Train Your Weakness, Race Your Strength

First off, I must credit my friend and mentor Michael Bane for this phrase. He learned it while training for a triathlon and then mentioned it on his podcast, where I picked it up. The idea is simple: Find out what you suck at, and practice that, rather than practicing the things you’re good at and boosting up your ego. I’m going to turn this idea into a full-length article for work which will post in a month or two, but in the meantime, let’s talk about one of my weaker areas and what I am doing to correct it.

I am not an AR guy. I did not join the military, so I did not go through basic or carry around an M16/M4 around with me for months on end. However, thanks to trainers like Kyle Lamb and Matt Pranka, I’m a decent shot with one, but it’s a tertiary platform for me, after the pistol and the shotgun. I know enough about the AR as a defensive firearm that I can run a darn good defensive carbine class, but as far as I’m concerned, all my defensive guns are 50 yards and under guns, and so I’ve never really worried about working with an AR beyond that range.

This has led to an interesting “donut” in my AR skills. 50 yards and under? No problem, and I’m actually quite good with an AR at distances over 500 yards. Where the donut lies is in-between those two distances, from 50 yards out to 300 or so.

Which is why next month, I’m taking a class about engaging targets at those ranges. Thanks to 3 Gun, I have some experience with engaging targets at those ranges, but it’s not something I’ve ever concentrated on. Aside from competition and hunting things like coyotes, those types of engagements just are not my bag. It’s a weakness, and I need to train it.

My gear for class will be a brand new AR-15 from [redacted due to NDA] in 5.56mm with an EoTech HWS EXPS2 optic and an EoTech 3x magnifier. The course description says you can use that gear, but recommends you use an LPVO instead.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: I don’t like LPVOs, especially ones with a first focal plane reticle. No matter how wide their field of view is, I always feel like I’m staring down a tube when I run an LPVO.

Because I am. On top of this, a first focal plane reticle means my hash marks are going to grow and shrink as I zoom, and that’s just awful to use at 1X. Thanks to some testing, though, I know that I can run a red dot with a magnifier as well as I do an LPVO at up to 100 yards.

Let’s see how it works at 300 yards.