How would you train for the Army Rifle Qual on a Civilian Range?

[ranger]

In full battle rattle, with troops who only shoot their issued rifle once a year and most of whom don't shoot anything else on their own time? Nope.

Army RC drill weekends are already a classic example of cramming a gallon of shit into a quart bucket. My guess is that training for the qual and the qual itself will take place during annual training since that's the only time units will have access to those ranges. This matters because that time was often used for NCO/officer education courses and technical schools, with weapons qual taking place during a drill weekend using the 25-meter course on a local range. The downstream effect of this will be increased time away from work and family due to attending this training in addition to the traditional weekend a month and two weeks AT...though admittedly that has been a factor since 9/11 anyway. This impacts retention since neither employers nor families are happy with the situation, and it does negatively impact those Soldiers affected. Requiring RC Soldiers to do additional training during the year also costs money; Big Army is famous for requiring additional training and not supplying the resources for it.

I still think this is a good move. I just hope the Army has done the necessary cost/benefit analyses and dedicated the additional resources required.

I qualified a whole GAARNG Mech Infantry BN (600 or so Soldiers) in one weekend at FSGA - M9 Pistol, M16, M60 (pre M240B), SAW - in one weekend. That is an exercise in Time Management. The local 24ID teams (now 3ID) used 2 weeks for that training. Not much training - get on line and shoot. Big goal was to get to Bradley BFV Table 12 a few months later.

[ReverendMeat]

The only advice I can give re: pop-up target qual is to shoot early and keep cycling through until you pass. Even with a good 25 zero it's just trial and error figuring out where to hold out to 300 and that varies with the specific range you're shooting on. Aiming at the dirt in front of the target and doing everything unsupported helped me.