Friday Film- The Wild Geese

The Wild Geese Movie Review

After a slight hiatus your favorite movie reviewers are back!

Pudge writes-

You know it is going to be a good movie when the lead man has to get flown in for a job that he won’t do without James Bond and his expert planner.

To me there were so many great moments and shout outs in this movie. I loved each man’s reason for wanting to join back with the Colonel for one last operation. The brotherhood rings so true. And who can beat ol’ SGM Sandy whipping the men into shape and giving everyone, no matter rank, the proper amount of ‘correction’ during training.

Along with Jafer and his expertise in planning I really enjoyed the weapons used by these men. The OEG sight used by Jock really stood out to me. I’ve been reading a lot about these recently and loved seeing it used to great effect. Also, a man garnering all my respect, Pieter, using a crossbow against the sentries. Some of the best weapons are not what one would expect.

A great movie about camaradarie and why contingency planning is extremely important.

Mack writes-

"My liver is to be buried separately; with full honors."

That tells you all you need to know about the terrific film that is the Wild Geese.

Mercenaries, FALs, Rhodesia, and short shorts. It is really the perfect guy movie. It even has James Bond. Oh, and a real life Rhodie SAS man in the form of Jock, who plays himself. And carries a hella cool shorty FAL with a first-generation red dot. From the company that would become Aimpoint. 

As an aside, that is the same optic that some of Pudge's predecessors carried when they stormed Son Tay and also slaughtered a bunch of Soviet advisors. 

The politics of the movie are a bit dated but the issue of race in Africa is well portrayed and rings true today.

It also shows some good training scenes, some good operational planning, and the importance of PACE in figuring out how to extract.

Oh, and it has a Vickers gun. That's cool. 

Very entertaining film. Five out of five long necks but not exactly a favorite of the Ladies’ Auxiliary.
 

Tuesday Tips

Getting Stable
By Pudge

Today we are going to discuss some more long-range shooting tips. The big focus will be how to get stable for poking holes at distance. Most of this is taken from competition shooting but can modified based on the gear you have during hunting or tactical situations.

First, we want to create as solid as a base as possible. Use a bipod, tripod, tree, rock, bag, whatever is available. Try to get as many points of contact as possible because this will help keep you from swaying and having to try and ‘ambush’ the target with your sights versus maintaining a solid sight picture the entire time. A solid base also helps you get back on target for either adjustments or follow-on shots. This is especially crucial if you are working by yourself without a spotter. If possible, we love to use the prone, but this is not always an option.

The next thing you should try and do is fill gaps. By this I mean, try to fill any open space around your body with bags in order to rely on creating a structure versus your arm or body floating and wiggling in space. This can even be something as simple as putting a rock or bag under your foot if it isn’t fully planted on the ground. The goal here is to get as solid as possible. (There seems to be a theme here and you’ll hear it again.) If it was feasible, you would just carry around a bean bag and plop down on it when you need to shoot. Shooting bags are nice because they are made to help give the slightest adjustments just by squeezing or releasing pressure. You can do a decent job accomplishing this using an assault pack as well if you are carrying one of those instead.

Using bags and tripod to get stable for a cross-valley shot.

Filling gaps. (Notice the bag tucked under the arm.)

 

Lastly, if you have it and have the time, you can use a tripod as a rear support if you can’t shoot from the prone. To do this, just take your off-hand and clamp the buttstock of your rifle to one leg of the tripod. (Make sure you are clamping against and not just grabbing the tripod and resting the buttstock on your hand.) Most tripods are light enough nowadays that you can just keep it held in place if you need to move or reposition. If you can rest the front of the rifle off of something and then use a tripod in the rear, that gives a very stable position.

Using a tripod against the buttstock to get solid. (Also, notice the right leg up

so that my elbow can rest against it instead of floating.)

 

Preference is to always be in the prone because that is the most stable you can be. But, if this isn’t possible, make sure you are using what you have at your disposal to get a solid platform that allows you to make accurate first round hits and rapid follow-up shots when necessary. Now get out there and try some of these ‘field’ positions because you never know when the time will come for such a useful skill.

Tuesday Tips

Zeroing Long Guns
By Pudge

I am fortunate enough to have just returned from some long range, high-angle, high-wind shooting up in northern Idaho. This was an amazing week of shooting with Bryan Morgan of Hat Creek Training. Most of you reading this know that I usually prefer up close and personal blasting but I figured it was time to grow up and learn some new things. So, because of that, it was time to really delve into some long-range shooting. And this was exactly that. More of a plummet though!

The tip I wanted to share after this amazing experience has to do with zeroing your long guns. All of us that went used a flavor of .308s and .300 WINMAGs. No matter what we used, we all zeroed at 100 meters. After getting the best possible zero we moved into a 10x 1” dots drill. (Let me note that we did not slip our turrets just yet.) The first 5 dots were shot to confirm our zero and also help bring out any tendencies to shoot to one direction or another. For this, you shoot 1 dot and then get up from your rifle and take a couple minutes relaxing. You will do this for each of the first 5 dots. Shoot 1, get up for a couple minutes, then repeat.

After verifying your zero is good you can slip your turrets. Now, you repeat the exact same steps as above another 5 times. This will validate that nothing moved while getting your turrets set. The reason that you do this drill is that you will see most people/weapon system have a tendency to shoot in one direction. I could have a perfect zero and still almost always shoot the bottom right of the 1” dot. (Not sure but it might just be the way me and my rifle shoot as a complete system.) Also, the reason that you get up after each shot and have to reposition yourself behind the gun is to make sure that you are in a correct, repeatable position. If your shots are all scattered then you are not getting the same sight picture or eye to scope alignment each time.

Sometimes you gotta use your ride to get high enough.

A little downhill shooting.

Hopefully the future will see Mack getting a slow down from hocking firearms and some predictable connectivity for myself so that we can keep everyone in virtual reading material.