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Posts Tagged ‘Travis Haley’

SureFire Field Notes Ep 25, Light Discipline with Travis Haley

Tuesday, May 15th, 2018

SureFire Field Notes is a multi-segment informational video series with tips and techniques from subject matter experts of all backgrounds. In this episode, Travis Haley of Haley Strategic Partners discusses light discipline.

Travis Haley is a veteran Force Reconnaissance Marine with 15 years of dedicated real world experience including: combat tours in Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. After leaving the military, Mr Haley served as a special operations and security contractor before partnering with Magpul as founder and CEO of their training division, Magpul Dynamics. Mr Haley also served as CEO of the parent company, Magpul Industries, before breaking off to form the endeavor that would become Haley Strategic Partners.

www.surefire.com

SureFire Field Notes – Travis Haley

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2017

SureFire Field Notes is a multi-segment informational video series with tips and techniques from subject matter experts of all backgrounds. In this episode, Travis Haley of Haley Strategic Partners discusses various low-light techniques with a handheld flashlight and how to practice with them.

Travis Haley is a veteran Force Reconnaissance Marine with 15 years of dedicated real world experience including: combat tours in Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. After leaving the military, Mr Haley served as a special operations and security contractor before partnering with Magpul as founder and CEO of their training division, Magpul Dynamics. Mr Haley also served as CEO of the parent company, Magpul Industries, before breaking off to form the endeavor that would become Haley Strategic Partners.

www.haleystrategic.com
www.surefire.com

Travis Haley Responds To NDgate

Friday, February 12th, 2016

Earlier this evening, Haley Strategic Partners posted this statement on their Facebook page in response to the week old disclosure of video taken by Panteao Productions depicting Travis Haley discussing an AK. During that video, the weapon fired. Panteao Productions issued their statement on Monday of this week.

Press Release Feb 11, 2016:

On approximately Thursday February 4th 2016, Panteao Productions released a video through poor accountability and security with its servers by one of their instructors according to the owner of Panteao Productions. How and why this happened is still unclear, however assumptions can certainly be made. 

This particular video was of me teaching a block of instruction on controversial Russian trigger finger/safety techniques, and why I personally don’t recommend them. During the filming, my AK was discharged inadvertently performing the demonstration. The range was set up for this demo, the weapon was intentionally off safe due to the block of instruction, and the barrel was oriented towards the target in the event the weapon fired as it did in this case.

Of course I take these matters seriously and if you know me or have been through any of our courses, you know our number one priority is safety. We pride ourselves on learning from our failure as it is our greatest opportunity and share those experiences with the people we serve.

There was also a communication issue with the inconsistent posts made on social media between the HSP team back in Scottsdale AZ and me being in Central America at the time the video was released. Now that I have seen the entire video (never seen by me before as it was in Panteao’s library), I have been able to review it and now share my thoughts. After reading a lot of comments, I think Pat Rogers said it best:

“One type causes injury/ death or comes close enough to warrant immediate measures to remove the person and his weapon. The other type is a down range ND, when the shot is discharged unintentionally, but into the target/ berm etc. These represent the majority of ND’s and this is where learning can occur. These are teaching/ learning points, and if handled correctly, will not likely happen again.” -Pat Rogers

I have had many failure points in my life (much greater than this)… I have ND’d. I have missed the mark countless times in my life even when it mattered most. I have zigged when I should have zagged. I’ve been impulsive and involved myself into fights without thinking of who’d it effect. My brothers have asked me for direction in combat and I was unable to answer. Hell, I have even taken life when it could have possibly been avoided… I have failed over and over in my life, yet I have been blessed with being accountable and educated by my shortcomings. This, in turn, allows my failures to continually become my greatest opportunities.

Travis Haley
Founder/CEO
Haley Strategic Partners

NDGate – Panteao Productions Responds to Travis Haley’s Allegations

Monday, February 8th, 2016

Panteao Productions has issued a statement to explain their involvement in NDGate, which swept social media over the weekend. Since the incident seems to have started with them, it seems appropriate that we share their statement.

But first, let’s catch everyone up who missed out. It all began Thursday evening when video surfaced showing tactical trainer Travis Haley appearing to have a negligent discharge of an AK rifle he was using for demonstration purposes. According to Panteao’s statement, they did not authorize the release of the video so they removed it from public access on YouTube, but by that time, the video clip was in the wild. Like we’ve said so many times, you can’t take the internet back. We posted an article which linked to an edited version of the video. Soon, that video was hit with a copyright claim by Panteao and was taken down. At that point, we figured they were in damage control mode and were playing whack-a-mole so there was no point in having an article up that relied on a missing video. Instead, we removed our article, with a decision to reengage once things settled down. However, the majority of the comments in our post were quite positive. They understood that NDs happen and that it was a valuable teaching tool.

 

For social media, comedy is the mother of invention, and over the weekend, dozens of remixes of the video appeared on Facebook and Instagram. Some were more amusing that others.

Eventually, Travis Haley chose to comment on the developing situation. Remember, that positive attitude that saw the situation as a teaching tool? Well, apparently Haley didn’t.  Instead, he denied it had happened and claimed that Panteao was out to slander him. Granted, this whole situation would have been avoided had the video not made its way into the wild, but Haley’s response unfortunately had the effect of throwing gasoline on a fire. There’s a video below. When you finish reading this, make sure you watch the whole thing.

Some of Haley’s animosity toward Panteao may stem from this link on Panteao’s site: panteao.com/discontinued-video-titles. This move by Panteao was in response to Haley’s statement not long before on Facebook that the videos he had created while at Magpul Dynamics were no longer valid and that his fans should no longer purchase them. His position was that he had moved on to newer techniques. Magpul fans, and apparently Paneao Productions, took it as sour grapes. Perhaps concerned that he might eventually do the same to them, Panteao seems to have taken preemptive action. As you can see, this situation has been brewing for some time.

Now, on to Panteao’s statement (and accompanying video) on the situation:

February 7, 2016

This will be the first and last time we comment publicly on this incident. Given the firestorm surrounding the video which was recently released without our authorization, we felt it necessary to publicly state our position regarding the matter:

The relationship between Panteao Productions and Travis Haley ended over a year ago because of a disagreement over whether or not training should have an expiration date. Much to the disappointment of those who primarily use the internet to create and feed off of other people’s drama, and despite our past differences in opinion, we have nothing but respect for Travis’ accomplishments, and wish him the best in his future endeavors.

The video in question was not posted by Panteao for public consumption, and more importantly, was never intended to be seen externally. It was unlisted on our YouTube Channel, and was designated for in-house training purposes. It was intended to be a humorous reminder shared with crew members and collaborating instructors of what we don’t want to have happen during filming. It had been forgotten about until the link was shared publicly by one of the instructors we had been working with up until this point. At this time we are still unsure why they (the other instructor) felt the need to share the link publicly, regardless, once we became aware of the developing situation we deleted the video from our YouTube channel and had it removed wherever we came across it. There was nothing derogatory/defamatory intended by the video, or its description.

Anyone that has spent any serious amount of time doing this at the professional level knows that NO ONE IS ABOVE MAKING A MISTAKE. We have multiple layers of safety in place to prevent them, but at the end of the day there is absolutely nothing we are able to do that can entirely remove the human element from the equation. We decided to utilize the video as a tool to show our crew members that no matter someone’s level of past experience, background, or accomplishment that the possibility for an accident always exists. It served as a reminder to us; always wear eyes and ears on set, confirm the condition of any firearms the talent may be using to demonstrate techniques with, and to watch our position in relation to the muzzle whether or not a segment was intended to be live fired. Unfortunately individuals from the Haley Strategic camp have started spreading inaccurate statements about how the video was published intentionally to hurt Travis and that it was not a Negligent Discharge in the first place.

It is disheartening that Travis has failed to acknowledge what took place. We don’t care to speculate why someone with his abilities and background feels the need to deny their own fallibility, common to all of us, so vehemently. He handled the situation as best as anyone could at the time and pressed on during filming, as one would expect from a professional. Internally, we saw the opportunity the video represented for us, and utilized it to illustrate things that WE could do better on set.

The big question now is “was this really a negligent discharge?” or something staged or edited to look like one. The scene in question was not intended to be live fired, thus none of the crew had their hearing protection on, neither did Travis. It was strictly a demo of different Russian techniques. There were MULTIPLE individuals standing in close proximity to Travis, any of whom who would have reminded him to put his ears on if live fire was intended. In the crystal clear light of hindsight, one of the errors that occurred was having a hot gun for this particular scene. As the ones ultimately responsible for the safety of the production, that particular error falls on us, and it was one of the many lessons we took away from the incident. When the rifle discharged into the side berm, ears were ringing and as is common in these situations, everyone took a moment to look at each other and inspect for new holes. Travis summed it up best in the video “That didn’t work.”

So let’s talk about what works:

1. All Guns Are Always Loaded.
2. Never Let The Muzzle Cover Anything You Are Not Willing To Destroy.
3. Keep Your Finger Off The Trigger (And Out Of The Trigger Guard) Until Your Sights Are On
Target.
4. Be Sure Of Your Target.

Most importantly, do not allow yourself to become complacent. Familiarity breeds contempt, and contempt breeds complacency. In this business, complacency kills. We are saddened that this has become such a public incident, but since the cat is out of the bag, let’s all utilize it for the learning tool it is. We are all human, we all make mistakes, and there is nothing wrong in acknowledging that.

If you have any doubts as to what happened, watch the whole uncut sequence. At the end of the clip we’ve also included two additional references to the incident that Travis made later that same day during shooting. As we have maintained throughout this entire incident, we have nothing but respect for Travis and his past accomplishments, and we wish him the best. However, we are not able to condone someone attempting to rewrite their personal history to save themselves a little embarrassment, especially when in doing so our own reputation and professionalism is called into question. Let’s all spend our energy on more productive endeavors, and move on from this incident having learned an important lesson.

Fernando Coelho
President/CEO
Panteao Productions, LLC

BCM Gunfighter History : Travis Haley – An Exercise in Compromise

Tuesday, October 6th, 2015

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Hanging in my office is a clone of the rifle I carried on two combat tours (Iraq and Liberia). It’s a reminder of where I came from, where I stand today, where I am going and why I am going there.

While serving in 2nd Force Reconnaissance in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, my unit started seeing radical advances in small arms and light weaponry via the SOPMOD program. Suddenly, carbines could quickly be fine-tuned for specific missions by mounting night vision systems, laser aiming devices, weapon lights and red dot optics to the 1913 Picatinny Rail Systems on the upper receiver and handguard.

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These technologies opened up whole new tactics, techniques and procedures that could be employed to prosecute our mission of specialized reconnaissance, ambush and direct action raids.

Despite the additional capabilities the SOPMOD program delivered, opinions were sharply divided on the program. Some saw these tools as a burden, adding a lot of “crap” that would only increase the amount of weight our Marines carried on mission for little tangible benefit. A maxed out M4 could run up to 14 pounds, but we didn’t need every component for every mission.

Two Pounds of Metal
The SOPMOD accessory package that my platoon ended up running included almost two pounds of weight in mounting interfaces alone. When I challenged this, I got a typical Marine Corps answer, “Because that’s what you are issued, now quit asking irrelevant questions, Too Speed.” (Too Speed was my call sign.)

I couldn’t accept that answer. It was an institutional answer that repeated a party line and the lives of my teammates were, and will always be, more important than not rocking the boat.

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After some trial and error, the first mod I made was to ditch the Surefire M951 Weapon Light and replace it with a Surefire 6P in a shotgun tube light mount that I scored at a sporting goods shop near base. After swapping the 6P tail cap for the M951 remote switch assembly, I then ran the tape switch on the left side of the 203 so activating the light wouldn’t impact my weapons manipulation.

Getting a weapon light in tight with a rail and shaving weight off the interface was something I would spend the next 10 years fiddling with before I had a eureka moment and Haley Strategic Partners released the Thorntail Adaptive Series of light mounts, currently in use by military, security contractors and law enforcement worldwide.

This was a defining moment for me, as it was when I first started tweaking and eventually building original components for my platoon based on the unique requirements of our missions. These experiences of shaving weight, improving ergonomics and finding a balance between capability and utility, would drive the development of so many of the components I have commercialized in my post-service career.

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The Rifle I took to War

Colt M4 with 14.5” Barrel
Colt M203 40 mm Grenade Launcher
Knights Armament RAS Handguard
PEQ-2 IR Aiming Laser
Surefire Classic 6P with a custom “Simply Dynamic” mount
Boone & Packer Redi-Mag
Simply Dynamic Multi-Mission Sling (commercialized by Magpul as the MS3)

Load Out
Prior to the invasion of Iraq, Force was trained up for both Green Side (reconnaissance) and Black Side (direct action) missions, with the assumption we would be tasked to one or the other. However, when we entered Iraq, our platoon found ourselves doing a combination of both at the same time. Force Recon is a special operations unit that prepares the battlespace and gathers intelligence for the MAGTF (Marine Air Ground Task Force) and then prosecutes specialized targets as directed.

With a few days under our belts, the entire platoon started striping gear and mags, looking for that perfect balance of speed, utility and capability. If you can’t move, you can’t be effective. Most of the Marines went from 13 rifle magazines to between five or six. I ended up with four on my vest and two taped together on my carbine with riggers tape and offset with a stick.

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Force Recon ran low signature load outs, often working out of vehicles (mil and civilian), and running a double mag on the carbine meant I had 60 rounds at the ready. When I saw the “Redi-Mag” in a copy of Shotgun News, I ordered it and had it delivered to me overseas. Despite the weight, the Redi-Mag was more versatile than the old riggers tape and stick, and cut my carbine reloads to sub-one second.

I no longer run a Redi-Mag, because there are so many excellent belt mounted magazine pouches available today that I can reload at almost the exact speed as from a Redi-Mag. That said, you will sometimes find them on my house and car guns, as I do not expect to be kitting up if someone breaks into my house or I find myself engaged with an active shooter around vehicles in the streets.

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M203
The M203 is a vital component to small and agile units, like Force, who operate in small units in semi-and-non-permissive settings. It becomes even more essential in worst-case scenarios where the mission is compromised or the unit is outright ambushed by an enemy force.

We prepared for scenarios where 203s could be employed for a hasty breach, in instances where a short count/stack was not possible, as well as a posturing tool to achieve immediate fire superiority in the face of an ambush. Finally, we practiced employing them to suppress fortified enemy positions in buildings by putting accurate fire through windows or open doors.

In fact, in the first gunfight I was involved in during OIF, I put this into practice, pumping 40mm HEDP(High Explosive Dual Purpose) rounds through windows of enemy positions 50 meters out. This fire created instant hate and discontent on target, where crew served weapons and M4s did not offer as much of an immediate positive effect. We had never trained to fire the M203 at such a close distance for safety reasons, but I held at the top of the window frame with my Aimpoint and the round went straight where I wanted it.

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MEUSOC 1911
The MEUSOC 1911 has an almost legendary reputation among 1911 and handgun enthusiasts. One of the most high performance handguns ever built, the MEUSOC 1911 we ran was hand built by Marine Armorers from the Precision Weapons Section at MCBQ (Marine Corps Base Quantico). They fine tuned our 1911’s, hand selecting barrels, link pins, sear springs, ejectors, firing pin stops, mainspring housings and mainsprings. Slides were custom built by Springfield Armory with beavertail safeties and recoil spring guides by Ed Brown, Novak rear sights, Wilson Combat extractors + mag release buttons, and King’s Gun Works ambi thumb safeties.

Force ran the 1911 specifically in direct action raid or ambush missions. It was not a primary and would only come into play if our carbines had run dry or malfunctioned. We carried 10 round magazines with 230 Grain 45 ACP. More than enough to deal with any immediate situation and then refocus on the carbine to get it back into action.

On DRP (Deep Reconnaissance Patrol) Missions, I personally chose my Beretta M92, which was our only 9mm alternative at the time. The flatter trajectory at range of the 9mm and the larger magazine meant more bullets to deal with more problems in the event my carbine was down or permanently disabled.

When I later worked as a security contractor on Ambassador Bremmer’s detail with Blackwater, we would run Glock 17s. But in the end, the mission drives the gear – more importantly, the mission drives the man.

The Mission Drives the Man
When I first started making gear, I was doing it to help keep my guys alive. When I started my first company, Simply Dynamic Tactical, I wasn’t in it to get rich. I was doing it to pass on what I learned in combat and to provide tools that would stack the deck in the favor of the men and women who were going overseas or out on our streets as warfighters, law enforcement or private citizens.

Surviving war is an awesome responsibility. For those who have been in combat, you never forget the brothers you lost. When you are one of those who made it back, you carry a weight that is difficult to put into words. I was lucky to have known such great men in my life. I was lucky to have a second family closer than any people I will ever know.

As I approach the 5th year in business with Haley Strategic Partners, we have tried to bring this industry together and to stay focused on that one mission. Enable brave men and women to complete their missions as safely as possible. Through training, through gear and through mindset.

Stay Sharp and be safe.

Travis Haley

October, 2015

haleystrategic.com

Presented by Bravo Company USA

www.bravocompanyusa.com

American Gunfighter Episode 5 – Travis Haley, Haley Strategic Partners – Presented By BCM

Tuesday, August 4th, 2015

BCM presents: American Gunfighter Episode 5, featuring Travis Haley of Haley Strategic Partners. Having collaborated on projects ranging from the re-launch of the BCM® brand in 2011 to the Jack Carbine in 2012, Travis’ company – Haley Strategic – has provided ongoing usability testing and design feedback on the entire line of BCMGUNFIGHTER™ Accessories since day one.

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Travis Haley is a veteran Force Reconnaissance Marine with 15 years of dedicated real world experience including: combat tours in Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. After leaving the military, Mr Haley served as a special operations and security contractor before partnering with Magpul as founder and CEO of their training division, Magpul Dynamics, and then later, as CEO of Magpul Industries. In 2010, he made the decision to start anew with Haley Strategic Partners, where he has developed advanced training programs and equipment for war fighters, law enforcement and responsible armed citizens.

Visit Haley Strategic Partner’s Website at: www.HaleyStrategic.com

View The Jack Carbine, specced by Travis Haley and built by BCM www.bravocompanymfg.com/TheJack/index

View the rest of the series at www.bravocompanymfg.com/american_gunfighter

Spartan117GW – Interview With Travis Haley – The Rift Between Airsoft And Real Steel

Sunday, April 19th, 2015

Spartan117GW recently traveled to Scottsdale, Arizona to visit Haley Strategic. While there, Spartan spoke to the man himself, Travis Haley, to ask his opinion on the rift between Airsoft/MilSim and Real Steel. It’s definitely worth a watch, especially if you’re a fan of Airsoft, or you’re a firearms enthusiast.

www.youtube.com/user/spartan117gw

haleystrategic.com

Sneak Peak – BCM Stock

Tuesday, September 16th, 2014

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What are we looking at here exactly? Why, it’s a brand-new stock from BCM. The first glimpse came from a couple of images showing Frank Proctor and Travis Haley running it on their rifles.

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Most recently, Larry Vickers posted a few up close photos of the new stock on his Facebook fan page.

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We look forward to seeing this stock on the market in the next few weeks.

www.bravocompanymfg.com