 Hey guys, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense, and today we're going to talk about the gear list for the AR-15 Basics Course. The AR-15 Basics Course is exactly what it sounds like. We go through, it's an introductory Basics Course for the AR-15, so it's suitable for everyone who's never shot an AR-15 before, people have been shooting one for a while and just want to continue to improve their skill set. We walk through how to, of course, shoot the weapon and how to work the weapon and how to fix it when it breaks and do all kinds of fun stuff. So it's a wonderful, fantastic course and I hope you decide to come out and join us for it sometime. So here is the gear list. I'm just going to read through what the gear list is and kind of give a little explanation of why you should bring what we tell you to bring. So the first thing on the list, of course, is an open and teachable mind. That's important. That's important to bring to every course you ever go to. Otherwise, honestly, I don't know what you're there for if you're not there to learn and you take into account what you're being taught, right? That's what you paid your money for is to go learn something. So bring an open and teachable mind. Take notes when you go to class. This just doesn't mean this is any class you go to ever. Take lots of notes. Be there to learn. Just try to absorb and suck in everything you can and then later, after the class, you decide what you want to keep, what you want to toss, what you think works, what you think doesn't work. So while you're there, do everything an instructor tells you to do. Learn everything you can. That's how I take classes. When I go to take classes for me as a student, that's what I do. I go there. I do everything exactly perfect as I can that they tell me to do. I take tons of notes and then after the class, I decide, you know, that part, I didn't really agree with that. I didn't like that or I don't think that's going to work for me or whatever. And I toss stuff I don't like and I keep stuff I do like. So come with an open and teachable mind. That's important. The next thing you have to bring is an AR-15 rifle. That seems pretty obvious. If you can bring a spare one, I know a lot of us don't get to own two AR-15 rifles, but if you do, I would tell you to bring a spare one in case your first one goes down or you have problems with it or whatever. It's always a good idea to bring a spare rifle. We've had rifles go down. I will have rifles go down in the future. It's the nature of the beast. A lot of times people aren't used to shooting in this format with this amount of this high of a round count and their guns just don't make it because they've only ever been shooting them off a bench, you know, maybe like five, 10 rounds in outing and aren't used to putting a couple hundred rounds to their guns over the course of a day and the guns just don't make it. So bring a spare gun if you got it. That would be good. A sling for your rifle, a sling on a rifle is a requirement. So there are only two things in my personal opinion and that's all it is that belong, that are required to be on a rifle. The one thing that's required to be on a rifle is a sling, either a two point or a single point. Everybody agrees three points are trash, okay? And two point, you know what, that's like 90, 95% of rifle users are going to run a two point sling, which is fine, you know, run the sling you want to run as long as it's not a three point, but you have to have a sling. The other thing that's required on your gun is a white light. Now this is not a nighttime class, so you can come to this class and not have a flashlight on your gun. That's fine. But you really, really, really need to have a white light on your rifle. One, if you use your rifle in any kind of home defense capacity or anything like that, you need to be able to see what you're actually pointing your gun at. And two, it's really going to increase the capabilities of that firearm. A light is a great control device, right? You can point a light at somebody and you can get a lot more compliance and control out of them. If you're blinding them with a thousand lumens in the eyeballs, that helps. And also, like I said, it just increases the capability to be able to have a light that can punch out 100 meters is a really, really powerful tool. So have a white light and have a sling on your gun. You don't need a white light for this class, again, we're shooting during the day, but you really are required to have a white light on your rifle. Just my opinion. The next thing is 750 rounds. So we do a lot of shooting. That's the current count on this class right now, and that might change a little bit over time, but right now it's 750 rounds. It's a lot of shooting. We're going to have a lot of fun. We try to get through as many quality reps for you as we possibly can. So will we shoot exactly 750 rounds? I mean, no, of course not, but we're going to shoot a lot of shooting. And again, we're going to try to get you through all those quality reps that we can. Bring the bullets. You'll need them. A note on that. I highly recommend, highly in all caps, bold, italicized, not steel. Brass case ammo. Do not bring steel case ammo. AR-15s are designed to run with brass and not steel. Don't chince out for that extra two cents around or whatever it's going to save you. It's not worth it. Buy brass case ammunition. Buy Fioki. Thank me later. At least four making, at least four working magazines for your rifle. You got to have magazines, right? So bring at least four. The more the merrier. I suggest that you load them all to 28. It'll make your life a lot easier. Come with your magazines loaded, by the way. Always show up to class with your magazines loaded. Don't get to class and then load your magazines. A handgun. You know, your standard sidearm, something 9mm or 40 or 45, whatever your flavor is, and 100 rounds for that sidearm, right? So we're going to run an outside the waistband holster. Bring your pistol. Bring 100 rounds. We'll do some transition work. Note taking gear. A note on that outside the waistband holster. Get something hard-sided. You should only be running something made on a kydex or kydex-like. Don't bring any soft-sided nylon garbage. Just get a custom-molded holster for your pistol. Note taking gear. Again, take notes, right? So bring a notebook. Bring a pen and scramble down notes. When you get information or you're learning something, take notes. You won't remember after class. You think, oh, I'll just all remember that, and you won't. Write it down. Especially when you go to class and everything's new and you're getting stuff thrown at you, write it down. Take notes. If there's just one thing I could tell everybody to do at class that they would actually do would be to take notes. Take better notes. Magazine pouch chest rig. So you're going to have these magazines. You should bring something to carry them in. Now look, at the end of the day, if you just want to throw a magazine in your back pocket, that's fine. That's going to work. But if you have a chest rig or you want to run your plates or you want to run a pouch or whatever, the choice is up to you. Bring all the gear you want to bring and we'll teach you how to use it. That's part of the fun. Pistol magazine pouches. Again, you should have at least one magazine pouch for a pistol to do that speed reload for your pistol. Seasonally appropriate clothing. So we shoot rain or shine. And we'll shoot in the summer here in Minnesota because it's cold in the winter. But if it rains or if it storms or whatever, we're shooting that day. So bring whatever you need to bring to be outside all day and shoot. Don't wear shorts or anything like that. Side note, I do recommend either a high-collar shirt or something like this that you can zip all the way up or a schmog or something like that to wear around your neck because rifle kicks out brass. That's very hot and it kicks it out pretty hard. I still have some kind of scar over here from a brass burn that I got a year and a half ago because I caught a piece of brass on my neck. So wear something like that to protect yourself. It'll just help you out. Ladies, special note on that. Take extra care that brass doesn't find its way down your shirt. It's not going to be comfortable for you. Just be one. Lots of water. So we're going to be outside again being physically active all day. I don't need anybody having dehydration issues. Bring a lot of water. Just bring a gallon jug of water and just work on drinking that all day. Bug spray, suntan lotion. Again, we're going to be outside all day. Wear sunblock. That'll help you a ton. Wear bug spray because bugs are annoying. That seems pretty straightforward. Weapon lube and tools. So again, if your gun breaks or goes down or whatever, you're going to need something to fix that. So bring your tools. Bring your cleaning rod in case you have to knock out a stuck casing. Bring lots of lube. Air 15s like to run filthy wet. And that's what we're going to do. We'll lube the ever-loving daylights out of those suckers and we'll just run them. So you'll need all that stuff. Lawn chair. So usually again, we shoot outside. And where we shoot, there are not always places that are convenient to sit down and there's not always chairs available. So bring a lawn chair so that you can take a break between rounds and stuff like that. Gloves. So I do recommend gloves. Again, we're going to be shooting these guns a lot throughout the course of the day and they're going to heat up. And that support hand out on the handguard there is going to get hot. So I highly recommend you bring some gloves. It's going to make your life a lot more comfortable when you're shooting off high strings of fire and those guns start heating up. So you're really going to benefit from those gloves when that gun starts heating up so that it's more comfortable for you. Now I do have a suggested pre-class reading on here. So again, this is not something that's required or that you have to do. But for those of you who want to get a little bit ahead of the curve and come with your mind primed and more ready to learn, I would suggest you read American Rifleman by Reed Hendricks. It's a very good book. It really helps lay the foundations of the rifle and how the rifle works. There's some stuff we do different from Reed, obviously, but that's really going to prime your pump and really it's a great primer to get you ready for a day of training. So I would recommend you buy that book. Last I checked there about 30 bucks in Amazon, American Rifleman by Reed Hendricks. And that should help start you in the right direction and get you ready to really get the most out of your day of training. I don't have any prerequisites for this class. I suggest you've taken a competent pistol course with a competent instructor or handgun tool one for me. Maybe a competent instructor. So, you know, that would be helpful for you and really kind of set your foundation better. But I don't require that. There's no prerequisites for this class. The physical fitness level required, we're going to be standing for long periods of time. Obviously, we're going to be on the range. We'll do some kneeling and some prone shooting and some getting down. If you have some kind of injury and you're like, ah, I don't know if I can do that, we can work around your injuries, okay? So I don't want you to feel that you can't come to class because you have an injury that would impair you to be able to do that. We can work around any pre-existing injuries and we're going to make it work for you because what's most important is that you learn to operate your AR-15. And that you're hyper-physically active or that you're super-fit, but that we're there to work on your AR-15. Obviously, be as physically fit as you are capable of being. That's only going to serve you in life in general. However, if you have an injury or you have some kind of concern like that that might limit you from coming to class, don't let that hold you back. We're going to work around that and we're going to find a solution for you, okay? That's it. That's all I have. If you have questions about this class or the gear list, always feel free to email me. I'm happy to help you out. Other than that, we hope to see you at AR-15 Basics and are excited to shoot with you. Do brave deeds and endure.