Run-of-the-mill shooting classes, if they were country-western dances, would be called the Three-Step Come-Back. Swing your partner, everbody hollar, we're gonna milk ya for your very last dollar! It works like this: let's say you want to go to the Acme Tactical Academy to learn to shoot better. You enroll in Basic Blaster in which you're taught, what else?, the basics. You're then expected to return for Intermediate Hosing to learn—it gets better—intermediate skills. Finally, $1,500 and those two prerequisites later, you're "allowed" to take Advanced Cap Bustin'.

The problem with the Three-Step Come-Back is that unlike calculus or astrophysics, shooting is not easily segregated into blocks of knowledge. There really is no such thing as an "advanced" shooting skill; some skills require better gun handling (which comes from repetition, not instruction) and some skills require more athleticism (which comes from coordination, not instruction) but none of the so-called "advanced" skills are, from an educational standpoint, stacked. In fact, at many shooting schools with beginner, intermediate and advanced classes, the "advanced" classes are just higher round-count versions of mid-level courses with maybe more time on the gee-whiz stuff, like kill houses. These multi-level programs are, when you get down to it, geared to garner as much business as possible from a given student. Their very curriculum stack is designed to entice a student to come back.

However, a good shooting curriculum teaches the same fundamentals to beginners and veterans alike, albeit with an ever increasing demand for performance. Sadly, few people in the training business will admit that mastering the fundamentals is the key to becoming a great shot. Consider the reality they face: which would you, a prospective student, be more inclined to pay tuition to attend, "Yet More Of The Basics" or "Advanced Urban Combat"?

Given that many shooting schools and independent trainers play the Three-Step Boogie, imagine my surprise when Tim Lau of 10-8 invited me to attend one of the 10-8 carbine classes. "It's just a two-day class where we cover the basics of the carbine, then work up to some skill drills we've found useful, throw in some handgun transitions and some partner drills and round it all out with a few other tricks we've developed. It's a good class, but we focus on the basics," Tim allowed with refreshing candor.

"There's nothing super whiz-bang and, no, we don't work the Snake Drill," Tim continued matter-of-factly, knowing I'm a strong supporter of Ken Hackathorn's reality-based training for which his Snake Drill is the most outrageous example. "Instead we teach a "Horizontal snake Drill" which is a version of Hackathorn's famous drill. We have great respect for Ken. He's been an influential and respected mentor."

I was impressed with Tim's honesty, but not surprised by it. We have been friends for more than 10 years and I had watched and admired the way Tim had given up a promising future as an IT specialist to embark on a new career in law enforcement. Then, even after becoming a full-time patrolman, Tim continued to look for ways to improve his tactical shooting skills.

After attending most of the top "name brand" schools and taking classes from the leading private trainers in the business, Tim realized that there was a need for a training program based on building a seamless set of shooting skills rather than the usual stair-stepped "levels" of classes.

"You look at a guy like Rob Leatham, who is an unbelievably skilled shooter, and you know what you find? A guy who can flawlessly execute the basics. Rob is a guy who understands that fundamentals are fundamental," Tim noted. As self-aware as he is open-minded, Tim also realized that while a skills-based training program is important, it's not the sole and exclusive key to shooting well. "Good information about the right equipment is important too. You look around at the incredible amount of gear that's out there, and it's hard to really tell what's good enough to trust your life to and what's just junk," Tim explained.

"I realized that no one person's experience can possibly account for determining all the variables that go into testing gear. It's too much for one guy to even know what all the options are. A body of knowledge on tactical gear should include a diversity of opinion from qualified professionals, and so together with a small group of friends, we formed 10-8." Ten-Eight began as a web forum to talk about guns, gear and other issues salient to professionals. "We wanted a forum to exchange ideas and information, but without the jerk factor of the mainstream tactical forums, like AR15-dot-com," Tim explained.

"We screen members carefully and don't allow any pseudonymns unless it's for a bona fide reason, like protecting an undercover agent's identity. By screening members like this and everyone using their real names, it keeps the forum polite, respectful and professional." Some of 10-8's more active members are firearms and tactical trainers, so it was a logical outgrowth for the loose-knit group to offer classes, mainly to its membership.

Named for the police radio code for "in service," 10-8 includes a core of founding members as well as what can best be described as adjunct instructors. They all share Tim's dedication to serving the tactical community with honest and forthright evaluations of gear, and providing instruction on shooting based on real-world results, not mass marketing of classes.

Noted tactical trainer Pat Rogers has taught under the 10-8 banner as have some of the top freelance trainers in the business, such as Rob Haught, Larry Vickers and Ken Hackathorn. Every man-jack on the 10-8 team has either worn a badge or a military uniform; they are all consummate professionals. "We're all about improving the shooting skills of cops and anyone who takes tactical training seriously. We're all involved because of pure dedication to the tactical community," Tim said. "You should come to one of our classes and see what we're about."

"Besides, every student gets a free shirt and two pairs of trousers from Woolrich Elite as we'll be photographing the class for the upcoming Woolrich catalog." Free gear plus a chance to shoot? That's an offer I can't refuse!

10-8 Carbine Class
My longtime partner-in-crime, photographer Ichiro Nagata, and I made plans to attend an upcoming three-day Advanced Carbine Class. The first two days would be shooting while the third day would be an advanced diagnostics class on the AR15/M16 taught by Colt certified armorer, 10-8 staffer and full-time cop Sgt. Dean Caputo of the Arcadia (Calif.) Police Department. The class took place at the Prado Olympic Shooting Range in Norco, Calif. Tim was the lead instructor but he was joined by another 10-8 team member, Ben Lenett, a former street cop and currently the director of law enforcement programs for Eagle Industries.

The students came from diverse backgrounds. In terms of head-count, policemen were the most numerous in the two-dozen-plus class with cops coming from as far away as Utah, Arizona and Texas. There was an active duty Marine from nearby Camp Pendleton and two Army national guardsmen, all of whom had deployment orders to the sandbox.

There was a pair of "private contractors"—why did we stop calling hired soldiers mercenaries?—who were also scheduled for a desert tour. A handful of industry representatives were among the students, including a couple from SureFire, Jim Cragg from SpecOps Gear, Col. Robert K. Brown, the founder of Soldier Of Fortune magazine, Mike McMillan from CSM Gear and Jeff Cahill from Tango Down.

Tim opened the class with an introduction to the 10-8 raison d'etre of helping improve the base of shooting skills and body of knowledge for professional gun-carriers. He then introduced the various manufacturer's reps, starting with Fernando Coehlo from Woolrich Elite who was the official "pizza and clothing" sponsor of the class. It was Fernando's idea to develop a line of specially designed clothing for plain-clothes officers and armed citizens for which he partnered with Woolrich, the legendary apparel maker.

The reps spoke briefly about their products and offered various "10-8 special deals" for anyone in the class. We then loaded mags and stuffed them in our pouches, repairing to the firing line for the first set of drills. "All the so-called 'high-speed' skills, like shooting on the move, transition shooting or opposite-shoulder shooting, are just variations on the basics," Tim told the class. "We're going to review the basics and then progress to more and more complex drills until we finally work some team drills."

With that, we lined up at 25 yards to verify zeroes. We tweaked our Trijicons and Aimpoints as necessary and then began a series of one- and two-shot drills on steel silhouettes to "get the juices flowing." Shooting, like any fine-motor skill, is a perishable skill. Even if super-basic, warm-up drills might seem too easy for an "advanced" class, every student benefited from the chance to reacquaint our first distal joints with our articulating levers. As a quick aside, consider how major league ball players train: with fundamentals. The difference between Little League camp and spring training in the majors is essentially none—they both work on fielding, throwing, hitting. So too it is with shooting in a 10-8 class. You refresh the basics, then build skill through repetition.

The Toolbox Grows
We continued to work the fundamentals throughout the first day of the two-day class, but on the second day Tim eased into some of the more specialized variations of the basics, which is another way of saying "advanced techniques."

One of the best such techniques was developed by a 10-8 team member and career lawman Rob Haught of West-By-God-Virginia. Originally conceived for use with a shotgun, the Haught Technique is a close-quarters way to maneuver a long-gun in tight confines by canting the gun 90° and letting the buttstock pass over your strong-side shoulder, protruding behind you.

This puts your long-gun's muzzle at about the same distance out from your body as a pistol would be, making an overall shorter weapon presentation. Of course your sights are now 90° off-line, but a rough "muzzle index" sort of sight picture is all that's required with this CQB-distance technique.

As Tim demonstrated the Haught Technique and the students ran some drills with it at 3 yards, I realized this was just the same basics—trigger control, sight index—as with a conventional technique. There was, however, one important difference: case ejection. With the ejection port now facing skyward, the brass can kick back at your face as Tango Down's Jeff Cahill discovered all too painfully. Some four months after the class, Jeff still has a .223 case-shaped scar on his neck where the hot piece of brass sizzled his skin like a King Ranch branding iron.

Another variation on the basics was a low-prone technique called "Urban Prone." In conventional prone, you lie on your belly and use the ground to support your elbows for a stable shooting platform. Prone, as it's normally taught, was developed primarily as a target shooting position to gain the most support for the gun. The technique taught by the 10-8 team is designed to get the shooter as low as possible behind cover, and not supply an elbow support for a Camp Perry match. Urban-prone can be shot on your back or your belly, but the idea is to get your body, and consequently your gun, as close to Mother Earth as possible. This not only supplies maximum cover to the shooter, but also allows you to take shots underneath low obstructions, such as under a car like the cop who took out the last of the bad guns with an ankle shot that finally ended the North Hollywood bank robbery shoot-out.

If we agree that trigger control is the single most important of all the fundamental shooting skills, then the next 10-8 technique shouldn't have been nearly as awkward as it was, but I found it as clumsy as juggling catfish. The technique was a variation on a basic switch-shoulder technique, but rather than simply moving the rifle from the right to the left shoulder, changing hand positions in the process, Tim taught us to move the rifle to the left shoulder, but to keep the same hand position. In other words, shoot right-handed off the left shoulder.

I struggled with this technique, but it was a new tool for the toolbox and I was glad to have been exposed to it. Tim's reasoning was that it's faster to transition shoulders without changing hand position and it keeps your most tuned finger on the trigger.

Handgun Transitions
While the class concentrated on carbine, Tim also covered handgun shooting and transitions, again starting with the basics and progressing steadily. A few of the students clearly needed the refresher work with things like the five-step draw and strong-hand only shooting, so the wisdom of focusing on fundamentals proved itself again.

Tim walked us through some draw-and-fire drills, single then multiple shots, always concentrating on getting our hits. We had shot most of the rifle portion on steel, but we used paper for the pistol as it's easier to check accuracy. Tim patrolled the line as we patched our targets and offered individual tips to different students based on their tell-tale hole patterns.

"Good group. Probably a bit too good. You might want to shoot a bit faster."

"Too many peripheral hits. You need to slow down and really see that front sight."

Speaking of individual coaching, Tim and co-instructor Lenett were constantly suggesting tips to each student, even to that hard-bitten grizzled old warrior, Col. Bob Brown! Dare I admit that I too drew a few well-deserved suggestions for improvement.

We then ran some strong- and weak-hand drills before moving to secondary weapon transition drills. Tim taught with a NightHawk 10-8 Custon 1911 with a SureFire military model light.

Virtually all of the students shot a 1911 Government Model, including the 10-8 instructors. I saw one or two Glocks and a Beretta 92 (in the hands of the active duty Marine) but it was definitely a gathering of the JMB faithful.

The pistol portion of the class was mostly a refresher for me, but it's always good to see what different instructors advocate and Tim reinforced today's common wisdom of pistolcraft—a largely Cooper-derived Modern Technique modified with a "shoot whatever stance feels right" freestyle acceptance—and I gained from the pistol portion of the class a few hundred more reps, which is good.

Team Drills
The class culminated in several team drills in which we split into squad- or stick-size groups to practice unstacking into a firing line and several other cover-and-move drills. Tim had the teams stack up with one hand on the shoulder of the man in front of you. "Learn to communicate with squeezing, not tapping. A tap can be accidental, but a squeeze is on purpose," Tim advised. The rear man initiated forward movement with a squeeze, which was transmitted up the stack to the front man. He moved out and we followed until, when he opened fire on an array of steel downrange, we peeled out of the stack into a line abreast, each man going left or right. If the man in front of you goes left, you go right, et cetera. This is not terribly difficult, but again it pointed to the importance of focusing on the basics. Some students, who had perhaps never worked a drill with other men in a stack, got confused and either hesitated, trying to decide whether to go left or right, or went the wrong way by following the man in front.

"No, your other left," came Tim's exasperated admonishment. With just a few repetitions, the stacks were flowing smoothly and unstacking faster and faster into a line of guns, all opening up on the steel downrange.

Next, we worked a drill to simulate the front man in the stack engaging a target in a scenario in which cramped quarters would prevent the stack from deploying to bring more guns to bear. The idea was to teach us what to do if, in such a scenario, the front man's rifle malfunctioned.

"In short, get the hell out of the way," Tim said. "That might mean taking a knee to let the next man have the line of fire, but for this drill, peel out and go to the back of the stack."

"The keys here are, first, get that muzzle down before you turn around. Finger off the trigger. And you, the second man, keep your muzzle down as well until the front man is clear. Fire five rounds, then you have a simulated malfunction and, same deal, keep your muzzle down and peel to the back of the stack. Keep it going until everyone has done it."

We ran this drill dry the first time to get the feel and as each man had his turn firing, he would simulate his shots. "Bang-bang!" he would say. When it came my turn, I mimicked my gunfire the best way I could: "Pffft-pffft!"

My SureFire suppressor had already made me everyone's favorite "partner" as my carbine had no blast or noise to bother the man next to me. One of these days, law enforcement will issue suppressors as commonly as they do handcuffs, but the reason will be for range safety and hearing protection, not because M is the new armorer.

Running Man
If you, as an experienced shooter, accept the fact that you're only going to learn a few things at a class—the proverbial one or two new tools for your toolbox—and that the biggest benefit is being forced to reinforce your fundamentals, then you're not in for any surpises. In fact, the only surprise might be exactly when and what the new tools will be that you pick up.

For me, the best new tools came from, of all things, running. I was flat-out ignorant of the fact that there are actually different techniques for running with a long-gun. I had always thought this was a purely instinctive thing—you know, just run like hell. I'd naturally done the Saving Private Ryan thing of holding my rifle diagonally in front of me as I stormed Omaha beach, as it were. Tim was to open my eyes.

He explained and then demonstrated three entirely different methods, starting with the Garand-in-both-hands-like-in-the-movies technique that we all know. Next came an interesting one, transferring the rifle to one or the other hands, then cradling it in the crook of your elbow, muzzle up, a technique pioneered by Bernie Cooley. The last is a method by which you tuck the buttstock underneath your armpit.

We lined up and then ran some 20 yard wind sprints to test the different techniques. It was most illuminating. For me, the "Omaha beach" technique was the slowest and most awkward by a long shot. Cooley's elbow-cradle technique was the best.

The class culminated in a man-on-man shootoff at 50 yards on the steel silhouettes. The drill was to fire one hit standing, then go kneeling for one hit and finally flop into prone for one last hit. The class split into two lines and each pair of shooters went at it until there was a winner, double elimination. It should come as no surprise that the winner was neither the youngest, fittest nor fastest shooter—it was the man who executed the basics best and got three one-shot hits.

As we put away our rifles, Tim wandered over and asked what I thought of the class. "It was a great refresher, plus I learned a couple of new techniques," I replied honestly.

"So you put a few new tools in your toolbox and you worked the basics," Tim echoed. "That's exactly what we hope to achieve for a shooter at your level. There's no such thing as high-speed shooting, only basic shooting done extremely well. I'm glad you had a good time."

I thanked Tim and climbed in my truck, realizing that Tim and his 10-8 team of like-minded professionals are seriously good trainers, even though they forgot to say goodbye the way they do at the Acme Tactical Academy: ya'll come back now, hear.

Readers interested in the 10-8 philosophy of professionals sharing their knowledge, experience and skills can apply to the forum at www.10-8consulting.com.

Learning How The Black Gun Works
Day Three of the 10-8 three-day carbine class would be special, a hands-on classroom lecture on the care and feeding of a black rifle. I knew the day would dawn with a treat, but I thought it would come in the form of a fascinating study of the inner workings of an AR. Little did I suspect the treat would also be the instructor. Sgt. Dean Caputo, a veteran street cop who is the firearms training officer with the Arcadia (Calif.) PD, was greeted with eight dozen donuts from the students, all of whom thought it would be a great joke to bring a cop a dozen donunts.

Sgt. Caputo chuckled with a good-hearted laugh, "Sorry, guys, I don't eat donuts. Got any Power bars?"

We settled into our seats at 10 foot long tables with our gunsmithing tools and our ARs (safety checked at the door) ready to listen and learn. Dean is a Colt certified armorer, however, he quickly clarified to the class that this particular lecture was not an official Colt armorer's class. "You're going to hear the same things and see the same PowerPoint, but it's not a Colt certified class," Dean noted.

With that, the medal-of-valor-winning gunfighter was off on one of the most enthralling and no-nonsense lectures I've ever heard in any kind of armorer's class. Dean candidly admitted that he was biased toward Colt, but went on to explain why. "Colt is best system you can buy. Colt is the only manufacturer—at least that's available to the public—that's required to maintain a Mil Spec standard for their government contract," Dean explained. "And they've made over 8 million M16s—you learn something after that."

"Colt knows how to rapidly and consistently make high QC, large volumes of M16s. This is the secret. Anyone can make 20, 50, even 100 guns a month that work. But during peak production, Colt can consistently turn out high quality M16s to the tune of 50,000 a month!" Dean noted.

With a series of detailed "slides" on his PowerPoint, Dean explained the basic operating system of the M16/AR15 and its history and development. "The system is pretty simple really. It's a basic direct gas system and it's very reliable. Most problems are the result of a bad magazine or a weak extractor spring. Everything else is pretty much bulletproof, as long as you keep the weapon well lubricated," Dean said.

"The weapon will run for a long time if lubrication is applied to the bolt rings, sometimes called the gas rings, through the bolt carrier gas exhaust holes," Dean explained as his detailed slides showed the proper place to apply lubricant. The bolt is one of the key components that Colt has over the non-certified Brand X makers. "Some other makers spot check batches of bolts by the occasional MP test. Think about that. How would random testing do anything when you're checking for an anomaly? It's just feel-good BS," Dean scoffed.

"Colt MP tests every single barrel and every single bolt. Microscopic internal flaws might be rare, but Colt catches every one. This is real QC," the instructor said.

As Dean led the class though detail stripping of the bolt, the students dutifully followed along on their own ARs, which included pretty much every brand on the market. One student was shooting a Brand X and one of the lugs sheared off his bolt on the previous day. Dean cast a knowing glance at the student when it came time to demonstrate how to remove the bolt from the bolt carrier.

"Got all your lugs? Sure none of them fell out?" he wise-cracked.
There are far too many subtle tricks-of-the-trade that Dean explained to go into here, but one of my favorites was using a large plastic bag—a grocery bag is perfect—to install or remove the upper receiver take down pivot pin. "That darn spring will fly across the room and land in the one place you can't reach," Dean said. "Guaranteed!"

At the end of the class, I came away with the bottomline for getting the most out of your AR—keep it well lubricated, replace your extractor spring every 5,000 rounds and use Mil Spec magazines. And your AR will run like a champ.

Gearing Up for 10-8
No time to fuss around—grab what works and go.
By Cameron Hopkins

Like nature's best self-sealing orifice, we all have our opinions. Some stink more than others. Gearing up on short notice for the 10-8 class, I didn't have time to fuss around with trying any new gear, so I stuck with a favorite carbine and a bluing-rubbed pistol as reliable as Old Faithful. They may stink, but they're my opinions.

My go-to combat pistol, chosen from what must be one of the better collections of custom five-inch Government Models, remains a single-stack Tactical Advantage from Dave Dawson of Dawson Precision. Built from a CNC machined bar stock slide and forged frame of Dawson's own manufacture, the Tactical Advantage sports one of Dave's hideaway frame rails for a SureFire WeaponLight. The Dawson rail is much slimmer and shorter than a Picatinny rail and requires a custom female interface, also supplied by Dawson, to be permanently installed on the SureFire light. This is the same setup chosen by the Det One, the Marines' first Special Forces company, spec'd onto their Kimber guns.

My SureFire Military Model light is equipped with an SL pressure switch that wraps around the grip in a horseshoe shape, ambidextrous pressure pads on each side. I've shot every handgun light SureFire makes, or has ever made, from the obsolete 310R to the brand-new X200L, and the Military Model is the best of them all, for a dedicated light gun. By a dedicated light gun, I mean one for which the WeaponLight is intended to stay on the gun 24-7. For a more flexible, multi-purpose pistol, an interchangeable light is obviously better and for that, you can't beat SureFire's compact, lightweight and easily removable X200. I run an X200B, with the wider dispersed beam than the A model, on a Glock 23 where the X200's minimal 4 ozs. of weight is better suited for the "bendable" polymer frame.

But to reiterate, for a serious combat pistol, dedicated to that function and carried in my Safariland 6004 purpose-built light holster, I'll take the Military Model every time.

Unlike the X200's 5 watt LED, the Military Model runs a conventional incandescent lamp, the legendary SureFire P60, producing 65 lumens. The P60's beam reaches considerably further and has a much brighter center than its LED sibling. The Military Model incorporates SureFire's signature "shock isolation system" to cushion the lamp against recoil. For sights, my Tactical Advantage boasts a plain black Heinie rear with the notch opened up to .125" mated to a Patridge post, narrowed to .115".

Other amenities on Dawson's Tactical Advantage include a hand-blended mag funnel, 30 lpi front strap checkering, semi-circular cocking serrations front and rear and a trigger job that's a thing of beauty to feel. And while neither Dave nor I will ever admit we had anything to do with it, a very good gunsmith at UPS must have opened my box and pinned the grip safety for me.

Pinning a grip safety, if you prefer to not have one, is the correct remedy, not installing one of those humpbacked "memory" versions. I love Ed Brown like a brother, but he foisted the second-most egregious accessory for the 1911, the first being an ambidextrous slide release.

Dawson no longer offers the Tactical Advantage as a package gun—why I'm not sure—but it remains my go-to Government Model. It nestles in a Safariland 6004 drop holster onto which I've riveted a Strider EG-T spear pointed fixed blade.

One last thing: I continue to use Wilson .45 magazines exclusively, and have for over 20 years, back when they were called Wilson/Rogers magazines and were assembled in Bill Roger's basement by his two daughters who earned pocket money on a piece rate basis.

For an AR, unlike a 1911, I don't find the weapon system itself to be of any consequence, but the furniture is definitely important. For sights, I vastly prefer a Trijicon ACOG for a variety of reasons, which I'll explain in moment. For a trigger, there is but one: McCormick's drop-in trigger. I like mine to be a two-pound two-stage, and flat. For a stock, I really like the Vltor with the clubfoot extension, which fits better on body armor. I run one of Tango Down's "storage" pistol grips that holds two spare SureFire lithium batteries. For sights, as much as it pains me to say it because of their dismal delivery and horrible customer service, there's nothing better than the Troy Industries rear and, when needed, fold-down front sight. Remember, I warned you, my opinions stink.

For a Picatinny rail forend, I have to go with a SureFire fully CNC machined from an extrusion of aircraft grade aluminum. The value of the SureFire forend is unbeatable at two bills and the ease of replacement of the stock forend is a factor too. Onto that SureFire forend goes my favorite of their many WeaponLights, the M910 vertical grip with its 9 volt main battle beam and twin auxiliary LED navigation lights. I pop on an IR filter as needed for NOD work.

My last SureFire accessory is their comp adapter replacement for the factory bird cage, which serves to anchor what may well be the "light company's" most unheralded product, their sensational sound suppressor. I shot the entire 10-8 class suppressed with the older M4FA model—the "long can" as opposed to the new "shorty" model—and was quite the envy of the class.

The two national guardsmen who were about to deploy wanted to know how quickly they could order SureFire cans. (The answer: it depends on how fast the ATF shuffles the paperwork, even for active duty military. Sometimes less than a week for deploying unit, other times 10 to 12 weeks.)

Finally, back to the ACOG. We all have our favorites, and for many years mine was Aimpoint, but after I underwent Lasik surgery to correct my vision, the Aimpoint dot appeared fuzzy and starry. It wasn't an issue up close, but at 50 yards and beyond, forget it. I might as well have stuck a red Q-Tip in a toilet paper tube. But the ACOG's chevron reticle remains sharp and distinct, probably because of the low power magnification of the 3x version, which I favor. Trijicon's "Bindon Aiming System" (which I've always called, "shooting with both eyes open") works wonderfully with the magnified chevron.

Everything about the ACOG is better than an Aimpoint—several levels of magnification, improved reticle resolution, self-adjusting brightness, wider variety of models—except of course the price. Trijicon is proud of those puppies! To mount the optic and, for that matter, the M910 vertical grip, I use Mark LaRue's self-adjusting throw-lever mounts. LaRue mounts are simply better made than others—machined from bar stock instead of MIM'd—and the Texas entrepreneur is faster than Jeff Gordon off the pole to come up with new models for whatever new AR accessory hits the floor.

Finally, I sling my AR with a single-point bungee sling from Mike McMillan at CSM Gear. This particular sling is specifically made to mate with the Eagle CIRAS plate carrier, another stand-out piece of gear that I favor. There are plate carriers and there are plate carriers and there's the quick-detach Eagle CIRAS. It's the best by far of anything I've tried.

Inside, I run USMC issue SAPI chicken plates over Point Blank level IV soft armor. You do know that plates must be backed by soft armor? For pouches, everything is Eagle except a CMS Gear drop pouch on my pistol belt. I tied a Mick Strider custom 10" fixed blade onto the CIRAS vest, under the front row of mag pouches. I'll never need it, but I'm enough of a knife nut to want one and am willing to carry the extra two pounds of hand-ground Strider steel as the price. On the back of the CIRAS plate carrier is an Eagle pouch for a CamelBak. Like they say, hydrate or die. And since I kept the CamelBak full of aqua, you can flush all these opinions if you want.