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Thread: RFI: Policy, Transition training, and Qualification CoF for RDS pistols

  1. #21
    Member SoCalDep's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jlw View Post
    What I am seeing is cops going through a 2-day transition class, and at the end of the second day they shoot a qual course. The scores are higher than their average, and they pronounce the PMS as the greatest thing ever.

    Weeks or months later, they come back to the range and struggle because they have done nothing in the interim.

    Mark Fricke, a name you all should know if you don’t, posits that scores with PMOs initially rise due to the practice during the transition course and not due to the optic itself. He says that the same thing happened during the revolver to semi-auto transition phase.

    There’s no magic number for the hours of a transition course.

    Outside of the mounting and maintenance issues and a few PMO specific techniques, a PMO shooting course is no different than an iron sighted shooting course.

    The initial transition needs to be followed up with frequent training sessions… just like any other firearms training.
    When my department implemented a pistol-mounted optic program we actually created a test that was a variant of our rifle qualification. We had the students shoot it cold on the first day with iron sights and at the end of the class (after almost 16 hours of training) with the dot.

    We then had them return after a retention interval of between just over a month and over ten months and tracked the scores on both iron sights and optic. Both iron sight scores and optic scores ultimately deteriorated, and the study was certainly less than scientific... but pistol optic scores remained higher than iron sight scores throughout the retention interval.

    This is extra interesting because the iron scores in the class involved pretty much no training or practice (they were done first thing on day one) and the optic class scores were after almost two days of training. When the individuals returned, I assumed that iron sight scores would remain consistent since the initial test was shot cold. They did not. Optic scores remained consistent longer. Interesting stuff.

    Damn I want to finish that report.

  2. #22
    Member SoCalDep's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 1Rangemaster View Post
    I've be reading and speaking with some "ivory tower"(university) types, and there's an argument/suggestion for short sessions over time for true retention of skill(s). This has something to do with recency of training and how the human brain works. A short-2 to a few hours-with one or a few skills introduced, e.g., draw from secured holster, over days at medicated better retention. @GJM has written of this related to flying whirlybirds and jets. So, a program could be a number of dry practice sessions over days finishing with live fire confirmation.
    Now, this flies in the face of all that is holy in traditional firearms instruction: one to several weeks, immersion, regimented, etc. @John Hearne probably has a good deal to say about this also. In my recent personal experience, I've seen noticeable positive results.
    All this may be of no help to you, @Whiskey, except to include in your plan follow along dry practice (please).
    And again, get yourself some instruction and training if at all possible...
    I agree with your “ivory tower” types.

    LE (and general) firearm training is bullshit to check a liability box. If we truly wanted to build skill we would do what any skilled profession does and do it often. Pilots fly a lot. Drivers drive. Football players play.

    The way we teach firearms and many firearm instructors I’ve seen have no comprehension of how skill is actually developed. They just teach what they know from their own experience. Kinesiologists, sports psychologists, and others have been teaching and refining motor learning and performance for decades. We dismiss it as “not tactical” because we suck and can’t do it. Shame on us.

    If you went into a BJJ whatever it’s called and said I want to take three 8hr classes this year so I can be proficient or even 12 8hr sessions in four months then nothing for a while but I’ll be good right... they would laugh at you.

    Everyone wants to train with the “great” instructors. That’s neat but they became great because they did it ALL THE TIME. You don’t build motor skill by association and you won’t build motor skill by attendence. Now I’ll quote a “great” instructor... Mike Pannone said in a class that “participation doesn’t equal proficiency”, and while he was referring to a slightly different subject it certainly applies to firearm training.

    If we treated cops and their responsibilities the same as we treat an airline pilot we’d have many fewer bad shootings and cops would be making a shit-ton more money. What we do now is allow for an acceptable number of innocent people dead, cops dead, and cops fired/prosecuted because that’s what the voters will pay for.

  3. #23
    @SoCalDep , I can’t give it more than one like, but I wish I could. I’m going to use your motor skill comment with attribution- nice and succinct. Thanks for your contributions and service.
    I hope folks here have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving. I’ve got to get a few dry draws in before the festivities today…

  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by SoCalDep View Post
    I agree with your “ivory tower” types.

    LE (and general) firearm training is bullshit to check a liability box. If we truly wanted to build skill we would do what any skilled profession does and do it often. Pilots fly a lot. Drivers drive. Football players play.

    The way we teach firearms and many firearm instructors I’ve seen have no comprehension of how skill is actually developed. They just teach what they know from their own experience. Kinesiologists, sports psychologists, and others have been teaching and refining motor learning and performance for decades. We dismiss it as “not tactical” because we suck and can’t do it. Shame on us.

    If you went into a BJJ whatever it’s called and said I want to take three 8hr classes this year so I can be proficient or even 12 8hr sessions in four months then nothing for a while but I’ll be good right... they would laugh at you.

    Everyone wants to train with the “great” instructors. That’s neat but they became great because they did it ALL THE TIME. You don’t build motor skill by association and you won’t build motor skill by attendence. Now I’ll quote a “great” instructor... Mike Pannone said in a class that “participation doesn’t equal proficiency”, and while he was referring to a slightly different subject it certainly applies to firearm training.

    If we treated cops and their responsibilities the same as we treat an airline pilot we’d have many fewer bad shootings and cops would be making a shit-ton more money. What we do now is allow for an acceptable number of innocent people dead, cops dead, and cops fired/prosecuted because that’s what the voters will pay for.
    Preach on, Brother.

    I've used the EVOC analogy example to get the point across to some Admin types. Imagine that we accepted police recruits with no driver training or license. We send them to an EVOC course that's basically drivers Ed with a basic 16 year Olds license test. Then they become cops, but don't ever get behind the wheel, except every six months we ask them to parallel park....and they're only allowed to hit the cars around them twice. They only drive on duty to calls for help from other officers, and then only at the speed limit and obeying all traffic laws. Some day, randomly, some of them may be thrown into a high speed pursuit through crowded city streets. How does everyone think that's gonna go? Of course, being Admin types and therefore fundamentally stupid, they give you a blank look.

    You're right. It all comes down to the fact that we've decided dead citizens, dead cops, and prosecuted cops who tried to do the right thing is easier than thinking through the problem and trying to fix it.

  5. #25
    If you’re limited to 8 hours and management isn’t going to budge on that, I would do the vast majority of the shooting and dry work with the optic occluded with masking tape. You’ll be forcing everyone to shoot both eyes open with a target focus, which is fundamental to success with an RDS anyway. I’d also focus a lot of the reps and instruction on proper, efficient presentations from the holster and the ready positions because that’s going to be where people really struggle to find the dot because they probably have terrible, inefficient presentations.

    Can you ask if management will at least give you four additional hours of classroom time? The troops will need you to cover things like maintenance, operation, using your specific issued optic, battery changes, installation, low light considerations, etc, but it would be a shame to eat into your already limited range time to do so.
    My posts only represent my personal opinion and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or official policies of any employer, past or present. Obvious spelling errors are likely the result of an iPhone keyboard.

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by WobblyPossum View Post
    If you’re limited to 8 hours and management isn’t going to budge on that, I would do the vast majority of the shooting and dry work with the optic occluded with masking tape. You’ll be forcing everyone to shoot both eyes open with a target focus, which is fundamental to success with an RDS anyway. I’d also focus a lot of the reps and instruction on proper, efficient presentations from the holster and the ready positions because that’s going to be where people really struggle to find the dot because they probably have terrible, inefficient presentations.

    Can you ask if management will at least give you four additional hours of classroom time? The troops will need you to cover things like maintenance, operation, using your specific issued optic, battery changes, installation, low light considerations, etc, but it would be a shame to eat into your already limited range time to do so.
    I definitely like the idea of doing a lot of the work occluded. Presentation is going to be THE hurdle. A lot of these shooters have extremely inefficient draw processes, and don't like hearing about it.

    We have another 3.5 hours of "pistol time" allotted during our in service, I'm going to try to use a good portion of that for low light.

    As far as the maintenance, we won't be doing a lot with that because the armorer's will be doing installs, instructors will be doing the initial zero, etc. We will talk about pre shift checks (brightness, checking witness marks) but I don't know that for our specific situation a whole lot of technical information would be useful to our people.

    Thank you (and everyone else) for the input, I appreciate it.

  7. #27

    'Splain it to 'em...

    I don't want to burn your time up for your transition, but a brief talk(video so it's consistent?) I think is in order to get the "eyes open/target focus" across. It helped in our case. Aimpoint has some videos on it, as do others.
    And I don't know your flexibility; is this optic upgrade mandatory or voluntary? IOW, if they don't pass a qual-see @jlw-
    do they still get an optic? I'd think the qual would be mandatory...

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by 1Rangemaster View Post
    I don't want to burn your time up for your transition, but a brief talk(video so it's consistent?) I think is in order to get the "eyes open/target focus" across. It helped in our case. Aimpoint has some videos on it, as do others.
    And I don't know your flexibility; is this optic upgrade mandatory or voluntary? IOW, if they don't pass a qual-see @jlw-
    do they still get an optic? I'd think the qual would be mandatory...
    Optic upgrade is mandatory, and qual is going to be mandatory... but our qual (also out of my hands) is so easy that it is unlikely to cause any issues.

    I'll look into some videos, I think that's a good idea. Some of our other instructors have all of 3 days experience now with a red dot, videos would probably be good.

  9. #29
    Member SoCalDep's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Whiskey View Post
    Some of our other instructors have all of 3 days experience now with a red dot, videos would probably be good.
    You don’t need a video. You need a big checkbook if your instructors have three days experience with the dot. That’s a bitchin’ deliberate indifference case for a good lawyer. Especially when the cop says he had to put the dot on his gun, didn’t want to, thought it made him worse, and that's Why he missed and killed the poor innocent kid.

    Documentation and training (documented) in proper instruction will be WAY better than a video. It costs more now, but not doing it may cost way more later.

  10. #30
    Site Supporter Erick Gelhaus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Whiskey View Post
    Optic upgrade is mandatory, and qual is going to be mandatory... but our qual (also out of my hands) is so easy that it is unlikely to cause any issues.

    I'll look into some videos, I think that's a good idea. Some of our other instructors have all of 3 days experience now with a red dot, videos would probably be good.
    Read what SoCalDep wrote. Please. I'm hoping the admin is much more of the cause than the firearms program is.

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