Related previous training - Kyle Defoor Intro Carbine, Kyle Defoor Advanced Carbine, VSM Intro Carbine, Jason Falla Carbine/Handgun. Plus a bunch of pistol and combatives classes.

The infamous Pittsburgh carpool decided to leave at 230AM and do this class in one day.

The training day started with some classroom time to sign paperwork and go over some gear discussion. It was a cold March morning in central PA, so this minimized idle time on the freezing outdoor range. I don't like talking about gun gear because it's so easy to get lost in lengthy discourses, but JD's points were solid and the discussion didn't go on forever.

The actual shooting began with a quick, basic marksmanship assessment. JD acknowledged that it would be pretty useless to those who didn't have a zero on their carbine, but it would be beneficial to those who have sighted in their rifles prior to class. After the assessment, JD began to introduce the fundamentals of marksmanship at 100 yards, one string at a time. This time was also used to dial in zeroes. Every time we pasted targets, JD would walk the line and give individual feedback. Prone and kneeling were covered extensively. I'm not going to list everything we went over, but to give a sense of the depth of instruction there was discussion about the anatomy of the human eye and the effect of viewing angle on a zero. JD covered three kneeling positions, one of which was completely new to me but apparently Brian Searcy uses very well. I did not use it so well, but it's something I can work on in my own time.

After a break for lunch we changed from a dedicated rifle range to a 50 yard bay. Here we did one shot drills from low ready, target transition, reloads, and tempo drills. JD and the cadre gave individual feedback to everyone. JD gave his opinion on stance. I never really shot carbine with the stock fully extended, but I tried it for this class as JD makes it a big point. It felt slow finding my aimpoint's dot from that far back, but the timer never lies and my time to first shot was adequate. I want to try the same thing with an Eotech or bigger aimpoint to see if the larger window decreases my time (at 7 yards I don't think the sight really matters if you have a good index) A shot timer and par time were used wherever appropriate. The day ended with a competitive modified El Pres (no turns in an intro class)

This Northern Red class was exactly what I expected when I learned the Cadre's background and after getting recommendations from people like Kyle Defoor. The instruction was "baller" It was a large class, 20+ people, but between JD and the AI's, everything went smoothly and there was plenty of individual feedback. Palmyra Sportsmen's Club was the range, and it was far better than most sportsmen's clubs when it comes to training like this. The club was very accommodating and had good facilities for this type of shooting. Unfortunately we had to pick up brass in the 50 yard bay; it's a gun range I don't know why we had to do that.