I’ve done a lot of police and even military drills and qualifications in my training series. I find most to be relatively easy, so for today, I want to discuss a piece of training I find difficult. This specific standard comes from Paul Howe and CSAT. It’s the CSAT rifle standards. This is done with your modern rifle and is a great test of skills. It’s also fairly difficult but doesn’t require any crazy amount of range, movement, or logistics to make it run.
What is CSAT?
CSAT stands for Combat Shooting and Tactics. CSAT is Paul Howe’s training outfit and school located in Texas. You can’t talk about CSAT without talking about Paul Howe. He began his armed professional career as a police officer but later joined the United States Army. He is an interesting instructor that is certainly quite qualified to instruct.
In the Army, he became involved in Special Operations and later joined Delta Force. He was involved in various hot posts and retired as a Master Sergeant after twenty years of service. Most famously, he was on the ground during Operation Gothic Serpent and the Battle for Mogadishu, which is made famous by the “Black Hawk Down” book and film.
Since retiring from the Army, he’s been a firearm instructor and established CSAT as a training group and school. He has instructor standards for both pistols and rifles and today, we are all about the rifle. Paul developed these standards based on his special operations and combat experience.
What You’ll Need for the CSAT Standards
Complicated doesn’t always equal hard, and simple doesn’t always equal easy. The CSAT Rifle standard is fairly simple and won’t require much to complete. You’ll need your semi-auto rifle of choice with a sling, as well as 37 rounds of ammo. Not too bad, and in today’s economy, you can use all the help you can get.
You will also need a holstered handgun with one round. We know what’s coming, though, don’t we? The CSAT Standards call for two CSAT targets, which are easy to find. In its place, you can use a USPA target, as they are very similar. The CSAT target only has what you’d call an A Zone, and that is the only part that matters.
You can also create your own with some paper or cardboard. The center portion of the target is six inches wide and about 18 inches long. You can make that fairly easily, and it’s important you use a target that matches these dimensions. A poster board costs about $0.98, so you have it covered. You can also purchase Paul’s targets from Action Target.
We’ll need a shot timer, as well as eyes and ears, as always. The range requirements call for out to 100 yards and as close as seven yards.
Scoring
This drill is made up of 10 events. Each is a simple pass/fail. If you miss, you fail. To pass, you have to pass eight out of 10 of the drills. A miss is anything outside of the 6 x 18 rectangle. It’s quite demanding for accuracy. From watching Mr. Howe on video, he is very much a fan of accuracy and prefers a slower hit to a fast miss.
How To Shoot the Standards
Before we start, let’s define some terms. Ready is the low-ready position. Mr. Howe explains in depth why he prefers it over the high ready, and it’s worth a listen. He’s articulate and doesn’t bash others’ tactics but explains his thought process. Now that we know that, let’s shoot things.
Stage One: Seven Yards
From the low ready, aim and fire one shot at the target. You have one second to do so.
Stage Two: Seven Yards
From the low ready, raise and fire two shots on the target in 1.5 seconds.
Stage Three: Seven Yards
At the beep, raise your rifle and fire two shots to the body and one shot to the head in 1.75 seconds.
Stage Four: Seven Yards
Get ready. This is one big string of fire. At the beep, we will fire five rounds at the body and one at the head in three seconds.
Stage Five: Seven Yards
Stay fluid. We are going to fire shots at two targets. There is no specific order, just two shots on each target. You have three seconds to make it happen.
Stage Six: Seven Yards
Keep staying fluid. At the beep, we will fire one rifle round on the target, then immediately transition to your pistol and fire one shot on the target. You have 3.25 seconds to make it happen.
Stage Seven: 100 Yards
Oh man, we went from seven to 100 yards. That’s a good distance to cover. Luckily we get to assume the prone position. We have 20 seconds in the prone to get five shots into the target. Remember to take your time. That’s four seconds a shot.
Stage Eight: 75 Yards
We are a little closer now. At the beep, we are going to fire five shots at the target from the kneeling position, and we have 20 seconds to make it happen.
Stage Nine: 50 Yards
We are moving on up! At 50 yards, we are taking a kneeling position. We need to land five shots at 50 yards in 20 seconds.
Stage 10: 25 yards
We have moved it up to 25 yards. We are going to stay in the standing and fire five shots in eight seconds.
My Thoughts
My thoughts? Oh, well, my thoughts are that I suck at shooting. I need to sharpen up and shoot fewer police quals and more CSAT quals. This one was tough. I did not pass the first time. I sucked at my transition. I did take Paul’s advice, though, and had slow hits over fast misses until I got to the 100 yard line and wanted to trade my red dot for an LPVO. Then I was slow and missed.
It’s a great qual and a fast-moving, accuracy-demanding set of drills. It’s not easy, but passable. I plan to keep working on it and really drive my rifle skills forward. The good news is a lot of this qual can be fired with the Mantis Blackbeard. Well, all of it can, but I can’t see the laser ‘hits’ at 100 yards.
The CSAT way is certainly a demanding one, but it’s one I hope to learn in the new future. Next month we are trying the pistol qual. What do you think about this qual? Let us know below!
