Yesterday was day one of Blackheart International’s five-day Foreign Weapons Course. Bottom Line Up Front – Excellent. Once we got going, I quickly realized that this is not only a great course for trainers, advisors and shooters, but also for intel guys (both collectors and analysts) to acquaint themselves with the weapons in order to prepare more accurate reports.
Blackheart offers a very comfortable bunkhouse for students with full facilities including kitchen. Upon arrival, I settled right into my room. In the morning we arrived at their training facility and grouped up into Army and Navy tables. This is a class of mixed units so it is small. Usually, unit classes are much larger. Everything was very organized yet casual and you could tell that the instructors are well versed in their craft.
Right off the bat, we started off the course with a quiz, identifying weapon and associated caliber as well as a visual ID test of our knowledge of ammunition. Remember, this is a Foreign Weapons Course so for several of us (me included), the quiz was challenging. While I knew most of the calibers, I wasn’t familiar with what some of them looked like, particularly when paired next to each other.
We then set about going over pistols and SMGs, discussing origins, characteristics, loading, unloading, and maintenance. Each of us had our own weapons to practice with right along with the lecture. Remember those Army and Navy tables? When the primary instructor brought up the SIG family, the Army table hadn’t handled them much and when the subject turned to the Beretta, the opposite was true.
After a working lunch we hit the 50m range and got to familiarize ourselves with the various guns, demonstrating proper handling from the morning’s classroom portion of training. During the range work, instructors would quiz us on handling and caliber of the various weapons which included the Tokarev, Makarov, PPSh-41, PPS-43, and Sten, among others.
Here’s a clip of me firing the PPSh-41. I don’t know if I enjoyed it or the Sten more but I can tell you, anyone who carries a Sten into battle has big brass ones and string thumbs. Sten mags are a chore to load. Although it was rainy, the temperature was comfortable and it let up for much of our two hours of shooting.
After the range we headed inside for weapons maintenance and were afforded the opportunity to break them down and give them a good going over (including magazines). Once all of the weapons and magazines had been squared away we each took our turn in the barrel with an end-of-day quiz. The instructors took all of the weapons apart and placed them in a pile along with dummy rounds corresponding to each weapon. One-by-one, we then had to assemble the weapons, answer any questions during reassembly, find the associated ammunition, properly name it and complete a function check. All of this repeated hands on helped really sink the material in. Today is a big day…AKs. I can’t wait.
Due to the duties of my fellow students there were few opportunities for pictures.
Tags: Blackheart International
I am officially jealous. I adore 7.62×25 Tokarev and all of the amazing things it can do and the PPSh-41 is just a beautiful weapon. I figured you were talking about a PPS-43 or a PPS-43C as Blackheart has them around in greater numbers, but firing the real-deal PPSh-41 in full-auto is a real treat. I hope you enjoyed the course and I’m sure it was well worth the hike!