When preparing for an annual Old Goats’ qualification, I find it best to solidify the hard skill – precision – and worry about time limits and such later on. To do that, I use smaller targets. 

I also use a gun that’s like the gun that will be shot for qual – but in a 22 rimfire chambering. That tilts more to being precise than handling service calibers at speed. Shooting the 22 on a B-8 (CP) repair center and recording the score as the target’s printed makes it tougher.

But wait, there’s more: for the centerfire gun, I’d use a smaller target (like 14” high and 10” wide) instead of an FBI-Q, with the whole “bottle” counting for score. Add the use of +P service ammo and you have the difficulty elevated. 

In addition, I had a loaded magazine for the empty Taurus GX4 micro-gun in the safe. The ammo was premium defense (Hornady Critical Defense 115gr. FTX), but it was old. I elected to shoot it up as well. 

So how did the experience play out? With the GLOCK 44, using Remington Golden Bullet plated round-nose, I pushed 10 out of the X-ring into the 10-ring before I left the 7-yard line. 

That boded ill.

I had four 9s and an 8 at fifteen yards. I pushed one just off the repair center (hit the target stand) at 25 yards. Should be a BOLO, but I scored 461/500 with the miss. 

All the hits would have been inside the FBI-Q bottle and would have “counted.”

I elected to shoot the Taurus GX4 at ten yards before getting the G45 Gen 6 out. I used the “head” of a reduced size B-27 target that was relatively unscathed as my aiming point. Shooting with two hands – including left-handed – I was able to put the hits into a 1 ¼” cluster. Having a few rounds left, I tried my hand on ca-6” paddles from the same distance.

Finally, I stapled up a bit of cardboard that’d been shipped inside a shirt (to keep it folded during shipping). As noted, it’s 14” high and 10” wide.

The original FBI-Q “bottle” scoring area is an enormous 26” high and 12” wide. 

Yes, I can still miss, hence the reason I practice on smaller targets (a lot shorter and a little slimmer).

The gun was the centerfire bigger brother, a GLOCK 45 Gen6. The ammo was Hornady Critical Duty 135gr. FTX +P. Using the hotter ammo brings some difficulty, but Hornady is a bullet company. The accuracy is profound.

I started with the last stage first because I wanted the 25-yard shots fired on a clean target for accountability. All hits were inside, ten holes in a cluster measuring in a 3 ½” extreme spread. 

Marked hits in the outline were from 25 yards, first rounds fired from the G45 Gen6.

At the end of the exercise, there were fifty hits on the cardboard shirt insert. 

The current (and now a long-standing) state qual still has quite a bit of drawing from the holster, but less than the old more-or-less “PPC” type “draw-to-a-cylinder-dump-reload-repeat” course. The holster was the (sadly discontinued) Bianchi M135 Suppression hybrid IWB – the same rig I have been wearing every day. 

The sights on both GLOCK pistols are the factory plastic ball-in-the-bucket sights. They didn’t seem to hinder the hits. 

Good enough. 

Depending on weather, appointments and other nonsense, I’ll be doing another practice or two before the ‘big day.’ 

– Rich Grassi