Owners of AR-15 rifles in Poland have a wide range of options to pursue their shooting passion. In every region of the country, depending on the people you band together with and the available shooting ranges in the area, you can practice different types of shooting, from dynamic to medium and long range. Regardless of the type of permit you have, you can pursue recreational and sports activities (static and dynamic shooting such as IPSC, IDPA, PRS and local variants based on them) to situational shooting of a defensive and para-combat nature, such as the Light Infantry competition organized by Klub Strzelających Inaczej in July. Undoubtedly, times are favorable for the popularization of shooting, and along with its popularity, the demand for training to raise awareness and improve the skills of "young" shooting enthusiasts is growing, or at least it should grow. I say that it should, because what can sometimes be observed at shooting ranges encourages others to move away from certain people, and things like shot-up ceilings and walls are a real nuisance for shooting range owners. Just having a gun permit and buying it does not mean that you can use it safely, let alone shoot it effectively.
There are many training companies and trainers, often former military personnel, but unfortunately there are few of them that are worth recommending. It is not the case that every instructor will teach you everything, or that military background makes someone a good instructor, because a good one also need to be able to pass on the knowledge. Therefore, you should look carefully and seek opinions to avoid making a bad choice. It is also worth training under different instructors and gain something for yourself from each training.
MidRange training organized by TeamGrey Accuracy, following Jarosław Walczuk's training program, took place on Sunday, March 17 at the Bellona - Marynino shooting range. Jarosław Walczuk, who also led the session, is widely respected in the industry as one of the authorities on long-range shooting techniques. On Sunday, participants learned or run over the basics of shooting at ranges of 50, 100, 200 and 300 m (well, actually 290 m), and for more experienced shooters it was also an excellent opportunity to shoot with a new configuration of their weapon and practice forced stances using improvised cover, under the supervision of an experienced instructor. The training took place in two modules. The classes began with making sure the participants had zeroed their weapons at a range of 50 m, but also with making sure that everyone knew how to adopt a stable shooting stance, work the trigger and generally control their fire. The accepted grouping was 5 cm and the ideal was 2 cm. Already at this stage, it was possible to practice the stance with a support of a bipod, a backpack and use the carrying sling to stabilize the weapon in a prone position.
In order to get to know the ballistics of the currently used ammunition, its drop, and the mounted optics, the distance to the target has been increased to 100m. After checking the value necessary to make a correction at this range, the gong shooting began with the aim of hitting a 10 cm diameter gong each time. From that point on, we worked in pairs - one person was shooting, the other was observing. After moving to 200m and making sure about the second zero, we moved to the last distance of 290m where, after the gong shooting was finished, the first module also ended.
In the second part of the training, participants were introduced to the theory of practical and effective shooting at targets at a longer ranges, with the aim of hitting a target of a given size and not of achieving the tightest possible group. It was based on studies made for the training of American soldiers (defensive MPBR and USMC 33/ 275m and Army 25/300m). It was a large dose of valuable knowledge, very different from target shooting. Next, the participants began practicing shooting from forced, uncomfortable shooting positions, paying attention to using the carrying sling for better stabilization, of course under the supervision of Jarosław Walczuk, who tried to devote as much attention to each participant as required.
The training was conducted in a relaxed atmosphere. Everyone could calmly learn the instructions, focus their attention on improving their work with a weapon and, above all, regardless of the level of skill, after 6 hours of this training, see that hitting a 10 cm gong (or even a smaller one) from 300 m is not a major challenge when using optics with 4x magnification. An additional nice touch was meeting an old friend, Michał Sitarski, i.e. Królik from the Fragout! magazine, who was my shooting partner. It was certainly not the last such trip to TeamGrey Accuracy, because the my appetite for dynamic medium-range shooting has increased. Till next time!
Jarosław Walczuk from TeamGrey Accuracy and MidRange training participants (photo with a subtext)
Photos: Paweł Ciecielowski (WMASG)
