I'm always at a loss as to how to start these reviews. The bottom line is, it was a fantastic class, but there's a lot to unpack in describing it.
Facilities:
The class is held at the NRA's Whittington Center in Raton New Mexico and it is an amazing facility. The range is named the Jeff Cooper Range and it shows. It has both steel and paper targets at 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 yards, along with a berm at 50 and room for more steel going out to ranges that my rangefinder couldn't figure out. Additionally, there is a valley next to it for a rifle walk, a classroom with chairs and decks for gun cleaning and it is decorated with all manner of Cooper memorabilia. There is a well-head outside with running water. The ghost of Jeff Cooper seems close at hand.
Beyond the range, there is competitor housing on the premises which was a nice place to gather during breakfast and lunch. There is a concessions trailer with brisket sandwiches that are out of this world. There are multiple ranges spread out for every shooting discipline plus a gift shop and museum. Additionally, there is even a ghost town and abandoned mine where we took a long hike on Wednesday evening. My friend Hank described it as Disneyland with guns.
Trainers:
Tom Russell was both a friend and instructor with Jeff Cooper and was present at the Whittington Center with Jeff when Steyr introduced the Scout Rifle back in 1997. He is knowledgeable and a good communicator. All commands were clear and there was never a question about the expectation. He ran a solid course from start to finish. He also has a fair amount of hunting experience, particularly in Africa. Many of his anecdotes and reinforcing stories were drawn from his African experiences.
Ethan Russell is Tom's 19 year old son and he acted as an assistant and line coach. He has a promising future and did a great job of helping to keep things moving. He found his voice and was able to call out hits clearly when needed.
Aaron Thompson is a friend of Tom's who also acted as an assistant and coach. If I understood it correctly, he is working on becoming an instructor himself. He will do well in that. His commands were also clear and made sense. He was encouraging when needed and did a great job of keeping things moving.
Students:
I'm not going to give a bio of everybody but suffice to say, it was a really good mix. There were no students who slowed the group down nor made us roll our eyes. Everybody was dialed in at least enough to keep up. There was one older gentleman who had not owned a gun until 3 years ago and only recently ever shot a rifle. There was a 14 year old son of one of the other participants who really showed a lot of advancement during the week. There were several of us who have taken multiple firearm classes including a few rifle classes. The camaraderie was genuine and not a single person would I ever wish to avoid in the future. That is a rare thing and I think it contributed to a fantastic overall experience.
The guns:
There were 5 Steyr Scouts, one custom Ruger 77 and two custom Howa rifles in the class. The gentleman with the Ruger also has a Steyr that he brought out for one day. The rookie of the bunch started out with two stock spacers and by Thursday, I talked him into removing them and he was very grateful. He also opted to try it without the bipod and really liked how this improved the handling of the rifle. The gentleman with the Ruger also tried removing the bipod and also enjoyed the handling of it. My friend Hank and I both had rifles without them and I am more convinced than ever that the gun should be made without them to save weight and make them more handy overall.
Optics:
Most participants had the 2.5X Leupold scout scope. The guy with the Ruger had the VX Freedom 1.5-4X scout. Hank and I both had the Leupold VX-R 1.5-5X Scout scope. In the class, there really isn't much difference. The advantage of the VX-R isn't felt until the sun starts to set or the targets get hard to see due to camouflage. I did like being able to turn up to 5X at longer targets and I noticed Ruger guy turned up to 4X at 300+ yards. While it was nice, it wasn't totally necessary because the targets were white and contrasted nicely with the background.
The drills:
Snapshots - Cooper said that the Scout Rifle is ideally suited for the snapshot so this was a big part of the training. Once and sometimes twice a day, we would work on these. The drill was to start at 10 yards at the sound of a buzzer, fire at the head of a standard IPSC target. Then do it again. And again. Then move to 25 and do the same thing. And then to 50 but this time to the A zone of the body. That's 45 rounds in pretty short order. This drill exposes weaknesses in gun handling, flinches and awareness.
Positions - We practiced standing, kneeling (only a little), squatting, sitting, prone, braced standing and Hawkins prone. We drilled getting into and out of these positions over and over.
Longer range - During the week, we practiced out ot 300 yards, mostly in prone and by Friday, we started ringing steel at 400 and 500 yards. We discussed using the center post as the aiming point and how to roughly figure hold-over. This was not a long range precision class but we got the general idea of longer range shooting and some did very well even at 500 yards with a 2.5X scout scope.
Challenges - We were timed on the Rifle Bounce and Rifle 10 drills. These were fun but Rifle 10 will wear you out at 6500 feet elevation.
- Rifle bounce consists of starting from a standing position and engaging a steel popper at 100 yards. Once that is hit, drop to sitting and hit a popper at 200. Next, move to prone and hit a popper at 300. My best time was woeful at 29 seconds. One guy in our group was lightning fast at 16 seconds. It is hard to move to all three positions in that amount of time, let alone hit a target.
- Rifle 10 required improvisation. The shooter starts from a standing position and drops to prone at the buzzer and engages a paper target at 300 yards with 2 rounds. Then, he runs forward 25 yards and choses a position and fires 2 more shots. Advance 25 and 2 more. Advance 25 and two more. Advance 25 (now 175 yards from the target) and fire 2 more but those shots must be from standing. Par time is 2 minutes and I did it the fastest at 2:22 which means I lost points but not as many as the rest of the guys. I scored a 30 after the time deduction and that was far and away the best score that day. From what I understand, a score of 40 is considered "good". I was totally gassed and am sure my two misses were the last two from standing.
-Rifle walk. Each student was taken on a one-on-one walk with Tom into a narrow valley. I didn't enjoy the first one and that is because it was designed to teach some lessons that are uncomfortable. I will not go into detail because I don't want to give anything away but the second time through was much more rewarding (although I did drop to prone in some cactus).
Shoot-off:
There were two parts to this. One was to see who had the best accuracy in the snap shots at 25 and 50 yards. Doc Troy won that but Hank was close behind. The other part was a man-on-man double elimination bracket where the course of fire was pretty simple. Begin from standing and engage one steel target at 60 yards and then drop to the position of your choice and engage a steel target at 200. Best 3 out of 5 wins the set. This was a blast and there was a lot of cheering and we got to find out who hates losing. That would be me. Fortunately, I didn't lose. I won the whole thing against some very good shooters. Second place went to a guy who was new to scout rifles but pretty dialed in otherwise and third place went to the 14 year old who showed dramatic improvement during the week.
Class time:
We did spend time in the class discussing everything from mindset, current events, shot placement (game and otherwise), history of the concept, the future of the concept including discussions of suppressors, sling choices, hunting, movement and other random topics. This is the only place I might change some things. The emphasis on African hunting was interesting, but not always pertinent to anything most of us will ever experience.
Extra curricular activities:
On Wednesday evening, we took a long hike to the Van Houton mine and ghost town. We carried rifles but not for shooting. It was a long walk and for some of the guys, it was the first time they had carried a rifle in this kind of situation. Aside from the relaxation and team building, it was instructive to learn how a light weight rifle carries over long distance. It was a very positive experience.
On Thursday, we all drove about 45 minutes South to Cimarron and the St James Hotel which is a historic inn on the Santa Fe trail. It is also where Cooper celebrated a birthday and was the last man to shoot a hole in the ceiling (cool story behind that). Again, great team building.
Hank and I were the only ones who didn't stay at the Whittington Center and we discovered a fantastic little Mexican restaurant which is where we all met for dinner on two other nights. The food was great and the staff were visibly appreciative of the business and treated us like royalty. If you go, make sure to try Casa Lemus in Raton.
Overall thoughts:
I can't overstate how good this was. The guys who came in as rookies had dramatic improvements. The guys with more experience all learned more and advanced their skill sets. Everybody walked away as better shooters and have a foundation upon which to build. It is a big time commitment to take 5.5 days and travel to New Mexico, but it was definitely worth it. At no point did I feel bored or frustrated (well, except for the 1st rifle walk but that was the point).
Bottom line is, if you are looking to make use of a general purpose rifle, this is a great way to learn it or to hone your skills with one. It isn't the only way but the overall experience is really beyond compare.
