Qualifications are not training tools — they are almost exclusively a waste of time. Inexplicably, the test is the only requirement that many agencies enforce. Academies often regard the qualification as the benchmark of success; too frequently, test components are mistakenly treated as curriculum.
When the time comes to fight for life with a handgun, speed is unquestionably relevant. Cops are more likely to run out of time than ammunition. If time wasn’t a dominant constraint, then the gun would not be the solution! Even case law around using force specifically highlights the necessity of time as a driving factor — “tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving” is the environment in which handgun skills will be called into use.
Traditional scoring and the illusion of “high performance”
The perfect score is normally the façade of exceptional performance, naively rewarded with pins, medals and certificates. Typically, perfection in this realm is defined by using all the allocated time and creating the smallest group possible — “great shooters” produce something that looks a lot like target A. They are often afforded the compliment of “good use of time” as they eventually fire their painfully slow shot using the final fractions of the allocated number of seconds.
This labelling of success contradicts the real world of work for which people should be preparing. When someone needs to be shot, the operational objective is to induce behavioral change as quickly as possible. Whether you like it or not, speed is a dominant factor. Slow and steady will not win the race. In fact, if “slow is smooth” is one of your mantras, you should probably stop reading this; it’s not for you.
Making time a valuable metric, not just a limit
Efficiency is difficult to reward or even establish when time is only measured as a maximal limit. If a stage or task has a 10-second limit, there is no incentive to push skill levels regarding efficiency. If a shooter gets the task done in 9.9 seconds and stacks rounds on top of each other with bullseye hits, we call them a good shooter. If someone uses only 1.9 seconds and puts their shots in a 3-inch group, they are normally told to “slow down” or “tighten that up.” If you have ever said those words (as I have), it’s OK — just don’t ever say them again after today!
Working within the boxes we have built (or were built for us)
Using the bullseye metric of performance, skilled shooters snooze their way slowly through the test and are never challenged. As trainers, we can’t change the world overnight and eliminate the style of testing that has become an ingrained tradition and a policy requirement. However, we can find a way to prevail within our current organizational constraints. One way to prevail in this circumstance is to leverage the existing stages of the test to challenge the skills of your highest performers.
Time needs to be as valuable a metric as accuracy. Rewarding points scored per second is the answer for reframing shooters’ priorities. A blazing-fast 90 is far more desirable than a snoozing sloth 100. The “hit factor” is the number of points scored per second. The higher the hit factor, the faster your shooter makes hits that count. If the test you use has a scoreable element that generates a numeric pass mark — like a percentage or needing 30 hits in a particular place out of 35 total shots or something similar — there is a way to measure the performance of your people to a potentially limitless level.
All you will need is a shot timer and someone who can operate a calculator. If you want to nerd out fully (as I do), you can create a spreadsheet that will run on a smartphone or tablet — that makes this a breeze with no real-time math required!
See and hear the difference for yourself
Without changing the targets, distance, or stages, it’s possible to complete the same qualification task in very different ways. Check out the following videos featuring shooters A and B. In the first video, shooter A takes the full allotted time and focuses on a tight shot grouping, representing a classic qualification pace. In the second video, shooter B aims to achieve a passing score in the least amount of time. This does not seem or sound like a typical approach to meeting the minimum standard. The pace aligns more with what we observe and hear in OIS footage.
Keeping the current standard, change the measurement of success
Here’s the scoring example from the videos of our two shooters. It compares the results of a bullseye performance vs. a hits-right-now performance.
| Shooter | Score | Total Time | Score / Time | Hit Factor |
| Shooter A | 100 | 41.05 seconds | 100 / 41.05 | 2.44 (bullseye) |
| Shooter B | 97 | 15.88 seconds | 97 / 15.88 | 6.11 (hits-right now) |
Shooter B still passed, but they did it significantly faster than shooter A. Based on group size, the old school bullseye yardstick would label shooter A the superior marksman. Using “hit factor” scoring, Shooter B is more effective for a real-world encounter. Fighting with a gun has little to do with marksmanship and everything to do with making a hit, or hits, at the speed of life. Speed and acceptable levels of accuracy are the priority. Efficient shooting needs to be trained, practiced and tested; it isn’t something people will figure out in the most terrifying moments of their lives.
If the passing mark is set at a certain number — 75, 80, or wherever the line is drawn — it doesn’t change. If the stages have time limits, those don’t change either. The only thing you need to do to apply this metric is to capture each shooter’s time at every stage and total it. That might seem labor intensive at first glance, but with two people running timers, you can manage 20 shooters at a time in about 20 minutes, from start to finish. This table shows the times for each stage for shooters A and B in the videos.
| Shooter | Stage 1 | Stage 2 | Stage 3 | Stage 4 | Total Time | |||
| Shooter A | 8.58 | 3.95 | 4.68 | 4.95 | 4.99 | 9.96 | 3.94 | 41.05 seconds |
| Shooter B | 2.98 | 1.51 | 1.68 | 1.71 | 1.8 | 4.53 | 1.67 | 15.88 seconds |
Like everything else, it isn’t new
Measuring performance this way is not new. It is done at competitive shooting events nationwide every day of the week. It has been used for law enforcement personnel for a century and is still used today. An interesting video from the 1930s shows the LA Sheriff’s Dept. shooting team using points per second as a performance metric during their combat assessment. The video is an intriguing step back in time and is worth watching. If you’re pressed for time, the points-per-second element starts at 10:18. I am definitely not suggesting that some of the other shenanigans in the video should be replicated!
Call to action
Don’t let tradition stand in the way of meaningful training. If you’re bound by policy to administer qualifications, transform them into a tool that prepares officers for real-world encounters. Starting tomorrow:
- Keep your existing qualification course exactly as written in the policy.
- Add a simple timer and calculator to your range day.
- Recognize and reward your fastest, accurate shooters, not just your most precise ones.
- Challenge your top performers to increase their hit factors, not just maintain perfect scores. There is no upper limit to how high people can drive their hit factors!
The beauty of this approach is its simplicity — no change to targets, round counts, or stages are required, just a shift in how we measure and reward performance. Your officers deserve training that prepares them for rapidly evolving situations, not just bullseye shooting competitions. In a life-threatening encounter, the clock is always running, and the penalty for second place is significant. Shouldn’t the clock be running in your assessments, too?
Remember, a blazing-fast group that would score a 90 and save lives is infinitely more valuable than a theoretical 100 that never gets fired. Using “hit factor” scoring, your qualification can become a limitless skill assessment that pushes even your best shooters to improve perpetually — if you’re willing to value the right metrics.