The Guardian Series Required Gear

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Mandatory Gear for ALL Ronin courses:

This is the minimum required equipment necessary for all of our courses. However, lack of equipment is never a barrier to quality training! If there’s something you need, ask! We have multiple career’s worth of perfectly functional gear available to loan out, provided you ask us prior to the day of the course. 

 

• Firearm/Magazines: Handguns are required for all courses. Bring the appropriate long gun for rifle/shotgun courses. All magazine fed firearms need at least 3 magazines. IMPORTANT NOTE: If the gun you’ll use during class is also your CCW gun, you will be given an opportunity when you arrive to safely unload your defensive ammo and prepare for class. 

• Ammunition: Specific round counts are provided for each course, but we recommend a full metal jacket or similar style training round, as close to the grain weight as your carry/duty ammo as you can find. NO STEEL CORE AMMO, NO RELOADS.

• Holster/Belt: IWB or OWB, shooters choice. If you’re going to run an OWB, it must have at least one active retention device. (Safariland SLS/ALS or similar). For most long-gun courses, an OWB with active retention is strongly recommended. Belts should be sturdy enough to support the weight of your holstered handgun and spare magazines.

• Sling: Mandatory for all long gun courses. Single, 2 or 3 point slings are all fine. "Hunting style" won’t work for our purposes. 

• Magazine Pouches/Etc.: We require you to have the ability to carry two spare pistol mags, and at least 2 spare rifle mags. For shotgun courses, we require a way to carry additional shells that doesn’t allow them to fall out during movement drills. Magazine pouches, shell carriers, plate carriers or chest rigs are all fine, but keep in mind that we might be training specifically for CCW in certain courses. If you’re intentionally training to get familiar with your duty/patrol style gear, then by all means run it. Please come to class with all mags empty.

• Hearing Protection: Plugs or muffs, but electronic earmuffs with extra batteries are highly recommended.

• Eye Protection: Sunglasses are recommended, but all eye pro must be wrap-around to shoot on steel targets. Slip-on “shields” for eyeglasses are permitted. If you’re attending a low-light course, clear lenses are required. 

• Tourniquet/IFAK: At minimum, carry a tourniquet. If you don’t have one, Ronin sells them at every course. We understand that not everyone has an IFAK yet, so we’re happy to provide a loaner if you need one. 

• Hydration/Snacks/Food: Drink more water than you think you need, and snack continuously. We recommend 1 US gallon of drinking water, and roughly 800-1,000 calories per person per day. We have a maximum of 60 minutes for lunch breaks, and nothing is close by. 

• Weather Appropriate Clothing: Wear comfortable clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty/damaged. We train in all weather until it becomes a safety concern. Ronin will have a sun/rain shelter up for every course for your use during breaks.

• Close-toed Footwear: We work on a rough gravel range, and we often incorporate cardiovascular activity into our drills.

 

Quality of Life Gear for all Ronin Courses: 

This is gear that makes your day easier, but isn’t strictly necessary. Again, we have loaner gear available by prior arrangement. 

 

 

• Sun Block/Bug Spray: There’s no shade and lots of things that want your blood. Spray-on keeps the goop off of your hands, which keeps it off of your guns. 

• Gloves: Shooting gloves or a decent work glove can save your hands from hot handguards and barrels, target stands, steel targets, etc.

• Knee Pads: Again, it’s a rough gravel range. 

• Hat: While not strictly mandatory, we strongly encourage you to bring a baseball style hat or boonie cover during sunny days, and a beanie or similar during cold days. 

• Camp Table and Chair: There are no picnic tables or benches on the range for breaks and lectures. Ronin can provide a limited number of chairs and folding tables for breaks, lunches and lectures, but feel free to bring your own. 

• Cooler: For Missouri summers, large amounts of ice and cold water are extremely nice to have.

• Firearm Cleaning Kit: Murphy says the gun you cleaned the night before class is going to lay down on you after the first mag. 

• Dude Wipes: Indoor plumbing is a quarter mile from the berm, porta-johns are much closer. 

• BooBoo Kit: Not everything should be fixed with gorilla tape.

• Note Taking Gear: A pen and notebook comes in handy for those who write things down. 

• Anti-fog: Hot, humid days and nights can cause significant fogging on eye protection. 

 

Special Note on NFA Items:

NFA items are welcome in our courses. You must have a copy of your tax stamp with you. You must also allow the item to be “tested” by the Lead Instructor, for quality control purposes, or something.