This was written by a student from Dallas, Texas who attended the sniper course on September 26-28.

Review:

"The ITTS class was excellent. Scotty Reitz and co-instructor Ken Pickart were knowledgable, organized, helpful, friendly, and safe. The two of them conveyed a great deal of information over a short period of time with practical drills at every step of the way. I would definitely take a class with these gentlemen again and would rank this class as one of the best classes I've taken.

Scotty and Ken are both active duty LAPD officers, with SWAT and Metro Division experience. These credentials go a long way towards keeping the curriculum state-of-the-art, as well as keeping emphasis where it belongs.

The basic course of instruction was as follows:

Day 1:

Classroom lecture on gear, scopes, mildots, optics, adjustments, Point-of-Aim vs. Point-of-Impact, military vs. police sniping, body position, use of rucks/bipods, caliber selection, weapons cleaning, ballistics, effects of weather/wind/temp..

We proceeded to zero in our weapons.

Additonal drills focused on accuracy and body position.

We learned to adjust the optics and learn how "true" the 1/4 moa clicks on each of our scopes were. (Scotty was a big fan of Leupold, as am I).

We engaged in limited moving target drills as well, practing both tracking and ambush techniques.

Day 2:

Day 2 started late to permit a night shoot. We started with rezeroing the weapons.

We proceeded to conduct numerous moving target drills, as well as the proper "come ups" for 25 and 50 m shooting (a big consideration in police sniping).

We learned also how to use mil-dots to estimate accuracy.

Later in the evening we learned to hold on baloons to practice on tracking natural movment. This was followed up with a coordinated shoot.

Finally, we engaged in shooting through glass to see the effects of jacket/core separation. This was done on plate glass, lexan, and surplus police cruisers. This was cool shit that you could not get to do at a normal square range.

Day 3:

We began the day with a lecture on range estimate using mildots, and the use of Binos and Spotting scopes for searching.

We procceded to have a 2-3 hour shoot on unknown distance targets out to about 650 m. This was a lot of fun, but very challenging with the heatm haze, and wind of Southern California. Working with a partner and articulating things as seen in the scope was a challenge, as was adjusting the optics properly (various factors made first shot hits difficult). The targets were nearly impossible to find, as they were painted camoflague and hidden on a hill side that seemed very far away. But connecting with targets at this distance was very rewarding, and this was one of the funnest parts of the course.

Finally, we proceeded to conduct shoot/no-shoot drills on moving targets that came from behind barricades. This too was challenging. The targets had to be ID'd and shot very quickly. Coordination with one's partner was essential. This drill also invovled moving with equipment up to shooting positions on top of buildings, containers, and on hills. The combination of speed, stress, and moving targets made this drill a lot of fun, but also a great challnege.

For a 3 day course, this conveyed a great deal of info. I definitely caught the sniper bug and look forward to getting my own rig soon. I strongly recommend this course to anyone in Southern California, and, speaking for myself, though it was well worth the additional cost of air-fare to attend."

brett@internationaltactical.com