Just Got Back From The Range,...

... not too long ago, where I shot three courses of fire for the armed guard training that I am currently taking in the hope of getting an armed guard license. I must admit, I am fairly pleased with my shooting even though it was not the best, by far, that I have ever shot. We shot 60 rounds of slowfire at a standard silhouette and then 50 rounds in a qualification type course on a printed bowling pin type target (for some reason, mine was the only target with circles drawn on it, I am guessing the larger one was about 6 to 8 inches in diameter). I am pleased because last week was only the second time, as I recall, that I shot my Glock 26 since getting it back from Glock, months ago, with newly installed sights and while I did not shoot as good last week, I have improved markedly in one week. I had been shooting several inches to the left at as close as 10 and 15 yards. I thought that was caused by the sights because previously, on both my current Glock 26 and on a previously issued Glock 19, I had to have the rear sights adjusted slightly to the right. Today, I went back to the basics to determine if I may have been doing something wrong with the Glock 26 and its new sights. I adjusted how my finger rested on the trigger and made sure to arch the trigger finger a bit so it was not riding on the frame. That was all it took and my shots were in there at center from left to right.



Sorry for the lousy picture, it was taken with my lousy cell phone.

 

I had 7 fliers out of 50 rounds. Well 6 of those rounds were not aimed shot fliers as they were shot from the hip as soon as the pistol cleared the holster and there was no aiming, not even point shooting per se. The first 3 were to the left and the next in center from left to right but low. I certainly can improve on those 6 shots, and will try to do so, but for now they were more that good enough and were not indicative of a problem with me aiming in the pistol. The 7th shot was a flier at 10 or 15 yards during one handed shooting, that one went high to the left. Otherwise, my point shooting shots and aimed shots all were in a decent to fairly good group. We shot from 10 feet out to 25 yards. The accompanying pic will show you what my target looked like once the shooting was done.

The highest possible sore was 100%. You either were I the hit zone or were out of it on this particular target and all of my shots were inside. Funny thing though was that I scored a 96 out of 100%. I could not figure it at first but then saw that the instructor was marking two points off for each of two holes that were on all the targets. While they looked just like bullet holes they were not, they were the holes through which the target hanger held them. I asked if he was taking points off for those holes and he said 'sure'. I pointed out that those were there to insert the target hangars and he said something to the effect of 'whoops' and rescored he few he had finishes scoring already. We both got a laugh out of that.

That was it for the day, back to the range tomorrow for more classroom training and more shooting. We are slated to do some slowfire revolver shooting and then some combat shooting with the semi-autos. I have got to say that I am enjoying the course immensely, not only because I am shooting fairly well but simply because I enjoy shooting and I also enjoy receiving firearms training from competent instructors. Besides being competent, they have all been nice gentlemen and seem like all around decent guys. I know, when I am paying them, they should be that way but the truth is that all too often, in recent years, you get less than you pay for in such training situations. You can wind up with a veritable  arsehat know it all, who knows little to nothing, trying to tell you how to do something and screaming at you for not doing it his way. Not so with these guys, they are pretty old school when it comes to taking care of their customers and showing us respect and they seem to know the subject matter well. In addition there have been some little extras they have given us. As they did last week, they supplied coffee and bagels for breakfast and then supplied a nice 6 foot hero for lunch. I think it does not get much better than that.

They are Safety Quest LTD; I think all the instructors are Suffolk County PD officers or retired from that department. I guess I should give them a free plug, their website is at:

http://www.safetyquestltd.com/.

All the best,
Glenn B