CARUSO PRECISION

AFTER ACTION REPORT

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Caruso Precision

Advanced Competitor Class @ Gravestone Precision, Lipan TX

Dates: April 11-12, 2026

Instructors: Matt Caruso & Dale Rhodes

Student: Drake Larsen

Purpose: Assess performance, provide live critique, feedback, corrective actions, and develop personalized training plan

SUMMARY:

This report provides a comprehensive review of the recent training class and match weekend, drawing from multiple sources of insight and performance data. Trainee feedback was actively collected and analyzed to understand their individual perspectives, challenges and takeaways. Additionally, I’ve incorporated my own instructor observations gathered throughout our time together, with particular focus on engagement, progression, and skill application during drills, exercises, and match conditions.

Performance in the match setting was critical to assess how effectively the trainee executed learned skills under pressure, and to identify any recurring gaps or strengths in real time. Taking this all into account, I’ve developed a personalized training plan for each individual. These plans are informed not only by the data collected during the course, but also by my own personal experience as a competitor and an instructor.

The goal moving forward is to ensure that each trainee continues to build on their strengths while systematically addressing areas for growth using methods that are practical and tangible. All training elements have been tested and yield a form of measurable results. Training means more than identifying problems but offering no solutions. This plan is a practical guide for the next steps in achieving your goals. If anything in this report is not clear or requires further explanation, please reach out.

OVERVIEW:

Thank you again for joining this class! It was very rewarding to watch you connect the dots and make progress throughout our time together. Each trainee comes to the event with varying levels of skills, abilities, strengths, weaknesses, and how much room they have to grow. In addition, everyone learns at their own pace. That said, you may have walked away with one little insight, several huge breakthroughs, or something in between. No matter what, this training was not an ultimate solution, but a place to better equip yourself as you continue on your journey. Everything you picked up, changed, validated, or completely rebuilt will need to be practiced and worked to get the results you’re striving for; the work is not done!

We reviewed basics, enhanced fundamentals with advanced techniques, refined sophisticated skills such as movers and tripod operation, as well as dissected deep cerebral topics such as spotting and wind reading. We exercised drills to lock in specific muscle memory, and also to expose you to new concepts. Topics the class asked for and were covered were:

  1. Wind

  2. Spotting

  3. Positional Techniques

  4. Tripod Techniques

  5. Mental Planning & Stage Prep

  6. Smart Corrections

After each topic was covered in class setting, we took it to the firing line to hone in on the physical skill and techniques behind each topic. I was happy to see everyone participate even when the guidance didn’t necessarily make sense or seem significant at first. As an advanced shooter, there are some philosophies and simple concepts that are staples for progress, for ALL. A few of the mantras throughout the training were:

  1. “Small changes can make large improvements” – lots of the teachings are subtle differences that can significantly clean up your execution, giving you better first round impacts, spotting, consistency, etc.

  2. “Pause” – As simple as it is, this is often the critical missing piece to consistent performance. Rushing through the process may work for a while, but eventually you will face an issue and likely moved too fast to properly manage it. 

  3. “Slow down and process what just happened” – Similarly to the one above, this focuses on the follow through in the shot process. Are we actually watching with an attentive brain as we make the shot? Or are we just waiting for the bullet to land so we can quickly cycle to the next shot?

We covered a LOT of material. As we discussed in class, not every insight needs to be incorporated into your process, but take as much as you can and see what yields the best results. No matter how our 2 days unfolded for you, the goal is to take what we covered, combine it with some pointed critique, and propel you on a guided path forward toward your next goals. Let’s get into your personal report!

SHOOTER GENERAL:

Drake, as a relatively new shooter, and within the youth division you are certainly showing solid abilities and the fruits of some good practice to this point. Having your father as a guiding light will give you a great advantage over the masses who have to go it alone for a while. If you stay motivated, keep showing up, and put some specific thoughts behind each engagement, you’ll accelerate on your path and start crushing your goals.   

STRENGTHS AND SUCCESSES:

Self-diagnosed Pre-Training Survey:

  • Parental Support –

    a. This is absolutely a nice asset. Your financial, transportation, equipment, and time support from your Dad is huge. This is a sport where success is largely earned by resources spent on the range and long term skill building. People can easily burn out financially for example, and may have just missed a large breakthrough. Obviously some things come faster than others, but if you can stick with this for a couple more years, that’s where people really takeoff.

Instructor Observations:

  • Overall comfort and calmness –

    It’s impressive to see a young guy with your approach to the engagements. I see a natural physical comfort with the equipment where others may have a hard time juggling the gear. Secondly, many younger shooters have a lack of respect for the ‘slow and steady’ pace, and just want to go as fast as possible. You execute at a very healthy speed, especially for where you’re at. Best to take your time and focus on doing things RIGHT, the speed will come later as we said in class.

  • Teachable –

    You are a fast learner! You were receptive to my inputs, and I could see you stop and adjust while trying to utilize the things we were pushing. As subtle as this sounds, it’s huge! One who can’t be taught, will struggle trying to do everything on their own!

  • Fundamentals –

    I took note that you had really great trigger control specifically, and good fundamentals overall. Your follow-through was nice, and although there are a few things to clean up, the big picture here is pretty good. This whole core part of the process is critical, so nice job.

REFINEMENT OPPORTUNITIES:

Self-diagnosed Pre-Training Survey:

  • Overreliance on Parental Support –

    A double edged sword – as much as the support helps, this is a perfect tee-up for one to lose interest, and run out of steam if you end up just following along without ever taking the initiative or driving the ship on your own. I’m not saying this is happening now, but in the future make sure you are finding your own motivations, putting in the work a bit on your own, and having some serious ownership in your results.

Instructor Observations:

  • Fundamental Clean-Up Items –

    A few things caught my eye, some inconsequential, some more significant. Either way, the insignificant ones will become more important as you get better and have to squeeze every drop out of your performance.

    a. Blading for forend hold –

    I noticed your natural position when grabbing the forend sets you up pretty bladed while reaching forward. A few considerations: first I would make sure you aren’t trying to reach a specific point with your support hand. The exact spot your hand rests is not as important as maintaining good overall position. Take a look at it and watch your back, ensuring it stays mostly perpendicular to the direction of fire. If you’re blading more than just a little (this is typically natural and ok), stop stretching so far forward and find a new support hand resting spot.

    The second consideration is how you approach and join up on the rifle. It’s very likely that you’re planting that hand before you connect at the shoulder. It SHOULD be, connect square and straight behind the shooting position, and THEN reach up and find a natural spot for your hand. This will prevent over-committing to a spot too far forward causing you to blade.

    b. Cheek Piece Height –

    Consider adjusting the height of the cheek piece. Your head seemed to be floating and was slightly bouncing at times. I know we try to get it down and out of the way, and reduce pressures but remember it’s there for a reason! Here’s a healthy balance needed of light pressure, but good, consistent, and comfortable head position.

    c. Physical Gear Management -

    Circling back to the way you handle the gear – overall it’s very good, but there were some times I thought you were just kind of hanging on and not fully in control. The rifle is heavy, and can be easily mismanaged with a bad grip, trying to go too fast, especially in rain. I would hate to see a safety DQ or even a drop on a training day. You’re strong enough as it is, but it’s not about muscles themselves, it’s about how you use them. Find a super secure way to lock the rifle into your body during transitions. Make sure you’re not using a passive hand grip, and do not commit to lifting out of a position until you have a 100% grip. Once you’re standing the rifle vertical, make sure you saddle or pinch it into your body, using your bicep and forearm to retain it. Again, it’s not like you dropped it, but I could see a few risky moves here and there and I don’t want to give it a chance.

    If the rifle is more than 20-22 pounds, I would suggest you consider reducing the weight for maneuverability. If that takes away from the recoil benefit, compensate for it by improving the recoil management skill! A heavy rifle is nice but not as necessary as we’ve come to believe as the “standard.” You will move easier and faster, saving energy and time, for a more fine-tuned position and shot.

  • General Focus –

I know classroom stuff isn’t the most exciting so I’m not surprised you were fading lol – yes I caught you snoring! I get it. Two days is a long time to stay super focused especially when it gets a little boring. That all said, I would just encourage you to make sure you are mentally committed and genuinely interested in what’s in front of you, so that you don’t miss out or waste your time on something. For your benefit, you will need to watch, pay attention, think and rethink throughout the day, and try to stay engaged. If you only mentally show up when you’re on deck, and check out when you’re done you’ll rob yourself a lot of data that will get you more impacts. It’s up to you – you’re the only one who can truly keep yourself motivated, so if you want to progress, dig deep and give it everything you can when you have a challenge in front of you!

  • Positional Perfection –

    Not always completely achievable but usually pretty close! Multiple shots I watched in person, confirmed with video review later, reveal that you’re simply building too relaxed of a position with the rifle. It’s not necessarily that you aren’t connected well with your body – it’s the bag game!

    • Too Relaxed – setting the bag and just placing the rifle on top is NOT maximizing the set up. Most of the shots I watched were built this way – and it’s not just you, most of the class is too casual about it. That’s why we spoke so much about it all weekend! You can see that the muzzle is swirling around as you close the bolt and get on target. Then under recoil, the muzzle whips all different directions, almost in a circle. This is because there is nothing holding the rifle in place.

    • Perfection – the ultimate goal is to give the rifle ¼” to slide from moderate skin contact, to a stop in your muscle, with the target right in your crosshairs still, AND for all that movement to be finished quick and crisply. Sounds like a lot, but if you set it up right, it’ll do it almost perfectly every time.

      • Biggest thing is after you place the rifle on the bag, as you slide your body down behind it you should be sawing and shimmying the rifle aggressively into that bag, feeling it grab really well.

      • By the time you’re in the glass, the biggest part of the job is done!

      • If you’re not on target, you slightly muscle it over, and then RE-SHIMMY to get it to hold the new position (NPA).

      • Now when you close the bolt, nothing moves, and the rifle is channeled deep in a track/groove, giving it one path to go under recoil

      • The last piece is based on how much you personally and situationally need it – the muzzle-down onto POA technique. IF you have a tendency to jump up multiple mils under recoil, you should fine-tune your combination of how much shoulder pressure you’re putting in, along with settling that point of aim slightly high, and shifting your NPA down onto target for your final control pressures. This will help control where the rifle tracks under recoil. Play with it to see if you need it a lot, a little, or not at all, also playing with light, medium and firm shoulder pressure.

      • With recoil that is MINIMAL, PREDICTABLE, AND REPEATABLE, spotting will become significantly easier!

    • VIP VIDEO SUGGESTION

TRAINING PLAN:

At this point your goal should be to in some ways take the lead on this adventure, and keep chipping away at the major skillsets with specific direction. If you can increase the drive and energy while making better shots, you’ll start to see more and get better results overall.

The following section is a combination of range-day timeline AND items to work on. Take these things and try to incorporate them in a compounding way that will stack benefit on top of benefit.

RANGE DAY ITINERARY:

1.      Review forecast before going – come up with a guess of min-max wind hold you’ll need at say 800 yds.

2.      Check zero/chrono/adjust kestrel – do this ON YOUR OWN. Become independent in training with Dad until you have an issue or get stumped. Then ask for help.

3.      Drills – start with the cold wind call at distance.

4.      Work through other drills in this plan, and don’t be afraid to add/substitute what you need.

5.      Take notes

DRILLS:

  • Cold Wind Call:

  1. EVERY TRIP OUT, make this your first plan after checking zero. The hard part of this drill is that everyone loves the satisfying feeling of hitting every hundred or so, validating data. But you can do that later! The other challenge is that there’s nothing on the line, it’s not a match, so it’s easy to jump the gun and get impatient.

  2. Don’t rush, take in every detail, study the area, and average your wind across the field of fire.

  3. Finalize your call, and take a poke.

  4. Hit or miss, reverse out of the shot and analyze what you could have seen better.

    • See if there is a single indicator you could’ve used during the shot sequence that would’ve been the best source of information.

  5. It’s a long term gain, sow progression drill. Things won’t necessarily change overnight, but it’ll take the already solid wind calling you have, and help you start to hone in on more specific details. 

    • A second level drill would be to switch to only doing this on the rifle

    • Give yourself a few minutes tops, then one minute, then make your first shot within 20 seconds.

    • 800+ yards is fine, does not have to be 1000…

  • Efficiency Drill 1:

    Using this standard drill mainly to iron out your bag stability improvements and check for complete equipment control throughout…

  1. Think of the build and break drill from the class

  2. 15 seconds, then 12 seconds, then 10 seconds…

  3. Pick a standard target - .4 wide, non-painted steel preferred

  4. Sturdy prop, different positions available. Pipe fence was a great example

  5. On the clock, build a swift and complete position, and shoot 2 shots on target

    • Bag down, rifle down

    • Drive it forward while lining up barrel to target

    • Settle QUICK AND FIRM into the bag as you acquire target in scope

      • Mag well buried into bag for rudder support

      • Forcefully and abruptly sawed/shimmied into position in target area

      • Finish building connection behind rifle

      • Make final shimmy onto exact POA

    • Push out a breath as you close the bolt

    • Hyper focus on target, make the shot!

    • Spot, RESET in the bag, cycle another round, make second shot!

6. Evaluate your progress on building an effective position quicker without compromising fundamentals.

  • Strive to have a solid grip, saddle the rifle against your body when making big movements, and be aggressive with your strength in managing the rifle – You are in charge, not the rifle!

7. Choose another time limit, and repeat

  • Spotting Drill 1:

Do this for the first several shots, until you have lost the element of surprise on your wind call. Once you know confidently know where your shots are landing and where the next ones are GOING to land, you move to drill 2. Next phase will allow you to re-introduce the element of surprise to make your brain have to analyze the point of impact again from a fresh perspective… But for now:

  1. Start on completely sturdy props and use un-painted steel

  2. Use a big/small array, maybe a KYL Largest and then Smallest (or one of the smallest)

  3. Make perfectly stable and bag-settled position

  4. Take several seconds before the shot to study the target and backdrop

  5. Prepare for expectations of what you’ll see with a hit or a miss

    • Depending on your vision, consider more emphasis on plate movement and statistics (how likely you expect to be over or under on your windage).

  6. Take a shot, and freeze to see everything you can, and take a few seconds to process.

  7. Make a measured call, not “a little left,” but “0.2 left of center…”

  8. Take that call to a small plate and test your call.

  9. If it hits – SUCCESS… If it misses, repeat the drill on the big plate and see if you see it better;

    • You will likely have a better expectation the second time because you just saw a miss in the dirt. That’s ok!

    • Let that guide your brain to better interpret the information down range this next shot

10. To reset the level of challenge, take the drill to a significantly different distance and repeat the drill.

  • Spotting Drill 2:

Taped Turret, with a buddy or alone, re-introduce the element of surprise and get yourself working hard to spot again once you’ve pretty much figured it out for the current conditions…

  1. Have a buddy spin your windage off by up to double what the actual wind conditions call for, and down to zero wind. For example, if it’s roughly 1.0L of wind, allow for anything within 2.0L-0.0.

    • This simulates a big gust or a big lull in wind; a bit much, but still reasonable and good for this drill

  2. If you’re alone, it’s less calculated

    • Without looking, spin your own windage a little one way, reset your grip and go the other way. A few clicks this way, that way, this way, etc… Once you feel lost, you’re set!

  3. Cover the turret with some painter’s tape - if alone and it’s on the support side, just don’t look!

  4. Shoot, spot, measure, correct – analyze results

  5. Reverse dissect what you thought you saw versus what actually happened

  6. Contrary to the fun speed stage in class, take your time. Accuracy over speed here!

  7. Repeat this drill until you can’t miss your second shot, or you’re completely sick of it! At a minimum, do this for 5 cycles.

  • Free Time:

  1. HIGHLY recommend reverting back to more scope based wind work in second half of day

    • Mirage is up, changes more frequent, challenge accepted!

    • Build a tough panning long distance stage, and put in the time to get a specific plan

    • Make sure you have a plan A, and a simplified plan B using simple additives per target.

    • Test it out and reverse engineer what you needed, vs what you saw or could improve

2. Obviously feel free to do anything else that needs work – don’t skip the tough stuff!

CONCLUSION:

             There are always more drills and beneficial methods you can use depending how you want to attack your focus areas. These are my observations and best ideas for you, but certainly not the end-all-be-all; don’t be afraid to try other things. As I said, you’re in a great spot with especially with your limited amount of experience so far - I truly believe your future is very promising in this sport! If you definitively approach each of these little ideas, I think you’ll be able to pick up a couple points every day you’re out there. That could be a big chunk in a 2-day match.

             I’m open for a follow up if you have any questions. See below for a bonus list of highlighted items from the curriculum that I want to emphasize before your next trip out. Please stay in touch, share your victories big or small, and let’s shoot together again down the road. Thank you and God bless,

Matt Caruso

Caruso Precision

CLASS HIGHLIGHTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

1.      Get out and train sooner than later, lock in what you learned

2.      Keep your attention within your thirds, G.O.D.

3.      Stick to your processes, in every phase of the day/match/stage/shot sequence; don’t cut corners

4.      Drill your weaknesses even if it’s less fun – “don’t skip leg day!”

5.      First shot = most important shot… make it perfect!

6.      Don’t settle for bad wind angles, use an azimuth or good compass for exact numbers

7.      After a stage, reverse math the wind to derive true wind conditions to carry forward

8.      Other than checking DOPE, don’t shoot clean steal because it makes you weak

9.      IMO spotting is the most important skill beyond having good fundamentals

10.  Prepare spotting expectations based on target environment BEFORE you’re on the clock

11.  Know your min. correction for edge miss (½ target) and blind miss (¾ target) BEFORE on the clock

12.  Plan your toughest target, toughest position as a primary driver of your plan development

13.  Review EVERYTHING on your rifle end to end before saying you’re ready for the clock

14.  Make mental snapshot of last shot before stepping off. Finish process before chatting with buddies

15.  Pause, process, plan, then execute… Do NOT rush downrange analysis

16.  Corrections should have a number, not just a direction… “I was left,” vs “I was 0.4 left”

17.  Move the bag and rifle separately from position to position

18.  Saw into bag before every shot, it becomes muscle memory, costs no time, yields good benefit

19.  Confidence = efficient time management. Take the time before the shot, or you’ll struggle afterward

20.  Move quick, shoot slow