I scour the internet to find various police and military-type qualifications to shoot and then write about. I enjoy it, but I’ve never found one with information heavily redacted. When I stumbled across the Central Marin Police rifle qual, I was annoyed and surprised to find parts of the PDF heavily redacted. That annoyance fueled me. Central Marin is a California police department, and it seemed very California to censor a firearm’s qual.
It turns out you can unredact a PDF pretty easily, and I did just that! I’m glad I did because I found a fairly robust course of fire you can enjoy with very little in the way of ammo or logistics. The Central Marin Police rifle qual is a good excuse to get out to the range and start blasting away.
Central Marin Police Rifle Qual — What You’ll Need to Rock and Roll
In terms of range, you’ll need at least 50 yards and be able to move on the range. You’ll need a rifle, and since it’s only fifty yards, you could use a PCC or even a rimfire. We’ll be using a Colt EPR in 5.56 for our run. On top of that, you’ll need two magazines and a way to carry them.
The guidebook says you will also need a handgun loaded to capacity, you are free to bring one, but you won’t use it during the qual. We only need a single target, preferably a silhouette target. I used the free printable Sage Dynamics targets. As always, pack your eyes and ears. Sadly we won’t use a shot timer for this qualification.
The Course of Fire
It’s stipulated at the beginning of the qual that every drill will require a step offline to the left or right unless noted otherwise. So keep that in mind. I don’t want to type it for every drill we are conducting today. All drills start in the low ready with the weapon on safe.
Load your 1st magazine with eight rounds and have a reload ready.
Stage One: 50 Yards – Six Rounds
Alright, alright, alright, we start the Central Marin Police rifle qual out with one of my favorite drills. At 50 yards, we will shoot the target in the chest with two rounds from the standing, kneeling, and prone positions.
Stage Two: 50 Yards – Four Rounds
Hit the target with two rounds to the chest. Your gun will be empty, so transition to kneeling and conduct a speed reload as you do. Once kneeling, fire two more rounds into the target’s chest.
From here, all reloads will be on the shooter. You can reset and load each magazine with the remaining rounds as you see fit.
Stage Three: 50 to 25 Yards – Four Rounds
From fifty yards, you’ll move tactically to the 25-yard line. For me, this is a high ready, focus on the target. When you hit the 25-yard line, engage the target with two rounds to the chest and then move to a kneeling position and fire two more chest shots.
Stage Four: 25 Yards – One Round
Get ready to be frisky with the Central Marin Police rifle qual. From the 25-yard line, fire one headshot into the target.
Stage Five: 25 to 15 yards – Six Rounds
This is a shoot-and-move drill, so exercise with caution. Move from the 25-yard to the 15-yard line. As you move, fire six rounds into the chest area of the target.
Stage Six: 15 Yards – Six Rounds
At the 15-yard line, you’ll engage the single threat with six rounds to the chest rapidly. Shoot fast, but focus on accurate rounds on target.
Stage Seven: 15 to 10 yards – Three Rounds
Who doesn’t love a good failure drill? With the Central Marin Police rifle qual, we are doing it on the move too. As you move from 15 to 10 yards, hit them with the classic two to the chest and one to the face.
Stage Eight: 10 to 15 yards – Four Rounds
This changes things up. You’ll be moving rearward from the 10 to 15-yard line. Once you hit the 15-yard line, you’ll fire four rounds into the chest of the target.
Stage Nine: 10 Yards – Four Rounds
At the 10-yard line, it’s a simple drill that has you firing four rounds to the chest. It’s easy, a nice break from the movement and shoot drills.
Stage 10: 10 to Three yards – Three Rounds
I hope you enjoyed your break from moving. Now we are trotting from 10 to three yards and shooting a failure drill on our way.
Stage 11: Three to Seven Yards – Six Rounds
This one is tricky. You have to fire two failure drills as you move rearward four yards. I moved very slowly, which seemed to be the only way to do this. It’s not hard when moving slowly and with no timer to rush you.
Stage 12: Seven to Three-Yard Line – Three Rounds
Let’s wrap up the Central Marin Police rifle qual with a forward movement from seven to three yards. You’ll shoot a failure drill as you move forward.
Scoring
Scoring is super simple. You fired 50 rounds. Each round is worth two points. Anything over seventy is passing. It doesn’t necessarily matter where they hit, just that they hit.
My Thoughts
I’m torn on the Central Marin Police rifle qual. It has a lot of movement, which isn’t typical of police rifle quals. I like that it combines movement and shooting, which in my experience, is fairly common. I like that it starts at 50 yards and works inward. Most combative situations start far and end near.
On the flip side, no timer means you can just apparently take your sweet time. And though there is no timer in a gunfight, there is plenty of urgency. A timer would increase the difficulty of all these drills. The shoot on the move rearward is the only one I wouldn’t use a timer for, for safety reasons.
Additionally, a 2nd target would change things up and have you working on various skills and help kill the repetition. Repetition breeds a certain degree of comfort and can put you on autopilot.
With that said, the movement is a new test of my skills, and I love it. Mix in a timer and a 2nd target, and you’d have a robust training session. What do you think? Was this worth redacting? It was certainly worth shooting.
