Holding A Carbine & The Need For A Lighter Rifle.

NOT LIKE THIS!!!

I decided to write this post because I took a really great carbine course this weekend with Frank from Stonewall Arms. This class was only the 3rd time I'd ever fired my carbine, or any carbine for that matter, in a meaningful way.

My excellent M&P-15 Sport.

We started the class with sighting in carbines at 50 yards, this started to get frustrating for me since I had shot it at closer ranges and thought it was already sighted in, but Frank did a great job of walking me thru the sigting process and reminded me that we all see a little different. Eventually I got all my shots in the black at 50 yards and on we went.

Part of Frank's instruction during the sighting process was where to place my support hand on the front of the gun. I was going with a magwell hold since it kept my left arm close to my body and didn't stress out the injury in my shoulder very much. It feels natural and I can see why people do it. However, Frank had me reaching out on the stock of the gun. Not Chris Costa levels of reaching to the end of the carbine, but a more moderate place right in front of the magwell. It worked really well for me and also put me in a place where I can easily extend my arm out if needed, with little extra strain on my shoulder (Costa levels of extension are still too much for my shoulder to take however).

Do you even tactical beard bro?

Yesterday I came across a great post on the Jerking the Trigger blog about good physical reasons to have a light carbine and not just have people tell you to get stronger to carry a heavier rifle. This was a very timely find, considering the shoulder surgery I'll be having soon. I agree with the article and I am thinking about ways to make my carbine just a little lighter without breaking the bank. So far the easiest thing to do is to replace the furniture. 

I'm looking at getting a Battlelink Minimalist Stock. So far it's the lightest one I can find at 5.8oz, which is super light compared to the standard M4 style stock that weighs in at about 14oz.

I'm also looking the Magpul MOE SL hand guard which comes in at 6.7oz compared to the standard M4 handguard which I believe clocks in at 6.9 oz. It's not much of a drop, but anything helps and it gives me more options in the future.

As for sights, right now I'm just running plane jane irons, but I would like to get a simple red dot in the future. I'm thinking of a Bushnel TRS-25, which I've heard good things about. Seeing as how I'm just a weekend warrior when it comes to rifles and not a "TACTICAL DOOD!!! I think it will be fine. It's a little more weight but the extra 4 or so ounces is made up with with the drop in weight from the stock.

One Armed Man!

So, I have a messed up shoulder and will be going into surgery within the next few weeks. As a result of this I will have my left arm in a sling for the 6-weeks following. 

This is both good and bad. Good in that when everything is healed I will be able to use my left arm again. It has been tough recently to maintain my Karate training with a left shoulder that isn't able to do what it's supposed to. It is bad in that I will only be able to use my right arm for 6-weeks. Which has lead me to think about the lack of martial ability that such a situation causes.

As a shooter I occasionally shoot one handed with both my main and support hands. But with one entire arm out of commission I'm going to really have to focus on one-handed shooting and manipulation. It's really the manipulation part that I'm concerned about since I haven't done any formal training in one-handed mag changes and the like. 

So, some internet searching and practice is in store.  

I began with looking at videos at Full30.com, a great gun video site that is also not blocked by the filter at work like Youtube is. 

There I found this video from Reid Hendricks of Valor Ridge:

I like Reid's style and how he presents thing. But he was a professional teacher and is a professional firearm instructor, so I speak much of the same language. 

I also found a nice document from the Washington State Criminal Justice Academy on one handed pistol use. 

So I need to decide on one style of one handed pistol hold for reloads and need to figure out how to configure my EDC for one handed use.


As far as my Karate training during my recovery goes, I won't be able to do much. But It will be a chance for me to focus on some cardio for a while and I'll be in the dojo to take notes on the material being covered during the advanced class.

Practicing for the IDPA classifier

So this past weekend I attended my 2nd IDPA classifier. I don't think I did as well as I did my first time, but my first time I didn't have an IDPA number yet so my scores never got reported. I'm not too woried about it.

In any case, two weeks before I wanted to get a chance to re-familiarize myself with the course of fire for the thee stages and was trying to figure out what do for targets. Looking on Amazon I found some regular cardboard IDPA targets for sale at 80$ for a package of 100 (Ouch!). I couldn't justify spending that much on a bunch of cardboard. 

Looking further on Amazon I then found some paper versions of the IDPA targets for 37$. Much more reasonable. However, I wasn't sure if they would get here in time for me to practice with.

Being frugal and clever I decided to see if I could make my own and thought about grabbing a used target after the classifier that I could use as a template to make my own. 

But, if I did that I wouldn't have any targets to practice with before hand. I'll keep that one on the back burner. So I then did a search and found the specs on the IDPA targets. The head is a 6-inch box, while the center Down Zero area is an 8-inch circle, with a 3-inch gap between them.

The two Down Zero areas are really all I needed to practice with and once I realized this I opened up Microsoft Word and got to work. 

On the first page I created a 6-inch box set 1.5 inches from the bottom edge of the page. On the second page I created an 8-inch circle set at 1.5 inches from the top edge of the page. I could then print these out and set them one on top of the other and have my own printable Down Zero targets that I could then photo-copy to my hearts content.

Download HERE

It's a simple solution, but it works, and is essentially free other than printer ink and copy paper.