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Hey guys, I recently took a rifle course at Ground Level Mindset near Olympia and wanted to share my experience. Before I start I want to say I've never been in the military or a LEO, so take my review with a grain of salt. I'm just a guy in my late twenties who likes to shoot and train on the weekends. I've been to about a dozen rifle and pistol courses, mostly at West Coast Armory in Bellevue and Firearms Academy of Seattle (FAS) down in Chehalis. Both are great places to train and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend either (especially FAS, great people down there).
With that said, I had a better experience training with Ground Level Mindset. The instructor that taught the class was a guy named Brandon. He is a former LEO and current military. From what I understand he went through army sniper school and has been in gun fights as a LEO, so he is squared away. We met near Olympia and convoyed to our shooting spot. After spending a little time confirming our zeros and meeting the other students, we started training.Dude knew his bubblegum and was professional the entire time. I'm not going to give away his curriculum obviously, but we started with the Mozambique drill and then did some modified forms of it. Brandon helped me with some issues I was having and will need to continue to work on, but my grouping size closed a bit. After the Mozambique drill, he instructed us on shooting and moving and shooting while moving, which if you haven't tried is fooking difficult. Thankfully, the class size was small (3 people) and we were all experienced so there weren't any safety violations or idiots putting people in danger with NDs. The instructor even offered to let me try out his suppressed geissele mk18. Safe to say I'm in love with suppressors now. After a good amount of time on malfunctions and how to clear them and some other drills/instructions, we had a competition to see which student could shoot and move the fastest and most accurately. This tall skinny dude who had been running iron sights all class, grabbed his buddies red dot equipped AR and smoked us. Even with his iron sights he was keeping up with us which was impressive in and of itself. I'm still pissed that I lost lol. At the end of class, the instructor told us he'd be there for as long as anyone else wanted to stick around, so we did another hour or so of more bubblegum, but it was starting to get cold and dark so we packed up and headed out.
I left with some bumps and bruises, but it was worth it. Brandon debriefed with us and wanted feedback. He also wanted to know what other kinds of classes we'd like to see offered. Overall, it was a dope experience. I learned more than I have at any other class and had way more fun. Brandon was knowledgeable and had the pedigree to back it up, something other instructors can't say. The drills we did were difficult and challenging, but I feel like I walked away from it a better shooter
Here's their website https://www.groundlevelmindset.com/about
Veteran owned company. If you need training, check them out
With that said, I had a better experience training with Ground Level Mindset. The instructor that taught the class was a guy named Brandon. He is a former LEO and current military. From what I understand he went through army sniper school and has been in gun fights as a LEO, so he is squared away. We met near Olympia and convoyed to our shooting spot. After spending a little time confirming our zeros and meeting the other students, we started training.Dude knew his bubblegum and was professional the entire time. I'm not going to give away his curriculum obviously, but we started with the Mozambique drill and then did some modified forms of it. Brandon helped me with some issues I was having and will need to continue to work on, but my grouping size closed a bit. After the Mozambique drill, he instructed us on shooting and moving and shooting while moving, which if you haven't tried is fooking difficult. Thankfully, the class size was small (3 people) and we were all experienced so there weren't any safety violations or idiots putting people in danger with NDs. The instructor even offered to let me try out his suppressed geissele mk18. Safe to say I'm in love with suppressors now. After a good amount of time on malfunctions and how to clear them and some other drills/instructions, we had a competition to see which student could shoot and move the fastest and most accurately. This tall skinny dude who had been running iron sights all class, grabbed his buddies red dot equipped AR and smoked us. Even with his iron sights he was keeping up with us which was impressive in and of itself. I'm still pissed that I lost lol. At the end of class, the instructor told us he'd be there for as long as anyone else wanted to stick around, so we did another hour or so of more bubblegum, but it was starting to get cold and dark so we packed up and headed out.
I left with some bumps and bruises, but it was worth it. Brandon debriefed with us and wanted feedback. He also wanted to know what other kinds of classes we'd like to see offered. Overall, it was a dope experience. I learned more than I have at any other class and had way more fun. Brandon was knowledgeable and had the pedigree to back it up, something other instructors can't say. The drills we did were difficult and challenging, but I feel like I walked away from it a better shooter
Here's their website https://www.groundlevelmindset.com/about
Veteran owned company. If you need training, check them out
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