NY State Armed Guard Training Course Completed

I never imagined working as a security guard in my retirement but that has been my lot since I got a job last July.  It helps pay the bills. What would better help pay the bills though would be if I could get a job as an executive somewhere but since that is not about to happen I will settle for an armed guard position and increase my current pay by anywhere from 150% to about 250% per hour. That will be okay. So I took the armed guard course I have been blogging about for the past couple of weeks.

The final class was today. We shot rifles, shotgun and then practiced transitioning from shotgun to handgun. I scored 100% on each of the shotgun and rifle courses. I have to admit, it would have been close to impossible for me not to have done so and for even mediocre shooters not to have done so. of course, there were some who did not score as well but only a couple or a few. One guy scored a 70 with he shotgun which was surprising since we were firing at only 15 yards but then again, some of the guys were shooting both the rifle and shotgun for the first time ever and I think he was one of them. Anyway, as I understand, he passed by the grace of getting the lowest passing score.

As far as he rifle goes, I fired an AR15, don't know the make, with a red dot sight on it. I really did not bother sighting in with the rifle, I simply brought it up, pointed it, and fired. Yes, I saw the sight but even when I saw a double image of it, I kept firing and got all my shotgun the scoring zone for a perfect score. I was firing as fast as I could fire for: one stage of five rounds at he head, one stage of 10 rounds and another of five rounds, both of those at the torso. I am certain I would have put a hurting on a bad guy had it been one of them instead of paper at which I was shooting. Had the target been at 25 yards, I would have concerned myself with aiming for a bit of precision but no way I was about to do that so close in at 15 yards. I think I fired faster than anyone of the other 4 shooters shooting at the same time as me by almost half their time to fire each volley.

Until today, I probably have not fired the shotgun more than twice in the past year and a half, if that much. I used my personally owned Remington 870 pump action shotgun. It always has been one of my favorite firearms and I was not at all disappointed with how I shot it today. I shot as fast as I could shoot, reacquired the front sight (did not pay much attention to the rear sight at that distance but I did have it in the picture each time) and shot again, repeating until empty. I was much faster than anyone else of the other 4 shooters who shot at the same time as me and I mean MUCH faster. (The Remington 870 being one of my preferred weapons, I am quite familiar with it and how to shoot it fast and accurately.). I also am certain I was much faster than anyone else on the other two relays. We shot two volleys of five shots. I had a decent group with the shotgun, seven of ten shots going into a medium fist sized hole and the other three not more than an inch from the center of that hole. One guy, maybe two, had a better group than me but they both were shooting pretty slowly. I did not do bad at all for not having shot that gun in way too long of a good while.
 
As for the transitioning to pistol, we brought up the shotgun, with an empty chamber, gun cocked, dry fired, and when it went click had to draw and fire two shots from the pistol. I had my shotgun on a combat sling and merely dropped it and drew and fired the Glock 26. I was obviously faster than anyone else by several seconds. We did that three times. Four of my shots went right through the hole already punched by the shotgun slugs. The other two were centered left to right but a bit lower down. More than good enough, I was quite pleased with my little bit of transitioning from shotgun to pistol shooting as I was with the rest of my shooting today.

Sorry for the terrible photo of my target but that is how it came out with my cell phone's camera in the pretty low light at the range. The Red lines mark the shotgun slug holes, the blue lines mark shotgun wad holes and the green lines the two of six pistol shots that did not go through the shotgun slug group in the center. All the other smaller holes were from the .223 rounds fired through the AR-15. 

Now, I have to wait about a week to 10 days to receive my certificate for having successfully passed the course; then send in an application to change my guard license from unarmed to armed and wait for the new license to be sent to me. maybe another month after I submit my application for the license change. I guess, I should have the armed guard license by the end of June give or take a week or two. Once I get the new license, I will start applying for a new job. Before I do that though, I will offer my current employer my continued services, but as an armed instead of unarmed guard, for a pay increase. I like it where I am working, like most of the people who work there, can tolerate the others, have a really good boss who has good bosses himself, and if they agree to keep me on as an armed guard (they have been considering going to armed guards), I would be quite happy to stay there.

All the best,
Glenn B