Shooting Skill Levels

The difference between mere qualification and good shooting.

People outside the competition world often fail to understand the sort of skill levels possible. Routine qualification is the most vestigial level of basic understanding. These are called “basic” or “initial entry training” or “Entry Level Rifle” for a reason. Police and military small arms qualification is the equivalent of an arithmetic quiz suitable for elementary school children. It’s a perfectly acceptable level for a student in elementary school or basic/recruit/Academy training because we’re working with someone new. It’s even acceptable for many personnel well into their career as it isn’t realistic to expect true expert-level experience from everyone. However, this is not acceptable for anyone claiming a level of experience and expertise, or a good instructor, or a genuine expert.

Consider emergency medicine. All personnel require a grasp of basic emergency medicine (first aid) but it isn’t realistic for everyone to become an Emergency Medical Technician or Paramedic, much less an Emergency Physician (ER Doc). Successfully passing annual common tasks testing of basic first aid will never yield expertise beyond basic first aid, even if one manages a perfect or “expert” score at it 20 years in a row.

Most military and police personnel, along with many gun owners lacking competitive experience, are at elementary, entry levels with firearms. This fact isn’t the problem, it’s the complete lack of acknowledgment, especially when novices insist on inserting their uninformed opinions as “instructors” based on their “experience”. This is especially important to consider when current and former military personnel wish to insert misinformed opinions about firearms legislation based on their having been in the military.

I discuss this at length in my book Beyond Expert: Tripling Military Shooting Skills using U.S. Army qualification standards as compared to Service Conditions competition courses as used throughout NATO and Commonwealth militaries. In it, I show that anyone interested in doing reasonably well in competition shooting needs to at least triple military qualification “expert” (or even “perfect”) standards as a starting point. This needs to be increased even more for handgun events as standards for many public sector pistol qualifications are even easier. Shooters consistently winning (not merely competitive) will be better still.

As an example, consider the size differences between qualification targets and competition targets. The enormous targetry used by the Marine Corps during their qualification (officially titled Entry Level Rifle, which should be a clue) is incapable of discerning skill in a match because too many competitors would shoot “perfect” scores with no means to break the ties. This is not a theoretical problem as the USMC Table One targets are larger versions of old Across The Course (High Power) targets redacted from competition in the mid-1960s for this very reason.

Champion shooter Robert Vogel further proves the point. In this video, Vogel demonstrates on the Ohio Police qualification course that he is capable of exceeding “perfect” police standards by a full order of magnitude. He takes that basic qualification course and shoots it at five times the distance in half the time, making the course ten times more challenging, while still managing a near-perfect score.

“The same Glock 35 I carried as a police officer, same one I won my first national championship with in 2007.”

Something to consider next time someone rants against match/competition gear. Firearms routinely carried by military and police personnel can be capable of winning competitive shooting events. The difference is the person using it.

Another example:

Here’s another good shooter qualifying on a rifle course using a pistol.
Rick Largesse
I shot my police department’s rifle qualification with a pistol:
Iowa Law Enforcement Academy 50yd rifle Qual Course of fire :
-1/2 sized FBI Q target at 50yds
-10rounds prone in 5 minutes
-5 standing (mandatory reload), 5 kneeling, 5 sitting in 90sec
-2 standing, 3 kneeling in 30secs
-80%to pass

Hit a 93. 3% with two obvious flyers that were all me. Raise the bar, don’t lower the standard.

Starting at an elementary level is expected. Progressing from there is a choice that all genuine experts must take.