AAR NSR Defensive Carbine 13 July 2025, Fountain CO

[Mick-Boy]

On 13 JULY 2025 NSR Training and Consulting ran a Defensive Carbine class at our range at Pikes Peak International Raceway. The weather for the class was clear and on the warmer side necessitating lots of breaks for hydration.
This was a small class which allowed time for a lot of additional discussions and drills that we normally wouldn?t have time to cover. As well as plenty of individual attention. The instructors for the class were Jeff C. (USMC03) and me.



Equipment ? Everyone in the class was running quality equipment. No weapon, gear, or ammunition issues were observed.

POI ? This is a one-day, live fire class. The goal of the class is to expose people to concepts and considerations for fighting with a carbine and give them the opportunity to practice and get some feedback. The idea is that students leave the class with several different marksmanship and manipulations drills that they can perform on their own. You?re not going to achieve any level of mastery in a day. This stuff takes work to get good at. Jeff and I are trying to help students learn where to focus that work during their range sessions and maybe expose some gaps in their past training.

We started off with a safety brief and some discussion topics. We spent some time on carbine set-up and equipment selection. We talked about zeroing the carbine and the pros and cons of different zeros. Human anatomy and how that relates to target selection for training. A brief overview of the fundamentals of marksmanship and how they relate to shooting positions, both conventional and unconventional as well as using those positions around cover.



On the range, we checked zero on everyone?s carbine. Worked through some basic marksmanship and manipulations. Worked some close range off-set drills. Practiced different movement patters while shooting and talked about the applicability of each. Shot a few different engagement strategies for multiple targets. Worked on different barricade shooting positions and use of cover, this block dovetails nicely into working alternate positions so we did a bit of that. Finally, we shot a shot course of fire for score that encompassed a lot of the skills learned in the class.





Overall - This was an excellent class with high-performing students. Everyone showed up ready to go and we didn?t need to spend much, if any, time fixing issues. Safety was solid throughout. Corrections/suggestions on technique were taken on board and tried with open minds and good attitudes. Because the shooters in the class were solid, when there were questions, we could take the time to discuss.



Jeff and I come from different backgrounds and bring different perspectives and experiences to some of the topics. Rather than a negative, I view these differences as value-added for the students. There are usually a lot of different ways to solve these problems. Students should expect to learn *a* way rather than *the* way. Places where we disagree, we will both try to provide the context that we?re approaching the question with. Students are then able to take the answers in and come to their own conclusion about what makes sense for them and their situation.

Thanks to everyone who came out. Great shooting with you.