SIGforum police- how much firearms training does your academy have in the basic school? When I went through it was broken up but totaled about 2.5 weeks. Currently, they teach about two weeks between rifle and pistol. I’m talking total dry fire/live fire trigger times on department firearms for cadets/recruits?

If you’re greater than four weeks, share where that is if you feel comfortable.

Question:
How much firearms training (skills branch) does your academy have? (Pick the answer that’s closest to the maximum in weeks)

Choices:
Less than a week
Two weeks
Three weeks
Four weeks
Greater than 4 weeks.

 

I believe CA POST mandates at least 64 hours but I think my local academy is currently doing around 100.

I think it used to be 160 hours for the whole LD, but that also included chemical agents/less lethal. Hours were pared down a while back.

Wisconsin DOJ mandates a minimum of 52 hours.

Mine was 3 weeks back in the day

We always did extra, but this past year the state caught up and mandated 80 hours total I believe.

80% to pass the final qualification, plus some number of pass/fail combat courses.

Shotgun is still in it. Rifle is not (yet).

I’m not a firearms instructor…a few other categories but I never had the chance to go to that school, friends with a lot though. They did a big overhaul last year.

Most interesting part is all sworn state wide have to shoot 80% starting 2026. It’s always been 70% after the academy. I believe we had 275 that shot below an 80% last year…

It's around two weeks/80 hours total.

4 days Basic Pistol (fundamentals, reloads, malfunctions, low light, and day and night quals)
1 day Shotgun/Rifle Familiarization (no qual just an overview, with basic manipulation and a few live rounds apiece)
2 days Advanced Pistol (shooting and moving, using cover, bounding overwatch, etc.)
1 day Vehicle CQB Basics (shooting in/around vehicles, ambush response, using pillars as cover, etc.)
2 days of Active Shooter Response/ALERRT (building clearing, threshold evaluations, room entries, etc. with force-on-force scenarios using Simunition guns)


Their department is supposed to spend at least 24 hours of firearms training time with them ahead of the academy and have them qualify with their pistol beforehand, but judging by how poor some of the cadets shoot when they get there, I don't think that's happening some/much of the time.

And then their department is supposed to put them through an actual shotgun and/or rifle class and qual after the academy if they want them to have those.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RogueJSK,

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:
I believe CA POST mandates at least 64 hours but I think my local academy is currently doing around 100.

I think it used to be 160 hours for the whole LD, but that also included chemical agents/less lethal. Hours were pared down a while back.

That sounds about right for when I when through the academy in late 79...+/- 680hrs. We lived on campus at the CHP Academy in Bryte CA and shared the academy with Sacto PD...we got to go home most weekends

Besides being over 4 decades ago, it was broken down into half day blocks. Handgun instruction was usually done in half day blocks...it takes a lot of time to get 30 cadets through. Chemical agents was a full Saturday and we had about 4 night shoots

So I'm thinking 160 seems within reason. 160 hours would be 20 days, which would be 4 weeks

We're at 120 hours live-fire which is spread out over 26 weeks here in Contra Costa County, California.

I would say that would be bare minimum these days.

When I went through, the academy was in two halves.

First half had two weeks of firearms.
1,500 rounds of pistol ammo.
500 rounds of skeet loads for shotgun.
50 each of slugs and buckshot.

Second half was about one week of firearms, but focused on rifle skills.
500 rounds of rifle ammo, and only 50 of pistol.

I said two weeks, but it's closer to a week. I guess it depends on what you include.

IIRC we got one day of classroom instruction (8 hours), then a full "breakout week" (40 hours) on the range. The breakout week was predominantly pistol. The first day was almost all dry work, then we were on the range for a couple of days culminating in qualifications on Thursday. Friday was a mix of indoor/low-light and outdoor dynamic stuff. "Low-light" was completely static standing in a bay and demonstrating handheld techniques while shooting at a target. Somewhere in there we got half a day of shotgun, too.

That's all the dedicated live-fire firearms time that we got, but there was another week of STOPS which involved sim guns, and then active shooter/building search where we also used sims.

The shotgun training is a joke. There's nowhere near enough time dedicated to it, and IIRC you fire less than 20 rounds, most of it birdshot, which you'll never use on the street. The last student I sent down there I had to go buy birdshot because we don't have any at the department to issue out. And they never even touch rifles....which IMO makes little sense in an era when most departments are retiring the shotgun and replacing it with patrol rifles. It's up to the individual departments to provide rifle training.

All of our people are also supposed to go through a 40-hour pre-basic class at their agency before they go to the academy. This includes 8 hours of firearms classroom and they have to qualify 3 times, with all three scores being above 80%. They do that again at the academy.

The last one we sent I put through pre-basic and then we spent a full week extra on the range working on rifle, shotgun, and pistol skills before she even went to the academy. Thankfully my chief was willing to give us the time to do that. Many wouldn't.

3 hours of range safety
12 hours of basic trigger control before we even start (in 3 hour sessions across a month.)
48 hours basic firearms per tcole
12 hours pistol mounted optic ( actually having a optic is optional)
12 hours low light
12 hours tactical shotgun (excess of basic state requirements)
8 hours of unfamiliar weapons familiarization
16 hours of ALERRT LVL 1 (sims)
16 hours ALERRT SORD (1 day lead, 1day sims)
16 hours building clearance (sims)
8 hours vehicle cqb (sims)
16 hours police pistol (moving, Scenario shooting, target identification drills,etc)

2 hours for a fresh qualification before graduation

Immediately after graduation, a 24 hour patrol rifle class is held for all who have a rifle and want the class

We're at 110 hours "all in." Around ten of those are Judgment Shooting (simulator) and Interactive Cover (non-lethal training ammo- Simunitions FX) and maybe four, total, are "lecture." The rest are behind a gun. About 70% handgun-oriented if you include Down & Disabled / Standing Disabled modules. The other 30% = Shotgun and Patrol Rifle.

Curiously, hours are up around 20% since I started teaching at the academy, but outcomes haven't changed noticeably.

Unfortunately, it was 30 years ago when I went to the Academy. I believe it was two weeks. 6-7 days of handgun and then the rest with shotgun.

I'm told it's currently 40 hrs in the Academies.

It's been so long I can't clearly remember but we probably spent 120 or so hours on all the basic weapons training and qualifications, but that was for the Army MP school. We got training in more types of weapons that most civilian academies will expose you to. Basic rifle and pistol training is about 40 hours each, and the final 40 hours is spent on the various belt fed systems that MP's use depending on their specific missions. Most of the belt fed training is what's called familiarization fire, which is designed to give you a working knowledge of the weapon in question. The only time I actually qualified on anything other than a rifle or pistol is when I was a slotted into a position where a bet fed weapon was going to be my primary.

With my poor memory, I'd have to see if I could go back to the syllabus from my academies to see the required minimum training hours here in Texas. I just don't remember.

My first Texas Peace Officer academy began in '87, and it was just above minimum requirement in training. It wasn't bad, but with shooting revolvers back then, it wasn't as extensive or as exciting as my second academy where we all had semi-autos.

My second Texas Peace Officer academy, beginning in '90, was extensive. Top gun was coveted, and other than a lot of competition, we did tactical training as well.

We had to train on 12 gauge shotguns per the syllabus, but we weren't allowed to carry them - only supervisors. Years later, after the Hollywood bank robbery, we trained on and carried agency military surplus M-16s from the local .mil base. (Even though the sears were removed, they were still being watched...even though it was lawful for a LEO to possess one.)

All during most LEO's career, there is in-service training with just maintenance shooting in addition to higher level training. Some officers just doe the state mandate qualification while many others range upward in their weapons training.

This is neither here nor there, but my buddy was stuck working at the range while we were in the USMC because of his bad boy ways. Another one of his duties was the horse stables on the base. He told me there was a gunnery sergeant who had loaded his rifle magazine with alternating front and back facing ammo.

As many here know of the training they received in the .mil, we were NEVER EVER trained to load a magazine with a forward facing round, followed by a rear facing round, etc. My buddy said he nor anyone else there could understand how, especially a gunny, could have such a brain fart.

These guys, as well as some LEOs, do serve and walk among us.