James Burton

(Editor's Note - We have linked the second and third parts of this interview here, where chuck talks about his experiences with the H&K 416, and his opinion on 5.56 vs. 7.62 NATO...what follows below is part 1.) Chuck Pressburg of Presscheck Consulting is one of the industry's most knowledgeable and experienced voices, having served the United States Army for over two decades in a variety of roles, both in operations and in acquisitions. We'll let Chuck give you the details below, but the fact-of-the-matter is Chuck Pressburg has over two decades of experience on and around the majority of weapons systems in use by the Army...including the AR-15. We recently reached out to Chuck to learn more about his consulting company, Presscheck Consulting. We wanted to learn more about his very unique skillset, his views on trends in the firearms industry, and his feelings on the AR-15 after living with it for so many years. Q: Chuck, it is a tremedous honor to speak with you. To start, I'd love to learn more about your experience in the Army, and how that eventually lead to you starting Presscheck Consulting. Chuck Pressburg: I joined the Army on a delayed entry program back in 1989 just before the invasion of Panama, and then departed from Basic the following summer after I graduated. I did 26 and a half years in, and retired in 2017. Q: Your journey is rather unique and well worth telling. Can you talk about your start as a Ranger? Chuck Pressburg: I had signed up on a Ranger contract as an infantryman after doing my research and talking to various recruiters. I decided specifically not to go in the Navy and try to be a SEAL or go the Marine route, just because there were not enough guarantees that if performed, I was going to get my chance. There were not these defined pipelines that the special operations community enjoys now... Back then, you could not enlist to become a Navy SEAL. There was no pipeline, there was no contract…there was no guarantee that you were going to get to assess and then go to BUDS. You had to volunteer for it, and hope that there was a recruiter that came by and took your PFT or whatever and gave you your contract to go to BUDS. Otherwise, you were chipping grey paint off of a destroyer or you were working on the guidance system of a torpedo. Q: That's just an incredible leap of faith…to trust that everything aligns, is it not? Chuck Pressburg: That lack of determining my own destiny was way, way, way too risky for me. And honestly, the guys that joined the Marines to go be a Recon guy, or joined the Navy to go be a Navy SEAL…the leap of faith those men took was pretty outstanding. So the 75th Ranger Regiment had a pipeline program with guaranteed contracts. They were not plentiful…but they were out there. If you waited and you worked it, you could get down to MEPS and they would hand you a piece of paper that said as long as you pass every test and everything that they ask you to do, they will assign you to 75th Ranger Regiment. So, I joined the Army on a Ranger contract and ended up going to 1st Ranger Battalion. I served in the Ranger regiment in 1st Bat, 3rd Bat… Q: Can you talk about your beginnings as an instructor? Chuck Pressburg: I was an instructor at the Ranger Indoctrination Program, now the Ranger Assessment Selection Program. So, I vetted young guys coming to the Ranger Regiment from Airborne school. I also taught the pre-Ranger course preparing guys that were assigned to the Regiment to attend the U.S. Army Leadership School, called Ranger School. I did about 10 years in two different Ranger Battalions...I took a break in there, went to the 82nd for two years, where I was a Squad Leader, as well as Sniper Section Leader. I had gone to Sniper School while I was in the Rangers, and I took over Sniper Section the second year that I was in the Division. Q: You were involved very early on in the Global War on Terror…Can you give our readers an overview of how you were involved? Chuck Pressburg: I came back to 1st Ranger Battalion and I did a couple more years there, to include the initial combat deployments after 9/11. I was boots-on-the-ground in Afghanistan in 2001, just months after the Towers fell. I was Platoon Sergeant of one of the three platoons from 1st Ranger Battalion that relieved 3rd Ranger Battalion…the guys that jumped into Objective Rhino, that of course everybody remembers as the first publicized boots-on-the-ground that we had in Afghanistan. I relieved those Rangers with my Ranger element. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFk6BmHEROE U.S. Army Rangers Jump Into Afghanistan - Objective Rhino (2001) I did a second rotation over to Afghanistan, then did Platoon Sergeant time. They were looking at swapping me out and getting a new Platoon Sergeant in there, so I prepared the platoon for the invasion of Iraq and then handed the platoon over to a new Platoon Sergeant three weeks before they deployed from home station and went to their forward staging area for the invasion of Iraq. Q: You’ve been Platoon Sergeant and an instructor at the highest level…but then you dove headfirst into the science & technology side of things. Is that correct? Chuck Pressburg: I went to Army Special Operations Headquarters (USASOC) at Fort Bragg, where I worked in a science & technology, research & development capacity, called G-8, which is the force provider for equipment for Army Special Operations Command. The Colonel in the G-8 shop manages a portfolio of just under a billion dollars annually. All SOF, peculiar equipment for the Army force that is not done on some sort of joint program out of Tampa, but is Army-specific, is managed by the G-8 shop. I had been the Force Modernization NCO in the Rangers. I had been “R&D guy” for my Ranger Batallion while I was waiting for a platoon after I had made the E7 list before platoon had become open. So, I was connected with the industry, academia, battle labs, Picatinny Arsenal…all these facilities where they test guns and gear. That started getting me into some classified programs. I was able to upgrade my security clearance to 'Top Secret' and look at test data that was classified at the 'Top Secret' level. Acquisition Background and Bridging the Gap. I then really got deep in the material acquisition side of my job. I became a Defense Acquisition University School-trained Combat Developer as well as a Human Factor Engineer SME. It's a course called MANPRINT, and it's all about the man-machine interface and building things for the 90th percentile of soldiers. As an example, MANPRINT is how you get a tank that has a hatch that isn’t so small that the tankers can’t get down inside the hatch. It impacts all aspects of DOD acquisition. So, I got some formalized schooling on how the military buys stuff, how they test stuff…and that really helped me out for the rest of my career. I was able to generate requirements to get new stuff...and I was able to articulate it because I had learned acquisition people’s language. Instead of “grunt need rifle. Rifle must bang”...I could properly lay out what I wanted a rifle to do, or why I did not want the rifle to be a bullpup or all these other things. I was able to "bridge that gap" and there are very few gunslingers or end-users that have that acquisition flavor to their resume. Most people that go into the acquisition community...it's because they’re broke or they reclassed, and they never come back out into the operational world. Being able to bounce back-and-forth between being the R&D guy at the Ranger Battalion, followed by being a Platoon Sergeant, and then into science & technology, followed by being an advisor at the Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG) …that kind of back-and-forth for the second half of my career gave me a really well-rounded background that has helped me out now that I am doing the Presscheck Consulting thing. Q: You mention AWG, can you talk about your time there and then what came after that led you to then start consulting? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KurgSiaymsM AWG Overview Chuck Pressburg: I left USASOC and went over to AWG, where I was a founding member. I worked over at AWG for a few years, almost all of it downrange. I had almost 20 months downrange with AWG. Then I went to United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) again in a different capacity…and I did my last 10 years at USASOC and did duties as necessary for the command in both an operational and in an acquisition capacity. So, that’s my 26 and a half years in the Army in a nutshell. Chuck Pressburg on the Beginnings of Presscheck Consulting. Chuck Pressburg: So I got out and I wanted to open up a consulting business. I wanted to do material development with vendors. That was one of the things that I really enjoyed about my job, which was sitting in a room with an engineer or a product designer and explaining to that guy when I’m looking at his CAD drawings why his decision to put certain knobs, buttons or whatever is inappropriate, and it is inappropriate based off of assumptions that he has made. A possible example of "inappropriate based off of assumptions" There were people out there that were making gear for all of us that were so smart they were stupid, and they needed a reality check to how their stuff actually was being used by human beings. Q: Any practical examples you can give of this kind of thing? Chuck Pressburg: A practical example of that in the commercial industry is mag well grip stuff for an AR. People are making devices or are molding AR lowers that have a grip on them, because they are looking at how people were shooting rifles 10 to 15 years ago as they were transitioning from MP5-style sub guns. They thought the mag well grip was an acceptable and viable shooting technique…but by all measurable human factors, if you are shooting with a mag well grip, you are shooting inefficiently. Somebody else out there that isn’t necessarily bigger or stronger than you are is more...