Carbine training with Kenaz Tactical Group

So you might be asking yourself, why should I train?  Why should I train with a carbine / modern sporting rifle?  You may say, “hey, I’ve been shooting AR’s for years, I’m not going to learn anything at an entry level class”.  You might say that, but you’d be wrong.  Just because you’ve been doing something a long time doesn’t mean you’re good at it.  Ask my wife.

When I had the opportunity to take a Carbine Essentials course from Kenaz Tactical Group, a company that provides Colorado firearms training, I jumped at the chance.  Why?  I shoot AR’s all the time and I still learned a ton!  As chief instructor, Robert Butler, says, “There are no experts”.  I didn’t learn to be a tier 1 operator because that is not what KTG teaches.  He teaches you to run your gun and that’s why I walked away from this class happy.  I’m not an operator nor do I want to pretend to be one.

The class starts out like many others, an instructor introduction followed by a range safety briefing.  From there it moves into how to zero your sights and everyone takes some time to do that.  Everything is taught at the range while practicing the movements allowing for excellent retention. We were able to practice clearing all kinds of malfunctions, and holy crap do I need more practice.  They worked us on different shooting positions and shooting from both sides of cover and the proper positioning for prone shooting.  Time was spent on the kneeling position and rolling onto either side.  Robert was able to heal my training scars and show me a better way to transition from strong to support side shooting.  Not just the how, but the why.

One of the most fun parts was  to learn techniques for moving and shooting.  Moving laterally from both directions and making target decisions based on what the instructors were calling out and we finished off the day with an exercise that put all the skills we had learned throughout the day to the test.  Everything done safely at controlled pace.

So why should you train?  Train because you will always learn something new.  Train because someday it might be the difference between life and death.  Even if that never happens, you meet good people, learn some valuable skills and have a damn fun time doing it.

Robert Butler from Kenaz Tactical Group and his assistant instructor Chris Day from  Plainsman Security and Training were professional and great teachers.  Thanks to both for teaching all of us some great skills and giving us a good foundation to build on for future classes.  Kenaz Tactical group will be where I do further advanced carbine training.  It’s a place I can trust.