After Action Tavor Operator Level 2
Imagine 11 guys huddled around their trucks in the early morning as fog is rising from the ground, loading up rifle and pistol mags as they get holsters on and magazine pouches ready, and checking the status of their optics and pistols, you immediately know that you are not only going to learn a great deal of information but you are also going to create some life long friendships. As you walk onto the range with 10 other guys, each of them with a Tavor rifle attached to a Savvy Sniper sling and slung over their shoulder and pistol holstered you can see each other’s breath as the temperature drops into the high 30’s and down range there are steel targets just asking to ring out as hot lead slammed against the cold steel. You begin to feel that excitement in everyone’s face as they get closer to the moment that they send projectiles downrange at over 3,000ft per second.
With the fog still rolling off the ground, mourning coffee still being digested, and your mags freshly loaded you get down onto the ground and do a quick zero of your rifle under the expert instruction of an IWI US instructor. After the rifles are zeroed the class quickly transitions to a brief overview of the previous if you are in Tavor Operator level 2 or 3 class. The brief overview, in my opinion, is well warranted and much needed. The overview allows the student to shake off the rust and refreshes the mind of information that might not have been gone over in over 6 or more months.
As your coffee is just about digested and the rust is shaking off the class dives into a multitude of shooting positions. Expect to be shooting from prone, kneeling, standing, and from a barricade in a multitude of positions. Something that the Tavor Operator course did differently from many other classes I have taken was that many drills require the use of one or more rifle magazines and potentially a pistol magazine as well. Whether you are fighting your way through transitions of prone to kneeling to standing or anything in between you are going to be firing a large number of rounds. It was not uncommon to find yourself running the gun dry and quickly transitioning to your pistol as the rifle falls to your side and the sling pulls taunt. For those, including myself, that run their rifle dry and quickly try to reload it instead of transitioning to pistol you quickly get a demonstration on the finer points of the most efficient way to keep yourself in the fight. As the instructor does a quick demonstration of loading the rifle, sending the bolt home, and getting back on target verse dropping the rifle to your side and transitioning to pistol you find that it is indeed far faster to transition to pistol than try and reload a rifle and get it back in the fight. As your stomach begins to tell you that it needs nourishment the students are refining their movement, transition, and shooting positions with their Tavor rifle before heading to lunch.
After lunch, which should actually be referred to as the point in the day that you catch your breath, you jump right back into the fundamentals of shooting positions. At this point everyone is focusing on the upcoming “competency test” at the end of the day. The test, as you might expect, is a compilation of everything that you learned throughout the course. The test ranges from prone and kneeling at over 100 yards to shooting then moving and then shooting from another position to shooting on the move and even the occasional well placed head shot. The test is graded in the aspect that everyone gets a score with a maximum possible score of 300.
A few things that really bring the class to a whole new level and makes you want, no actually need, to take the next level course is what goes on in between the drills and instruction. Throughout the day you will find quick side competitions between students and even the instructor. It is as those moments you see everyone pushing themselves to the absolute limit to see where they stack up against others. The conversations and bets that go on at those moments are things you will remember forever and build friendships that will last a lifetime. The side conversations that go along with the competitions or side discussion are things that really build trust with the instructor and allow students to connect on a personal level. These are things you cannot buy or teach. Either you are able to do this or you can’t. IWI has an ability to snatch up instructors that have this unteachable attribute.
In closing, if you have a Tavor rifle and want to learn how to really run the gun, test your own mettle, and gain knowledge about a rifle platform that simply cannot be taught via the internet then the Tavor Operator courses are something that you need to get signed up for.
