Everyday Marksman Basic Rifle Marksmanship Course of Fire

This is the standard rifle marksmanship course of fire used for both postal matches and personal benchmarking. The roots here are in classic three-position rifle, but with some adjustments. Where as the traditional three position match involves standing, kneeling, and prone, we’ve decided to stick with the martial philosophy of “we don’t live in prone world.” As such, our three positions are standing, kneeling, and sitting.

Let’s dig in.

Match Intent

We intend this match to be shot with the same type of rifle and equipment you would use for Scenario-X. So no heavy shooting coats, gloves, or specialized equipment. It should be you, your rifle, a sling, and that’s about it. Use this as a chance to measure your basic rifle marksmanship fundamentals as if the balloon was about to go up tomorrow and you had to stand to.

So, to be clear, the only allowed equipment is your rifle, a shooting sling, and your safety gear.

Basic Rifle Marksmanship Course of Fire

This course of fire consists of 30 shots, fired in three stages of 10 shots each. In keeping with reusability for other drills and purposes, our primary target choice is the NRA TQ-4 placed at 100 yards. This target has an 8″ black (7 ring) and a 1″ X-Ring. As an alternative, you could also use an NRA A-25/3 target. The actual targets are identical (The TQ-4 is the training version), but the A-25 provides you with three full bulls that you can aim at and use a different one for each stage.

While keeping a stack of TQ-4 targets is our preference due to the convenience of the 8″ black for other training purposes, we realize not everyone has ready access to a 100 yard range. In those cases, we’ve elected to give a 50-yard option using an NRA TQ-3 or A-23/5 target. The TQ-3 and A-23 (again, same bull dimensions) are scaled down targets for 50 yards, presenting a comparable level of difficulty for marksmanship.

With your target at 100 yards (or 50), it’s time to move on to execution.

Course of Fire Execution

The first stage is the slow fire standing position. You have 10 minutes to take 10 shots with maximum accuracy. Take your time, and make the hits count.

The second stage is timed fire and has you start standing and holding the rifle. On start, you have 60 seconds to adopt a solid sitting position and place five shots on the target. Reset and repeat this for a second string (so two strings of 5 shots, 10 shots total). You cannot start with a shooting sling already cuffed on your arm, this must be done on the clock.

The third stage is rapid fire and has you start standing and holding the rifle. On start, you have 30 seconds to adopt a solid kneeling position and place five shots on the target. Reset and repeat this for a second string. Again, two strings of 5 shots, for 10 shots total. You cannot start with a shooting sling already cuffed on your arm, this must be done on the clock.

That’s 30 total shots for a maximum of 300 points. One postal match entry consists of three runs through this course of fire, for a total of 90 shots and 900 possible points.

The Martial Marksman standard of is 720 cumulative points, or 80% of max. Of course, you can and should try to exceed that for winning postal matches- but achieving a 720 total indicates you’ve got a solid grasp of the fundamentals.

Rifle Divisions

These are the available divisions for rifle shooters. Given the focus on practicality, most people should go after the SPR or General Purpose categories first, and then tackle the others as they are able.