I need help from a police officer, corrections officer, armed security guard, soldier or anyone else that has had to carry a side arm as a function of their employment. Long story made short, in order to carry your weapon, you had to convince your employer that you knew how to use it. When to use it is another issue for another thread. Part of your proof of skill would probably have been some time at a firing range. For a work of fiction I’m writing, I need to gain an understanding of the level of accuracy that such a person might be expected to demonstrate. Hollywood notwithstanding, pistols are not much of a distance weapon. My understanding (quite possibly false) is that hitting a man sized target at much beyond fifteen meters is more a matter of luck than skill.
In my fictional work, part of my character’s annual police weapon certification has the following test on a firing range. Picture a typical police style firing range with numerous fring stations each equipped with it’s own overhead track mounted target. He has ten human silhouette targets set up at ranges varying from three to ten meters and in random order. Mixed in with the ten targets are six, non target “civilians”. The individual lanes of the firing gallery are curtained off so that he can’t see what at the station until he steps up to it. He is given one, twelve round clip and one minute to engage all targets. Failing to hit more than three targets or firing on a single “civilian” fails the test.
Does the above description have any resemblance to actual tests as conducted in real life?
My brother in law is a police officer. He qualifies annually at the same shooting range I go to. The qualification is nowhere near as complicated as yours. He basically just has to go up there once a year and hit the target accurately enough to qualify. It’s just a simple target test. There are no civilians to avoid or any of that.
I don’t know exactly what he needs to score to qualify, but I do know that the pistol range is 25 yards.
For most untrained people (like your typical gangsta with his pants hanging down so his butt crack shows and his gun pointed sideways cuz he’s cool) hitting a moving person beyond 15 meters is going to be just a matter of luck. A trained officer in the heat of a gun battle can probably hit a person reasonably accurately at 30 meters or so. If you are plinking at a range somewhere you can do a lot better than that if you have the skills and the eyesight for it (and the right weapon), but generally you are right, pistols aren’t all that accurate at a distance.
Not a police officer here, but if memory serves (from my days working with US Federal LEOs), qualification is done at 25 yards for most agencies. The one I worked with also required (I think) 2 shots from 50 yards. From personal experience, 50 yards is on the tough side (“bullseye? Bullshit! If I break the paper I’ll wipe my ass with it!”).
The US Army standard pistol qualification is done on an outdoor range with several pop-up targets ranging from 5 - 25 meters. Essentially you have 30 targets that pop up for a couple seconds each, either by themselves or in pairs. You have to hit 16 out of 30 to get a basic qualification (marksman), but if you don’t hit at least 21 (sharpshooter) you will be made fun of for the rest of the day at least, and it isn’t that hard to hit 26 (expert).
ETA: If you are interested in the details this page lays it all out from start to finish.
Same here with the cops I work with and know. It differs slightly from department to department but its a basic range/paper target test with one part “quick-fire” with a reload.
The type of range you describe is usually called a “spookhouse” or “Hogan’s Alley” around here and they are basically just competition (although I am told some police departments use them for “official” unofficial practice) “off the job”,
Former officer here, what you describe sounds more like a combat competition course than a qualification course. When I was working, we had to shoot 50 rounds at a silhouette target starting from 25 yards, then 15, 10 and 5 yards. Score was based on the number of hits in the kill zone. We carried a .357 magnum revolver back then, and most officers chose to shoot a low power .38 wadcutter cartridge at qualifications. I always shot what I would use on the street in hopes that if I needed to shoot, I would have a reasonable chance of hitting with the (much) higher power cartridge. I typically used a .357 158 grain jacketed hollow point.
I see that others have answered in the time it took me to compose this. The older I get, the slower I am.
Not a police officer, but the Minnesota carry permit course required us to shoot silhouette targets at ranges from 5 to 15 meters, and achieve a certain numerical score based on accuracy; basically if you could place 3/4 of your shots within a 5" radius of the center of mass, you passed.
Minnesota CCW test was, if I recall, 96 rounds total. Fired at fixed targets at ranges of 10 to 50 feet. Various numbers of shots fired in varying amounts of time at the varying distances, sometimes with a reload in the middle. Nothing overly strenuous and certainly NO moving targets.
Stage 1 (4 rounds): Starting with a holstered firearm at 1-3 yards.
Fire 2 rounds in 4 seconds.
Repeat.
Stage 2 (6 Rounds): Starting at the two-handed ready position at 3 yards.
Fire 2 rounds in 1 second.
Repeat 2 more times
Stage 3 (6 Rounds): Starting at the 7 yard line.
2 Rounds in 4 seconds from the holster.
2 Rounds in 4 seconds from the ready.
2 Rounds in 4 seconds from the ready.
Stage 4 (6 Rounds): Starting at the 7 yard line with a holstered firearm.
3 Rounds in 5 seconds.
Repeat.
Stage 5 (12 Rounds): Starting at the 7 yard line from the holster.
6 Rounds, then reload, then 6 more Rounds. All within 45 seconds.
Stage 6 (6 Rounds): Starting from the 15 yard line from the holster.
6 rounds in 30 seconds.
Just to make it simple, you could copy the scoring from the FBI Q course. Use a target like this and count anything in the “bottle” as X points, anything else counts 0.
I can’t imagine a police department having a course like you describe, but could see them having 2 targets at 7 yards, 2 at 15 and 1 at 25 with the goal to put 4 shots in each. Time limt could be 30 seconds and each hole could count 5 points and perfect=100, passing=70. Deduct 5 points for every 5 seconds over on time.
My agency’s qualification course consists of 50 rounds, shot at distances of 3,7,15 and 25 yards at a silhouette. A hit is anything in the silhouette.We start with a magazine loaded with 15 rounds in the firearm, another 15 round magazine in a mag carrier and 2 10 round magazines in a pocket. We always start from the holster, and shooting at 3 yards is one-handed. I don’t remember how many rounds are shot in how many seconds at which distances, but 40 is passing.
The department I worked full time for required range qualification once per year. We’d fire 200 rounds from 25, 15, 10, 7, and 3 yards. We’d stand on the line, wait for the whistle to blow, and shoot, aiming for center mass. Passing was 80%. It was easy. After 25 years I retired and then took a part-time patrol gig with another agency. We have to shoot 4 times a year and the course is far more demanding.
I have no internet cite but a department instructor told us that most police shootings occur at distances of less than 7 yards. A big chunk of our shooting is at that distance or less. And the target is all head shots. Upper mass shots are allowed for the 15 and 25 yard course.
Passing is 100%, no exceptions. They let you go through the course several times until you pass. But if you don’t pass you’re out! They just terminated 2 people who had been on the department for many years because they couldn’t pass the new qualification standards. Last year they forced an Inspector to retire early because he couldn’t get the 100%. Inspector is one rank below the Chief!
It’s a tougher course than I was used to. They have you moving around, ducking behind barricades, low light, etc. and you still have to hit 100%. I’ve always passed it on the first try, but it is a challenge. One part of the course is in a “shoot house” that is simulated to be a domestic situation. It has you crawling on the floor, prone, underneath a coffee table and behind a couch, and you still have to hit the target in the head at 5 yards. It’s tougher than it sounds.
Geez, what the &^#% kind of “domestic” situations do they expect you to be in, to have to crawl behind couches and under tables to shoot someone in the head? Zombies and Monsters?
The scenario was an active shooter in a small office. In an active shooter situation you basically go in and hunt the guy down. The days of securing the perimeter and waiting for the swat team are over. The couch was the only item that provided any sort of concealment. The office was a mess, shit all over the place. The coffee table was blocking a door way into the room the perp was. If you stepped over the table you were walking right into a fatal funnel and in real life would get killed. So you had to crawl on the floor under the table until you could see the target in the back of the room and fire.
Sounds like a realistic and practical training scenario. Ours was just, empty your weapon then reload and empty it again. Then pick up your brass.:rolleyes: It was patterned after the State Police Academy “State of the Art” training!
