Editor's Note: This feature was originally run in our companion service, the Shooting Wire. If you're never fired a line drill or 'qualification course' under supervision or never used a holster, proceed with caution. Don't be in a hurry to put the gun back into the holster and make full use of the Four Safety Rules, plus whatever rules exist at the range you use.

The standard target used for this course of fire is the FBI QIT-99, available from Law Enforcement Targets. Image: Law Enforcement Targets.

The more-or-less 'standard' police qualification is difficult for some, easy for others. It's not the shooting skills or gunhandling that's tough, it's whether or not someone has ever shot under time pressure before. The standard qual is a line drill "for the convenience of the service." It's not the best benchmark for individual skill nor is it best evidence of achievement to preserve for possible use in court. There's something better – and I intend to get to it in this series at some point. For now, an LE standard I've swiped for my own evaluations of equipment – firearms, sights, triggers and holsters – is the current FBI Pistol Qualification. A sixty-round course, it's no more or less difficult than any other but has features that (1) make it good practice and (2) gives me a benchmark to compare different firearms in terms of handling. The great thing about it is that, once mastered, you can alter it to suit your needs. I've done so and found it to be a relevant means to an end: gear evaluation, working on individual skills, and meeting a standard designed around a nonuniformed agency that surprisingly has patterns of armed conflict that closely mirror those of citizens with permits: it seems criminals seek to rob FBI agents. Aside from being a shocking failure in the victim selection process, it got FBI's firearms team to use data from those events to construct this test. So here it is – They use the FBI QIT-99 target. This has the FBI-Q with a "bottle" zone cut off by about 1/3. Each hit inside the "bottle" (not in the area outlined by the dashed line) counts as a point. To pass you have to have 48 hits out of sixty inside the 'bottle.'

The FBI Pistol Qual fired with the S&W M&P Shield using a Comp-Tac IWB holster and mag pouch. The hits marked are from 25 yards, were shot first.

They start at three yards and shoot back to 25 yards – distances based on their shootout statistics. I start at 25 yards, shoot the pair of strings of fire there and move up to three yards for that stage. I shoot the rest back in order to the fifteen yard line. I do this to have a record of hits from 25 yards – something I consider critical. I'll mark or photograph the distance hits before shooting the rest. 25 Yards, 10 rounds fired from a barricade – if you have one. On the timer's signal, move to the barricade, draw and make two hits from standing then kneel before firing three more hits, using the cover item. Repeat this one time. Time limit for each string is 15 seconds. 3 Yards, 12 rounds fired. On the signal, draw to 3 hits in 3 seconds, using the "strong" hand only. Repeat that drill once. Then you'll draw to 3 hits fired with that dominant hand, safely transfer the piece to the support hand and fire three more hits – all in eight seconds. A word about transferring the gun hand to hand: if you haven't done it before, dry practice it a few times before trying it with a loaded pistol. It's not complicated nor particularly dangerous, but if you fumble and drop the gun let it go to the ground. Do not try to catch it – that's a quick way to ingest a bullet. Trust me on that. 5 Yards, 12 rounds fired –all shooting from here and back is performed with both hands. At this range, you perform four strings of three hits delivered in three seconds from the holster. 7 Yards, 16 rounds fired. Draw to 4 rounds in 4 seconds, then repeat one time. Draw to 4 hits, reload, then fire 4 more hits all to be completed in 8 seconds. The smart user of this course will stage the gun to be at slide lock to signal the reload. Don't cheat. Even smarter is to have a confederate load your magazines and your gun – the total to be eight rounds but unevenly mixed between magazines, to make it a surprise. Finally, 15 Yards, 10 rounds fired. Draw to three hits in six seconds. Repeat that string one time. Draw to four rounds in eight seconds.

This was the results of the FBI pistol Qual fired on the NRA B-8 repair center using a Glock 30s .45 Auto out of the Blackhawk! A.R.C. IWB holster. It takes more time shooting the course on a bullseye target.

The time limits seem long for the target used, there's not a lot of reloading, there's no real movement (the 25 yard "move to cover" is all), no 'failures to stop.' Shoot the course as is a few times clean, then make it your own to meet your needs. I found a way to reduce it to a fifty round course by careful clipping of redundancy and replacing with something I found more critical. I also took to shooting it with failures to stop for every three round string at three and five yards. I shot it once with a reduced silhouette (it was the only target at hand) but kept the full value of distance and shot it another time with an NRA B-8 bullseye repair center over a silhouette – with my intent to keep all hits on the black part of the repair center. I kept every hit in the scoring rings, so I need more work. I shot the course with the S&W M&P Shield 9mm and a Glock 30s, both from IWB holsters. The time I shot it with a Glock 22, the FBI standard of the time, I pulled one out of the bottle – go figure. Again, use some care and caution, have a friend along. Don't get into a hurry to reholster. Document your progress. It's a good standard course of fire. -- Rich Grassi