Another Fine Day At The Range

I spent this morning and a bit of this afternoon at the local indoor range. As it was yesterday, I was attending the armed security guard training course. We shot revolver today as well as shooting two qualification courses with semi-automatic pistols. I did very well; I scored 100% of the revolver course and 100% on each of the two semi-auto courses. Mind you that was not difficult, at least for me. We shot at a standard silhouette target and anything inside of the 7 ring was considered a hit and worth 2 points. Only shots outside the 7 ring were points off and scored 0 points. That made it a big area in which to place all of my shots.

 

Normally, if that same target is used for a law enforcement qualifications, anything in the X, 10, 9 and 8 rings would be scored 5 points, any shots in the7 ring as 4 points and anything in the black but outside of the 7 ring would count as three points. (Note that head shots, during the phases of fire requiring head shots, are counted as 5 points). Using that scoring method, I also would have shot a perfect score but this time it would have been scored as 250/250. That would have qualified me as distinguished expert in my former agency. By the way, that scoring method is noted on the particular targets we used, see the upper left hand corner of the target in the accompanying photo. If scored as per the scoring rings on the target, I would have shot 482 out of 500 since we shot 50 rounds and the top scoring rings, the X and 10 ring, were both scored as 10 points. Breaking it down, I had 5 shots in the 8 ring, 8 in the 9 ring and the remainder within the 10 and X rings except for the 4 head shots that also counted as full score of 10 points each. Not too shabby for an old guy.

For this course though, they counted everything inside the 7 ring as a hit and anything outside as a miss; each shot within the 7 ring counting as 2 points with a possible high score of 100 for 50 shots. As I mentioned above, it was pretty easy to accomplish a perfect score. Yet, only one other shooter out of a total of 14 of us scored 100%. The targets used were the B27F like the one pictured in this post. I did not get a chance to take a photo of my actual targets today as the instructors kept hold of them so they could later record the scores.

I have got to point out that qualifying, if not getting all shots within the 7 ring, should have been fairly easy even for a mediocre shooter, who has received decent firearms training in the past. That is my opinion based on an awful lot of shooting experience and 14 years as a firearms instructor. Still though, not everyone qualified on the first attempt. The low scores on the first qualification attempt were two scores of 58, shot by two shooters and I think about 2 or 3 others did not qualify on that attempt. The low scores on the second qualification were two or three 70% scores; 70% was the lowest passing score - so everyone qualified that time around. Judging by the gun handling techniques and shooting skill levels of some of the shooters, it seems apparent to me that some of them have not handled a handgun in years, that is if they ever actually had handled one before they started this class. They have been learning the basics in this course though and have improved substantially since last week. My guess is that everyone will qualify even if a couple only just barely, next week, during the actual qualification course that counts toward obtaining the armed guard license.

Yesterday, the lead instructor told me he would not want to be the guy at whom I was shooting. It is nice to know that I still have it in me to shoot a very good score. The cancer and cancer treatments knocked the rat piss out of me back in late 2011 and I was still feeling the effects, pretty badly, throughout early to mid 2012; I was not sure I would ever shoot as good again as I used to shoot in the pre-cancer days. I guess I started shooting again in the spring or summer of 2012. While I still maintained proficiency with handguns and long arms, I certainly was not shooting anywhere nearly as good, as I used to pre-cancer. So, now that I am back at the point where I am at least doing very well on qualification courses of fire, I am feeling pretty good about it. The realization that I have not lost my shooting skills made today just another Saturday in Paradise, as are each and every one of my post-retirement and post-cancer days, no matter what day of the week you think it is!

All the best,
Glenn B