United States Shooting Academy Tactical Rifle 230 Review

I have never trained or heard much feedback about the USSA, and since the Advacned Carbine class at Sig was cancelled, I decided to try out the Tactical Rifle 230 from USSA.
The course was taught by Eric Lund and hosted by the Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. While the academy is nice, our class took place in a remote class room/range - very different from last year Defensive Rifle.
The first day started in a classroom with a standard safety briefing followed by a 3 hour long lecture about accessories, AR variants, etc, which contained information I already knew and I learned very little new information. Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to shoot until after lunch.
After lunch we gathered on the range and I had a chance to look at different rifles. We had a total of 8 shooters. Seven civilians and one LEO. A large number of students were new to rifles, this being their first class.
One guy has FS2000 classic. Another had Sig 556 and another shooter had an AK and FAL. The rest had one variant or another of the AR platform. I was running BCM ligtweight upper with TRX extreme topped with H1. Eric had Sabre upper with Adams Arms piston conversion and he was running an Eotech.
The LEO was running a ban compliant 20" HBAR with irons. His sling setup made me go wtf - he started the class with the classic AR carry strap attached in the traditional manner to the bottom of the stock and the bottom of front sight base. He was struggling with it. Since he did not have any other sling attachment methods besides the strap, he tried to make single point around the rear sling point on the stock. Apparently dissatisfied, he then attached the front of the sling to the side of the FSB.
This setup was still unsatisfactory to him and he ended up attaching a 1903 leather sling and finishing the class with that. So note: Please have a modern, two point sling NOT a carry strap to make things easier on you in a class.
We finally started shooting with some NSR drills. Eric's philosophy is less about pinpoint precision and more about "shoot him into the ground". Therefore throughtout the class the unofficial accuracy standard was to keep all the hits in the A zone from 50 yards in. During the first half of the class, Eric also went over the reloads. He teaches putting the stock of the rifle under the armit while ejecting the spent magazine and acquiring a fresh one. I liked that technique as you no longer have to balance your rifle on the wrist alone.
As we started going through higher round count drills, I noticed my handguard get too warm to touch with a naked hand. During this time I also had a hard failure to go into battery that required me mortaring my AR. Since I was using Wolf Military Classic ammo, this was the likely culprit. After the mortaring I exeprienced no more malfunctions.
Due to local restrictions, we couldn't start shooting on Sunday until noon. So Eric gave the mindset lecture which took about an hour.
After we got back on the range, we did a brief warm up and then Eric introduced transitioning to pistol. From now untill the end of the class we were expected to transition to pistol during drills if we were within 25 yards and the rifle ran dry or had a malfunction. I liked the setup they had with a paper target for rifle and a steel plate to the right of paper target for pistol. Towards the end of the day we pushed back to 100 yards to refine our zeroes. Everybody was able to get on steel with minimal effor in a short amount of time. This marked the end of TD2.
Day 3 started around 8:30 with some warm up drills. Then Eric had us do Optic failure drills were those of us with optics turned them off and used the BUIS. I didn't have a chance to get a rear BUIS in time for the class so I was only using my front HK Troy. However, coupled with Aimpoint Micro, I found the system workable out to about fifteen yards. Another shooter next to me had a simialr setup except his front sight was AR style. I actually found the HK style to be a little easier to use in the optic down drill since the POA was right in the middle of the HK ears. I used FSP for horizontal alignment and the simply put the point of aim in the space between the ears of the front sight. If I had an AR style sight, things would be more difficult.
Eric also briefly covered shooting behind barricades and bilateral use of the rifles. He said that due to his eye sight he never transitions to left side and always engages targets from his strong side regardless which side of cover / barricade he uses. However, he let us experiment with transition the rifle to the support side. The FS2000 shooter was next to me and as he transitioned to support side I noticed him fiddling with his safety, unable to fire. "Turn it [the safety] the other way" I said. And he immediately was able to engage the target. Later he said that he got confused by the FS2000 safety since it rotates along a horizontal axis and requires a different motion if done with an off hand.
After this drill Eric introduced different shooting positions. We covered various flavors of kneeling, prone, roll over prone, and reverse roll over prone. However, Eric did not spend much time instructing us how to get into these positions with slung rifles. For reverse roll over we started with the rifle simply laing on the ground, unslung. I would have preferred if he were to start it with a slung rifle. We then pushed back to 200 yards for zero confirmation. By this point everybody had a decent zero, and getting hits on steel became easy.
We then moved back to 15 yards and had a quick competition which involved starting with one round in a chamber and empty mag in the rifle. On command, you would engage the target, perform the emergency reload and engage the target twice more. I think the FS2000 shooter was the first one out, followed by the guy running FAL. At the end it was me with a BAD equipped AR vs another shooter with a Sig 556. I did notice that as I kept re using the same magazine for my empty, it stopped being drop free due to the fine sand we had, so I had to give it a pull a few times. At the end, the AR won ;)...
With the class almost drawing to a close, the time came for the best drill so far. It started out with us not knowing what to expect. We had to run about 100 yards to our rifle, make it ready and engage steel targets from 100 yards using cover. For the first time in the class I felt challenged. I also got to experience all the stress factors. Taking cover directly behind the car instead of a wheel well, shooting from the right side off the left side of cover all the things that I knew I shouldn't be doing but still did.
This drill concluded our class and we went to the classroom for the final wrap up. I feel that this is a good class for complete novices. However, for somebody who is already familiar with the AR platform and has been through at least one rifle class may find this class too slow. Personally, I did not feel challenged in the class until the last drill. However, it provided me a good opportunity to pratice with my rifle.
I think that by adding more graded drills/qualifications the class could become more interesting and push the students more.
Equipment notes:
I ran BCM light upper with VTAC TRX. It ran great except for one stuck case of Wolf which required mortaring to unstick. The TRX does get uncomfortably hot after prolonged shooting. So gloves are recommended. One shooter had his AK - I believe it was a Saiga conversion, but not sure, have numerous malfunctions, including an AD when he was charging an empty rifle. He ended up finishing the class with FAL. The student with FS2000 did not seem to experience any mechanical issues except learning the need to really tug on the magazine after seating it.
One student experienced a quadruple feed while using a Sig 556 with loaner mags. Sig Sauer academy uses asian manufactured aluminum loaner mags, which was the cause of the problem. It never ceases to amaze me how the academy uses low quality / junk parts for studen loaner firearms, making for a poor experience.
The trouble the LEO student experienced with his carry strap sling drives home the point of having a modern, two point, quick adjust sling.