Sometimes you have to challenge yourself. For that reason, I’ve been looking for a different type of training course. I found it in Task Force SIG. The Sig Sauer Academy offers Task Force SIG as a one day team building/ leadership course with a firearms component. Sig’s promotional video states that their course is modeled on Special Forces selection, and is heavy on people carrying rucks, moving through wooded terrain, and running shooting drills. It sucked me right in.
Now, I went into this course with no illusions. Actual Special Forces selection is something like fourteen days long, and extremely physically demanding. This course is not that. And, anyway, I’m a middle aged man who doesn’t do a lot of formal physical training. Task Force SIG is an opportunity to do some applied problem solving in a team environment, while being subjected to mild physical and mental stress. Roughly half the course is range time, running drills while under the same physical and mental stress. So, a shooting course run in a challenging environment, combined with carrying a ruck and working as part of a team. It’s a unique course you wouldn’t expect to see at a civilian shooting school. I decided I needed to check it out.
The Sig Sauer Academy uses online registration. Make sure to register well in advance. Because, part of the registration process is a background check to ensure you are legally able to attend the course. The check could take a couple of weeks to come back. This is a smart move on their part, even if it hinders last minute registrations. Years ago, the Smith & Wesson Academy was forced to close because individuals used their facility who shouldn’t have. Sig is ensuring they won’t have that problem, so they can continue to provide world class training to civilians for years to come.
When You arrive at the Sig Academy in New Hampshire, students check in at the new Experience Center that just opened earlier this year. The new building houses an expanded pro shop, the Sig Sauer Museum, and New Hampshire’s only Black Rifle Coffee franchise. The Experience Center fronts one of this country’s premier shooting facilities. In my estimation, it’s the most extensive facility open to civilians. Once you check in, you’re directed to your classroom.
Task Force SIG is set up in phases. The first phase takes place in a classroom environment. This is where the students meet each other and the instructors, discuss the purpose of the course, and are introduced to the traits and characteristics of effective leadership. Colin, the lead instructor and developer of the course, and Zack, his co-instructor, are both veterans of Army Special Forces. What they teach isn’t theoretical, it comes from actual experience, and it shows. What students learn in the classroom, they apply in the rest of the course.
Next, the course moves outside. This phase consists of a series of team challenges as students move along Sig’s Leadership Reaction Course. Different members of the team are given a leadership role for each task, which must be completed under a time limit. Students also carry weighted ALICE packs, to add physical stress. This gives the students the opportunity to experience group dynamics, and manage different personalities while in a leadership role. For many, this, by itself, is a unique opportunity to experience something outside the norm of usual training.
After a short lunch break, the class moves to the range. This is what I was most anticipating when I signed up. It didn’t disappoint. Students are issued Sig MPX 9mm carbines topped with Sig Romeo red dot sights, and three magazines each. Drills start at the five yard line, where everyone learns to load, unload, and manipulate the rifle safely. Students are also shown how to offset for the difference between point of aim and point of impact at short distances. Then begins a series of timed team drills run between ten and fifty yards shooting at steel silhouettes. The drills emphasize team improvement as students are challenged to find ways to run the drills faster with each repetition. After that, students run competitive relay drills. However, they have to run down the range, up a couple flights of stairs and back again before the relays begin. Moving and shooting while under induced physical strain gives students a much better understanding of the realities of shooting under stress than shooting only from a static firing line.
Two things stood out to me from our range time. First, our instructors ran the range with consummate professionalism. In a very short time, they took a group of students with widely varied firearms experience, familiarized them with the MPX, and successfully had them running shoot and move drills from a series of fluid firing lines. All the while ensuring safe range conditions while simultaneously putting the students under physical and mental strain. Their relaxed confidence while maintaining positive control of the range set everyone up for success. Second, the Sig MPX is a very intuitive shooting platform. The controls are set up so that anyone familiar with the AR-15 will be able to manipulate the MPX right away, with the bonus that the selector switch is ambidextrous. The carbine’s ergonomics are spot on, making it very pointable, easy to get consistent stock weld from the low ready, and fast to get rounds on target with negligible recoil. Combined with the red dot, it is also very accurate. Overall, I’m very impressed with the MPX.
The class then moves to the 100 yard line, hands in their carbines, and transitions to suppressed Sig Cross rifles chambered in 6.5 Creedmore, and topped with Sig’s excellent 3×18 variable power BDX scope. After firing to again familiarize with the new weapon, students are broken up into shooter/ spotter pairs. Targets made up of varied colors and shapes are placed on the target stands, and the spotters are told where the shooters should place their rounds. This is designed to highlight communicating effectively, as the spotters then have to verbally describe the correct point of aim to the shooters. It was a great exercise. It showed just how easy it is to miscommunicate information, and why accurately communicating is important. The Cross rifles were great. The 6.5 chambering had very manageable recoil, and the BDX scopes provided a very clear and bright target picture.
With the range portion of the class complete, the last phase consists of running a military style obstacle course as a team. Sig’s obstacle course is great. I haven’t run an obstacle course like it since about 1990. Even if I did forget how to correctly negotiate a couple of the obstacles, it was fun. Honestly, if I lived in New Hampshire, I’d get one of the new memberships Sig offers so I could run the obstacle course once a week. What a great way to maintain functional fitness!
And that’s the class. So, what do I think? A couple of things. First, the MPX, Cross rifle, and BDX scope all deserve reviews of their own. I really enjoyed working with them. That’s something to work on for the future. Second, I think a class like this has a lot of value. You don’t usually see something like Task Force SIG outside of the military. It’s similar to the Small Unit Leadership Evaluation exercises at Marine Corps Officer Candidate School, and actually modeled on Special Forces selection. However, as I mentioned previously, those courses are weeks long, and there’s always the stress of failing a task and being dropped. In the civilian setting of a one day course, that stress is absent. So, if a student fails a task, it’s much easier to discuss why and focus on improvement. In fact, that’s really the theme of the course. Task Force SIG really is an opportunity to get a snapshot of your strengths and weaknesses in a challenging environment while working with others, and get positive feedback on possible ways to improve. I highly recommend it. It’s not a class Sig runs all the time, so you have to watch for it on their training schedule. But if you get the opportunity to go, it’s worth it. My only critique is that I wish Sig offered the Task Force SIG hoodie for sale at the Experience Center. If they did, I would have bought one in a heart beat!
Tactical & Target 