Art of the Tactical Carbine by Magpul Dynamics

This was the first Magpul Dynamics video product I got to watch. I was immediately impressed by the combination of production quality, high-level instruction and personality. It has a ton of little attention-to-detail touches that make it a great instruction video even after several watches. Material is presented with in-class demonstrations with replays from various angles and at various speeds. Drills are numbered to match quick reference material in the disk set. It’s a great tool for continued training, even after the first few views.

The material comes from a class being taught by Travis Haley and Chris Costa. I like the in-class environment. When participants encounter common problems during drills, it’s great to see the little pieces of correction. It’s not a good as a live class, but it’s very instructive.

The instruction is split into two pieces, two separate classes.

The first class is for beginners, and it covers a lot of the basics. It starts a tad slow, because the class starts off dealing with getting a proper zero, stance and grip. After that, things progress through a fairly-standard set of drills, for malfunctions, movement, cover and off-hand shooting.

The second piece is clearly for more advanced shooters. It becomes clear this class is going to deal with different material because everybody is using a carbine as a primary weapon and a pistol as a secondary. The transition to the secondary and the check drill (having your partner cover you while you fix your primary) are covered early, and become part of all the later drills.

There’s hours of material in the set, and it’s all presented in the highest quality. There’s just tons of information presented and it’s layered with lots of practical advice that I don’t see in other instructional material. It’s the little tips, like setting up your gear a certain way, lining up your magazines in a certain order or reaching for your rear-most magazine to use in your tactical reload that push the instruction in the highest levels of quality.

The set includes special features that cover gear, nomenclature and maintenance. Some of the topics covered include: gear selection, using optics and iron sights, stance, weapon grip/recoil control, shooting positions, tactical reloads, correcting malfunctions, shooting on the move, barricade drills, individual/team live-fire drills, threat analysis, multiple target engagement, and shooting around a vehicle.

One subject that I really appreciated was the issue of height over bore and the way it affects aiming and the use of cover. Because of the different height of the barrel and optic, what you see through the tube isn’t always what the muzzle is pointing at. I’ve seen the topic discussed before, but this video incorporates the problem into a series of drills that help the shooter identify situations when they need to think about height over bore issues, while providing the skills to manipulate the weapon safely and effectively.

Overall, it’s a great watch and a must-have for firearm enthusiasts and those interested in using the carbine for self-defense.