Long Guns & Handheld Lights
A dedicated light mounted on the patrol rifle or shotgun you use at work (or on the same tools you use for home defense) is ideal. My work shotgun had a dedicated SureFire light by 1996. I mounted another Surefire light to my patrol rifle within a year or two. That said, there are times a handheld light will end up being used in conjunction with the long gun in your hands. Why? I’d venture [...]
Patrol Rifle Selection Standards & Stag Arms
Are there measurable standards for law enforcement equipment? Yes. Unfortunately, beyond body armor, their existence is not well known. Some exist only in draft form and are released for comment. One of those is the National Institute of Justice's Patrol Rifles for Law Enforcement. It was published in December 2018 [...]
Two Days at SHOT Show 2026
While a few attendees might still be stuck in Las Vegas because of Winter Storm Fern, SHOT Show 2026 is done and in the books. Last week’s article HERE looked at things that caught my eye during the Law Enforcement / Military range day. This event was hosted by the [...]
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know: Pressburg’s No Fail Rifle
Most of us have been through some patrol rifle course (or courses). Such classes run two or three days and cover a variety of topics from the fundamentals of rifle marksmanship to rifle maintenance. There is nothing “wrong” with such classes, but what if there was more to fighting with [...]
Tripods – The Support You Need
When the word “tripod” entered my mind, it seemed to be in only one or two contexts. Someone needed to take a stable photo. Or something belt-fed and fully automatic had come into play. As a former infantryman, I typically thought of M-60s and M240Bs, general-purpose machine guns or larger [...]
Math On The Range
Fun and math are two words that rarely intersect in my world. However, you need to step out of your comfort zone and try something different. PRS Before I retired, one of my guys frequently talked about his PRS (Precision Rifle Shooting) hobby. While it was an interesting conversation over [...]
Alternative Calibers For Police Rifle Training
For most users, the AR-15 pattern rifle in 5.56mm is the “go-to” answer for those needing a patrol rifle. However, there are times, particularly for training, when AR pattern rifles in alternate calibers warrant consideration. While the use of ARs in 9x19mm (aka Pistol Caliber Carbines or PCC) has been [...]
Selecting Your Patrol Rifle
The patrol rifle or patrol carbine has exploded in popularity in the last ten years. While some agencies had them long before that, I didn’t see them become as popular or prevalent in New England until the early 2000s. When I was first assigned to the Firearms Training Unit at [...]
Mk 3 For Thee
Courtesy of Merriam-Webster.com, a magazine is defined as: noun - mag·a·zine ma-ge-zenˌ 5: a supply chamber: such as a : a holder in or on a gun for cartridges (see cartridge sense 1) to be fed into the gun chamber Finally, with the fifth definition, we get to the [...]
Trust A Process
Trust the process. We hear that phrase a lot. Do we have processes when it comes to our firearms? We previously addressed this issue and how it related to one's handgun. For police officers and lawfully armed citizens, that route is frequently traveled. What about a less frequently employed weapon, [...]
Colt’s Open Enrollment M-16/AR-15 Armorer’s Course
While some companies schedule and make factory armorer training available to a significant number of people, that is not always the case. Even as a retired sheriff’s sergeant who writes and teaches, there are some armorer courses I have not been able to take. It is extremely encouraging that Colt [...]