting positions from 25 to 100 yards. The tactical rifle class is much more dynamic, and I was glad I had taken the basic class first.
Part of the class was malfunction clearance drills, which are definitely more difficult to do with an AR-15 versus any pistol. Tap and rack is the same, but tricky stuff like bolt-override malfunctions and stuck cases require practice to master, and I'm glad we went over it. We also went over reloads. I wore a Blackhawk 4-mag chest rig, and it worked well. Rick wears a battle belt with his pistol, pistol mags, and a rifle mag, and that works well too.
As the day progressed, so to did the difficulty of the drills. We did several multiple target engagement drills, as well as a bunch of shooting on the move. It looks so easy on YouTube, but doing it in person is quite difficult. Add to that the dreaded shot timer, and a real challenge presents itself quite quickly. Of course, practice is the key to success. These types of training courses can only do so much in one day. The real work is left up to us to continue to practice at home on our own time. Only then will we continue to improve.
The class finished up with a night shoot, which was illuminating (sorry, couldn't resist). Shooting at night with a rifle with a light attached is actually pretty simple. Light on, shoot, light off, move. Rick had a Surefire X300 at the 12'oclock position on his rail in-front of his back up iron front sight, and that was probably the best setup between all of our rifles.
At the end of the day, everyone was safe, we learned a lot, and we had fun. I had taken the basic rifle class with one of the other two students, so it was nice to see a familiar face. We all had about the same level of skill, so we had fun competing with each other throughout the day. Overall, I had a great time.
In 2014, I took pistol courses with Ben Stoeger, Ken Hackathorn, Frank Proctor, and Craig Douglas. I've also taken pistol classes with Tactical Response, Rob Pincus, John Farnam, Mike Pannone, and Rick from CCA (I've posted AAR's on here for many of them). I'm squared away with a pistol, but rifle was, and still is, new to me. In 2015 I'll be taking rifle classes with Larry Vickers and Mike Pannone. As of now, CCA is the only school that I've taken rifle classes with, but based on my experiences with Rick, and comparing his teaching style and level of competence to other instructors I've trained with, I confidently put him on the top of my list of approved trainers. I've been fortunate to be able to take a lot of great training in the past few years. Having CCA so close to home really is great.