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ACT: Lowlight Handgun & Rifle Skills - 23FEB12 - Terre Haute, IN
- Thread starter rhino
- Start date
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Always nice when folks post up pics for those of us that couldn't make it.
Ok OneBadV8, what gives? Where is your magazine?
Also wanna hear more about how you liked running the new WML.
when I get more time I'll do an AAR. There is no mag because the drill was to force a reload or a transition to handgun.
I will say the best new piece of gear I tried was the Vortex hat. Warmest thing ever. Thanks to A&A Optics for that
I will say the best new piece of gear I tried was the Vortex hat. Warmest thing ever. Thanks to A&A Optics for that
I posted some thoughts in the other thread.
Thanks again for putting on this class at my suggestion. I'll waive my consultation fees this time.
Dave (I think that's your name), that long exposure shot is pretty cool. I'm looking forward to the other pictures.
Thanks again for putting on this class at my suggestion. I'll waive my consultation fees this time.
Dave (I think that's your name), that long exposure shot is pretty cool. I'm looking forward to the other pictures.
Well that was nice. Like the weak-hand/one-hand class ACT did last year, this class gave me a chance to expand on things that get covered in the average catch-all class, but you might only do for an hour or so. Whether in or out of a class, most people don't spend four or five hours at a time working on low light shooting. We go out, fire a few rounds, say "Hey, that flash hider works OK", and go back inside.
Obijohn- I hope you're feeling better. It hurt me to watch you.
Now...
Lessons learned:
-Do NOT look through a really nice night vision unit like a PVS-14 and not expect to want one. As someone there said: If you don't look, you won't know what you're missing.
Crap.
-The biggest distractions may not be what you think, some distractions are amplified at night, and different things make for unexpected distractions.
I was doing the "Figure 8". Rhino turned a strobe on at some point, which you might think would have caused havoc. Truth is, I don't know when it came on, because it didn't really bother me. However...
Behind me I hear a hissing sound, then a red road flare lands among the targets. Big deal, right? To me, it was. It was a bigger distraction than the strobe or yelling crap at me. Some of it was probably the sound, because when I hear something hissing like that, I expect it to bite or explode.
-You have to see to hit, but sometimes it doesn't take much light. If it's really dark, any light is great.
-Identifying your target is different. That might take a lot of light, placed just right.
-Identifying your target with a handheld, then shooting with the weaponlight keeps one from pointing guns at non-threats, but the process of doing it sucks. It seems to take forever from starting the process to finishing it. If your weaponlight has the right beam pattern, you might be able to sort of cheat and illuminate the ground and see. Obviously, reflecting off the ground would work better if identifying something waist high like a rifle or shotgun held low rather than something higher up like a face or certain color hat.
-You drop something in the daytime, you know where it hit the ground and can find it later. Drop it at night, and you have no reference point. In daylight, you know it landed three feet from the brown clump of grass. At night, it landed in the dark, which looks like that dark other there, and this dark over here. Dummy cords or a piece of reflective tape might be worth considering on more expensive items. I worked over half my career on the night shift, but it was rarely truly dark.
-LED lights are nice.
-Secondary plans suck at night. If your light fails and you need your spare, make sure you can get to it easily. That sounds obvious, but maybe it isn't.
-Muzzle smoke/haze screws up light beams. When we were doing shorter range work and moving, it cleared as we moved so was not a problem. Later, doing longer range shooting where we would get behind cover and pound rounds into the target while our partner moved, we'd build up quite a cloud at our muzzle. Since the lights are behind the cloud, that nice tight beam turns into a mess. It's sorta like high beams in the fog.
This was new to me. I hadn't got to do any longer range night shooting before where you're fixed in place for a few shots. It was doable, but more challenging.
I used a red dot and a magnified optic that night. The magnified optic helped cut through it. A red dot is easily visible, but doesn't help you see through your cloud of crap.
-It was in the mid to upper 20s, so that provided it's own challenges. I used the same chest rig I've used for eight years and pretty much know where everything is on it. Not that night, because when strapped over four layers of shirts/jackets everything had moved. I fumbled for mags, looked for my dump pouch, and clattered around getting the pistol back in the holster. I saw others who had to get everything up past their clothing that had bunched and folded over the top of gear. I don't know how those guys in Afghanistan do it, with the temp extremes they can see in the course of a day. They have to be adjusting gear all the time, with every layer that comes on or off.
-You can hit as easily at night as in daylight. You "just" need to get enough light on target. Shooting 240 yards with a 65 lumen light is a job. Shooting 240 yards with a 320 lumen light is a piece of cake.
-I used the AUG and SCAR 17 because it was my first chance to use them in a class. And because they were the newest toys.
The AUG flash hider worked great, but I kept getting a small red flash that looked to be from the ejection port which caught my eye. Nobody else I asked saw it. I finally decided it was being reflected off the red dot lens giving me the best view.
I used the SCAR for the longer stuff (AUG=indoor rifle; SCAR=outdoor rifle). The SCAR has a combination muzzle brake/flash hider. I have always been dubious of that. A good brake usually enhances flash, and a good flash hider usually won't be much of a brake. It's a good brake, so I expected to be lighting up the world. I was surprised to see it actually did hide the flash. I'd get a spark or two sometimes, but that happens. I've been seriously thinking of replacing it, but maybe not.
The Trijicon TR24 scope on the SCAR worked great. I thought it was a little too bright and "bloomy" at first, but that brightness was nice to have later when shooting through a muzzle cloud.
Obijohn- I hope you're feeling better. It hurt me to watch you.
Now...
Lessons learned:
-Do NOT look through a really nice night vision unit like a PVS-14 and not expect to want one. As someone there said: If you don't look, you won't know what you're missing.
Crap.
-The biggest distractions may not be what you think, some distractions are amplified at night, and different things make for unexpected distractions.
I was doing the "Figure 8". Rhino turned a strobe on at some point, which you might think would have caused havoc. Truth is, I don't know when it came on, because it didn't really bother me. However...
Behind me I hear a hissing sound, then a red road flare lands among the targets. Big deal, right? To me, it was. It was a bigger distraction than the strobe or yelling crap at me. Some of it was probably the sound, because when I hear something hissing like that, I expect it to bite or explode.
-You have to see to hit, but sometimes it doesn't take much light. If it's really dark, any light is great.
-Identifying your target is different. That might take a lot of light, placed just right.
-Identifying your target with a handheld, then shooting with the weaponlight keeps one from pointing guns at non-threats, but the process of doing it sucks. It seems to take forever from starting the process to finishing it. If your weaponlight has the right beam pattern, you might be able to sort of cheat and illuminate the ground and see. Obviously, reflecting off the ground would work better if identifying something waist high like a rifle or shotgun held low rather than something higher up like a face or certain color hat.
-You drop something in the daytime, you know where it hit the ground and can find it later. Drop it at night, and you have no reference point. In daylight, you know it landed three feet from the brown clump of grass. At night, it landed in the dark, which looks like that dark other there, and this dark over here. Dummy cords or a piece of reflective tape might be worth considering on more expensive items. I worked over half my career on the night shift, but it was rarely truly dark.
-LED lights are nice.
-Secondary plans suck at night. If your light fails and you need your spare, make sure you can get to it easily. That sounds obvious, but maybe it isn't.
-Muzzle smoke/haze screws up light beams. When we were doing shorter range work and moving, it cleared as we moved so was not a problem. Later, doing longer range shooting where we would get behind cover and pound rounds into the target while our partner moved, we'd build up quite a cloud at our muzzle. Since the lights are behind the cloud, that nice tight beam turns into a mess. It's sorta like high beams in the fog.
This was new to me. I hadn't got to do any longer range night shooting before where you're fixed in place for a few shots. It was doable, but more challenging.
I used a red dot and a magnified optic that night. The magnified optic helped cut through it. A red dot is easily visible, but doesn't help you see through your cloud of crap.
-It was in the mid to upper 20s, so that provided it's own challenges. I used the same chest rig I've used for eight years and pretty much know where everything is on it. Not that night, because when strapped over four layers of shirts/jackets everything had moved. I fumbled for mags, looked for my dump pouch, and clattered around getting the pistol back in the holster. I saw others who had to get everything up past their clothing that had bunched and folded over the top of gear. I don't know how those guys in Afghanistan do it, with the temp extremes they can see in the course of a day. They have to be adjusting gear all the time, with every layer that comes on or off.
-You can hit as easily at night as in daylight. You "just" need to get enough light on target. Shooting 240 yards with a 65 lumen light is a job. Shooting 240 yards with a 320 lumen light is a piece of cake.
-I used the AUG and SCAR 17 because it was my first chance to use them in a class. And because they were the newest toys.
The AUG flash hider worked great, but I kept getting a small red flash that looked to be from the ejection port which caught my eye. Nobody else I asked saw it. I finally decided it was being reflected off the red dot lens giving me the best view.
I used the SCAR for the longer stuff (AUG=indoor rifle; SCAR=outdoor rifle). The SCAR has a combination muzzle brake/flash hider. I have always been dubious of that. A good brake usually enhances flash, and a good flash hider usually won't be much of a brake. It's a good brake, so I expected to be lighting up the world. I was surprised to see it actually did hide the flash. I'd get a spark or two sometimes, but that happens. I've been seriously thinking of replacing it, but maybe not.
The Trijicon TR24 scope on the SCAR worked great. I thought it was a little too bright and "bloomy" at first, but that brightness was nice to have later when shooting through a muzzle cloud.
Well, I had quite a bit of new gear I was trying out during this class. I had a new rifle, weapon light, pistol light, gun belt, holster, and some cold weather gear. I will say the rifle was a huge improvement in weight compared to my other rifle I would've normally taken. I really do like the shorter rifle to maneuver around cover and in various drills. I will say, the short rifles will hang of the sling a little different and you have to be careful of where they are now pointing, obijohn made sure to point this out so I was aware of it
My gun belt was a new bio belt from bullhide belts. It worked very well, and was a lot more rigid than belts I've used in the past all while being very comfortable at the same time. The holster was new because it had to accommodate my pistol light. I recently put a Surefire X400 with the additional pressure switch that extends back to the grip. I really like this set up. It makes easy to maintain a good grip and have a reference (laser) if you need or choose to use one. It was fairly easy to scan with a handheld light and then just switch right to the pistol and use the weapon light when going to work. I did have an issues where the light seemed to quit working (laser still turned on) for a brief moment, but after warming up it started to function properly again
The rifle mounted light I used was an Inforce/HSP WML. The light is very light weight and has a bright light at 200 lumens. It has a momentary on switch which is what I prefer. I think my mounting location is off a little though. By the end of the night it seemed to be harder to work the switch. I think I'm going to try and mount it at about a 10 o'clock position on the rail.
I built a Noveske Diplomat 7.5" with a Huntertown Arms Kestrel 5.56 suppressor living on the end of it. Overall the gun worked great all night, it was light and easy to maneuver.
And last up was the new cold weather gear. The best thing I recently acquired was a Vortex Optics hat from 42769vette, that thing was all I had to keep my head warm and it was plenty. It was almost too warm at times.
Oh... and the class
The class was great, it's always good to get cold weather trigger time and definitely better to get low-light practice. obijohn, rhino, and granger put on a really good class. The skills based portion at the beginning got us acclimated with transitions and using lights. Then we went through the famous figure 8 drill. It was definitely a lot different doing it with a carbine and also a night. It did seem like it took you forever to search for threats with a handheld light before going to a gun once the threat was identified. Although when watching other students go, it didn't seem like it took all that long.
After that we went to distance shooting on steel using cover and working in pairs. This was the first time I personally worked in pairs and the communication was very useful. Communication is very important in low light because you can't see things as easily. You might not see the other person reloading while you're trying to move, and vice versa.
Overall the class was a lot of fun. Can't wait to do it again
And Thanks to Slow1911s for the best picture ever!! He got a great shot of my gun, the bullet, and even the vapor trail.
My gun belt was a new bio belt from bullhide belts. It worked very well, and was a lot more rigid than belts I've used in the past all while being very comfortable at the same time. The holster was new because it had to accommodate my pistol light. I recently put a Surefire X400 with the additional pressure switch that extends back to the grip. I really like this set up. It makes easy to maintain a good grip and have a reference (laser) if you need or choose to use one. It was fairly easy to scan with a handheld light and then just switch right to the pistol and use the weapon light when going to work. I did have an issues where the light seemed to quit working (laser still turned on) for a brief moment, but after warming up it started to function properly again
The rifle mounted light I used was an Inforce/HSP WML. The light is very light weight and has a bright light at 200 lumens. It has a momentary on switch which is what I prefer. I think my mounting location is off a little though. By the end of the night it seemed to be harder to work the switch. I think I'm going to try and mount it at about a 10 o'clock position on the rail.
I built a Noveske Diplomat 7.5" with a Huntertown Arms Kestrel 5.56 suppressor living on the end of it. Overall the gun worked great all night, it was light and easy to maneuver.
And last up was the new cold weather gear. The best thing I recently acquired was a Vortex Optics hat from 42769vette, that thing was all I had to keep my head warm and it was plenty. It was almost too warm at times.
Oh... and the class
The class was great, it's always good to get cold weather trigger time and definitely better to get low-light practice. obijohn, rhino, and granger put on a really good class. The skills based portion at the beginning got us acclimated with transitions and using lights. Then we went through the famous figure 8 drill. It was definitely a lot different doing it with a carbine and also a night. It did seem like it took you forever to search for threats with a handheld light before going to a gun once the threat was identified. Although when watching other students go, it didn't seem like it took all that long.
After that we went to distance shooting on steel using cover and working in pairs. This was the first time I personally worked in pairs and the communication was very useful. Communication is very important in low light because you can't see things as easily. You might not see the other person reloading while you're trying to move, and vice versa.
Overall the class was a lot of fun. Can't wait to do it again
And Thanks to Slow1911s for the best picture ever!! He got a great shot of my gun, the bullet, and even the vapor trail.
Last edited:
DialTone301
Expert
I have the same light but have it on a Thorntail mount at about 10 o'clock. I haven't really done much with it but it seems like it will work well.
Jim, you missed a good time. And, you missed me being almost quiet. I did very little harassing of the students.
What is a thorntail mount?
I use the top rail to mount my lights. I have VTAC mounts and I put them as far forward on the top rail as I can get it. That puts the light in the 10:00-11:00 region.
One of my rifles doesn't have rails. I got one of those mounts from Botach that attaches to the front sight tower, but I need a metal offset mount for the light so I won't melt it.
DialTone301
Expert
Haley Strategic Partners, LLC.
It's also made for the weapon lights that attach directly to the rail, like the Inforce WML
I really missed taking this class. I really had a great time out with the family the same night though so all is good.
I'd love to hear more about what equipment worked best.
I have a 10.3" DD MK18 SBR with a 300 Lumen Streamlight TLR-1s mounted @ 6 o'clock. I'd like it mounted at a 45* or even @ 12 in front of the front pop up sight but I don't want to make the sight radius any shorter.
That Thorntail / Inforce WML combo looks really nice. Did anyone use one in class? If so, how did that light perform at 240 yards?
I'd like to move the TLR back onto the PPQ and get the Inforce if performance is similar.
I'd love to hear more about what equipment worked best.
I have a 10.3" DD MK18 SBR with a 300 Lumen Streamlight TLR-1s mounted @ 6 o'clock. I'd like it mounted at a 45* or even @ 12 in front of the front pop up sight but I don't want to make the sight radius any shorter.
That Thorntail / Inforce WML combo looks really nice. Did anyone use one in class? If so, how did that light perform at 240 yards?
I'd like to move the TLR back onto the PPQ and get the Inforce if performance is similar.
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