Editor’s Note: In PoliceOne “First Person” essays, our Members and Columnists candidly share their own unique view of the world. This is a platform from which individual officers can share their own personal insights on issues confronting cops today, as well as opinions, observations, and advice on living life behind the thin blue line. This week’s essay comes from PoliceOne Member Andrew L. Butts, a Supervisory Border Patrol Agent with U.S. Border Patrol Academy Firearms Training Division. Andrew will contribute his essay in three parts — today is the second installment. Check out part one here. Do you want to share your own perspective with other P1 Members? Send us an e-mail with your story.
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By Andrew L. Butts
Supervisory Border Patrol Agent
U.S. Border Patrol Academy
Firearms Training Division
Early in 2010, I had the opportunity to attend Viking Tactics Carbine 1.5 in Arizona. I have had previous carbine training but am always looking for ways to gain knowledge and increase skill and this VTAC course certainly met my expectations. At the completion of Carbine 1.5, I was anxious to attend another course taught by Kyle Lamb. When I learned he was offering his Street Fighter course, I jumped at the chance. Street Fighter was three days in length and, like Carbine 1.5, involved many drills designed to build muscle memory and perfect shooter performance through repetition.
Day One
After zeroing our carbines at 50 and 100 yards, we shot from 100, 75, 50, and 25 yards using prone, sitting, kneeling and standing positions. We had a ‘par’ time of 40 seconds at each distance. This 40 seconds included running 25 yards and then assuming whichever position was called for at that distance. We performed the same drills but started with a transfer to the support side. Par times were increased to 90 seconds for these drills.
Next, we performed a transition drill at 20, 15, and 10 yards. This drill required us to engage three targets with two rounds each from strong and support side, advance to the next shooting position and repeat and then advance to the ten yard line and finish by running our carbines dry and then transitioning to the pistol.
After lunch, we proceeded to the VTAC barricades and vehicles. Kyle started out by giving us a demonstration of various shooting positions from the hood, trunk, tires, and bumpers of one of the cars and then turned us loose to practice these positions. During the demo, we went down to about the fifty yard line and looked back up range while a ‘shooter’ assumed various shooting positions, including the broke back mountain and junkyard prone from behind one of the cars. Broke Back Mountain — when done correctly — really doesn’t give the bad guys much to aim at.
Junkyard Prone exposes more of the good guy’s head but is quick to assume and quick to quit and still doesn’t leave much for the bad guys to shoot at. Care must be taken in junkyard prone since it’s easy to accidentally expose a knee or leg from underneath the engine compartment or trunk. Still, depending on the distance and skill of your opponent, it is a good position. Once we’d all had a chance to shoot from around and under the cars, we changed things up and started shooting from inside the vehicles. We shot from driver and passenger side and tried each position with vehicles facing left and right as well as straight downrange. Kyle asked us to avoid shooting through the windows or windshield at this point, telling us that we’d get a chance for this on the third and final day.
Day Two
We began with movement drills. SGM Lamb set up three of his barricades in a straight line and we weaved in and out of the barricades while shooting. We did this several times and then worked on moving laterally while shooting. After the movement drills, we moved the vehicles from 100 yards down to 50 yards. From here, we’d start in the cars and engage targets and then exit out and use the vehicles for cover/concealment. We did this from both sides of the vehicles and also worked on getting out of the car by sliding across the seat and getting out on the other side. One of the cars we used was an old Pontiac Fiero and it was a chore getting up and over the center console and gear shift with a pistol belt full of mags and ammo. This was a great drill for police officers wearing full duty gear.
The Fiero was a standard passenger vehicle and it was hard enough climbing over a gear shift. I can just imagine trying to make it over the center console with a service radio, computer equipment, and long arm rack there as well. This is something I’ll definitely have to try in my service vehicle and it’s something I’d highly recommend you try a time or two to get the bugs worked out before trying it on the range with a loaded firearm!
Next, Kyle demonstrated several techniques for clearing malfunctions with one arm/hand out of the fight. He also showed us how to shoot with only one arm. We then worked on these techniques in a fashion similar to the above vehicle drills but with either the right or the left arm out of role. Shooting with one hand not only helps build shooter confidence but it also points out errors in placement of gear, mag pouches, etc. As an example, it is difficult to perform a reload with your right hand only if all your magazines are set up on the left side of your belt.
After we’d all had a chance to run through the vehicle and injured shooter drills, we set up a number of paper targets right off the vehicles’ hoods, passenger doors and front bumpers. We then ran through these courses several times and were allowed to blaze targets that were, in some cases, no more than two or three yards away. All the stuff we’d worked on earlier, such as using the cars for cover and shooting while moving came into play.
Day Three
The third and final day was spent working in and out of the vehicles at close range. We started with a discussion on various calibers and types of ammunition and took turns shooting various parts of one of the cars to get an idea of what rifle and handgun ammo (and a couple rounds of 00 buck and a slug) would do against auto glass and doors. We finished off the final day by running a number of drills that required us to engage targets not only from around the vehicles but also through them. Many of the drills started with the shooter in either the driver or passenger seat. On the command of, “Contact front!” the shooter engaged his first target through the windshield. I was surprised at how difficult this was. Bullets can become extremely unpredictable when passing through auto glass and it usually took a series of rounds before getting a hit on target.
Kyle told us, “P stands for plenty so use plenty of ammo to get the glass out of the way and get a good hit.” By the end of the day, all three vehicles looked like something right off an action movie set. Fun stuff!
Street Fighter is a course like no other and picks up where Carbine 1.5 leaves off. It reinforces the ideas that conventional shooting positions and some of our traditional ideas of cover and concealment might not be the best for the modern urban battlefield.
More info on Kyle and his various classes can be found here.
