TigerSwan Tactical Pistol/Carbine AAR

[desertmedic]

Good day gentlemen,

Last week I attended the 3 day tactical pistol/carbine course run by TigerSwan in the Ft Bragg area. TigerSwan is owned and operated by Brian Searcy and Bernard Sparrow, both of whom retired from Army SOF units. This was my first time taking such a course so I cannot make any comparisons. It was a very small class with a 1/1 student/instructor ratio so we essentially recieved 3 days of private instruction, and overall I was very happy with the training. The goal stated at the beginning of the course was to make us faster more accurate shooters.

Day 1: We started with pistol work at 25m in the morning focusing on accuracy first. Instruction worked from the ground up on fundamentals....building an aggressive stance, presenting the weapon, grip, etc. Almost all of the pistol work we did was from 25m. Later in the morning we started to work on magazine changes and the basics of malfunction drills. In the afternoon we switched to carbines, and started at 100m again building the fundamentals and basic position work. Towards the end of the day we moved up close and started working some speed drills at around 10m.

Day 2: Essentially the same as day 1. Started to work on the draw and pick up the pace a little. Much more work on mag changes. Began to incorporate strong hand/weak hand only drills. Also started to work target transitions and tempo change drills. In the afternoon we went back to the rifles at 100m for more position drills, started incorporating mag changes, and started to work on steel a little bit.


Day 3: Heavy rain most of the day, we worked thru it. After a few minutes warming up with accuracy drills we started to pick up the pace on target transitions and began to work on movement drills. Movement was forward, lateral, and 45* movements to create space avoiding rearward movement. In the afternoon we started out with speed drills/target transitions and started working movement drills with the rifles. Then we backed out to 100m and started working barricade drills and target transitions on steel. The day ended with and El Presidente at 50m. The importance of dry fire practice was hammered in throughout.

My weapons for the class were a Glock 17 and an LWRC M6A2 piston AR with RCO ACOG. Both weapons ran extremely well. The third day the ACOG started to fog up externally, but the weather was really bad. When I pulled the buffer spring after the class it had started to rust, so it has been replaced with a moly coated Springco piece. I spoke with Brian about gear set up prior to the class and they wanted us to at least start stripped down, so I ran off a belt rig rather than my chest rig for the duration of the class. Look forward to shooting with them again. Stay safe,

Desertmedic