Showing posts with label firearms qualifications. Show all posts
Showing posts with label firearms qualifications. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Range Day Today - Quarterly Qualifications

I went up to the NYPD Firearms' Range at Rodman's Neck today to qualify for my agency. I only got to shoot my issued Sig and my personal Glock 26 due to the fact that my issued Remington 870 was sent in for repairs not too long ago. it had already been returned to the PFI but he did not get a chance to turn it back over to me and it is sitting in a vault in our office. That could be a good thing as my shoulder has been feeling a bit out of sorts for the past few days; I must have pulled when I should have pushed.

I did pretty good with the pistols. I shot a 249 with the Sig, then shot a 250 with the Glock. The 250 is the top attainable score. I was going to say perfect score but my grouping was certainly not perfect, yet good enough to have em all in the 5 ring.

It was a nice day for shooting and we had a good crew at the range. The instructors are top notch, but sure were short handed today in that there was only two of them there. It went well anyway and I had a blast - no pun intended.

The pistols have both been cleaned. I did that right after getting home because happiness is a clean, lubed and functioning gun. I mean I would sure be happy if they worked as planned if I ever needed to pick em up at 0400 to shoot an intruder bent on harming me or my family. So they had best be cleaned, lubed, functioning and therefore ready when and if ever needed.

All the best,
Glenn B

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Range Day

I spent last Friday at quarterly qualifications for my agency here in Tucson. To say that things are done differently than they are when I qualify at my home office in NY would be an understatement. I am not going to go into the specifics of how we differ at how the range is handled but I will say I was somewhat surprised at the amount of difference in techniques used by the instructors since we are a single agency with set rules and methods on how to run qualifications. Mind you now, I am not saying anything was done wrong - just different. We shot at a local sheriff's department range and I'll say man that was different too. Pretty spartan as far as police ranges go that I have visited before, but certainly up to the task.

As for me, I had a ball. I don't get to shoot on days as nice as was last Friday here in Tucson. Temps were in the 70s and there was a mild breeze at our backs. We had an outdoor class, then got right into qualifications. We shot in two shifts of about 10 people each shift, that keeping in line with the ratio of instructors to shooters. I was pretty happy with my shooting - well not so happy with my shooting the new Sig, but I guess I should not be too disappointed with a 246 out of 250. With the Glock 26 I shot somewhat better scoring 249 out of 250. The perfect score was just a bit too elusive for me that day. Only one other agent shot better than me getting a 250 on one of his quals, but let's just say he did not do so well on his other qual. I guess that had something to do with his shooting the wrong target that time around. He did a requal after that, but had a dismal but passing score on that.

I was very disappointed with my shotgun score first time around. I only got 4 out of 5; and my grouping of the 4 that were in was lousy. That can be attributed to a problem I was having racking the slide forward after each shot. It took a considerable second effort to get it to go forward. One of the instructors tried it and he too had the same problem and he is bigger and more muscular than me by far. That made me feel a little better because I am now certain it was the shotgun and not me. With me here on temporary duty I imagine it will not get sent in to our armorers until I return to my regular duty station. So I suppose that means a pool shotgun for me when out on operations. I may strip it down this weekend and try to figure out what is wrong with it, but I want to do so at a range and not i my hotel room since figuring out the problem will probably require trying to cycle live rounds though it. I kind of like my hotel walls intact and I'll bet the hotel management and other guests like em that way to.

If anyone else is having a similar problem with a Remington 870 while cycling 2 3/4" slugs through it, please let me know if you have found a solution.

All the best,
Glenn B

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Quarterly Qualifications...

...went well for me today, and this old man is proud of himself. I shot a 244/250 on the first qualification round with the Glock 19. On the second round I shot 250/250 with the same pistol. I then shot a perfect score on the shotgun qualification 5/5 of 12 gauge slug. I also shot a perfect score 250/250 with the HK MP-5. Since this may have been my last chance to shoot the MP-5 in qualifications I am pretty happy with that score. I am also quite happy that m scores improved back to normal, up from what I have scored the last 2 or 3 qualifications at the range. Those scores were not terrible, just not up to my regular ability, and I thought my last couple or few qualification scores had been effected by my no longer so great eyesight. My vision seems to come and go from better to worse back to better, to worse. Today I was seeing things a little clearer than I have been lately, but I was also concentrating hard on doing things right as I shot, taking my own advice and mentally talking myself through each shot, even on rapid fire. Funny that I also started an exercise program lately and my vision seemed to improve right after that. Of course, I do not think exercise has anything to do with improving vision, so maybe it was just coincidence, but I do need to ask my doc about that. Whatever the reason, I shot better today than at least my last 2 qualifications and that was a good thing.

As usual we also shot a good number of rounds in tactical shooting exercises. We did man down, seated shooting (simulating shooting from a car), malfunction drills, and one handed loading of the semi-auto pistol. It was one heck of a nice day, the weather was great, blue skies, a light breeze, and great temps. Only 5 shooters showed up, I think about that many cancelled for one reason or another. Well actually we had 6, but one agent had to leave being called away on something for one of his cases.

One of the best things about the day was I got a good amount of practice ammo to use at my local range or at the range I belong to in NYC. The government is full of bureaucracy, but I can say without a doubt, time qualifying at the range is something I will truly miss once I retire.

All the best,
Glenn B