Gunsite 556 Advanced Carbine

I enjoyed the 250 Defensive Pistol and 223 Defensive Carbine classes at Gunsite last year. I knew I wanted to continue along their pistol and carbine class progressions. While perusing the 2025 schedule, I noticed that they had the 556 Advanced Carbine, 350 Intermediate Pistol, and 499 Advanced Pistol classes in three successive weeks in late September and early October. With some trepidation, I signed myself up for three straight weeks of training at Gunsite.

Gear

As usual, I brought my 12.5” SBR with the Huxwrx suppressor. It’s got an Aimpoint CompM5 on a Unity FAST mount, paired with a Unity 4x magnifier and backed up by an offset Trijicon RMR. For low light, it sports a Modlite WML and a MAWL-C1+ IR laser/illuminator (though the latter wouldn’t get used in this class).

The class includes handgun transitions, so I had my G19X with an RMR, KKM comp, and Modlite PL350 pistol light. For support gear, I brought my war belt, with a Safariland dropped and offset holster, mag pouches, dump pouch, and trauma kit.

All but one student in the class was running an AR of some sort or another. The odd man out had a Tavor (he took top spot in the shoot-off, so it obviously wasn’t holding him back).

Before the Class

I left home mid-morning and took my usual route across the Arizona Strip and down through Flagstaff. I parked up in the Gunsite campground around 5 o’clock.

Day 1

After the usual Gunsite paperwork, our instructors for the course introduced themselves: Joe Knapp and Jerry Parsley.

We began with a safety brief and a review of material from the 223 Defensive Carbine class. Joe did a speedrun of the PowerPoint from 223. We had a relatively small class, small enough that we could run everyone in a single relay. The class also included a pair of Gunsite instructors, Ryan and Ashley.

This got us out on the range fairly quickly. There, the first order of business was confirming our zeroes at 25 and 50 yards. We briefly headed over to the York range to confirm on steel at 100 yards. Most people were pretty close and got on target quickly (I didn’t twiddle my turrets at all).

Back on the Hanneken range, we dove into reviewing material from 223. Before lunch, we breezed through mechanical offset and its application to headshots, followed by practice with hammers and controlled pairs at various ranges.

After lunch, we worked speed reloads, failure to stop, and non-standard response. This segued into some basic turning and move-then-shoot drills. Next up were some malfunction drills. Then we finished out the day with drills that put everything together: movement, different shooting patterns, and even sprinkled in some multiple target engagement.

All in all, this brisk-paced review covered a majority of the material from the 223 course in a single day.

I headed back to the campground for a welcome shower and a nice dinner.

Day 2

Today, we started out on the range. First, we did some position shooting, working speed kneeling and double kneeling positions at 50 yards. This led us into a couple of iterations of the Navy Qual: 5 rounds standing, 5 rounds kneeling, and 5 rounds prone, with a speed reload between each position, all within 25 seconds.

Next up, transitioning from the rifle to the handgun. This was something that we’d covered in 223 Defensive Carbine when I took it. Gunsite recently moved it to the 556 class, since not everyone in 223 has taken a Gunsite pistol class. Many students in the class had taken 223 before this change, so it was a review for most of us. We practiced a couple of different techniques, including one for situations where you aren’t slung up before the engagement.

Finishing off the morning, we did some shooting and moving. We practiced moving both forward and back, firing pairs on command as we went.

We’d be starting on the indoor and outdoor simulators in the afternoon. These require frangible ammunition, and I realized it would be useful to have a couple of dedicated mags, easily differentiated from the FDE Lancers that I was running, so I wouldn’t mix up frange and ball. Had I thought of this before I left, I could have brought some extra mags. The Gunsite Pro Shop exists to help students overcome this sort of lack of foresight. During lunch, I went over and bought a few PMAGs and some FDE Glock Magazines to run frangible in.

That afternoon, we split into two groups. Half of us went to the outdoor simulator in the North Draw while the other half headed to the Playhouse (one of Gunsite’s three shoot houses).

I did the North Draw first. This was an outdoor course of fire that parallels a wash. Some of the targets are on the near side, relatively close to you, while others are across the wash, 50-75 yards away. All are painted to blend in, so spotting them is an issue. You have to manage multiple angles to make sure you spot the targets without unnecessarily exposing yourself.

One thing that caught me out a couple of times was needing to change my elevation to spot a target. In particular, I often needed to crouch down to see under a tree’s foliage to get a clear line of sight to the target. Aside from that, I did pretty well.

I headed over to the Playhouse. There was a bit of a wait (the indoor simulators usually take longer to cycle people through than the outdoor ones). The house was a fairly straightforward setup. I feel like I did pretty well, using angles and distance to my advantage and not boxing myself in through poor choices.

Once everyone had finished both simulators, we rendezvoused back at the range. We were already running a bit ahead of schedule, and Joe didn’t want to get any further ahead, so we called it quits a bit early.

Between the earlier quitting time and not spending quite as much time on the square range (especially during the hottest part of the afternoon), I felt considerably less drained than I had the day before. It was back to camp for dinner and a shower.

Day 3

Today’s range work was dedicated to new material. We started off with some shooting from the ground. These techniques address situations where you get knocked to the deck and have to shoot your assailant immediately, before getting back up. We shot from flat on our backs and rolled over onto each side, both with our feet pointed towards the target and with our head towards the target.

Next were some unconventional prone techniques. In contrast, these are intended for more deliberate use, but they rely on some of the same kinesthetics as our previous round of ground shooting. We worked urban prone, supine prone, and SBU prone.

The third block of instruction was support side shooting. In addition to the transfer over to the support side, they also emphasized support side gunhandling: reloads and malfunction clearances.

To wrap things up before lunch, Joe ran us through some modified El Presidente drills.

After lunch, it was back to the indoor and outdoor simulators. Again, we split the class, and again, the group I was in started on the outdoor sim. This time it was the Donga. Compared to the North Draw yesterday, the Donga was closer ranged and the targets a bit more obvious, but we had the added complication of no-shoots in the mix. Jerry also complicated the situation by forcing us to transition to pistol halfway through the course, then switch to a battlefield pickup MP5SD submachinegun (the MP5 was a hoot, even on semi).

Again, I did pretty well. I got some compliments on using angles effectively.

Today’s shoot house was the Funhouse. The run we had set up today was a bit more challenging than what we saw yesterday in the Playhouse. There were situations where you had to watch multiple angles at the same time. They also had some sneaky targets outside the window, and forced you to look deep, through multiple thresholds, to see bad guys.

My run wasn’t perfect, but Joe was pretty complimentary. I really felt like the time I’ve put into courses that involve processing the environment and making decisions put me in good stead.

Back at the range, we discussed what tomorrow would look like, including our night shoot. We broke for the day, and I headed back to the campground.

Day 4

We spent the morning working through a variety of quals. Most of these involved shooting at various distances, starting at 50 yards and moving in. One in particular that stood out was the MEU Qual, which involved a significant amount of shooting on the move, including headshots. It also had a fairly extensive pistol component, which Joe gave us the opportunity to shoot, even though this is a carbine class.

This seemed to be the morning for gear issues. We had one suppressor launched downrange, a loose rear iron sight, and a red dot sight pop right off a pistol slide during a drill.

After lunch, again we split into two groups to run the indoor and outdoor simulators. For the outdoor simulator, we returned to the North Draw. This time, we ran the shorter-ranged course down at the bottom of the draw. It’s a bit more constricted than the Donga. This simplifies the problem somewhat, but leaves you less room to maneuver.

Today’s indoor simulator was The Pit, Gunsite’s third shoothouse. This run was set up so we used every bit of the house, making it a longer run than the previous two. It definitely rewarded looking deep, through multiple thresholds, to see and engage targets. I neglected to perform a tactical reload at an appropriate time and ended up running dry (fortunately, I ran dry after I dealt with the target immediately in front of me, rather than during an engagement).

Joe gave us the option to shoot some of the Military Crest course. This involves shots from 100 to 200 yards from various supported shooting positions. It requires some choices on how you’re going to use the available support (trees or stumps) to steady your rifle and engage the targets.

With that, we took a break before our night shoot.

Night Shoot

Unlike the 250 and 223 night shoots, which are done on the square range, the 556 night shoots are done on indoor and outdoor simulators. Again, we split the class with half going to an outdoor simulator and the other half going to the Funhouse.

The outdoor simulator involved walking down a path marked by orange-painted rocks, using your light to scan for targets. Based on some of the things the instructors had said, I was concerned that I might have been better off bringing one of the longer-ranged OKW heads for my Modlite. However, the PLH head I had on the gun did just fine.

Evidently, this particular course of fire doesn’t get used much, so the paint on the orange rocks was pretty faded. Finding them was actually harder than locating the targets.

Over at the Funhouse, we entered through the other door, giving it a different look than our previous run. It was a really dark night (no moon), so you needed the light for target location and movement as well as target identification.

Even with a good light, some of the no-shoots were harder to identify than in daylight, but I managed not to shoot any of them. While I do a lot of low-light stuff, most of it involves NVGs, rather than working with just a white light. Despite that, I did well enough that Joe complimented me on my flashlight technique.

It was back to the campground to grab a few hours’ sleep before the last day of class.

Day 5

We started our final day with the force-on-force exercise. Gunsite provided the guns and Simmunitions ammo for this. Interestingly, they use dedicated Simmunitions uppers that shoot the pistol sim rounds rather than the conversion bolts, which use rifle sims, that I’m used to. They also brought in a couple of roleplayers for the scenario.

The force-on-force exercise was in The Pit (the same shoot house we’d cleared yesterday afternoon). I won’t spoil the scenario, but while I didn’t pursue the “best” solution, I managed to avoid the worst course of action for that particular situation. I have to say I was a bit disappointed by the accuracy of the Simmunitions carbines. I had a good headshot lined up, but the Simmunition projectile did not land where the dot was. That meant the ensuing gunfight went a bit worse for me than it otherwise would have.

Once everyone finished up the force-on-force evolution, we headed back to the range. The rest of the morning was occupied shooting the 556 School Drill and a modified version of the El Presidente. We got some practice runs before doing a run for score. I did ok, but I feel like I could have done better.

Our last exercise before lunch was to shoot the Scrambler. This is a timed course with seven shooting positions spread out laterally over about 50 yards. We ran it twice (once left to right and a second time right to left). It was raining on and off, but we didn’t get too wet. My first run was pretty good, all first-round hits. The second didn’t measure up to that standard; I both threw a couple of rounds and took more time.

After lunch, we headed over to the longer distance Woodfill range to do the shoot-off. To spice things up, Joe threw in some support-side shooting and a pistol transition, in addition to the usual standing, kneeling, and prone.

That wrapped up the shooting portion of the class. We headed back to the classroom for some closing remarks and the presentation of the certificates.

After the class

I headed back to the campground to enjoy a couple of days of rest and recovery before starting 350 next week.

Conclusion

This class more than lived up to my expectations.

While there was some new material (shooting on the move and from unconventional positions), the real focus of this class was taking the fundamental carbine skills taught in 223 and refining and applying them. Among other things, this meant a lot more runs in the simulators.

One of the things I’ve really emphasized in my training the past few years are courses that force me to process the environment and make decisions, rather than just shoot. This makes the simulators, especially the indoor ones, the highlight of my experiences at Gunsite.

In 556, the simulators are not only more numerous, they’re also more challenging. The problems are more complex, forcing you to keep your eyes on more than one apex as you pie, to look deep, beyond just the next room, and to deal with exposure to multiple threat areas.

Joe and Jerry did a great job. In 223 and 250, the instructor’s role was primarily focused on conveying techniques and coaching students to perform them properly. In this class, it was more a matter of presenting us with a problem, whether it be a drill, qual, or simulator, and then critiquing our performance and offering suggestions for improvement.

I also have to compliment my fellow students. Joe and Jerry mentioned several times that we had a very good crop of folks in this class. Not only was everyone safe, there wasn’t anyone who held the class up or got off on tangents. The high level of student skills allowed Joe and Jerry to push us a little further on the drills and simulators.

For the experienced carbine shooter, the 556 class is a great opportunity to gain experience applying those skills in realistic settings. I’d highly recommend it.

Notes I have a tendency to go dynamic in the house in situations where I would otherwise be exposed while pieing Pick your damn feet up