Range Officer Class

Range Officer Class

Class complete!

With the snow, and lousy roads it was a little bit of a challenge just getting to and from the class, but it was a worthwhile experience. I came out of the class with a solid understanding of the USPSA Rule book. Not only do I understand the rules better, I know where to go and look up things that I still have questions about.

Saturday was 8+ hours of classroom "book learning", which was good, but even I was on information overload at the end of the day. We had a take home test as homework, where we not only had to answer the questions, but cite the proper rule. Thankfully the ctrl-f function worked with the online .pdf, but it was still a painstaking process to answer everything. The test itself was another hour plus of my time.

Sunday we started out in the classroom for another 3 hours going over the test, looking at Practiscore, and going over the rule changes that go into effect on February 1st. Following the class we drove out to Alpha Range, about a 40 minute ride, and did our range test. Everyone had to score a shooter, and run a shooter using the proper range commands. That was the end of the class, the only thing left to do is complete a 50 question test, again citing each specific rule, and subset, send it in to the instructor and score at least an 85%, and then I'll be a certified USPSA range officer.

To be honest, there is definitely a part of me that does not want to send in the test and get certified, because I really want to concentrate on my shooting. On the other hand I do want to be able to help the club, and think that by not helping out if needed, it's a little selfish. It was a good education, and in the end I'll get the test done, and send it in just because it's the right thing to do.

On a side note, after the class I have a deep appreciation for the crew at MISS. Everyone, range master, range officers, the entire staff does an incredible job, and I had no idea how much I had learned from watching them for the past year. There were people from other clubs who had been shooting for a much longer period of time, the IDPA safety officer types, and I had a better handle on it than most of 'em. Not because I'm all that smart, but just from watching everyone run the MISS matches.

I got absolutely zero practice in on Saturday, and some worthless live fire on Sunday as part of the class, as I write, I realize I'm going to have to head down and get 30 minutes of dry fire in before bed, so that's all I have to say, work to go do.