Night Vision Pistol/Carbine

I want to express my gratitude for the Night Vision Pistol/Carbine class you offered this week. It was a smashing success. Prior to this class I owned the gear but had very little idea of what to do with it except walk around in the dark thinking ,"This is cool." I owned a piano, but couldn't play it. This week showed me what I needed to know, and pointed the way to further self improvement. In the first day I went from "tragic" to incompetent. In the second day I went from incompetent to almost competent. According to Cory, I made it all the way to conscious competence. Next up: Unconscious competence. We'll see. Cory has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject matter, from the history of the devices to the science behind them to the manufacturing techniques used. He showed us a TON of gear that he's collected and WHY he's collected it. Heck, he BUILDS these systems. There doesn't seem to be a question he can't answer on this topic. He doesn't do anything without a good reason. Imagine being able to spot and engage targets at 1500 meters, in full darkness. Cory does. Wow. Both Cory and Chris have real-world experience using this gear. Chris's experience is far more recent, and he's lived with this gear for many years. His low-key approach belies his competence. He's a solid pro and one of my favorite Instructors. So, typical for Gunsite, we have two faculty members with deep knowledge and practical experience. They teach with positive reinforcement, patience and humor. This is as good as it gets. I had come to think I was fairly competent in shooting, but doing simple shooting drills under NVG knocked me way back to the 150 level. As Cory said, "The shooting part is stupid simple. It's doing so with the NVG that makes it hard." And he was right. I had to relearn a LOT of the techniques while managing the gear. Just searching out targets in the Donga was a new level of challenge. Me? I got surprised in the Donga? Shit. Example: If we have an IR pointer on the gun we don't need to shoulder the piece. Lock it under your arm, activate the pointer, put it on target and control the trigger. I'm so used to shouldering a weapon that it was really hard to absorb. After decades of aimed shots, I have come to point shooting - and it WORKS. Best of all, the people from L3HARRIS came up last night to demo their wares. Scott, one of their design engineers, gave a talk on how these implements are made. Thanks to Cory's earlier lecture I was able to follow the discussion clearly. The folks from L3HARRIS are doing serious science and engineering work. They're helping the SOCOM guys and making our armed forces more effective. It's the Lord's work. The wares that L3 showed us were top flight. If you ever get a chance to look through their "pano", or four tube system, take it. It's an AMAZING image; almost like walking around in full daylight with a wide field of view. Everyone in our class tried it and everyone said something like, "OK. Time to sell my car/refinance my house". Panos are THAT cool. I am SO GLAD our guys have this tech, and the bad guys do not. The demo showed me that what I had worked, but it was far from optimum. White phosphor is far superior to "green-screen" and the new tubes have far more image transference. I need to up my gear. So, Gunsite's NVG class is expensive - on the back end! This class showed me what I need to learn. If I can get competent with NVG that will take my shooting to a whole new level. This is why I keep hanging around Gunsite. I keep learning new skills. I keep growing. THANK YOU GUNSITE, Bob

Bob Shimizu, March 2022, Gunsite, Paulden, AZ

Take Me Back Where I Was