Working up to Qual Day - LEOSA04 Qualification

As an Honorably Retired peace officer, I have a National Carry privilege. Okay, all you Constitutional Carry peeps, got the hate out of your system? If not, click elsewhere. I protected my community as a Patrol Deputy for 25 years, so I deserve this. Want some of it? Kick your CongressCritter in  the buttski and tell that DeepState weasel to bring forward the Reciprocity Act.

Enough politicking. This post is about working up skills, long rusty. Why rusty, you say? I'm going Retro*. Turning back the calendar to 1986, the last time I carried a revolver on duty. Yep, I'm going to leave the europellet** flingers, the Glocks, the Remington R51 and the Ruger LCS-9-Pro in the safe and pull out my Ruger Service-Six 38, a stainless 4"-bbl service revolver with fixed sights. Original wooden grips, only "custom" on it is a dab of VERY bright orange nail polish on the front sight blade. It rides, along with a 2X-Speedloader unit, on a 2" pants belt in an Uncle Mike's #2 nylon holster with top-strap. Retention Level-0 equipment. Yes, I do, in fact, carry revolvers concealed. My favorite is my Charter Arms pair, a 44-Special Bulldog and a 40 S&W Pitbull. Speedloaders for the Service-Six are HKS #10. Additional equipment for training are two sets of 6 rounds each Pachmayr dummy loads in 38/357. Lots of dry-firing involved in my work-up routine.

My "Training Range" is the second-floor hallway in Schloss Schneiden. The hallway is 25 feet long, and by using part of the master bedroom, I have 15 yards to work with. The K-5 section of a standard #28 Silhouette target is tacked to the linen-closet door at the far end of the hallway. Lighting is about the same as range lighting.

Here is the Police Qualification Course for Off-Duty weapons in Oregon (DPSST standard). I have to meet this standard. Score = 100% hits on the K-5, within the time limits for each stage:

Practical Qualification Course (PQC) I

• 25 Rounds
• Scoring: 100% hits within the 5 zone

1. 10-Yard Line - 3 Rounds
Two hand strong hand fire only
The student starts at the 15-yard line, one step right or left of the fire lane.  On the signal, the student conducts an "L" movement to the cover barrel at 10-yards, draws and fires from cover one round strong side, and round over the top and one round support side.
Time Limit: 15 seconds

2. 7-Yard Line - 6 Rounds
On the signal, the student draws and fires 2 rounds
Time Limit: 4 seconds
Repeat for a total of 6 rounds

3. 5-Yard Line - 8 Rounds
On the signal, the student draws and fires 2 rounds.
The student takes one step right or left and reloads firing 6 additional rounds.  The student then steps back where they started and conducts a tactical reload.
Time Limit: 15 seconds (to fire the 8 rounds, not counting final step and tactical reload.)

4. 3-Yard Line - 6 Rounds
Student draws and fires 3 rounds strong hand only.
The student then takes one step right or left, transfers the weapon to the support hand and fires 3 rounds with support hand only.
Time Limit:  10 seconds

5. 2-Yard Line - 2 Rounds
Student draws while taking 1 step back and fires 2 rounds.  The student then takes 1 step right or left to get out of the line of attack.
Student starts with hand encumbered.
Time Limit:  3 seconds

I have shot this course a number of times with a semi-auto pistol. It was designed for cops shooting quick-reloading pistols. It is easier to shoot with a pistol, probably half-again as hard with a revolver. Unless you are Jerry Miculek, reloading speed with a revo is WAY slower than with a pistol UNLESS you spend hours working with the gun and dummy rounds.

 

I set up my timer and started in on Stage One. I was three seconds over on my first try. I found that I was performing the "L-approach" to the barricade wrong, and when I started on the proper foot, planted the proper foot to drop behind the barricade, I worked up to 12 seconds for the three shooting positions, and repeated that 4 times. Best time was 10.5 seconds. That will work.

 

Stage two is easy. It is draw quickly, raise to a two-handed stance and double-tap. No problems, mostly in the 2.5 second range from the git-go.

 

Stage three is the most difficult of the lot. This is a lead-pipe cinch with a Glock: double-tap, drop-free mag change, drop the slide and hammer, then six more downrange, easy to do in 8 to 10 seconds. With a revo, the draw and double-tap takes 2.5 seconds, THEN you have to do a two-handed cylinder-clear, THEN grab a speedloader out of your pouch, guide it to the the open cylinder face, insert the rounds, activate the speedloader latch, drop the rounds into the cylinder with that tricky little shake-move, then close the cylinder, bring up the gun to two-handed grip and dump the six rounds into that target. First three of my attmpts were over the time limit by 2-3 seconds. I practiced the speedloader work separately for about 10 evolutions and tried again. Dead even with the timer. Tried five more times, eventually settling on a 1.5 to 2 second time UNDER the timer's beep. I need to work that down to a 3-second pad.

 

Stage four is a piece of cake. Never took more than seven seconds for this stage.

 

Stage five is easy, it's a 2-second evolution for me. I remember doing this stage when I wore the Star. The hard-ass Rangemaster demanded that we actually used an interview stance (which doesn't line your gun up well with the target), and flip our police notebook in the FACE of the silhouette before killing the silhouette with the fast-draw and double-tap. This course of fire doesn't require for the notebook-throw, but I still practice it that way. One may also throw up the off-hand in the perp's face, scream your Death-Word in his face, then draw and fire while doing the step-back. Also effective, but some risk of shooting your hand as you pull it back from the distraction-move.

 

Practice today was 90 minutes after my afternoon nap. More practice tomorrow and Monday, then Qual Day on Tuesday with the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office range crew.

 

Pew-Pew days at the range, expending 340 rounds, already in the logbook. This form-of-stages practice is the more important, though.

 

 

* My Sheriff let me carry my Ruger Security Six revolver until 1986. I was the last patrol Deputy to change to the Glock 17 from .357 Magnum revolvers (my secondary weapon then was a Ruger SP101 in 357). I was rated as Master (highest qualification award) with that snubby, and with the Glock and the Remington riot-shotgun also...

 

**Europellet. Derogatory reference to the 9x19, aka 9mm Luger. Better powders and better expanding bullets make it a fine defensive caliber now, without near the over-penetration issues it used to have. Some loadings approach 500 pounds/feet muzzle energy from a 5" barrel.

Comments

[Merle]

OK, thanks for the update.

Merle

[Rivrdog]

Merle, when I first started with LEOSA quals 12 years ago, most Chief Range Officers interpreted the law that way, because that's the way most police outfits do weapons quals. The LEOSA law doesn't SAY that, though, and there is no leeway for agencies to write that in. I wrote to DPSST (POST) here in OR on it, I challenged them to find where the law said two quals to carry both types. They admitted there was no such language, and directed all Oregon agencies to stop interpreting it that way.

Some advantages of the revo over a pistol: 1. You can put malfunctions right out of your mind, there are none with a revo, but at least three are common with pistols. Remedy of tap, rack and go usually takes 2 to 3 seconds, reseating a magazine 3 to 4, etc...little clock room for clearing malfunctions, you bust a stage and thereby the qual. 2. grip and stance are less important, the gun fires anyway. Limp-wristing only hurts you if you drop it!

In actual gunfights, you are round-limited, but you have single-action to use, and if you can rest the revo on a barricade (like you do to start the quals here), you should be able to hit K5 farther out than a pistoleer with your rested shots. In 1973 when I started, we had to score 5 out of six K5 at 60 yards with 357. We were allowed to do prone or Creedmore stance for that stage, though.

[jerrythegeek]

Remind me to never hide out in you Linen Closet on Training Day.

[Merle]

I thought you had to qualify with both the revolver and the auto?

Merle