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This company is trying to sell some of there products on an online auction. They sell firearms accessories and teach army sniper training. They put four riflestocks for sale online and after I purchased them, they tried to tell me that the auction was only for one. They have refused to answer my questions or respond to my e mails after I have pointed out the problems.
Here was the title and words in the auction:
Authentic McMillan M40A1 Remington 700 S/A Stocks
These stocks were used by 4th Marine Recon Batt. while training with our school rifles at GPS Sniper School (while advertised as McMillan Sniper School) before deploying overseas.
Photos of these stocks being used by 4th Recon Marines can be seen at www.sniperschool.com
Seller; GPS Defence Sniper School www.sniperschool.com
The description clearly uses the plural STOCKS 3 times and the picture for the sale included four stocks in the picture. I went by the description and paid the buy-it-now price which was good for four stocks but way to much for one stock. They will not respond to my concerns, they only answer back that I should have asked before I bought it. They said they were selling STOCKS for the price and the picture had four stocks in it, why should I have to ask if they were really selling what they said they were selling?
Rip Off! Stay away from GPS Defense and SniperSchool.com! I was searching about them online and found many other complaints about this company and there school. Here is a letter someone posted on a well respected firearms forum:
10 April 2006
Mr. William Graves
G P S, LLC.
P.O. Box 14481
Scottsdale, AZ 85267
Re: Sniper School Class 03-05 April 2006
Dear William:
As you may recall, I and three team mates attended the above captioned class. I?m writing you now to provide the collective feedback on our experience.
First let me state that we are not military, law enforcement or private contractors. We took this week away from our businesses and jobs to attend your course, which we funded personally. When you consider tuition, airfare, hotel, etc. the cost was not insignificant! I did a fair amount of research including a thorough reading of your web site and several conversations with you, which I compared against your competition. We had an expectation. Sadly, it was not met.
Overall we are very disappointed in our experience. Let me try to break it down by day:
Sunday ? No clear directions were provided to your unmarked range. We had quite a time finding it! Fortunately we had the good sense to check it out early and were lucky that someone was even there when we arrived. We happened to catch Rick on site.
Monday ? By and large, a waste of time! This course date had to be on your calendar for at least six months. How can there possibly be a conflict?
1. The instructors had a planned start time 11:00 AM. After 2 hours of standing around, we had to leave the range because of a pornographic photo session. Brilliant!
2. The school consistently promises, ?When we say 10 hrs, we mean 10 hrs of instruction.? Also, not only did we not ?shoot low-light EVERY night? we finished the day early without firing a single shot.
3. There was no written syllabus for the course provided. It was clear they were loosely following some ?guideline?.
4. Not one instructor had a spotting scope or even field glasses. This would have greatly facilitated coaching and the zeroing process.
5. Your web-site equipment lists, both required and recommended, need work. Rather than list some neat stuff, please give it some real thought as to what is actually needed and be clear about it!
6. The class size was 20 shooters instead of the usual 12 (more on this later)
7. Insufficient ammunition ? we had reserved and were issued 1, 000 rounds in advance. We had go give half back because of the lack of ammo.
One person had sent 1, 000 rounds to your school in advance. The ammo was lost until late Wednesday afternoon.
8. More time lost driving to the McMillan site. There we (all 20 of us) suffered through a tour of the already cramped factory. While mildly interesting, that was not the purpose of our trip! The instructors were filling time!
9. The classroom work was done in an equally cramped lunch room. Thad gave the presentation. He is a qualified, knowledgeable presenter, but 20 people had to strain to see a laptop screen. There was no projection device or the obvious Handouts of the presentation. Tiring, boring and disappointing.
10. The Best part of the day was when we attempted to set up our optics. However, this too was frustrating. You did not have enough instructors to properly serve the class (more on this later)! Imagine 20 guys sprawled out in a parking lot trying to gain proper optical alignment with only 3 instructors! Not what we expected or paid for!
As regards the instructors, Rick, Jack, Thad and Harley are all fine Americans who are well qualified and each a very capable instructor in their own right. I particularly like Jack?s style. However, one has to question their overall commitment. I heard repeatedly ?Hey, tell it to William, I?m just a contractor.? They felt, and so they acted, like contractors and it showed. Thad was there only for the classroom and a few hours on the range. Harley was only half time at best as they had him doing things around the range and running errands. So that meant 2.5 instructors for 20 shooters. Not the 1 to 4 you advertised or that the instructors told us was the usual ratio. Also, we are very disappointed that you were not there administering the school and delivering training yourself.
Tuesday ? Again, a planned 11:00 AM start! Wasted time as we got minimal productive time on the range. More discussions and a painfully slow zeroing session.
Now, this is a Very sore point; the instructors expected us to arrive with Zeroed Weapons. You repeatedly told us Not to zero our weapons. Had we done so we would have had more time to learn and enjoy a more productive experience. You repeatedly told me Not to shoot in advance! A serious breakdown in communications and policy.
With only 2.5 instructors per 20 shooters, we did not get the attention we deserved (at this ratio we received roughly less than half the time a 1 to 4 would have provided). Fortunately, three of us are experienced, but one in my team could have Really used more coaching!
I don?t believe the entire class successfully zeroed weapons this day. And again, 20 shooters could not comfortably fit on the range. Not a productive day, which put us way behind. After a heated group discussion at the end of the day, the instructors reluctantly agreed to start earlier on Wednesday (9:00 AM).
Wednesday - With a 9:00 AM start and minimal conversation, we actually got to shoot some distances. However, with such a large group it was a long and slow march through 100 and 200 yds. By the time we got to the 300-500 yd targets it was late
afternoon and we had to rush to get them all in. Did I mention that the class was understaffed? Little to no coaching as the instructors seemed to be spending their time with a few select shooters. Because we had to rush to get at least the 300-500 targets hit before dark, we never shot longer distances or had time to properly establish dope for the various ranges. This is a major disappointment as doing so was the fundamental purpose for attending the school.
To summarize, this was a good group of guys who improvised, adapted and tried to get the most out of it. This is a testament to the men, not to your school. It does nothing to change the fact that we all feel the school is poorly run and we definitely did not get our moneys worth. I had the impression the school and the quality of your training was important to you. Clearly, you have other interests that take priority. Your sniper school has the potential to be the best of its kind! However, it?s run more like an affectation than an avocation! A full time administrator to oversee training operations, a crack, Dedicated instructor staff, and an uncompromising commitment to quality and customer service can make it the best of its kind! You also need consistency. Not surprisingly, I learned that the previous three classes were as much a cluster-f__k as this one was. I wonder how the McMillan family feels about having their name associated with this.
I will await your response. I?ll be very interested to see, from a customer service perspective, how you address our dissatisfaction. It would be unfortunate if someone asked my opinion of McMillan Sniper School today.
Regards,
I had heard that GPS Sniper School trained competent marksmen to become effective snipers in a short time. I am an Army-trained rifle marksman. By marksman, to clarify, I generally qualify as a sharpshooter or expert during my annual re-qualification. I nevertheless have no precision rifle training and no experience using or sighting a sniper's scope and no experience shooting off a bipod. I was looking forward to learning these skills and signed up for all the classes in early Spring 2017 (Basic course through Instructor Development) with money I had saved from an active-duty deployment to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (over $2, 000).
Upon arrival I immediately became concerned. The course from the outset seemed to focus on enhancing existing sniper skills instead of developing them from the unskilled level. I must point out two facts: My classmates were all prior-trained snipers and were excellent shots and my rifle, an off the shelf .308 bolt-action rifle, was not sufficient for military-level precision shooting past 500 meters. Though it was a quality rifle with factory-installed optics and bipod, it was only effective for law-enforcement-level precision shooting-50 to 100 meters at best. I was behind from the beginning because the instructors were working with these skilled shooters and my presence detracted from their ability to advance the level of instruction. Although I consider myself an adequate shot, I felt incompetent in the presence of these experts. I had particular difficulty with spotting obscure targets. I must add that the instructors were excellent, extremely competent, my chief complaint is that the POI (training plan) was not evident so a novice, despite the claims of the school, is (was) not properly trained-up at the earliest stages.
Embarrassed, I told the instructors that I would need to withdraw, temporarily, and return after first securing private instruction to train-up for the basic course. I stated that I would not request a refund and that I would return when I could get the time and money to spend 10 days in Arizona to train. It became evident that I would not be able to return immediately because of work and Army obligations. I called from time to time to reassure them that I was working to secure the funds to return to complete the courses.
A few months ago I called the school to inform them that I wanted to schedule a private class and continue my training. Nobody took my calls but the answering machine took messages. No messages were ever returned. I then went to their Facebook page and messaged the admin staff. Again, no response. As I feared, they were in the process of ceasing operations. I noticed that they had stopped training as of the first quarter in 2018 and I knew that I had lost my money. It is probably naïve for me to think that they would return my money when it became evident thy could not provide me with a service. As proven by prior complaints the instructors, as sharp as they are (were) were flying by the seat of their pants with no organized training plan. I noticed that immediately, minimal classroom training and insufficient hands-on instruction from the cadre. I am now in the process of deploying overseas as a force protection officer and will be seeking precision rifle training to enhance my skills. I've found a school in Colorado that seems credible. Should GPS again become operational I urge all buyers to beware. Unless you already possess the requisite skills you probably will not be successful. Of course, if you do possess rudimentary sniper skills you probably won't need their course in the first place.
AUGUST 2011
I served in the US ARMY off and on from 1992 to 2015 both in the conventional ARMY and with 19th Special Forces Group. In 2011 I was on contract in Afghanistan during leave I attended the advanced and war fighter courses. There were two instructors one Marine and one 18D. I have attended a lot of military courses in my time in the mil. and contracting. These guys are as good as it gets. Mr. Graves was very straight forward and left me with all the info I needed to get to the GPS facility and attend class prepared. I took back a wealth of knowledge. I learned a lot and had a lot of fun. To the group of guys that gave the long bad review, I can see why you never served in LE or the MIL. Keeping it short if you don't attend GPS and leave with a warm fuzzy it probably your fault! God bless America Mr. Graves and GPS.
The Golden years for quality instruction from GPS, from everyone else I know that went through there, was from [protected]. I think they have once again some real snipers working for them now so it may be ok again. I know for a spell in 2010 and 2011 they didn't have any real Military snipers teaching their "Sniper Course"...? WTF.
I can't speak for their current state but I think if you went through between '07-'10 you probably had a good experience, as long as Mr. Graves didn't spend too much time at the range. Which from my understanding he didn't. He had Marines and Rangers teaching and it was brilliant. I too had Rob and another Marine, Dan, along with Ryan, a former Ranger. the cohesion and knowledge between these three complimented each other and the course perfectly.
From: Satisfied GPS Sniper School Grad
May 2010
Sniper/counter-sniper
Advanced Sniper
Sniper Instructor Development
First things first:
1. I do not work for GPS Defense Sniper School
2. I usually do not write reviews so bear with me
3. I only learned of GPS Defense and the school 10 days prior to attending
The above letter almost caused me to decide to not go to the GPS Defense Sniper School. This would have been a huge mistake. Here is why…
From my first inquiry William Graves answered my questions in a courteous, professional manner and accommodated my needs as a last minute addition to the class. In spite of his responses the above letter caused me to rethink my decision and put my booking flights on hold. I wrote William about my concerns and he addressed each issue without dragging the writer of the letter through the mud, again very professional. My delay in booking a flight did result in costing me and extra $179 in airfare though.
The Embassy Suite hotel gives GPS students a reduced rate; I received $69/day versus $104 to $112 on the internet. I arrived in AZ to find that the hotel was awesome and with the GPS price a bargain.
From the first few minutes of meeting the instructors, Rob and Nate, I knew that much of what I read in the letter didn’t seem to fit. These are two of the most professional instructors that I have ever had the pleasure/privilege of learning from. They brought the students to a level of marksmanship and field craft that none of us thought possible. Every day they went above and beyond the call of duty. Their passion, professionalism and caring for the students is unparalleled to me in my experiences. I am only writing this from myself but can honestly say that I heard the same from all of the students.
As a last minute addition to the class I did not have deposits to loose and could have left at anytime. Several students were so pleased with the class that they actually decided to stay for Advanced and even Instructor Development. To me this says a lot.
I cannot vouch for the validity of the facts regarding the class that the writer attended but can truthfully say that not one of the complaints was true for my experience with GPS Defense. In fact, I found the opposite to be true.
I hope that this may encourage you to attend this amazing school and not let a four year old complaint hold you back as it almost did me.
Regards,
RH