Defense VCQB 2 – Banishing Range Lore David Reeder June 8, 2015 Join the Conversation At RECOIL, we review every product fairly and without bias. Making a purchase through one of our links may earn us a small commission, and helps support independent gun reviews. Read our affiliate policy. Find out more about how we test products. Lots going on today at the Petty VCQB class; strangely as much of it has been unlearning old things as it has been learning new ones. Case in point; it's pretty much an accepted truth that a vehicle offers only two points of cover — the axles and the engine block. I have been taught that since the earliest days of my LE and military service. A quick confirmation there on the range assured me this was also the case with everyone else present. The students at this course represent an extremely wide sampling of experience. We have LEOs with up to two decades of service, several salty military personnel (including some no-shit meat-eaters and a couple of us POGs) and some squared away civilians who've put substantial time and effort into learning from the best instructors available. All of us have accepted these ‘vehicle cover rules' our entire careers. We took their word for it, and why not? But how then to explain the other dozen points of cover a vehicle actually provides? It sounds counter-intuitive to be sure, but there are lots of places around a vehicle from which you can fight from if you have to. I certainly would have had difficulty believing you could put an entire magazine of 5.56mm through a vehicle's B pillars without achieving effective hits on a target on the far side had I not seen it myself (which I did). I damn sure wouldn't have believed how hard it is to hit a man-sized target with a 12 gauge slug thrown along the linear axis of a passenger sedan if that slug has to travel through both front and back vehicle glass — but it's practically impossible. The slug may well penetrate, but you're certainly not going to hit the 10-ring with it. In fact, you're probably not going to hit with it at all. A .308 round fares little better. Don't believe it? Set it up yourself, or take one of these VCQB classes. You never know what you don't know; we're realizing this repeatedly during this course. A lot of our takeaways will challenge almost everything you already know (or think you know) about the dynamics of shooting into, out of, through or around a vehicle. Hopefully after we have time to digest and process it we'll be able to pass it along to you. I'll definitely look forward to showing some video clips as Firelance releases them (or once they finish and release the training video they're here at 88 Tactical working on). Mass, velocity, the truth about intermediate barriers and the construction of a car…it's all going to start banishing old “range lore” if you let it, and the new truths will be things you can verify yourself instead of taking someone's word for it. These are Good Things to know whether you're wearing a uniform or carrying concealed for your family's protection. Later we'll talk some about sooner rather than faster and go over some pieces of equipment that are quickly proving their value. We might also turn you on to a little something these local corn-fed 88 Tactical boys quite rightfully enjoy – Templeton Rye. Watchalé. Why you can trust RECOIL Since our founding in 2012, RECOIL remains the premier firearms lifestyle publication for the modern shooting enthusiast. 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