Video: Crazy Russian FSB Shooting Drills

Any shooting drills involving the shooter taking multiple 9mm FMJ shots to his body armor, or returning fire with other humans downrange, or having another shooter fire over his shoulder, or being pushed, bumped, or otherwise physically jostled while shooting is extremely dangerous.

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Larry Vickers visited with the Russian FSB (Federal Security Service, a KGB successor tasked with internal and border security and counter-terrorism) to watch them go through some of their advanced drills which combine all of these elements, in what most Americans would consider borderline insane.

The first drill they run assumes that the “bad guy” has “made” the FSB officer and manages to draw and fire first, scoring hits. This involves the primary shooter taking three shots to the chest. Yes, these are full-power FMJ rounds being caught by body armor.

3 inbound

Note that the shooter in this drill (above) already has two bullet holes in his shirt. The third round is captured in flight (the black, bullet-shaped dot on the left) in this freeze-frame, a split-second before impact.

The shooter then draws his weapon and returns fire, going for head shots. The target is behind the FSB agent who shot these three bullets into the primary shooter. The primary shooter engages the target, putting three rounds into the cardboard cutout just inches from the FSB agent downrange.

How close?

3 outbound

You’ll see that there are two holes already in the target (left), and the freeze-frame catches the bullet (it’s the light-colored dot appearing towards the right edge of the cardboard) just as it passes, inches away from the downrange FSB officer’s head. It appears in the video that the bullets have passed just over and inside the downrange officer’s gun, approximately 6″-8″ from his ear protection.

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Another drill has FSB officers pushing the primary shooter, firing rounds beside his head, and otherwise attempting to distract him. While attempting to push away one of his attackers so that he can reengage the targets downrange, he has a negligent discharge, and nearly earns the name Девять Пальцы—”Nine Toes.”  he fires a warning shot into the dirt.

fsb nd

You can see the gun in the process of cycling as the round impacts the dirt just ahead of his right foot.

As insane as that was, they then ran almost the same drill again, with FSB agents down range as real-life “don’t shoot” targets, all while the primary shooter is once again being pushed, yelled at, and fired over with live rounds.

I’m starting to understand why Sonny Puzikas and other Russian-trained instructors are viewed as so dangerous by American instructors. Getting shot isn’t just a possibly in higher-level Russian firearms training, but verges on becoming a probability.

I’ll pass, thank you very much.

Update: The shot into the dirt was intentional, not a ND.

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