Stress Shoot

The other day one of my friends from the civilian special ops side pulled me aside at lunch and invited me to come out to the firing range with him. He was setting up and validating a "stress shoot," which is a timed trial to see how accurate and fast operators are after a physical demand is placed on them to mimic the stress response of real life combat. It is similar to the winter games biathalons, where shooters ski between targets and time is added to their total for inaccurate shots.


We were using the HK416, which is essentially a modified M16. Here is a picture that I have posted previously of me shooting this weapon.


Anyway, so they set up the course so that you started by dragging a sled with 150 lbs on it 75 meters up the hill, then ran 50 meters to a spot where you would lie down and fire 6 shots from the prone position at two targets 100 meters away. The "A-zone" is a 6x8 inch square in the center mass of the target, and hits in this area did not add time to your total. The B-zone is an additional 2 inches around the A-zone, and C-zone an additional 2 inches around that. Time penalties are an additional 5 seconds for B shots, 10 sec for C shots, and 15 sec for complete misses of the target.

After the prone firing position, you moved forward 25 meters for 6 shots from a kneeling position at targets 75 meters away, then up to the 50 meter mark for 6 shots standing, then up to 25 meters where you took 6 shots while moving forward. Once you got to the 15 meter mark you switched to the 9 mm pistol and engaged 6 targets, 2 shots each. After holstering the pistol you went back to the 25 meter mark for 6 more shots, then to the 50 for 6, to the 75 for 6 and then ran to the starting spot to finish.

I had a few problems loading/reloading my weapon during the course, so I had a bunch of wasted time there - but I ran it in just under 6 minutes. My accuracy was pretty decent (relatively) and added only a combined 1:30 to my time, so my total score was a 7:27. I felt pretty good about that, especially the next day when my friend told me that I did better than some of the guys in their outfit (who are paid to do this kind of thing).

I really enjoyed the opportunity to get out there and engage some targets while simulating some of the real life stress experienced in combat.