Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Man, I'm beat.

I'm back from gun camp, which was a very enlightening experience. Its always nice to find out exactly what you don't know. Sobering too. And it was a very good chance to learn/observe what works/doesntwork in terms of gear.

Since Im a gear-queer, lets talk toys:

In the handgun class there were 10 people. Thusly, 10 pistols. Of those 10 pistols 1 was a SIG 9mm and the rest were Glocks. Of the 9 Glocks there was one .45 GAP. So, out of ten guns there were eight 9mm Glocks.

All holsters, except mine, were kydex and I switched to a kydex holster early on. The only gun to experience malfunctions was the Glock .45 GAP which seemed to double-feed alot. This was believed to be a magazine related problem. Personally, I think its new-gun bugs being worked out.

Of the eight 9mm Glocks there were no malfs. I personally put almost 600 rounds through my early-model 17 (Stock gun, no mods) had no problems of any kind. Needless to say, my faith in the ability of a stock Glock to perform with quality commercial ammo is quite strong.

Not as strong on the AR's though. The carbine class was tiny – three people. Me, the girlfriend and an older fella with a scoped Mini-14. Me and the girlfriend were carrying ARs..mine was a fullsize A2 with open sights. She had a shorty carbine flattop with a red dot. After about 300 rounds on this hot day I started getting jams. Mostly the bolt failing to go forward with sufficient force to completely strip the next round off the magazine. Solution was to , with the bolt closed, squirt a healthy dose of lube onto the bolt through the ejection port and work the bolt a few times. I have utter confidence that the AK's would have handled this situation with ease…however, I thought we were going to do one handed mag change drills (which we didnt) and that the AK-style magazine release would work against us. The instructor advised lubing using FP-10, saying that other lubes (like Tetra, which Ive come to prefer) offer no benefit once they dry out/cook off. The guy runs an AR course and has experience, it would be foolish not to listen to him and give the stuff a shot.

The AR course was exhausting. Shooting from different angles as well as axes. (Difference, it seemed, was that angle was your up/down/sideways range of motion and axes was where your body was oriented….example, face away from the target and your axis is away from the target.) SOme of the drills were spectacularly difficult and in some ways painful. For example, face away from the target and twist your torso to the left (normally, your weak side) and shoot behind you. Or, my favorite for crunching internal organs, stand facing the target, shoulder the rifle and lean over to the side like your trying to look under a table. Your basically holding the gun upside down…now, start shooting and keep a good sight picture. Ow.

The pistol course featured the entire gamut of what youd expect: strong side one hand, weak side one hand, on hand reload, shooting from around cover left and right handed, shooting while moving, etc, etc. I remember how we had the courses of fire set up and will be replicating them at my local range with the steel plates.

Although the Glock performed spectacularly, I think its accuracy isnt as good as, say, my Browning. I'd very much like to take this course again with my beloved P35 and see how I do. I wouldnt mind trying it with a 1911 but one course of fire required almost 40 rounds if you didnt miss any shots…thats 6 .45 mags right there. No, I'd like to try it with the High Power though.

As an aside, this was my firs experience with a shooting course of any kind. The instructor was Pat Goodale. The courses were Def Handgun III and Tactical Rifle I. Mr. Goodale was very patient, more than willing to answer questions to my satisfaction, and generally had all the qualities you'd want in an instructor.