Police officers are better at placing accurate shots on target with a patrol rifle than their duty handguns. However, a large percentage of police officers are reluctant to deploy their rifles. First off, we always have our duty handgun with us. But it’s also because officers are more comfortable with their handgun compared to their patrol rifle.

This is due to a wide variety of reasons, including the fact that police officers get 40-plus hours of handgun training in the academy. On top of that, during in-service training, there is significantly more training time devoted to the handgun than the patrol rifle. The result is that the rifle is left behind, even though it is a more capable weapon platform, more accurate and more effective at stopping threats.

If you want to improve your skills and comfort level with your patrol rifle, there are a number of things we can do on the range, from improving our shooting platform to weapon-handling to working on developing speed and accuracy. Here are a few ways to increase your comfort level and improve your patrol rifle skills.

Shooting platform

If you want to be highly accurate, improve recoil control and make quick follow-up shots, start with your shooting platform. When we talk about shooting platform, we mean your body position, weight transfer, grip, posture and everything else that helps stabilize the rifle. If the patrol rifle is stable, it’s simple to make accurate shots with minimal movement of the rifle.

Start with setting your feet up in an athletic position. There is no “perfect” foot position that works for everyone, but the common denominator is that you’re balanced, stable and mobile. The weight should be on the balls of the feet with the knees slightly bent.

Just like your handgun, the strong-side hand should be high on the pistol grip of the rifle. Once you find this position, apply grip pressure and pull the rifle straight back into the chest, applying most of the grip pressure to the bottom of the pistol grip. This puts downward pressure on the patrol rifle, minimizing muzzle movement during recoil.

Another key point to work on is riding the safety switch with the thumb of your strong-side hand. Right-hand shooters, and left-hand shooters who are running an ambidextrous safety selector, will be able to quickly disengage the safety as the rifle is mounted into the shooting position. In classes, we see a lot of officers forget to run the “on/off” switch during more intense courses of fire. But if you pay attention to this tip, under stress you won’t forget to disengage the safety. Without an ambidextrous selector, left-hand shooters can either switch their thumbs over to the left side of the rifle or use their index finger to manipulate the safety. There’s no one way for lefties, since both methods work well.

On the support side, get your support hand on the handguard as far forward as possible, pulling the rifle straight to the rear. On rifles with long handguards, your support-side elbow should have a slight bend, not a straight arm. Getting your support-side hand and arm in this position with your thumb over the top of the handguard will do several things. First, it increases the control you have over recoil, because that arm has greater leverage on the front of the gun. Instead of recoil causing your sights to climb, the patrol rifle will move in a straight line, significantly reducing the movement of your sights. Secondly, when transitioning from one target to another, it is significantly faster to move the rifle between targets due to this increased leverage. Lastly, it eliminates the tendency to travel past the target when driving the rifle from target to target.

Reloads

Getting comfortable with a patrol rifle means improving your dexterity while handling it. A great way to do this is to work on reloads. You can do this on the live-fire range or you can do this at home, dry. Either way, you will be more comfortable with the rifle, which will improve your confidence.

For this article, let’s take a look at the empty reload. Depending on the school, region or instructor, this may be called an empty reload, slide lock reload, emergency reload or some other variation. Regardless of what you call it, this reload is required when your patrol rifle is empty.

This reload begins by recognizing the condition of your rifle. For some shooters, it may take moments to realize the bolt is locked to the rear. With more experience, the time it takes to recognize this condition will drastically decrease. Once you recognize your rifle is empty, press the magazine release button and let the empty magazine fall to the ground. Obtain a new magazine from your magazine pouch. Index the back of the magazine along the back of the magazine well and insert it firmly with the palm of your hand.

Here is where we come to a crossroads. How do you release the bolt forward to chamber a round and get back in the fight? Most academies and law enforcement agencies teach a single method. However, there are several methods that are perfectly acceptable, depending on the needs of the shooter. First, you can use your support-side thumb to reach up and depress the bolt catch, releasing the bolt to allow the spring to run the buffer and bolt forward to chamber a round. Another option is to insert the new magazine and depress the bolt catch using the meaty part of your hand at the base of your support-hand thumb.

A third option is to simply use the palm of your hand to hit the bolt catch to chamber a round. One thing to be cautious of using this method is that it’s possible to cup your hand, resulting in a small indentation or depression in the palm of your hand. When you strike the bolt catch, there may not be enough force to depress the bolt catch and release the bolt forward.

2-2-4-2-2

Another great way to improve your comfort, confidence, accuracy and speed is to run drills that continuously challenge your skills. A good place to start is with the 2-2-4-2-2 Drill. I’m not sure where I originally got this drill, but it’s used by many instructors.

Place three targets downrange, about 1 yard apart. I start students off at 7 yards with this drill, but it can be done at 5, 7, 10 or 15 yards, depending on skill level and training objectives. Using a shot timer, on the beep, engage the first target with two rounds, the second target with two rounds, the third target with four rounds, the second target with two rounds and the first target with two rounds. The goal is to keep all your rounds in the center scoring zone while improving your time. A balanced shooting platform will really help!

There are many different options you can incorporate, including cover, movement to different shooting positions, a reload or dynamic movement up to the shooting position to increase heart and respiratory rates. It’s scalable to meet a lot of different performance objectives.

Putting it together

When you’re feeling more comfortable and confident with a patrol rifle, it’s time to put everything together. Adding dynamic movement, shooting from cover, shooting from awkward positions and other more advanced training objectives will help improve your skills. So, instead of the rifle riding around in our car taking up space, we will have the confidence to get it out and have it ready whenever it’s needed. I look forward to seeing you on the range!