The NRA PPC Course Of Fire

Team member John Pride showing the kneeling position. Note the heavy-barreled custom PPC revolver.

A while back I was reading my copy of American Hangunner when I came across the back page column (The Insider) written by Roy Huntington. I thought it was an interesting piece about accuracy, enjoying it so much I sent Roy an email “attaboy.” This morphed into a few back-and-forth emails during which we had a great time chatting about our mutual past service as cops in So. Cal. and shooting PPC matches. Roy soon asked me if I would consider penning an article on PPC shooting from “back in the day” as they say.

My response was a guarded “yes,” and immediately after we hung up I ransacked my den for any and all info on a style of shooting I had spent a lot of time, money and effort trying to perfect over the course of most of my police career. What follows, then, is a recap of this unique law enforcement shooting sport — and for me, a very pleasurable trip down memory lane.

The LAPD pistol team in the mid 1980s. They had a reputation for being the team to beat!

PPC?

The term PPC has several historical variations on a theme. Practical Pistol Course, Police Practical Course and Police Pistol Combat are all cited. For all intents and purposes the course of fire is officially recognized as the NRA Police Pistol Combat course of fire, so going forward we’ll consider this designation as both official and NRA approved. Historically, and way before there were PPC matches, there have been law enforcement agencies using advanced shooting scenarios, kicking in after the basics of marksmanship. In the early days, bullseye shooting was taught to police rookies but it wasn’t really enough.

Sometimes the courses were ad-hoc exercises requiring shooting from different distances and positions. More often than not there were reloading requirements as well. The bottom line being to allow officers in training to recognize street encounters can occur at different distances and may require reloading under stress. It also showed shooting from different positions, other than the classic offhand stance or combat squat.

Fred looking dashing, circa mid 1980s. If you look closely you can see his shooting medal.

Beginnings

In 1957/58, the University of Indiana (located in Bloomington) had an academic course for students hoping to pursue a career in law enforcement. Along with class studies the curriculum also exposed students to firearms and pistol shooting. Man-shaped silhouette targets were used — a rarity at the time — as was a requirement for reloading revolvers during the course of fire. Keep in mind during this period revolvers were used by about 99 percent of all police departments, so the wheelgun was the firearm of choice for LEOs.

Without a doubt this updated course of fire became a hit with forward thinking police departments across the country. Enough so in 1959 the very first PPC match was held in Bloomington, and it drew 429 police shooters from 22 states, with some coming from Canada as well. The response was so positive, shortly thereafter the NRA took over the responsibility of overseeing PPC competitions. Shooting in the police sector has never been the same since.

Right-hand barricade position. Note how Fred is standing comfortably with the gun brought up to eye level.

The Course

Fast forward to the present and the NRA PPC course used in part or wholly by a number of police agencies around the country. It’s essentially similar to the original course of fire used 60 years ago. Individual “matches” are fired at seven to 50 yards.

Match 1: Standing and from the holster, 24 shots total, two 12-shot strings 20 secs each at seven and 15 yards. Reloading is required.

Match 2: Kneeling, six shots from the holster, standing left-hand barricade six shots and standing right-hand barricade six shots within 90 seconds at 25 yards. Reloading is required.

Match 3: Sitting, six shots from the holster, prone six shots, standing left-hand barricade six shots, and standing right hand barricade six shots, all within 2 mins and 45 secs at 50 yards.

Match 4: At 25-yards, standing from the holster, two strings of 12 shots, 35 secs each.

Match 5: The aggregate of Matches 1-4 fired again for a total of 60 shots.

A “Grand Master Deluxe” PPC revolver from famous pistolsmith Ron Power: Custom barrel,
underlug weight, custom sights, custom cylinder release, trigger stop — the works!

A “full custom” PPC revolver from the time Fred writes about here. Note the heavy
barrel, custom John Hurst stocks and BoMar sights — built by Bill Davis.

Guns

Today NRA PPC matches can be fired with either a revolver or semi-auto, and categories for both revolver and semi-auto are “Production” and “Open Class.” The difference being if you go in with a production gun it has to look like and operate exactly as if it came out of a retail box.

However, if you’re serious about your shooting, the gun will have been gone over with a fine tooth comb — and fine stones! — by a top-notch gunsmith who knows revolvers and semis well.
As compared to an out-of-the-box production pistol, a full-on race-ready PPC revolver comes with a heavy bull barrel, after-market sights (on a sight rib), as well as after-market grips, usually custom fitted to your hand. And since this gun is for competition, the trigger pull can be reduced somewhat by a qualified gunsmith to soften the D/A pull. Often, the installation of a custom trigger stop was part of the process. But in reality, the vast majority of the best shooters shoot double action at every stage — even at 50 yards.

In those days, a pencil eraser glued to the back of the trigger guard — and carefully filed down — would do wonders for taking up trigger slack without the hammer falling unexpectedly. But the one thing you never ever want to do is play with the hammer spring tension, smoothing the action is one thing, but fooling around with hammer spring tension is foolish unless it’s done by an expert and trusted gunsmith.

As an old, big city street cop I cringe when I think of days gone by when “kitchen gunsmiths” would take a good working competition revolver and attempt to smooth the action by reducing spring tension way past the critical point, only to have misfires on the line. And what really made me hyperventilate was when someone tried one of these hack and whack gunsmith jobs on their duty pistol. Even now just talking about it makes me uneasy. Leave the internal stuff to people who know what they’re doing. Semi-autos have their own design issues that are also best left to a qualified gunsmith.

Ammo Too

Another consideration is if you want to shoot PPC — even half seriously — you’re going to need ammo and lots of it. The really lucky shooters have support from their department and/or maybe they get discounts through their department. But truth be known very few people get a chance to be sponsored in some fashion, and ammo is a big expense if it’s being paid for out-of-pocket. Two workarounds for the ammo crunch come to mind. First, use factory ammo only at 50 yards and burn reloads on the closer distances.

Second, think about loading your own. I loaded tons of ammo back in the day and so did a lot of my buddies on the LAPD Pistol Team. The only time we enjoyed shooting factory ammo was when we got better and sponsors started wanting to share in our glory. But even then I felt like I was splurging if I used factory ammo up-close. As for the difference between factory ammo and reloads, unless you become a really good shooter you probably won’t notice any difference, so don’t feel cheated if you have to use reloads.

The classic sitting position used for 50 yards. All shooting is done double action.

Accuracy Quest

Of all the “action courses” available I will go on record as saying PPC is the perfect balance between speed and accuracy. Even at the closer distances you really need to try and use your sights — no matter what you think about point shooting and trigger slapping. You can get suggestions on shooting all day long but nothing supports the basics of marksmanship like actually shooting. And actually shooting under pressure is the best teaching scenario of all.

If you’re in law enforcement and you’d like to try PPC I encourage you to make some inquiries in your area/state and hook up with whatever PPC organization is available. If you’re not a cop, you’ll be pleased to know there are also PPC groups available for you if you beat the bushes a little. So go out there and pop some caps, and remember to watch those sights — even if you don’t want to!

Editor’s Note: It was great fun to hook up with Fred. He actually used to write for Handgunner in the 1980s, and we both likely shot at some of the same matches in the late 1970s. I attribute my own ability to actually hit things with handguns today to the five or so years I spent shooting very carefully, all DA, at tiny points on targets, out to 50 yards. Bullet holes don’t lie, and white paint on steel plates didn’t cover up your mistakes! —RH

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