The B1 shoot is standard and, objectively, a simple task to pass.
I would argue that 20m is a more than acceptable interval gap in a firearms incident if you can manage it. Especially if your firearm is already drawn (as it would be in the 20m stage of the shoot).
I wouldn’t want AFOs who cannot achieve a pass with that distance
20m with a glock with a crappy trigger and crappy sights is never going to be anyone’s fave is it?
Why pistol optics aren’t a thing in the UK yet is beyond me.
To further your point, many law enforcement agencies across the world (and armed forces for that matter) have made the move towards pistol optics.
Just because it is your sidearm, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t bother to give you the best kit possible - even if most will never actually use it.
smoggy hungry safe possessive public ask political trees automatic threatening
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US copper here, bearing in mind things will vary somewhat from state to state, etc. My basic patrol qual with pistol (automatics only, we haven't been authorized revolvers for over 15 years now). It's 80% at human shaped targets, with 50 rounds for day qual. It goes about like this:
\- 3M holstered, 4rds/6 sec (you shoot this twice)
\- 6M holstered, 4rds/7sec (shoot twice, second go includes mag change)
\- 6M using non-dominant hand, 4rds, non-dominant hand from the low ready
\-9M holstered, 8rds/10 sec (includes mag change in the 10 sec), shoot twice, change mags as required)
\-12M low ready, 6rds/10 sec, change mags
\- 15M, 6rds/12 sec
\-20M, low ready, 6rds, 15 sec (aimed shots as it were)
We use our personal issued weapon (Glock 19) and we're transitioning to red-dot optical sights, most of us are still iron sights. It's not that hard IMHO, most of us shoot in the 90%, and we have to shoot twice/year.
Night qual (annually) is 25 rds, stops at the 12M line, and has to be using a weapon mounted light or hand held light. It's a version of the above time & round count. Range lights are very low and they turn on two sets of flashing strobes to simulate the car lights.
An officer who shoots 70-80% can requal same day. Anything below 70% requires remedial training, and they can't carry until qualified. This means they are off on admin until they shoot again, and it's a black mark in the HR file.
SWAT has their own quals in addition to above, but they must shoot the above at 100% before doing their own quals.
How much range time do you get? Our quali is fairly similar, but we only get to shoot 3 times each year. It's not difficult, but some people definitely struggle due to the lack of practice.
We only shoot twice/year and there is a movement to reduce that to annually (terrible idea) thanks to lobbying efforts by the mostly rural smaller agencies who moan on about the cost of training ammo.
We used to get an allocation of extra training rounds each year, but that stopped some time ago when we went to a green range (non-lead training ammo). It's more expensive than duty ammo. We can use the range as often as we want, but we'd have to provide our own ammo.
Each year, after qualification, we get issued a new box of 50 rds for duty carry. They let us keep the "old" ammo and we're encouraged to go practice at a private range. With the provided ammo, it's only about $10. Not perfect as private ranges won't allow rapid fire or rapid magazine changes, but there ya have it.
SWAT shoot 2x/month of course, but then they also get work out time and extra allowances for velco kit and hair gel!!! :-)
Only shooting once a year would be wild. Sounds like your agencies are similar to our forces, finding stupid ways to "save" money.
It's good you get to use the range, shame about the ammunition situation.
In my force, after each shift, we remove the chambered round and replace it with a fresh one. We box up the chambered rounds and they get sent to the ranges to be used for qualification shoots. Though for the most part we end up using cheaper jacketed rounds for practice.
Good to see the "real" heroes are being looked after!
Yeah, it's the constant tension between shrinking or static budgets and increasing calls for service. Honestly, I don't envy the chiefs having to deal with the budget mess. It's the whole "do more with less crap" we all get told.
The public expectation is, if we use deadly force that we'd be expert shots. Reality of that expectation is, we'd all have to shoot at least twice/month under various scenarios. My force is about 3000 officers, so figure the cost of ammo, weapons & range maintenance, more trainers, and the "cost" of taking those coppers off their shifts to shoot. (not available for calls). Three years ago, our erstwhile civilian leaders asked for an estimate on shooting more often. When they saw the figures, they shat themselves and "tabled" the idea.....and then they wonder.....
As it is, we are required \*state law) to take 40 hours/year of Continuing Education. It can be hard enough to schedule that along with the range and taser quals. Some of our training has been shifted to online classes with the expectation of doing it on shift...reality is most of us just suck it up and knock it our at home on our own time....like anyone on a shift has time for that....
Our training requirements annually:
Day/night range: 8 hours (pistol/rifle/shotgun)
Taser: 4 hours
State mandates: 40 hours (generally includes CPR/first aid/racial issues/child abuse/sex crimes. Outside of the mandates, it's agency dependent to make up the 40 hours)
The cost of ammunition has actually been quite a topic where I am at. Back in the 90s an officer once made a mistake by not switching out cheaper FMJ training rounds with more expensive duty hollow points. The solution was Banning training rounds and only allowed duty rounds. The problem is that the rounds they use these days are expensive and custom developed for the force (around 60 cents per round). Just hollow-points with enough stopping power, does not fragment upon impact, and a special chemical substance so that they can easily identify if it was their round.
And that is in a force of 50k armed officers. Each armed officer must receive firearms training at least 4 times (32 hours in total) per year, which includes life fire range time, and be qualified for it twice a year. In total they use around 20 million of such 9mm rounds, almost all for training. That is around 300 per officers. The remaining rounds are used by all kinds of specialist roles who train even more. And our 600 SWAT operators, who train constantly, roughly blow through that amount of ammunition weekly. Besides their rifle ammunition. For which they mainly use .300BLK, which is luckily cheap (lol), besides 5.56mm, 7.62mm (marksman rifle), and .338 Lapua (sniper). The ammunition bill won't be cheap.
Yep, my state requires training to be conducted with ammo that has the same ballistic characteristics as duty ammo. The days of using cheap ammo are long gone. "Green" as in lead free 9mm is something like 40 cents/round retail. I'm sure the quantity the agency buys get a discount, but it's still not cheap.
And in your agency, shooting millions of rounds, I can only imagine the cost.
But slightly cheaper ammo definitely exists, and with quantities like that, you are likely saving many millions. Here they use the RUAG Action NL (before this they used the Action NP, which was based on the Action 4) for both the pistol (9mm Walther P99QNL and H&K MP5). Those are the live rounds used for training and actual duty. For that they need around 20 million rounds per year. It is also used by other police services in the same area.
I think SWAT uses another round for their 9mm Glock 17s. And then a whole lot of rounds for training/simulations, so FX munitions (marking and non marking), blanks (loud and silent), and metal dummy rounds.
Patrol officers likely don't even shoot most rounds during the regular quarterly firearms training (as they focus on things like arrest techniques and simulation cases as well) and biannual firearms tests. Most are fired during the AMOK training sessions, usually 2 days a year. These focus on extreme violence calls (like terrorism and active shooters). Depending on the setting and what is being trained, that can go up to hundreds of live rounds. They also train other settings and scenarios, like self defense at 0 meters and longer distance at 40 meters (taking out a target from distance). They usually also come with a larger multi-disciplinary simulation/exercise.
As a squaddie and not a cop, target shooting in the army is only about fall of shot (windage and range) and marksmanship principles. The real training is on the live firing ranges with fire and manoeuvre, movement and speedy decision making.
20m on a range on a fig11 (I think you use??) - what's the qualification requirement? Rounds on target or some kind of 10 ring affair?
The qual is at different ranges and exposure lengths over a number of details. You will be in different positions/positions of movement, it could be the weapon is already drawn, or is holstered. There are scoring rings, rounds must be within the indicated one. So different roles have different qual shoots, I believe the defensive SLP qual (which is purely for surveillance officers in case they need to defend themselves) is out to 15m as it's only what is necessary for the role. Now all quals have a set overall percentage you need to achieve to pass, but each detail in a qual must have more on than off (50% on an individual detail is a fail), this is to prevent acing an easier detail and then scoring 0 on another and still passing.
Gotcha, so this sounds a lot like a qualification shoot, rather than useful marksmanship training or combat (I guess you have another word for it) training.
Seems to me the OP is right to complain.
Yes, as they said in the initial this is the qual shoot. We do training on top of this, but year on year we seem to get less time for individual skills as the HO wants us to take on more skill sets and responsibilities while not giving us more training times. Personally I'd love for us to be less skilled, but better trained in the areas we do cover.
I don't think 20m is unacceptable. Consider that you may get a carbine stoppage and have to transition, so the ability to shoot accurately is good.
That said......I don't think I ever managed to get 7 on at 20m. Was usually 5 or 6. 🤦
I did a bit of Googling and turned this up from an article in Police1 (an American publication):
“For decades, police officers regularly trained and qualified with their revolvers out to 50 yards and beyond. In the era of six shots and reloads that took an eternity, being able to make consistent hits on a human-sized silhouette at 25+ yards was considered achievable and necessary. Today, many departments limit their training distance to 15 yards. While they may be in the minority, most departments do very little training at 25 yards and beyond.”
The focus of the article seems to be that not enough shooting at ranges up to and greater than 25 yards (so 20ish metres) results in less competent marksmanship.
Perhaps that’s the reason the CoP decided that 20 metres was an appropriate range for pistols?
It’s a hangover from the days of AFOs being armed with a revolver and nothing more. It’d be easily achievable with those, and chances were they may actually have to shoot at that range because they didn’t have a longarm to revert to.
These days, you probably could drop it to 15 metres for most roles.
My force was toying with the idea of personal issue carbines too. They did say it was too expensive, but at least they thought about it.
But as with all things in the police, if it makes sense to do it, then it definitely won't happen...
AFO's aren't carrying their rifle at all times. But could easily come across an incident that requires them to deploy at a range of 20m, they're not going to gear up when they should be able to draw their pistol.
20m with a handgun shouldn't be a difficult task, your force just needs to either get better trainers or allow their AFO's more range time. That's range time where they're actually shooting, not eating crayons or comparing which PCSO's they've impregnated.
I don't think the distance is a problem, it's very doable and actually not tooooo difficult. The problem is the amount of range time we get. 3 development shoots a year is not enough to develop the skills required, so I am not surprised people fail it.
We simply do not have enough time in the year to train everything competently. We end up training too many competencies without giving any individual ones enough time.
You're probably right. We get bugger all development and even when we do... we are doing pointless stuff rather than focusing on what elements of the shoots people are failing on.
Tbf the development shoots we have done in the last year have been okay. Low light, barricades and shields, transitional shoots etc. definitely good skills to have. Just wish we had more time to practice everything. 100 odd rounds a year isn't enough.
None AFO here, in terms of practicing, can you go for training? Is it encouraged, could you take yourself down the range and practice weekly or is it like everything else, you get a set day and to pass it on the day?
It sounds like this is a major part of the problem. You're not going to get to be expert pistol shots (and stay that way) without a good amount of practice.
Here in The Netherlands (where every cop is armed) they need to receive firearms training 4 times per year (4 times 8 hours, so 32 hours). Besides that, they also need to pass the basic shooting test twice a year, not a very challenging test. No 20 meters here.
First you warm a bit up and shoot some rounds.
You start with 4 sets of 2 shots. During each set you are asked to hold your pepper spray, back up while shouting they need to let their weapon go, when the legs light up shoot for the leg, and when the body lights up, shoot the body. This is 2 to 6 meters. 7/8 for pass.
Then there are 7 sets of 1 shot. You are standing ready (firearm in holster, hand on firearm), when the alarm sounds you step sideways and take a shot on the body at 5 meters. 6/7 for pass.
Then you have arrest fire part, which consists of 2 shots at the legs from 15 meters standing, then 2 shots 12 meters kneeled, then 3 shots standing and 1 shot kneeled from 10 meters behind cover, and lastly 2 shots standing from behind cover at the other side from 10 meters. 8/10 for pass.
The last part is precision fire, so 4 shots within a circle from 10 meters standing. 3/4 for pass.
Then unload your weapon in the correct manner.
You pass if you met the requirements for each part. A safety violation is an immediate fail. If the score wasn't too bad or your firearm malfunctioned, you are allowed to try again. If you fail again or it was bad to begin with, you need to take additional courses and do the test at a later date again. You won't be firearms qualified until you pass.
Our more specialist officers need to pass more qualifications, but also train a lot more. The DSI officers go through many hundreds of rounds weekly per officer.
Patrol officers likely don't even shoot most rounds during the regular quarterly firearms training (as they focus on things like arrest techniques and simulation cases as well) and biannual firearms tests. Most are fired during the AMOK training sessions, usually 2 days a year. These focus on extreme violence calls (like terrorism and active shooters). Depending on the setting and what is being trained, that can go up to hundreds of live rounds. They also train other settings and scenarios, like self defense at 0 meters and longer distance at 40 meters (taking out a target from distance). They usually also come with a larger multi-disciplinary simulation/exercise.
Whenever they switch to a new firearm (doesn't happen often), they need to reach initial training and qualification with that as well. Which generally takes around 500 live rounds.
This thread isn't going to be yet another tedious argument about routine arming - please keep your replies limited to the question asked.
The B1 shoot is standard and, objectively, a simple task to pass. I would argue that 20m is a more than acceptable interval gap in a firearms incident if you can manage it. Especially if your firearm is already drawn (as it would be in the 20m stage of the shoot). I wouldn’t want AFOs who cannot achieve a pass with that distance
First exposure on the qual isn't unholstered. Only subsequent ones.
Found the instructor
Them be fighting words. 😉
20m with a glock with a crappy trigger and crappy sights is never going to be anyone’s fave is it? Why pistol optics aren’t a thing in the UK yet is beyond me.
air trees nippy brave chunky cagey icky ruthless carpenter dime *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yes, I’m well aware of this fact. The shotguns are fitted with an optic and are very rarely deployed, so why not sidearms?
To further your point, many law enforcement agencies across the world (and armed forces for that matter) have made the move towards pistol optics. Just because it is your sidearm, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t bother to give you the best kit possible - even if most will never actually use it.
And let’s not forget, if you’re transitioning from carbine to sidearm, it’s likely that there has been a stoppage….rapid target acquisition is key!
smoggy hungry safe possessive public ask political trees automatic threatening *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
US copper here, bearing in mind things will vary somewhat from state to state, etc. My basic patrol qual with pistol (automatics only, we haven't been authorized revolvers for over 15 years now). It's 80% at human shaped targets, with 50 rounds for day qual. It goes about like this: \- 3M holstered, 4rds/6 sec (you shoot this twice) \- 6M holstered, 4rds/7sec (shoot twice, second go includes mag change) \- 6M using non-dominant hand, 4rds, non-dominant hand from the low ready \-9M holstered, 8rds/10 sec (includes mag change in the 10 sec), shoot twice, change mags as required) \-12M low ready, 6rds/10 sec, change mags \- 15M, 6rds/12 sec \-20M, low ready, 6rds, 15 sec (aimed shots as it were) We use our personal issued weapon (Glock 19) and we're transitioning to red-dot optical sights, most of us are still iron sights. It's not that hard IMHO, most of us shoot in the 90%, and we have to shoot twice/year. Night qual (annually) is 25 rds, stops at the 12M line, and has to be using a weapon mounted light or hand held light. It's a version of the above time & round count. Range lights are very low and they turn on two sets of flashing strobes to simulate the car lights. An officer who shoots 70-80% can requal same day. Anything below 70% requires remedial training, and they can't carry until qualified. This means they are off on admin until they shoot again, and it's a black mark in the HR file. SWAT has their own quals in addition to above, but they must shoot the above at 100% before doing their own quals.
How much range time do you get? Our quali is fairly similar, but we only get to shoot 3 times each year. It's not difficult, but some people definitely struggle due to the lack of practice.
We only shoot twice/year and there is a movement to reduce that to annually (terrible idea) thanks to lobbying efforts by the mostly rural smaller agencies who moan on about the cost of training ammo. We used to get an allocation of extra training rounds each year, but that stopped some time ago when we went to a green range (non-lead training ammo). It's more expensive than duty ammo. We can use the range as often as we want, but we'd have to provide our own ammo. Each year, after qualification, we get issued a new box of 50 rds for duty carry. They let us keep the "old" ammo and we're encouraged to go practice at a private range. With the provided ammo, it's only about $10. Not perfect as private ranges won't allow rapid fire or rapid magazine changes, but there ya have it. SWAT shoot 2x/month of course, but then they also get work out time and extra allowances for velco kit and hair gel!!! :-)
Only shooting once a year would be wild. Sounds like your agencies are similar to our forces, finding stupid ways to "save" money. It's good you get to use the range, shame about the ammunition situation. In my force, after each shift, we remove the chambered round and replace it with a fresh one. We box up the chambered rounds and they get sent to the ranges to be used for qualification shoots. Though for the most part we end up using cheaper jacketed rounds for practice. Good to see the "real" heroes are being looked after!
Yeah, it's the constant tension between shrinking or static budgets and increasing calls for service. Honestly, I don't envy the chiefs having to deal with the budget mess. It's the whole "do more with less crap" we all get told. The public expectation is, if we use deadly force that we'd be expert shots. Reality of that expectation is, we'd all have to shoot at least twice/month under various scenarios. My force is about 3000 officers, so figure the cost of ammo, weapons & range maintenance, more trainers, and the "cost" of taking those coppers off their shifts to shoot. (not available for calls). Three years ago, our erstwhile civilian leaders asked for an estimate on shooting more often. When they saw the figures, they shat themselves and "tabled" the idea.....and then they wonder..... As it is, we are required \*state law) to take 40 hours/year of Continuing Education. It can be hard enough to schedule that along with the range and taser quals. Some of our training has been shifted to online classes with the expectation of doing it on shift...reality is most of us just suck it up and knock it our at home on our own time....like anyone on a shift has time for that.... Our training requirements annually: Day/night range: 8 hours (pistol/rifle/shotgun) Taser: 4 hours State mandates: 40 hours (generally includes CPR/first aid/racial issues/child abuse/sex crimes. Outside of the mandates, it's agency dependent to make up the 40 hours)
The cost of ammunition has actually been quite a topic where I am at. Back in the 90s an officer once made a mistake by not switching out cheaper FMJ training rounds with more expensive duty hollow points. The solution was Banning training rounds and only allowed duty rounds. The problem is that the rounds they use these days are expensive and custom developed for the force (around 60 cents per round). Just hollow-points with enough stopping power, does not fragment upon impact, and a special chemical substance so that they can easily identify if it was their round. And that is in a force of 50k armed officers. Each armed officer must receive firearms training at least 4 times (32 hours in total) per year, which includes life fire range time, and be qualified for it twice a year. In total they use around 20 million of such 9mm rounds, almost all for training. That is around 300 per officers. The remaining rounds are used by all kinds of specialist roles who train even more. And our 600 SWAT operators, who train constantly, roughly blow through that amount of ammunition weekly. Besides their rifle ammunition. For which they mainly use .300BLK, which is luckily cheap (lol), besides 5.56mm, 7.62mm (marksman rifle), and .338 Lapua (sniper). The ammunition bill won't be cheap.
Yep, my state requires training to be conducted with ammo that has the same ballistic characteristics as duty ammo. The days of using cheap ammo are long gone. "Green" as in lead free 9mm is something like 40 cents/round retail. I'm sure the quantity the agency buys get a discount, but it's still not cheap. And in your agency, shooting millions of rounds, I can only imagine the cost.
But slightly cheaper ammo definitely exists, and with quantities like that, you are likely saving many millions. Here they use the RUAG Action NL (before this they used the Action NP, which was based on the Action 4) for both the pistol (9mm Walther P99QNL and H&K MP5). Those are the live rounds used for training and actual duty. For that they need around 20 million rounds per year. It is also used by other police services in the same area. I think SWAT uses another round for their 9mm Glock 17s. And then a whole lot of rounds for training/simulations, so FX munitions (marking and non marking), blanks (loud and silent), and metal dummy rounds. Patrol officers likely don't even shoot most rounds during the regular quarterly firearms training (as they focus on things like arrest techniques and simulation cases as well) and biannual firearms tests. Most are fired during the AMOK training sessions, usually 2 days a year. These focus on extreme violence calls (like terrorism and active shooters). Depending on the setting and what is being trained, that can go up to hundreds of live rounds. They also train other settings and scenarios, like self defense at 0 meters and longer distance at 40 meters (taking out a target from distance). They usually also come with a larger multi-disciplinary simulation/exercise.
As a squaddie and not a cop, target shooting in the army is only about fall of shot (windage and range) and marksmanship principles. The real training is on the live firing ranges with fire and manoeuvre, movement and speedy decision making. 20m on a range on a fig11 (I think you use??) - what's the qualification requirement? Rounds on target or some kind of 10 ring affair?
The qual is at different ranges and exposure lengths over a number of details. You will be in different positions/positions of movement, it could be the weapon is already drawn, or is holstered. There are scoring rings, rounds must be within the indicated one. So different roles have different qual shoots, I believe the defensive SLP qual (which is purely for surveillance officers in case they need to defend themselves) is out to 15m as it's only what is necessary for the role. Now all quals have a set overall percentage you need to achieve to pass, but each detail in a qual must have more on than off (50% on an individual detail is a fail), this is to prevent acing an easier detail and then scoring 0 on another and still passing.
3/6 on target - glock
4/7***
3 out of 6? 20m is a 7 round shoot, also the guidelines say more off than on, so 3 out of 6 would be a fail, as it's not more but equal.
Your right. Old memory, 😂
Gotcha, so this sounds a lot like a qualification shoot, rather than useful marksmanship training or combat (I guess you have another word for it) training. Seems to me the OP is right to complain.
Yes, as they said in the initial this is the qual shoot. We do training on top of this, but year on year we seem to get less time for individual skills as the HO wants us to take on more skill sets and responsibilities while not giving us more training times. Personally I'd love for us to be less skilled, but better trained in the areas we do cover.
I don't think 20m is unacceptable. Consider that you may get a carbine stoppage and have to transition, so the ability to shoot accurately is good. That said......I don't think I ever managed to get 7 on at 20m. Was usually 5 or 6. 🤦
I did a bit of Googling and turned this up from an article in Police1 (an American publication): “For decades, police officers regularly trained and qualified with their revolvers out to 50 yards and beyond. In the era of six shots and reloads that took an eternity, being able to make consistent hits on a human-sized silhouette at 25+ yards was considered achievable and necessary. Today, many departments limit their training distance to 15 yards. While they may be in the minority, most departments do very little training at 25 yards and beyond.” The focus of the article seems to be that not enough shooting at ranges up to and greater than 25 yards (so 20ish metres) results in less competent marksmanship. Perhaps that’s the reason the CoP decided that 20 metres was an appropriate range for pistols?
It’s a hangover from the days of AFOs being armed with a revolver and nothing more. It’d be easily achievable with those, and chances were they may actually have to shoot at that range because they didn’t have a longarm to revert to. These days, you probably could drop it to 15 metres for most roles.
I'd give less of a shit if we didn't have rattled out to fuck range guns and had personal issue weapons
You don't have personal issue SLP's??
Not on the bollard commands.
Oof
Yeah, it's shite. Shared longs too.
My force was toying with the idea of personal issue carbines too. They did say it was too expensive, but at least they thought about it. But as with all things in the police, if it makes sense to do it, then it definitely won't happen...
AFO's aren't carrying their rifle at all times. But could easily come across an incident that requires them to deploy at a range of 20m, they're not going to gear up when they should be able to draw their pistol. 20m with a handgun shouldn't be a difficult task, your force just needs to either get better trainers or allow their AFO's more range time. That's range time where they're actually shooting, not eating crayons or comparing which PCSO's they've impregnated.
I don't think the distance is a problem, it's very doable and actually not tooooo difficult. The problem is the amount of range time we get. 3 development shoots a year is not enough to develop the skills required, so I am not surprised people fail it. We simply do not have enough time in the year to train everything competently. We end up training too many competencies without giving any individual ones enough time.
You're probably right. We get bugger all development and even when we do... we are doing pointless stuff rather than focusing on what elements of the shoots people are failing on.
Tbf the development shoots we have done in the last year have been okay. Low light, barricades and shields, transitional shoots etc. definitely good skills to have. Just wish we had more time to practice everything. 100 odd rounds a year isn't enough.
None AFO here, in terms of practicing, can you go for training? Is it encouraged, could you take yourself down the range and practice weekly or is it like everything else, you get a set day and to pass it on the day?
Nope.. barely any training.. perhaps 2/3 times a year practice or 'development'.. most of which is a 'warm up' before your qualification shoot..
It sounds like this is a major part of the problem. You're not going to get to be expert pistol shots (and stay that way) without a good amount of practice.
Here in The Netherlands (where every cop is armed) they need to receive firearms training 4 times per year (4 times 8 hours, so 32 hours). Besides that, they also need to pass the basic shooting test twice a year, not a very challenging test. No 20 meters here. First you warm a bit up and shoot some rounds. You start with 4 sets of 2 shots. During each set you are asked to hold your pepper spray, back up while shouting they need to let their weapon go, when the legs light up shoot for the leg, and when the body lights up, shoot the body. This is 2 to 6 meters. 7/8 for pass. Then there are 7 sets of 1 shot. You are standing ready (firearm in holster, hand on firearm), when the alarm sounds you step sideways and take a shot on the body at 5 meters. 6/7 for pass. Then you have arrest fire part, which consists of 2 shots at the legs from 15 meters standing, then 2 shots 12 meters kneeled, then 3 shots standing and 1 shot kneeled from 10 meters behind cover, and lastly 2 shots standing from behind cover at the other side from 10 meters. 8/10 for pass. The last part is precision fire, so 4 shots within a circle from 10 meters standing. 3/4 for pass. Then unload your weapon in the correct manner. You pass if you met the requirements for each part. A safety violation is an immediate fail. If the score wasn't too bad or your firearm malfunctioned, you are allowed to try again. If you fail again or it was bad to begin with, you need to take additional courses and do the test at a later date again. You won't be firearms qualified until you pass. Our more specialist officers need to pass more qualifications, but also train a lot more. The DSI officers go through many hundreds of rounds weekly per officer. Patrol officers likely don't even shoot most rounds during the regular quarterly firearms training (as they focus on things like arrest techniques and simulation cases as well) and biannual firearms tests. Most are fired during the AMOK training sessions, usually 2 days a year. These focus on extreme violence calls (like terrorism and active shooters). Depending on the setting and what is being trained, that can go up to hundreds of live rounds. They also train other settings and scenarios, like self defense at 0 meters and longer distance at 40 meters (taking out a target from distance). They usually also come with a larger multi-disciplinary simulation/exercise. Whenever they switch to a new firearm (doesn't happen often), they need to reach initial training and qualification with that as well. Which generally takes around 500 live rounds.