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I went to the range to shoot the FBI qualification course last weekend. I found a copy of it in the back of Tom Given's "Concealed Carry Class" book. It was a 50 round course. Then I looked at the blog post about it from the Lucky Gunner website. There it was described as a similar, but different course totally 60 rounds.
Which, if either, is most up to date?
Thanks!
This, as far as I know. https://www.usacarry.com/2019-fbi-ha...qualification/
Thank You. That's the one shot.
The 50 round version is the current Pistol Qualification Course. I believe it was adopted in 2019.Quote:
Originally Posted by oss117
You should be starting at the 3 yard line with 4 magazines of 9 rounds each and 14 loose rounds. At the 7 you will load the loose rounds into one 6 round mag and one 8 round mag for use at 15 and 25.
We are informally shooting this on private property Oct 24 if anyone is interested. Appx 45 min east of St Louis. And then having fun with steel targets.
Since I’m there, be assured you will not be the worst shooter on site.
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I'd enjoy LE instructors/officers (in particular, others welcome, of course) comments on my thoughts:
I think of qualification courses as 'driver's licenses' they certify you have the base line competence to drive the car, or, as in this example carry/shoot the pistol. From this perspective, aside from the scoring, I think the FBI course is adequate, with the caveat that bureau firearms training doesn't simply consist of practicing the qualification course.
HCM hit it square on the head in saying we are not training firearms enthusiasts, we are training cops in another thread (paraphrase). Agency firearms training is the beginning and end of firearms training for many officers. You may be an innovative firearms instructor, but the reality is that many firearms instructors are firearms watchers - they simple perform the administrative functions of blowing the whistle/turning the targets and ensuring basic safety. Most of the latter type instructors will simply run officers through the qual course, thinking they are truly innovative if they proclaim -today we are going to practice the 3 yard stage.
Since my opinion is what it is, as a prophylactic measure I feel that firearms qualification courses should contain rudimentary survival skills such as movement and use of cover. I figured long ago that I wasn't going to be riding the shoulders of the officers I trained as they worked the street. I couldn't control whether they are in condition white with their thumb up their rear when the shit hits the fan. What I could do, though, was try to ingrain an appropriate response to SHTF. In most cases that is movement off threat axis.
As it stands the FBI course doesn't do this, so in that respect it is deficient absent the caveat of additional tactical firearms training.
If the instructor is faced with a situation of not enough training resources (ammo, time, etc.) or a large number of weak shooters, one avenue might be to add movement or use of cover outside the stage of fire. Let me give an example using the FBI course:
3 Yards Draw and fire 3 rounds SHO, switch hands and fire 3 rounds WHO. 6 Seconds
'Shooters as the targets face you will have six seconds to draw and fire three rounds SHO, then transition and fire three rounds WHO, upon firing your sixth round you will cover the target as you move to the blue barrel, and using the barrel for cover....'(add what you want here, WHO reload, blood sweep and self-aid, radio, etc.)
5 Yards Draw and fire 3 rounds. 3 Seconds
'Shooters, you will begin with diver's license in support hand, slightly below eye level, as the target faces you will drop the driver's license, draw and fire 3 rounds, time limit 3 seconds.' (you might have them holding a pencil and pad)
All of the added action takes place outside the string of fire.
Additionally, the breakdown of rounds fired at differing distances may be appropriate for FBI agents, but for a patrol officer there are not enough rounds at intermediate - longer ranges.
That last string at 7 yards: 7 Yards From the ready, fire 5 rounds. 4 Seconds needs to be moved to the 10 yard line.
JMO
I think you’re missing your own point in that qualification courses are designed to put people through and get them qualified in mass. They are a checkbox for the agencies benefit not training. The most expensive part of firearms training is not the guns or the ammo or even the Range, it is the man hours for both the instructors and the shooters.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Lehr
Both the Fbi and my home agency require a one to one ratio of instructor to shooter when conducting live fire movement. Having a Qual course where you can only run one person at a time is simply impractical In an agency with 13,000 or 15,000 people who need to shoot four times a year.
As for the last four rounds at the seven, when you have an agency spread out across the country and the world not all LE ranges will have a 10 yard line. Logistics for an agency spread all over the country with varying access to training facilities is different than for a local agency with their own range, or at least a range that is a known quantity.
The current BU PQC is based on actual shooting data. I think the lack of longer pistol shots in actual shootings and therefore the Qual course is a reflection of both the proactive vs reactive nature of the job and the effort in many federal agencies over the last few years to push the M4 as the primary weapon for preplanned operations like the warrant service, felony car stops etc.
Like you I view my shooters as my potential partners or back up in a gun fight. One of the things I have tried to do is get the middle of the pack to less competent shooters to shoot our standard pistol qualification courses with the M4 to see how much of an advantage the long gun provides over the handgun. My primary partner at work was initially a struggling shooter with the handgun. She has made good progress and now is middle of the pack with the handgun but she is very good with the M4. How much of that is the long gun and how much of that is vision issues mitigated by the red dot sight is debatable. But I have convinced her to carry the M4 whenever possible rather than stressing over her capability with the handgun.
You bring up good points.Quote:
Originally Posted by HCM
Regarding movement courses and one on one - that seems overly restrictive as a hard and fast rule. There are movement courses, and then there are MOVEMENT courses. Many of the state courses adopted under LEOSA involve movement, ours here in Kansas does during two stages. There is a difference between a tactical course where shooters are advancing or retreating more than two steps, or doing pivots and turns, and the off threat axis movements I am referencing.
Realistically, how many agents/officers are scheduled to shoot for qualification in a given time period?
Purely in jest - what happened to the good old days of the old FBI TRC when you'd be advancing to the 25 yard line when the guy on the next walkway was still shooting? (At least that's the way we did it at the first FBI Firearms Instructor Course I attended in KCMO.)
Movement in qual courses tends to be forward or rearward - the least useful from a tactical POV - much harder to hit a target moving laterally than one coming (or going) straight on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Lehr
A single step to the side is not enough lateral movement to have any real effect.
Most places are running 10-20 shooters at a time with 2-4 instructors.
As for the TPC - The past is another country. 1-1 is pretty standard now.
I agree, straight forward or rearward does nothing to get the shooter off the threat axis, diagonal movement forward is the best if you do the geometry. As far as lateral, one side-step, not so much, we always had shooters moving three steps.Quote:
Originally Posted by HCM
My partner and I designed the firing line portion of our range - there were 15 target points for a reason - to limit the number of students they could throw at us at one time. At any one time we had 8 to 10 firearms instructors on staff and used adjunct instructors because our schedule didn't allow for all the firearms guys to be on the range, some of them would be doing EVOC, or crime scenes with the other teams. Some of our adjuncts were pretty good instructors, others might be classified as more of a safety officer. Not all folks have a knack for instructing, and as you know, a full-time instructor who isn't retired on duty can see things the shooter is doing wrong at glance, things that a part-time/adjunct may not notice.
We always tried to have a ratio of 2 to 1, settled for 3 to 1 for normal training. For shooting from the vehicle, aggressive movement, any turns, one of our staff instructors was on each student.
And yeah, the past is the past.
When you say on staff do you mean full timer?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Lehr
Most federal agencies will have one full-time firearms guy for an entire field office with collateral duty leads in the sub offices. You might have another full timer if there are two big offices within one area of responsibility.
By adjuncts do you mean outside part-timers? Like retirees who used to be FIs ?
Our national firearms unit has some contractors who are usually retired military, mostly AMU, Ranger Regiment etc.
And they may use term rehired annuitants at the Academy but out in the field offices it is only agents who are certified by the agency as firearms instructors and perform it as a collateral duty.
Back in the day those who showed some aptitude and wanted to go to FI school would serve as line safety officers, as a sort of green team or apprenticeship. There were pros and cons to that model.
I have definitely found that shooting, teaching, and diagnostics/coaching are three separate skill sets. A two week firearms instructor school is not going to make you into an FI overnight.There is a process to learning how to “read” shooters and see what they are actually doing. Unfortunately the best way to do that is to spend a lot of time on the range watching shooters until things start to jump out at you as being wrong. For us the only way to get that much time working the range is working at the Academy or at our national firearms unit. Probably more so at the Academy because you’re either dealing with new shooters or shooters coming back for in-service training with plenty of bad habits.
That also assumes your firearms instructor school is truly geared around instruction and is not a two week shooting vacation. I’ve been to both. The two week shooting vacation version was actually some of the best quality firearms training I have received from the government as a shooter. The problem is it was supposed to be an instructor school not a high-level shooter tuneup.
The solution to that is to have firearms and DT instructors go through a separate general how to be an instructor school such as FLETCs LEITP. Texas requires the generic LE instructor school as a prerequisite for the state firearms instructor school. This is probably a very wise decision.
Attachment 65087
I was able to run it clean with a revolver.
Target and string times on target.
Several disparate observations this Christmas morning.
Shooting skills are not instructor skills. I've always been an OK shooter, but I had to work for instructor qualification at my former agency (as well as to avoid losing a gunfight). I found that aided my skill set and credibility as an instructor. We had instructors who were great shots. When I did remedial, I emphasized that I had nearly washed out of the academy due to my shooting. Instructors need to diagnose shooting errors and work on correction. Some "instructor" telling an officer to "Concentrate!" (as happened to me back in the day) isn't really helpful.
Agencies do let standards slip. One firearms training coordinator was a sergeant who wanted to run the program. As I recall, he didn't want to go to basic instructor training or his certification had lapsed, but no issues with my department, put him in charge even though he wasn't certified to train anybody. No wonder we ended up being one of the four departments beta testing the FNS-9 with weapon lights at the risk of our lives.
Lastly, we used a range that the FBI largely paid for in conjunction with another PD. I got the impression, but don't know with certainty, that the Bureau FI's tried to make their training realistic and relevant. Of course, the Baltimore Field Office had people driving all over Maryland and Delaware for firearms training and qualification with a variety of weapons. I'm sure things did not run as smoothly as if everyone was out of the same stationhouse.
Be safe and Merry Christmas.
On topic of the OP.....I shot this when Tom first posted it, with two different guns, then had all of my staff shoot it as a "drill of the week" deal. Told them they damn well better shoot it at Instructor level. All but one shot 100% (one guy shot a 98%).
On the topic of the thread drift:I get what Dan was trying to do with incorporating some skills stuff into his agency qual, since that is all that they're going to get. You do what you can with what you have. I think the San Jose, Ca PD has come up with a very innovative qualification in this regard. We actually use it as a "Shoot/Don't Shoot" exercise in our Basic Course, and as an exercise in in service training.
The problem arises that some skills and tactics can't be "trained" effectively in a limited qual. The Failure to Stop is a perfect example of this. We use it in our qual, but in my opinion the way its done is negative training, so we're going to eliminate it going forward. My issue is that when you have a set, 3 round time limited engagement like this, it is 'training' folks to stop shooting, even if they miss. In the mid 90's at Gunsite they told us to keep shooting on a Failure to Stop until you put a round into that 3" triangle in the head....otherwise it wasn't a stop. You kept shooting until you got the effect you wanted. Obviously this doesn't mean its wrong to include a Failure Drill in a qual, just that you may be getting the wrong effect if you're substituting that for actual skills training.
Since about 1995, my agency has shot twice a year for qualification. The course has gone from 50 rounds to 36. 18 months ago when we included a short, 50 round skills refresher into the process, the gnashing of teeth and wailing was amazing. Not from the cops....from certain command level persons. "Its not your job to train people! Just run the qual!" "You should only give training if they can't pass the (C- standard) qual!" And some of the most active sabotage came from members of our satellite range....who told those command folks that it should be on the officers to "practice" on their own time, and not waste the valuable time of the firearms instructors. When asked what the officers should practice, how they would know, and where?.....crickets. Firearms watchers, as someone said.
This is going to be changing for the better here, as California POST is removing a fig leaf for training that many agencies have been getting away with. Agencies will have to document actual, firearms perishable skills training starting next year. For us, thats going to start with 2 hours of training following every qualification shoot....whether they like it or not. And the C- standard will be going up to a C+, to start
We'll see where we can take it after that.....if there's any cops left in this town.